The Ruin

An Old English Elegy

Photo by Denny Müller on Unsplash

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.

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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