AdamEaston.info

Richard Rolle was a hermit who lived in the Yorkshire community of Hampole in the first half of the 14th century. A mystic writer, he wrote in middle english rather than Latin. Whether this was a result of his own poor schooling, or a passionate belief in providing access to religious knowledge and understanding to the unschooled is a mtter of conjecture. Nonetheless his translation of the psalms in middle english was dangerous territory. The Church still regarded the Bible as a text that should be kept away from the unschooled and only presented in Latin, thereby ensuring it could not be misinterpreted by ignorant men. Several of the writings ascribed to him are also controversial in that it is very unsure as to whether he wrote them. You will see elsewhere in this site some of the text of the Prick of Conscience poem. For many years this was believed to be the work of Rolle until the suggestion was finally debunked on stylistic grounds ate the start of the 20th century.

The text of the Bee and the Stork however is almost certainly the work of Rolle and it shows a simple morality tail at work, using nature to parable the good behaviour of people.

The Bee and the Stork

The bee has three kinds. One is that (scho) she is never idle, and she is no(ugh)t with them that will not work, but casts them out and puts them away. Another is that when she flies she takes earth in her feet, that she be not lightly (overheghede) blown too high in the air of wind. The third is that she keeps clean and bright her wings.

Thus rightwise men that love God are never idle, for other they are in travail, prayer or thinking, or reading or other good (doande) doing or (withtakand) berating idle men and sho(e)wing them worthy to put from the (ryste) rest of heaven, for they will not travail. Here they take earth, that is they hold themselves vile and earthly, that they be not blown with the wind of vanity and pride. They keep their wings clean, that is the two commandments of charity they fulfil in good (concerns) conscience, and they have other virtues unblended with the filth of sin and unclean lust.

Aristotle says that the bees are fighting against him that will draw their honey from them. So should we do agin devils that (af)forces them to (reve) steal from us the honey of pure life and of grace. For many are that never can hold the order of love (ynence) towards their friends, (sybbe) relations or (fremmede) foreigners; but (outhire) other they love them over little, setting their thought unrightwisely on them, or they love them over little if they do not all as they (wolde) intended (till) to them. (Swylke)Such can not fight for their honey for the devil turns it to worms and makes their souls (oftesithes) many times full bitter in anguish and (tene) grief and (besynes) business of vain thought and other wretchedness; for they are so heavy in earthly friendship that they may not flee into the love of Jhesu Christ, in the (wylke) which they might well forgo the love of all creatures living on earth.

Wherefore accordingly Aristotle says that some fowls are of good flying, that passes from a land to another; some are of ill flying, for heaviness of body, and for their nest is not far from the earth. Thus is it of they that turns them to God’s service: some are of good flying, for they fly from earth to heaven, and rests them there in thought and are fed in delight of God’s love, and has thought of no love of the world; some are that can nought fly from this land, but in the way (late) let their heart rest, and delights them in several loves of men and women as they come and go, now one and now another and in Jesus Christ they find no sweetness, or if they anytime feel (oghte) anything, it is so little and so short for other thoughts that are in them, that it brings them still no stableness; for they are like still a fowl that is called strucyo or stork, that has wings and it may nought fly for charge of body. So they have understanding and fasts and wakes and seems holy to men’s sight; but they might not fly to love and contemplation of God, they are so charged with other affections and other vanities.