Wintertime scenes

IS wintertime dragging on for you? Let me try to cheer you up, with Shakespeare’s help. Though winter makes old bones ache, disagreeably, it heightens the senses agreeably, and so Shakespeare suggests in the Songs of

Spring and of Winter, Cuckoo and Owl, which conclude Love’s Labour’s Lost.

Cuckoo cuckoo When daisies pied and violets blue

And ladysmocks all silverwhite

And cuckoobuds of yellow hue

Do paint the meadows with delight,

The cuckoo then, on every tree,

Mocks married men; for thus sings he, Cuckoo; Cuckoo, cuckoo: O word of fear, Unpleasing to a married ear!

When shepherds pipe on oaten straws,

And merry larks are ploughmen’s clocks, When turtles tread, and rooks, and daws, And maidens bleach their summer smocks, The cuckoo then, on every tree,

Mocks married men; for thus sings he, Cuckoo; Cuckoo, cuckoo: O word of fear, Unpleasing to a married ear!

Spring song

Why does spring move from joy to fears, by way of hormones, and by that joking about cuckoldry, which Shakespeare could never resist. Maybe his society had more marriages between old men and young wives. Anyway, both verses move to fear in the ear, from the song of the bird which lays its eggs in other birds’ nests. Strong contrast is felt with the song of the Owl, and his merry note.

Tuwho

When icicles hang by the wall

And Dick the shepherd blows his nail And Tom bears logs into the hall

And milk comes frozen home in pail; When blood is nipp’d and ways be foul, Then nightly sings the staring owl, Tuwhit; Tuwho, a merry note,

While greasy Joan doth keel the pot. When all aloud the wind doth blow

And coughing drowns the parson’s saw And birds sit brooding in the snow

And Marian’s nose looks red and raw; When roasted crabs hiss in the bowl, Then nightly sings the staring owl, Tuwhit; Tuwho, a merry note,

While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.

Wintertime song

The owl sings more about people, who have names. The song exudes companionship. No longer the tensions and rivalries of springtime, but homely cooperation. Partly it’s the world of work, those seasonal tasks which you see in old calendars: fetching logs, along muddy paths. We still do these things. Or pruning, giving us the pleasant illusion of controlling nature.

Coughing

Sundays get a lookin too: coughing drowns out the sound of the sermon, those parson’s saws, timed by his hourglass (!). Even coughing has compensations.

Food

The song names milk; roasting apples (crabs = crabapples); and the jolly refrain links the merry note of the owl to greasy Joan who keels the pot. Soup or broth or stews: welcome foods of winter. She’s greasy from stirring the pot, to even up the temperature of the contents or to stop bits sticking to the bottom. Picture a giant pot, from which a large household will eat. For as the great Margaret Mahy used to declare at irrelevant moments, ‘‘Food is a comfort’’.

Comfort

All in all, the song finds comfort in winter. Against the odds, of course! Who would prefer winter’s cold, and the longer nights? But we don’t have much choice. For oldsters who can’t zip around skiing and skating, the paler colours and rarer growth of winter make us notice more in the less that surrounds us. Sounds travel further. Food tastes better. Sense-impressions are heightened. Do we breathe better?