[XXXVI. Þe Lamentacioun þat was bytwene vre lady and seynt Bernard.]
[So the title in Index. Title in D, 'Lamentacio sancti Bernardi de compassione beate Marie vir|ginis ex dulcissimi filii sui passione et eiusdem crudeli morte'; in T, 'La|mentacio sancte marie & beati Bernardi.'] Her is a gret lamentacion betwene vr ladi & seint Bernard, Of cristes passion, hire dere sone, þat was so pyneful & so hard.
Ed. before, at my suggestion, in Engl. Stud., 1885, vol. viii. p. 85 ff., by G. Kribel, from MS. Vernon and Cambridge Dd. 1, 1. I here give the text of MS. Vernon with various readings from MS. Dd. 1, 1, and two more MSS., Trin. Coll. Oxf. 57 f. (incomplete), and MS. L. 70. The poem is based on a Latin sermon attributed to St. Bernhard (ed. opp. Antw. 1616, col. 156, and in Migne Patr. Curs. Ser. II. vol. 182, col. 1133, Paris 1879; both edd. differ in some respects, the Engl. text rests more on that of the former ed.), with frequent addings from the Gospels (cf. v. 21-4). The poem is not to be ascribed to Richard Rolle, but to Richard Maidenstoon, the author of the Seven Penitential Psalms. Cf. Kribel, l. c. It is in 8-line stanzas of alternate rymes.
