Your immoral sins, interceding for your evil.
They might have offered sacrifices for your sake, 35
Calling on the precious and powerful gift
Of the body of Christ, freeing you finally
From the tortures and torments of unholy hell.
You might have been saved by the red blood
Christ shed on the cross for the sake of sinners. 40
Then you might have been lifted into heaven
Instead of hauled down by the devil’s doing,
His unholy teaching, into hell’s slavery.
The scripture teaches what is true about you:
Whoever seeks wealth is a slave to wealth, 45
Whoever hoards gold is held in its clutches.
You served wealth, its lifetime slave,
Giving no gold for the Lord’s sake,
Greedily gathering it all for yourself.
In your vice you have lost everything of value. 50
In your sin you have sold your most precious possession.
Now I endure, a soul set in suffering,
Made miserable by the evil deeds you’ve done.
You are loathed by those who might have loved you,
Despised by your friends. It seems to them 55
That you lie too long before you are carried
Cold to the grave, lowered into the pit
Of a doorless house where worms will rule
Over a delightful dinner, a feast of flesh.
What was once so sweet, a beautiful body, 60
Will become so foul, rich with rot,
A carcass for the cruel underground teeth,
A munch of mulch. You have traded a treasure
Of sweet delight for savage devouring.
Your bitter taste will endure forever— 65
Except, of course, to the ravenous worm.”
* * *
Fragment C
* * *
Again the soul speaks in sorrow to the body:
“Now you can no longer stand up in the stirrups
Or sit on a golden saddle for this grim journey—
Now you must ride backward into unbliss,
Galloping into the grave. Once you pass 5
Through that dark, one-way door,
You will never come back, riding forever
Without worldly wealth, without spirit.
Now it can be truly said of you:
‘This man is gone, his gold is here— 10
He wasted his wealth in unchecked greed,
Never wanting to do the Lord’s will.’
You garnered riches from all your enemies,
But gold does not care who gathers it up.
You traded treasure for torment, wealth for woe. 15
You travel now into a wasteland of sorrow
Beyond the marks of misery, the margins of pain.
Your enemies will rejoice that your mouth is shut,
Your insults stifled, your slander suffocated.
Death has swallowed your mischief and malice. 20
Truly it says in the book of Psalms:
Your mouth was always abounding with evil—
Your tongue was always twisted with deceit.
Wickedness was at home in your devious heart.
You never wanted to shelter the wretched 25
In your rich house or offer them rest
Under your roof but would sit in splendor
On your glorious cushion with your legs crossed
And your future secure, guarding your gold.
You knew no one, not even yourself, 30
Or ever suspected that instead of feasting,
You would appear on earth’s table, a feast for worms.
Now you dwell in a newly dark house
With little space, cold and cramped,
With the walls and ceiling closing in. 35
Your roof is resting on top of your chest.
You lie naked in a bed underground,
Stripped of the clothes that your servants kept,
A meager gift from a greedy lord.
Finally they hold what you hoarded. 40
Your wealth is gone—it was only on loan.
Now your long road begins after living.
Worms will arrive to see you off,
Ravenous fiends who will devour your flesh,
Feeding themselves with muscle and meat, 45
Sucking your sinews, gnawing your bones.
They will curl in your arms like greedy lovers,
Burrow through your breast, hot for your heart.
They will creep and crawl through every cavity
Till your fleshly treasures become their treats. 50
They will burrow in your belly, gobble your guts,
Taste your liver, tear at your lungs.
Your stomach will sour, your spleen will be sweet.
The worms will devour all that you hold dear.”
Fragment D
* * *
“Now worms will completely devour your flesh.
You will feed and sustain your crawling enemies
Who will crunch your body and chew you up.
You would never give succor to those who suffered.
Now you suffer at the mouths of suckling worms 5
Who will set up a treasure-house inside your skull
And a feast-hall inside the haven of your heart.
They will gnaw your lips to a fierce rictus,
The grimmest of grins that would frighten anyone—
If anyone could see through the wriggling dirt. 10
They will take you on a long journey
Through the bowels of earth, a misery of your making.
Now someone will want to sweep the floor
And wash away the vestige of your vile flesh,
Where you lay down in your last rest. 15
They will sprinkle the walls with holy water,
Blessing themselves for protection from you.
They will carry out your bed of stinking straw
And burn it to oblivion. This is how you are loved
After losing me, severed from your soul. 20
Your end is loathsome after a life of misery.”
The soul speaks again in sorrow to the body:
“Why did you think you could live forever?
Couldn’t you see or sense your mortality,
Know that your nature was always to die? 25
Wasn’t this your father’s fate? your mother’s misery?
Didn’t this cruelty come to all of your kin?
Didn’t I open your eyes to this truth
When I dwelled within you for a lifetime?
Why are you blind to the death of your forefathers? 30
Where in the world did you think they had gone?
Now they sleep unfleshed in a bed of earth,
Where worms have gnawed their sinews to strings,
Their bones to bits, their flesh to nothing
Except the feast within their bellies. 35
This is the end of flesh and bones
That were stained with sin, savaged by time.”
The sad soul speaks once more to the body:
“While you lived in the world, you were always wicked,
Cunning and crafty, devious and deceitful, 40
Malevolent and malicious. You embraced evil.
You harmed Christians with your vicious sins,
Your words and deeds, whenever you could.
I came to you pure, a gift from God,
But you have degraded and destroyed us both 45
With your wicked ways. You were gorged with greed,
Puffed up with pride, swollen with anger.
Where could I find a safe home inside
This house of iniquity? You worshipped your belly,
Venerated your lust, bowed down before your body. 50
You traded paradise for pleasure, heaven for gold.
Pride cannot travel to that sacred place.
Greed must go down to the devil’s playground,
An endless abyss. You never had enough of anything
Until you reveled in excess. Now that joy is ended, 55
That sweetness is sucked out, that living lost.
Only bitter gall is left to you, the taste of hell.
Terror and torment are your eternal gifts.
Go down that road to your miserable prison.
You thought your end would never arrive, 60
That death would endure your living forever,
That he never dreamed of dragging you down.
You were always secretly sowing strife,
Campaigning for cruelty, causing mayhem.
I was bound in a filthy prison of flesh. 65
You were oath-breaker, friend-hater,
Sin-slaker, malice-maker, enemy of all.
The devil had wormed his way deep down,
Next to your heart. His want was your will.”
* * *
Fragment E
* * *
“And you never wanted to work God’s will.”
So the sad soul says again to its body:
“The earth was pure before you defiled it
With your unclean corpse, your filthy flesh,
Your unliving limbs, your baleful bones. 5
Now you are hidden in a dark treasure-house
Without windows, without doors,
A pit of pain, a bed of worms.
Here you will rot, molder, and mulch.
Your limbs will lament their loss of clothes, 10
Each one twisted and tugged from the next.
Your bones will be broken, silent and still,
Until the Lord calls them up from the grave,
Raising them from the dead on Judgment Day.
Then your wretched flesh will rise up, 15
Wracked with pain, suffering from sin,
Sad at heart, to meet your Maker
And confront your depraved, degenerate deeds,
All of the evil you found so delightful
As you wandered wickedly on life’s long road. 20
Now your ears are stuffed with death and dirt,
Hearing no joyful sound, no sweet music.
These were the ears that loved to listen
To cunning words, crafty judgments,
And the evil utterances of your own mouth. 25
At the devil’s urging, which you always desired,
You robbed and pillaged the rich and poor.
That demon lured you down with his tempting,
Sultry harp-songs, the seductive strains
That you loved but the Lord loathed. 30
The devil lulled you into his dark dream
And sullied the sleep you thought so sweet.
* * *
Now you cannot wake and walk to church
To hear the music of the holy bells
That tolled a warning to each of us. 35
Now you cannot take in the teaching,
The holy scripture, that might have saved us.
You heard the devil’s lyre but not the bells.
Now your hearing-holes are bunged with dirt,
The bells of joy are beyond silence. 40
You are deaf and dumb until Judgment Day,
When the trumpets of God will summon us both
To rise up and return to the gates of justice.
There you will hear the righteous judgment
For your wicked ways, your debauched days, 45
The madness and misery that you called life.”
Then the sorrowful soul says to its body:
“Now you are sadly sent far from friends.
Your mouth is sealed shut, stoppered by death.
It cannot be opened until the Lord calls, 50
Heaven’s King arrives to deal out doom.
Then the words of the psalm will be manifest:
They shall offer a reckoning for their own deeds.
Then the souls shall recount wisely and well
What the Lord knows—for he knows all— 55
Their living history of words and deeds.
Each will receive its righteous judgment
From the mouth of God, as it was written:
Depart from me, O cursed ones,
Into the deep doom of everlasting fire. 60
Then the two of us will travel together
To the greatest of sorrows, the surest of pains,
In the company of demons who draw us down
Into the torture and torment of eternal fire.
There will be no end to that heartless heat. 65
And those who have done good will depart
Into everlasting life. Then the good will go
To dwell with God in the greatest of glories.”
* * *
Fragment F
* * *
“Listen to what the psalmist says:
I opened my mouth and drew in breath.
You opened your mouth and inhaled me then—
Alas, that I ever entered your flesh.
Your mouth was a source of malice and misery, 5
Never castigating sin but embracing the evil
In your devious mind, your deceitful heart.
You never acknowledged your abounding sins
In the presence of a priest where you might find
Both penance and pardon, the gift of grace. 10
You never lamented your loathsome acts
In honest confession, seeking the mercy
Of Christ the Lord. You never told
Your terrible crimes, unfolding your iniquity,
Or sought repentance for your soul’s rest. 15
My peace has flown, my life is lost.
Your deeds have darkened our last road
Leading to judgment. When did you ever
Use your mouth to pray for mercy to me?
Now you stand dumb at an empty doorway 20
Opened by death, who clutches the key.
You are wrapped in rags, a threadbare shroud,
Ugly and hateful for your friends to look at.
Your road of remorse is a route of misery.
You are surrounded by sins like a hedgehog’s spines, 25
Piercing and pricking your soul from within.
That animal at least is safe from its spines
Since they’re softest next to its sensitive skin
And sharply pointed outward toward its enemies.
But your spines are pointed sharply within 30
To prick and pierce your sensitive soul.
I lived with your stabbing, stinging sins,
The puncture and pain of enduring evil.
Now these sins endlessly prick me in hell,
The needles of iniquity, the spines of vice. 35
I was created in glory and given the name
Of Soul by my Shaper. As books tell us,
I was the seventh creature that God made
Through his might and mercy, his infinite word.
This is how everything came to be— 40
Heaven and earth, clouds and angels,
Wind and water, and the human soul.
These are the seven original creations
Made by the Lord, the Father’s formations,
God’s grandeur and glory. From these foundations 45
He created the world, as it is written
In the holy wisdom of sacred scripture:
Let everything be, and everything was.
The world was brought into being with a word.
He shaped in his wisdom, in the aspect of the Son, 50
All of creation in his unending power,
His promise and purpose. He gathers and guides
Everything that is in his image and likeness.
And I bore that blessed likeness of the Lord.”
* * *
Fragment G
* * *
“I was linked to you with loathsome affection,
An unwilling slave to your worldly wants.
I curse your desires that have caused me grief.
You were my body and also my betrayer,
Food for maggots, a feast for worms. 5
Why have you dragged me down into hell?
Why must I suffer for your filthy life?
Now I am free from your foul flesh
As we part in pain. Shoulder the blame
You must rightfully bear for your wretched life. 10
Your teeth are rotted, your tongue drawn back
That once pleased and deceived your enemies
But also yourself. It slandered your soul.
With false judgments, you robbed others
Of their rightful earnings, cleverly stealing 15
Wealth from the rich, pennies from the poor,
Gathering their goods into your grasping hoard,
A treasure of transgression, a storehouse of sin.
Your wealth has turned into worthless dust
Through the devil’s devising. Your gold is gone. 20
Your tongue is silent in its cave of cold.
Your treacherous words were deceitful in the beginning
And poisonous at the end. Your unrighteous judgments
Were loathsome to the Lord. The psalm says truly,
Your mouth was evil, your tongue framed deceit. 25
It babbled falsely, amusing your enemies.
It hewed the helpless, maimed the miserable,
Punished the poor. Its piercing slander
Pleased the devil with its cunning deceit,
Its unleashed anger, its unholy iniquity. 30
All these sins were the devil’s delight.
May your words find woe, your tongue torment,
Your mind misery, your heart a heartless
Home in hell. We are bound together
Beyond blessing in the eternal abyss. 35
It’s no wonder what wickedness brings—
You can see it in scripture and holy books,
This terrible truth that I touch on here.
I was taught the truth by my beloved Father
Before I began my sad life with you. 40
I was God’s daughter whom you always despised,
The righteous one your wickedness ruined,
The soul supposed to sustain the body,
Shape a virtuous life without such sin
And the suffering that was not willed by God. 45
Once I left, you were lifeless and lost.
I was your spouse as the psalmist says:
Your wife is like a fruitful vine,
With the sweetest grapes ready to sustain you.
We were wedded together at the baptismal font, 50
Which you have fouled with your filthy oaths,
Your broken promises, your sinister deeds.
The Complete Old English Poems Page 123
