The Complete Old English Poems
Page 107
Solomon and Saturn I
Saturn said:
“Listen! I have tasted many truths
And devoured much of the lore and learning
Of the books of the islands. I have patiently unlocked
The secrets of the literary arts and sciences, 5
The lore of the Libyans, the scholarship of the Greeks,
The whole history of the Indian empires.
The commentators made clear the meanings
Of the wise words in the great book.
* * *
Still I searched for wisdom sharper than steel, 10
A truth more keen than anything I could find
In the ancient writings to stimulate the spirit,
Whet the hungry mind’s need to know,
Encourage virtue, prompt a deeper power—
I wanted the palm-twigged Pater Noster. 15
I would give you everything, wise Solomon,
Son of David, prince of Israel—thirty pounds
Of pure gold and my twelve precious sons—
If you could leave me in awe of the Lord’s Prayer,
The canticle of Christ. If you can tell me this truth 20
In a wondrous way that will sustain my spirit,
Heal my heart’s yearning, then I will walk away,
Finally satisfied, following the fathoms
Of the River Chobar to find the Chaldeans.”
Solomon said: 25
“A man will be miserable and useless in life
Without wisdom, wandering in a wasteland
Like a wild beast, or feeding aimlessly in a field
Like dumb cattle, if he cannot worship Christ
Through the canticle. He will wander full of wind, 30
And the fierce fiend, the dragon of hell,
Will knock him ruthlessly down on Doomsday
With iron balls from a black sling,
Like dark apples flung out of Eden.
He will be washed down by waves of shame. 35
If he has Christ’s canticle to keep him afloat
On a sea of flame, he will be better off
Than if he owns all the radiant silver and gold
From the far corners of this ancient creation—
But faithless, he will wander, alien and estranged 40
From the grace of God, outlawed from angels.”
Saturn said:
“Who of all creatures can easily open
The holy doors of the kingdom of heaven
In the right order and reveal the radiance 45
Of that blessed realm, the eternal light?”
Solomon said:
“The palm-twigged Pater Noster
Opens up the doors of high heaven,
Blesses the holy, makes the Lord merciful, 50
Casts off crime, saves us from sin,
Strikes down murder, destroys the devil’s fire,
Igniting the soul with the light of the Lord.
With the Lord’s Prayer, you can heat the blood
Of the devil himself in seven ways, 55
That thick evil dross, boil it up in a blaze
Of torment more terrible than any brass cauldron
Could do when, because of the twelve faults
Or frailties of men and the gathering guilt,
His blood boils over in the embrace of flames, 60
Seething ravenously for twelve generations.
So the words of the canticle are more widely read,
More often studied and devoutly said,
Than any other passage in Christ’s books.
The Pater Noster pulls us in, firms our faith, 65
Mentors our minds, heals our hearts,
Shields us with a corselet of Christ’s words,
Wages war against the fierce fiend,
And wins us a place in heaven’s kingdom.”
Saturn said: 70
“But how is the song to be revered in memory,
The prayer to be practiced by a dedicated man
Who would purify his soul, cleanse it of crime,
Smelt and refine it, separating out sin,
Removing the impulse for mayhem and murder? 75
How does the song separate guilt from grace,
Sin from salvation, in the man who remembers it
Or recites it aloud? Is this part of the power
And beauty that was made and blessed by God?
My curiosity is killing me—it tears here and there 80
In twisted confusion. No man under heaven knows
How my spirit darts and drags, wandering the world
Of words in books, the landscape of the mind.
Sometimes the heat rises inside my heart.
My spirit surges, my soul wants to soar.” 85
Solomon said:
“The Word of God is always golden,
Studded with gemstones, brightly adorned
With beautiful silver on its lustrous leaves,
Proclaiming the Gospel with the gift of grace. 90
The living Word is the spirit’s wisdom,
The soul’s honey, the mind’s sweet milk,
The greatest of glories, the best of blessings.
It can bring back the soul from eternal night,
From under the earth, from the devil’s torments, 95
The cruel clutch of those fiery fiends.
Though the devils bind it with fifty locks,
Bars and bolts, it will break and blast
Those unholy bonds, however deep,
Bearing the soul home safe and sound. 100
It can harrow hunger, plunder hell,
Wrack and ruin the surge and swell
Of waves of water, waves of fire.
It can timber truth, hammer glory.
Its heft and heave is firmer than the foundation 105
Of all middle-earth or the curl of creation.
Its grasp is greater than the grip of stones.
It is the healer of the lame, the light of the blind,
The door of the deaf, the tongue of the dumb,
The shield of the guilty, the hall of the Shaper, 110
The bone-house of God, the bearer of the flood,
The protector of people, the guardian of waves,
The muscle and sinew of fish and fowl,
The breath and beauty of beast and bloom,
The blaze of serpents, the surge of dragons, 115
The wielder of the wild, the gatherer of glory,
All honor, all grace, all air, all creation—
Everything that exists in an eternity of space.
Whoever earnestly chants the word of God,
Sings out the truth of the Savior’s song, 120
And celebrates its spirit without sin,
Can chase away the fierce foe,
The champion of evil, if you use the power
Of the Pater Noster. P will punish him—
That warrior has a strong staff, a long rod, 125
A golden goad to strike the grim fiend.
Then A pursues him with mighty power,
Beating him back, and T takes a turn,
Stabbing his tongue, twisting his neck,
Breaking his jaws. E afflicts him, 130
Always ready to assault the enemy.
R is enraged, the lord of letters,
And grabs the fiend by his unholy hair,
Shakes and shivers him, picks up flint
And shatters his shanks, his spectral shins. 135
No leech will mend those splintered limbs—
He will never see his knees again.
Then the devil will duck down in the dark,
Cowering under clouds, shivering in shade,
Hatching in his heart some hopeless defense. 140
He will yearn for his miserable home in hell,
The hardest of prisons, the narrowest of homelands,
When those churchly twins, N
and O,
Come sweeping down with sharp whips
To scourge his body, afflict his evil flesh. 145
Those stern siblings care little for his life.
Then S will arrive, the prince of angels,
The letter of glory, our Lord and Savior—
It will haul the fiend up by his hostile feet,
Swing him in the air, striking the stone 150
With his insidious head, cracking his cheeks,
Shattering his mouth, scattering his teeth
Through the throngs of hell. Each fearful fiend
Will curl up tightly, concealed in shadow
As the thane of Satan lies terribly still. 155
Then Q and U will trouble and torment him,
Beat him down to a humble bow—
Those bold commanders carry long light-shafts,
Sword-gleam and spear-glow, a bright stroke
And bitter scourge. They hold back no blows, 160
Singeing and severing that loathsome demon.
Then I, L, and angry C will come crashing down,
Surrounding the devil in the clash and conflict.
The crooked letter carries bitter terror
And can easily catch and crush hell’s captive, 165
Who will cry out in pain and try to retreat.
Then F and M will harass the hell-fiend,
That guilty enemy, that shameless foe,
With sharp spears and a fierce flight
Of flaming arrows which will bite his head, 170
Blaze his hair, burning him bare,
Scalding him bald, a singeing slaughter.
The arrows of God will seek that slayer—
A sky-snake can easily bite through a boast.
Then G the crooked will be sent by God 175
To support his friends, seek out the fiend,
And quiet his cruelty—his heart will stand still.
Then D follows that fellow, full of five virtues,
Including fire, no gentle judgment.
* * *
B is the third letter silently waiting, 180
Wanting to strike at the edge of the street.
H will hasten in an angel’s robes,
A warrior of Christ in quickening clothes,
God’s grim pursuer, a purveyor of pain.
Then the life-twins (you remember N and O) 185
Will hurl the hated fiend into the sky
With their silver whips and savage spears
Till his veins burst in a shower of gore
And his blasted bones begin to shine
With the bright radiance of blood-rage. 190
The Word of God through the mouth of man
Can put each and every fiend to flight,
The unholy host of loathsome lives,
Destroy a deadly bale of black demons,
Even if they alter their form and hue, 195
Feather up or scale down, shriek or swim.
Sometimes they seize an unsuspecting sailor;
Sometimes they slither like venomous serpents,
Stinging a fierce beast or biting field-cattle,
Or morph into mighty, death-dealing dragons. 200
Sometimes the evil one skulks in the water,
Seeking to make the poor horse stumble,
Carving it up with his cruel horns
Until its blood runs red in the waves,
And its life runs down into the riverbed. 205
Sometimes it binds a doomed man’s hands
On the battlefield, weighs down the warrior’s
Grip of sword and shield as he enters the strife.
Sometimes it carves a cache of letters,
A clutch of its own secret, savage curses 210
On the wretched warrior’s shield-board and blade,
Thieving all chance of the thane’s glory.
A man should not draw his weapon without thinking,
Even though he loves its bright-bladed beauty.
He should always sing the Lord’s Pater Noster 215
When he draws his sword—he should pray to that palm,
The figure of peace, for power and protection
Over life and limb, for the Lord’s favor,
When enemy attacks and the battle begins.
SOLOMON AND SATURN II
See the previous headnote for manuscript details. The two Solomon and Saturn poems show enough similarities of theme and treatment that they may have been written by the same author or by authors in the same circle (Anlezark, 2009, 49). This poem is more dialogic than the previous one, as it moves continually between question and answer. Fulk and Cain note that “the questions, most of which are posed by Saturn, are various, dealing chiefly with natural phenomena (why snow falls, why water is restless, etc.), the workings of fate (why wealth is distributed unevenly, why twins may lead different lives, etc.), and Judgment Day (why we cannot all go to heaven, whether we can die before our appointed time, etc.), in no particular order” (170). Anlezark argues that “the dialogue form imparts to the poem an oppositional structure, which is developed in contrasts between heat and cold, the divergent fate of twins, fate and foreknowledge, spirits who contend for the soul, and others” (2009, 46). Hansen points out the way in which the poem explores “language as an active and co-operative interchange between two parties, speaker and addressee, poet and audience; and hence language as a paradigm for the creation and (possible) containment of opposition and difference” (147). There seems to be a delicate balance in the poem between elucidation and mystification, which, according to Shippey, “does indeed, by its human drama and combination of detail and mystery, create an impression of profundity beyond any of the other didactic poems” (25). The reference to Vasa Mortis (Vessels of Death), the four-headed bird of the Philistines in line 124, echoes a line from Psalm 7:14, Et in ipso praeparavit vasa mortis sagittas suas ad conburendum operatus est, “And in it he has prepared the instruments of death, he has made ready his arrows for them that burn” (Anlezark, 2009, 125), and is “clearly derived from the talmudic account of Solomon’s binding of the demon Ashmedai” (Fulk and Cain, 170). The final section of the poem (lines 452–62 in the translation) appears in the manuscript as a separate fragment before the poem itself and is positioned at the end of Solomon and Saturn I in ASPR, volume VI (lines 170–78, pp. 37–38), but most editors now take this fragment to be the conclusion of Solomon and Saturn II (Anlezark, 2009, 45).
Solomon and Saturn II
Listen! I have heard about men of learning,
Wise counselors, disputing, debating,
Trading truths in the halls of middle-earth,
Engaged in the clash and collaboration of ideas.
Each one argues his own thoughts and theories, 5
But the worst will lie or contradict the truth.
Solomon was famous and Saturn was a chieftain,
A bold strategist and born leader of men’s minds,
Who held the keys to certain books
In which learning was locked, knowledge stored. 10
Eager for ideas, he traveled widely
Through many countries with different cultures—
The far land of India, the East Cossias,
The Persian kingdom and also Palestine,
The city of Nineveh, the North Parthians, 15
The Medes’ treasure-halls, the land of Marculf,
The kingdom of Saul from Gilboa in the south
To Gadara in the north, the halls of the Philistines,
The Cretan forts, the Egyptian forests,
The Midian waters, the Horeb cliffs, 20
The Chaldean kingdom—seeking to comprehend
The arts of the Greeks, the race of Arabians,
The learning of Libya, the lay of Syrian land,
The borders of Porus, the place called Pamphilia,
Bythinia, Bashan, Macedonia, Mesopotamia, 25
Cappadocia, and all of Christ�
�s homeland,
Jericho, Galilee, and his birth-place Jerusalem.
* * *
[Solomon is speaking]
“I could argue again or even keep quiet
And think of something worthwhile to say, 40
Letting my mind run instead of my mouth.
I know that if you travel on the Mediterranean
Past the river Chobar to seek your homeland,
You mean to boast that you’ve rebutted and rebuked,
Castigated and conquered, the children of men. 35
I know that the Chaldeans were so boastful in battle,
So proud of their gold and worldly wealth,
So vain over victories, arrogant with glory,
That they were sent a warning in the south,
In the field of Shinar, at the rising Babel. 40
Tell me of the land where no man can tread.”
Saturn said:
“The famous sea-traveler was called Raging Wolf,
Known to the Philistines, a friend of Nimrod.
He slew twenty-five dragons one day at dawn— 45
Then death devoured him, for no man may seek
Or search that wilderness, that desolate wasteland,
No bird can fly there, no beast tread there.
In that dark wasteland are all venomous creatures,