Christmas Song #8: Contrasts
It is a song of contrasts, so maybe it’s natural that its origin should also be one of contrast.
Unusually, the tune for this Christmas hymn was taken from a secular song. Dating way back to the 16th century, the original song is still known today as Greensleeves.
Greensleeves refers to a lady who rejects the singer of the song. The man is trying to convince the lady to love him again.
Alas my love, ye do me wrong,
A new Courtly Sonet, of the Lady Green sleeves. (1584)
To cast me off discourteously:
And I have loved you so long,
Delighting in your company.
Greensleeves was all my joy,
Greensleeves was my delight:
Greensleeves was my heart of gold,
And who but Lady Greensleeves.
The song became extremely popular, even being mentioned in Shakespeare more than once. In The Merry Wives of Windsor, a character notes that Greensleeves would have no business being connected to a religious song:
But they do no more adhere and keep place together than the Hundredth Psalm to the tune of “Greensleeves.”
The Merry Wives of Windsor
In other words, Greensleeves and a Psalm mix together like oil and water, or fire and ice. Going together like chalk and cheese. They don’t.
It may be shocking that Greensleeves became even more famous in the future as a Christmas hymn, but there was a lot of history in between. Apparently, the haunting tune quickly took on a life of its own, early on being used for various holiday songs.
So after 300 years, the tune was a holiday tradition, with or without Greensleeves herself. And that’s when William Chatterton Dix sat down and wrote the words:
What child is this who, laid to rest
On Mary’s lap is sleeping?
Whom angels greet with anthems sweet,
While shepherds watch are keeping?
This, this is Christ the King,
Whom shepherds guard and angels sing;
Haste, haste, to bring Him laud,
The Babe, the son of Mary.
The poetic description imagines shepherds guarding the Baby. The Bible actually says very little about what they did, except that they searched for and found Jesus.
And like many Christmas carols, this one can be excused for saying that the angels “sang”, a term the Scripture doesn’t use.
But the contrast is there immediately – the heavenly angels, the rough shepherds, a tiny baby – but the baby is the Messiah, the Christ, the Chosen and Anointed long-awaited One – the King!
And so our response is to come quickly to bring Him “laud”. Laud means praise, especially to sing praise. We don’t praise Him because of the angels, or because of the shepherds, but because of who He is – a baby, and yet Christ the King.
What Shakespeare would think of the tune with the new lyrics, I don’t know. But maybe it’s appropriate – a common tune used to praise the uncommon Baby. Somehow it seems to fit the message.