female jester.’ In the latter half of the line sceawendwisan means ‘player’s songs’ or ‘jesting songs.’ Tupper cites sceawendspræc, scarilitas (for scurrilitas). Mackie translates: “who, like a woman jester, loudly mimic / the habits of a buffoon.”
Thus l. 9 offers the greatest difficulty: the bird must be regarded as in some sort a joker. ‘Player’s song’ may mean only something professional, but if ‘female’ is implied, together with the notion of scurrility, we have at least a vivid picture of popular entertainment. Mackie’s “buffoon” may be a bit too strong.
Now, putting the pieces together, we have for the solution a bird which sings in the evening with great skill and various tunes, and also impresses the noble listeners with its serious music yet at the same time with something which is comic if not quite naughty. The welcome things of the last line may signify not pleasant tidings but merely singing which they enjoy. What bird meets all the requirements? The probabilities are about equally divided, among the commentators, between Nightingale and some kind of Jay or Jackdaw, and neither is wholly satisfactory. Hence this seems to be one of those riddles which are intended to provoke argument or indecisive discussion. The uncertainties are part of the fun.
It goes without saying that this has been a trial to the translators, for a translation must be slanted to match the chosen solution. Some specimens follow. The first is in prose by R. K. Gordon, in the Everyman Library, and is headed “Nightingale or Jay”:
I speak with many voices through my mouth, sing with modulated notes: often I change my voice, I cry aloud, I hold my melody, nor do I refrain from laughter. Aged bard of the evening, I bring to men joy in cities when I cry with varying voice; they sit in silence, quiet in the dwellings. Say what my name is who, like a female jester, loudly mimic a player’s song, announce to men many welcome things with my voice.
The next is from Faust and Thompson, Old English Poems:
A Nightingale
With my mouth I am master of many a language;
Cunningly I carol; I discourse full oft
In melodious lays; loud do I call
