The Ruin
An Old English Elegy
This week, today and Wednesday, I will post two poems, both of which engage in some way with my personal canon. Today’s poem is my translation of an Old English elegy. The original is from a tenth-century manuscript known as The Exeter Book. The poet contemplates a mysterious ruined structure, probably Roman, and then imagines its past. (In this way, the poem resonates with my recent essay on Tolkien and Vaughan Williams, especially in the way the latter’s Tallis Fantasia makes use of Gloucester Cathedral. You can read that piece here.)
Two notes:
1. You will notice the ellipses late in the poem. These reflect worm holes in the manuscript, which have rendered these parts of the original illegible. In this way, the poem itself reflects its subject: the poem is a ruin with a mysterious history.
2. I have left the word wyrd untranslated from the Old English. It means something like “fate” or “doom.” It is the ancestor of the modern English word weird. When Shakespeare refers to the witches in Macbeth as the “weird sisters,” he doesn’t mean that they are strange (though they are), but rather that they have to do with fate. Weird in its modern sense (meaning “strange” or “uncanny”) is probably connected to the mysterious or “weird” nature of fate.
***
The Ruin
Wonderful the stone wall that wyrd has broken;
the castle crumbles, work of giants destroyed.
Roofs fallen in, tall towers collapsed,
barred gate despoiled, hoar-frost on the mortar,
mutilated houses have been cleaved, have fallen,
undone by age. The earth’s grasp,
hard grip, holds these mighty wrights; they have withered away,
departed. Since then a hundred generations
of people have passed. Long this wall remained
overgrown and blooming after other kingdoms passed.
It lasted through storms; the high gate weakened. . . .
. . . Long ago a thought sparked in one mind,
a stout-hearted builder of stone-walled circles,
to put together the pieces with skill—marvelous to see.
Bright were the fortresses, with many bath-halls,
high and horn-gabled; great fanfares sounded
in many a mead-hall— blissful times—
until wyrd the mighty wielded change.
Slaughter spread wide, and the day of plague
swept away all the brave sword-carriers;
then their war-halls were abandoned, desolate,
cities collapsed in pieces. The builders and warriors
fell to earth. Now steadings are empty,
and this wood-worked roof, once gleaming and lofty,
sheds its tiles. Wyrd has brought ruin,
broken down the burg where once many a beorn—
glad of mind and gold-burnished, all adorned,
proud and wine-flushed— shone in war-gear,
looked on gold, silver, and rare gems,
on fortune, on lands, on precious stones,
on that bright bastion and its broad demesnes.
Stone halls stood— hot streams sent
wide water-sprays— enclosed by a wall
in the town’s well-lit heart, there the baths were,
warm and ready. And it was good!
Hot rivers poured over hoar stones
into ringed pools hot . . .
where the baths were . . .
. . . that is a kingly thing,
. . . house . . . city . . .
—From the Old English
What a beautiful poem, John. It would for sure be a great preface before reading The Exeter. Do you use e these types of "aids" in your classes? It's an amazing poem, and the photographs you chose are beyond perfect.