I have a gentil cok

Lyric from MS. London BL Sloane 2593; taken from Medieval English Lyrics 1200-1400, ed. Thomas G. Duncan (Harmonsdworth: Penguin Books, 1995), 168-169.

Text

I have a gentil cok,

crowëth me the day;

He doth me risen erly,

my matins for to say.

I have a gentil cok,

comen he is of gret;

His comb is of red corel,

his tayil is of jet.

I have a gentil cok,

comen he is of kinde;

His comb is red corel,

his tayil is of inde.

His leggës ben of asur,

so gentil and so smale;

His spurës arn of sylver white

into the wortëwale.

His eyen arn of cristal,

loken al in aumber;

And every night he perchëth him

in myn ladies chaumber.

Criticism

Baird-Lange, Lorrayne Y. 'Symbolic Ambivalence in "I haue a gentil cock', Fifteenth-Century Studies 11 (1985): 1-5