Ego Dormio is an English-language letter by Richard Rolle thought to date from the 1340s, advising an anonymous woman on how best to love God and gain salvation by proceeding through the "three degrees of love" to arrive at the third and highest, a "contemplative life".
Name and purpose The text has no name in its manuscripts, so is known by modern scholars by its first two words, which themselves are part of a quotation from the Vulgate Bible translation of the Song of Songs 5.2: "Ego dormio et cor meum vigilat" ("I sleep but my heart is awake"). The bulk of the letter is in prose, but its description of each of the three degrees of love is followed by a poem.
Scholars have debated whether the recipient was a nun or whether she was a layperson considering becoming one, though the manuscript Cambridge, Cambridge University Library, Dd. 5. 64 says that the letter was written for a nun belonging to Yedingham Priory in Yorkshire.
Manuscripts The work survives in twelve manuscripts (one of which contains two copies), and in a Latin translation in the fifteenth-century manuscript Cambridge, Gonville and Caius College, MS. 140/80, folios 115v–118v. As listed by Dennis Lynch and Margaret G. Amassian, and by Isabel De La Cruz Cabanillas, these are: +cityrepository and shelfmarkfoliosdateLondonBritish Library, Arundel 50740r–41r (fragmentary)c. 1400LondonBritish Library, Additional 22283 (the Simeon Manuscript)150v–151vlate fourteenth centuryLondonBritish Library, Additional 37790 (the Amherst Manuscript)132r–135vfifteenth centuryCambridgeCambridge University Library, Dd v 6422v–29rlate fourteenth centuryCambridgeMagdalene College, Pepys 212599r–101rfifteenth centuryOxfordBodleian Library, Rawlinson A 389 (containing two copies of the text)71r–81r (fragmentary), 95v–99rearly fifteenth centuryOxfordBodleian Library, English Poetry a 1 (the Vernon Manuscript)369r–370vlate fourteenth centuryWarminsterLongleat House, Library of the Marquess of Bath, Longleat 2941v–54vfifteenth centuryDublinTrinity College Dublin, 155 (C.5.7)1r–9vearly fifteenth centuryLondonWestminster School, 3225r–231rc. 1420ParisBibliothèque Sainte Geneviève, 339095v–108rfourteenth centuryTokyoTakamiya 66 (previously Bradfer-Lawrence 10) (the Gurney Manuscript)24r–28rfifteenth century Although De La Cruz Cabanillas found the content of most manuscripts very similar overall, Lynch and Amassian noted that manuscripts vary extensively in the detail of their wording. They present the following line of verse (which, as it appears in Dd v 64, means "the thorn crowns the King; that pricking is very sore") as an example: +manuscripttextBritish Library, Arundel 507missing (fragmentary manuscript)British Library, Additional 22283 (the Simeon Manuscript)Þe kyng crounede with þorn ful sore prikkyngBritish Library, Additional 37790 (the Amherst Manuscript)His heede thay crownede with thornes sare prykkngeCambridge University Library, Dd v 64Þe thorne crownes þe keyng; ful sare es þat prickyngMagdalene College, Pepys 2125And þis kyng corowned was with þornes sore prikkyngeBodleian Library, Rawlinson A 389 (text 1)missing (fragmentary manuscript)Bodleian Library, Rawlinson A 389 (text 2)Þe kyng crowned wiþ þorn, ful sore he is prickyngeBodleian Library, English Poetry a 1 (the Vernon Manuscript)Þe kyng crouned with þorne, ful sore he is prikkedLongleat House, Library of the Marquess of Bath, Longleat 29Þe thorne crownes þe keyng; ful sare es þat prickyngTrinity College Dublin, 155 (C.5.7)Wiþ þornes þei crouned hym kynge, hard was þat prykkyng þat he suffurd þan of hemWestminster School, 3Þe kyng crouned wyth thornes, scharp he was prykkedeBibliothèque Sainte Geneviève, 3390And wiþ þorne kene crouned was þi kyngeTakamiya 66 (previously Bradfer-Lawrence 10) (the Gurney Manuscript)Þe thorne crownes þe keyng; ful sare es þat prickyng Lynch and Amassian concluded that the manuscript closest to Rolle's lost archetype is Cambridge University Library, MS Dd. 5. 64 (and that the Latin translation in Gonville and Caius College, MS. 140/80 is also a primary witness to Rolle's earliest English text), while De La Cruz Cabanillas noted both MS Dd. 5. 64's consistency with Yorkshire English and the fact that the manuscripts seem to come from Yorkshire and the Midlands, with few or no southern examples.
Editions and translations Editions (Facing-page editions of Cambridge University Library, MS Dd. 5. 64 and Bodleian Library, MS Rawlinson A 389 folios 77r–81r, digitised by the Corpus of Middle English Verse and Prose here) (Based on Cambridge University Library, MS Dd. 5. 64.) (Based on Cambridge University Library, MS Dd. 5. 64, with selected variants from Bodleian Library, MS Rawlinson A 389, and Library of The Marquess of Bath, MS 29.) (Facing-page edition of the English text from Cambridge University Library, MS Dd. 5. 64 and the Latin text from Gonville and Caius College, MS. 140/80, pp. 230-49.) Translations (Modernisation/translation.)
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