In both pieces the dialogue form is dropped, and there is no attempt at cumulation.
One God, one baptism, and one faith,
One truth there is the Scripture saith;
[Pg 150] Two Testaments, the old and new,
We do acknowledge to be true;
Three persons are in Trinity,
Which make one God in Unity;
Four sweet evangelists there are
Christ's birth, life, death, which do declare;
Five senses like five kings, maintain
In every man a several reign;
Six days to labour is not wrong,
For God Himself did work so long;
Seven liberal arts has God sent down
With divine skill man's soul to crown;
Eight in Noah's ark alive were found,
When (in a word) the World lay drowned.
Nine Muses (like the heaven's nine spheres)
With sacred tunes entice our ears;
Ten statutes God to Moses gave
Which, kept or broke, do spoil or save;
Eleven with Christ in heaven do dwell,
The twelfth for ever burns in hell;
Twelve are attending on God's Son;
Twelve make our Creed, "the dyall's done."[56]
The objects named in this poem agree in most cases with those of the Latin chant, but six, there associated with the water-jugs in Cana of Galilee, is here associated with the days of the Creation, which correspond with the six days of the Creation of the Spanish Chant of the Creed, and with the six working days of the week of a heathen dialogue story to which we shall return later. The number eight is here associated with the persons saved in the ark of Noah, as in the Chant of the Creed which is current in Denmark.
CHAPTER XIV
HEATHEN CHANTS OF THE CREED
WE now turn to those versions of the Chant of the Creed which are heathen in character. Again we have versions before us in the vernacular of Brittany, Spain, Scotland, and several set in the form of songs that are current in different parts of England.
The most meaningful and elaborate versions of the chant come from Brittany. One is called Les vêpres des grenouilles. It is set in the form of instruction, and begins:—
Can caer, Killoré. Iolic, petra faot dide?
Caera traïc a gement orizoud ti.
(L., I, p. 95.)