The Ruin

Revisiting an Old English Elegy, and The Stack of the Week

Jan 07, 2024

empty sofa chair — Photo by Denny Müller on Unsplash

Today’s poem is my translation of an Old English elegy, which I originally posted last summer, but since I will be referring to the poem during the Beowulf Challenge, it seemed ripe for revisiting. 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.

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.

brown concrete building under blue sky during daytime — Photo by Andreas Brunn on Unsplash

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

The Stack of the Week

This week’s stack is The Books of Our Lives by

Matthew Long

. Matthew is a relative newcomer to this platform, but his newsletter is off to a great start. He is interested in how reading intersects with life, how it connects to memory and place, and how we can foster and encourage access to and interest in books. He voice is deeply personal and introspective, as he contemplates how life shapes reading and reading shapes life. He is also embarking on a read-through of the complete works of John Steinbeck, which he will be chronicling for us.

Start with this piece, “A Memory of Place,” and I’m sure that you will find Matthew’s writing thoughtful and insightful: