Poetry and history

So there I was, laying in bed reading happily away, when I was suddenly brought bolt upright with a cry of "Oh my God" on my lips. I had just read, in a strange context and strangely transformed, words that were well known to me, known and loved and often thought about for a quarter-century now:

A cold comming they had of it, at this time of yeare: Just the worst time of year to take a iourney, and specially a long iourney, in. The waies deep, the weather sharp, the daies short, ... the very dead of winter.

For two points, my dears: Who said that, and when?

If you answered "T.S.Eliot in 1927" then you get one point for having paid attention in class earlier. But you would be wrong: Eliot was quoting (with a certain amount of poetic license) from a far earlier source. (It was new to me, too.)

The correct answer is: Lancelot Andrewes, Bishop of Winchester, at a sermon before King James at Christmas 1622. Andrewes was one of the Translators (as they were known), the committee of churchmen and literati who produced the Bible as most of us read it.

This is just one minor amazement among many to be found in the book God's Secretaries: The Making of the King James Bible by Adam Nicholson, which I am currently reading. I encourage anyone who is even vaguely interested in the history of the Bible to read this, it's fascinating. A marvellous and strange story, full of interesting characters, grippingly narrated. I have constantly been referring to the Bible to read the passages under discussion.

If there is a hero of this history, then it is Lancelot Andrewes. Nicholson makes a plausible case for his having written most of the opening books of the Bible (and I have no intention of spoiling the story by saying any more about that, go read the book yourself).

Dix points sur dix. Highly recommended.