Library › Latin: Lyric & Elegy › De Luscinia
A short rhythmic poem in praise of the nightingale, attributed to Fulbert, bishop of Chartres (c. 970–1028), the scholar who made the cathedral school of Chartres famous. When the earth sends forth its shoots in spring and the woods grow green, the nightingale fills the woods with song, surpassing the cithara and every other bird; though small in body, it captivates all, and the poet concludes that only the heavenly King could have given it such sweet songs.
The poem belongs to a medieval tradition of Latin verses on the nightingale, a bird that symbolized both the beauty of spring and the praise of God. Its rhythmic, rhyming lines show the accentual verse that was replacing classical metres in the eleventh century. Fulbert, a teacher and letter-writer of wide influence, also wrote hymns and other poems, though the attribution of this piece is not certain. It is a short but charming witness to the poetry of the early eleventh-century schools.
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