Foebus abierat ("Phoebus had gone") is a medieval Latin poem, authorship unknown, composed near the end of the 10th century in Northern Italy. Described as "hauntingly beautiful"Peter Dronke, "Learned Lyric and Popular Ballad in the Early Middle Ages," in The Medieval Poet and His World (Rome 1984), p. 167 online. and "one of the joys of medieval poetry,"Dronke, "Amour sacré et amour profane au moyen âge latin: Témoignages lyriques et dramatiques," in Sources of Inspiration (Rome 1997), p. 381. it is an erotic dream-vision lyric spoken by a woman who grieves the departure of her lover Phoebus, brother of the Moon. Although the language is ecclesiastical Latin, none of its content is explicitly Christian. M.B. Pranger reads the poem as "though containing allusions to the Song of Songs, is unambiguously profane in its meaning."M.B. Pranger, Bernard of Clairvaux and the Shape of Monastic Thought: Broken Dreams (Brill, 1994), p. 134 online.
An English translation of Foebus abierat by the Irish poet Eavan Boland was published in the April 2008 issue of Poetry magazine."Phoebus was gone, all gone, his journey over," Poetry, April 2008, p. 36, with translator's note p. 37. Boland describes the poem as the "long-ago cry of a woman finding and losing a body and soul":
The literary scholar Jane Stevenson conjectured that this "highly original poem" was written by a Catholic nun.Jane Stevenson, Women Latin Poets (Oxford University Press, 2005), p. 116 online.
The text The poem was rediscovered in 1960 by the medieval-lyric specialist Peter Dronke in a Bodleian manuscript dating ca. 1000 and copied at the monastery of Fleury on the river Loire. Dronke published the history of the text, critical apparatus, and commentary in Medieval Latin and the Rise of European Love-Lyric (Oxford 1968, 2nd ed.), vol. 2, pp. 332–341. He has remarked that "the excitement of those moments of first finding and reading it, and realizing what it was, remains vivid in the memory even after sixteen years."Dronke, "Learned Lyric and Popular Ballad," pp. 167–168.
The poem The unnamed female speakerThe gender of the speaker is revealed by the inflection of adjectives: exterrita, "very frightened" (line 12); tota, "entirely" (14); libera, "free" (16); miseram, "miserable" (23). recalls a night in April when her lover, Phoebus, visited her and then departs mysteriously. In a prose approximation:
If the poem dramatizes a particular story, its source is unknown.Stevenson, Women Latin Poets, p. 116. In classical mythology, Phoebus can be another name for Apollo, god of music, healing, prophecy, and other forms of enlightenment who eventually shared Helios's role as embodiment of the Sun.
The form The poem, in monorhyme, is structured in five strophes of five lines each in a meter adapted from the classical asclepiad. In form, Foebus abierat also resembles 8th–9th-century Latin poems in simple rhymed strophes and draws on the vernacular ballad tradition.Dronke, "Learned Lyric and Popular Ballad," pp. 169–171.
Sources and influences
As Boland remarks on the relation of classical to medieval Latin in the poem, "The old language is present, but a skin of liturgy and sorcery has been laid over it."
Classical elements Foebus abierat echoes the poetry of Ovid in both language and situation, most strongly the Heroides — particularly Epistula 13 in which Laodamia addresses her bridegroom Protesilaos, who has just sailed for Troy; and Epistula 10, in which Ariadne awakes to find herself abandoned by Theseus — and the Ceyx and Alcyone episode of Metamorphoses 11.Dronke, "Learned Lyric and Popular Ballad," pp. 172–173.
Christian allegory Although the poem makes no specific references to Christ or Christian mysticism, it has nevertheless been read, as is often the case with erotic poetry of the Middle Ages, in light of the Song of Songs as an allegory of the Bride. Dronke, who believes the author of Foebus abierat was a man, suggests that the dreamlike erotic moment that ends with the lover disappearing and his brideIt is unclear what verbal indicators suggest to Dronke that the speaker has married her lover; see Stevenson's speculation that the poet was a nun. in desolation has its origin in the Song of Songs, as does the enigma of whether the lover was even real.Dronke, "Learned Lyric and Popular Ballad," pp. 174–175.
The ballad tradition A theme of medieval ballads is the visitation of a woman by her lover's ghost, which then disappears with the cock's crow, that is, at dawn — a motif also of the alba.Dronke, "Learned Lyric and Popular Ballad," pp. 175ff.
Musical versions The early music ensemble Sequentia performs and has recorded a setting of Foebus abierat as part of its "Lost Songs of a Rhineland Harper" program.
Selected bibliography Boland, Eavan. Translator's note to "Phoebus was gone, all gone, his journey over." Poetry, April 2008, p. 37 online; text of translation. Dronke, Peter. "Learned Lyric and Popular Ballad in the Early Middle Ages." In The Medieval Poet and His World. Storia e letteratura raccolta di studi e test 164. Rome 1984, pp. 167ff. with Latin text online. Dronke, Peter. Sources of Inspiration: Studies in Literary Transformations, 400–1500. Storia e letterature raccolta di studi e testi 196. Rome 1997. Limited preview online. Stevenson, Jane. Women Latin Poets. Oxford University Press, 2005, p. 116 online.
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