Then has a man less might than a beste
When he is born, and is sene leste:
For a best, when it is born, may ga
As-tite after, and rin to and fra;
But a man has na might ther-to,
When he is born, swa to do;
For then may he nought stande ne crepe,
But ligge and sprawel and cry and wepe.
For unnethes is a child born fully
That it ne biginnes to goule and cry;
And by that cry men may knaw than
Whether it be man or woman;
For when it is born it cryes swa:
If it be man, it says ‘a, a’,
That the first letter is of the nam
Of our forme-fader Adàm.
And if the child a woman be,
When it is born it says ‘e, e’.
E is the first letter and the hede
Of the name of Eve that bigan our dede.
Therfor a clerk made on this manère
This vers of metre that is writen here:
Dicentes E vel A quotquot nascuntur ab Eva.
‘Alle thas’, he says, ‘that comes of Eve,
That is, al men that here bihoves leve,
When they ar born, what-swa they be,
They say outher “a, a” or “e, e”.’
Thus is here the biginning
Of our life sorow and greting
Til whilk our wrechednes stirres us;
And therfor Innocent says thus:
Omnes nascimur eiulantes, ut naturae nostrae
miseriam exprimamus.
He says: ‘Al ar we born gretand
And makand a sorowful sembland,
For to shew the grete wrechednes
Of our kind that in us es.’
Thus when the time come of our birthe,
Al made sorow and na mirthe;
Naked we come hider and bare
And poore, swa shal we hethen fare.