Like the preceding Death’s Wither-Clench (art. 7), this Marian prayer has five 10-line stanzas rhyming on two sounds, but the rhyme scheme is different. Because the speaker mentions song twice (lines 2, 8), it may also have been sung, but no musical score has survived. Dobson and Harrison propose that it was sung to the same tune as Death’s Wither-Clench, which they provide (Medieval English Songs, pp. 131, 243). In syntax, the stanzas of An Orison to Our Lady turn at the sixth line, with phrases echoed in stanzas 1–2 (“Heo brouhte”) and in stanzas 3–4 (“Tharfore ich thenche”).

Despite heaping praise upon Mary, the speaker’s mind dwells persistently on the threat of death and eternal punishment. He prays in optimistic hope of Mary’s ability to provide remedy from hell’s pains because of her blessed childbearing. Contrasted to Eve’s darkness, she is bright light, good health, and joyous happiness. Foolishly deluded by the World’s attractions, the speaker pledges to forsake sin and let Mary guide him. The song ends in repentant near-desperation, asking Mary, surprisingly, to take vengeance on him (“Awrec thu nu on me, Levedi”) before Death seizes him (lines 43–45). Mary is thus addressed as a direct agent in the petitioner’s salvation: the poem ends by crying out to her, not God, for retribution followed by mercy.

Praise and worship of Mary appear frequently in the verse of Jesus 29. Other Marian lyrics include The Five Joys of Our Lady Saint Mary (art. 11) and the two fragmentary Annunciation lyrics (arts. 10, 20). In addition, other works express Marian veneration as an assumed component of their religious focus; see, in particular, When Holy Church Is Under Foot, Doomsday, and Love Rune (arts. 12, 13, 19). A more general interest in Jesus’s interactions with women surfaces in The Passion of Jesus Christ (art. 1) (the meeting with Mary Magdalene) and The Woman of Samaria (art. 5).

The Jesus 29 copy of this poem lacks the final nineteen lines because the leaf that originally followed folio 180 has been lost. Missing lines 22, 32–50 are here supplied from the near-identical text that survives in MS Cotton Caligula A.ix. The lyric has appeared often in anthologies of Middle English verse. The summary given below offers a select listing of the editions based on Cotton Caligula A.ix or on Cambridge, TCC, MS B.14.39; for a fuller overview of the publication history, see DIMEV 4270. Two of the other versions may be viewed by digital manuscript facsimile. For the Cambridge manuscript, see https://mss-cat.trin.cam.ac.uk/Manuscript/B.14.39–40(Opens in a new tab or window); and for MS Cotton Caligula A.ix, see http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/FullDisplay.aspx?ref=Cotton_MS_Caligula_A_IX(Opens in a new tab or window).

[Fol. 180v. NIMEV 2687. DIMEV 4270. Quire: 4. Meter: 50 lines (31 surviving) in five 10-line stanzas, rhyming ababaababa4. Layout: Short lines in a single column, each with end punctuation. The scribe sometimes writes two verse lines on one manuscript line. Edition from MS Jesus 29: Morris, pp. 159–63. Three other MSS: Cambridge, TCC, MS B.14.39, fols. 81v–82r (Brown, pp. 56–57, 192–93; Stevick, ed., One Hundred Middle English Lyrics, pp. 18–20); London, BL, MS Cotton Caligula A.ix, fol. 246v (Morris, pp. 158–62; Brown, pp. 57–59, 192–93; Saupe, pp. 130–32, 250–52); London, BL, MS Royal 2.F.viii, fol. 1v (Brown, pp. 59–60, 192–93). Critical edition with music: Dobson and Harrison, eds., Medieval English Songs, pp. 130–36, 243, 298–99. Translation: Dobson and Harrison, eds., Medieval English Songs, p. 324.]