god-children too many have been slain throughout this people, besides others all too many, who, without fault, have been destroyed. Too many holy places, far and wide, have perished, because certain men were lodged there, as they would not have been, if we had wished to know reverence for God's peace. Christian folk too many have been sold all the while out of this land. All this is loathsome to God, let him believe it who will. . . . Also we know full well whence hath come the evil that a father sell his son for a price, and the son his mother, and one brother the other, into the power of strangers outside this nation. All these are mickle and terrible deeds, as he may 15 have seldom recked what they wrought in word crowd of Christian men from sea to sea through the nations, huddled together, to the shame of us all in the sight of the world,-if in earnest we knew any shame or even would rightly 5 understand. And all the misery that we continually suffer we repay with honor to them that shame us. We pay gelds to them continually, and they abuse us daily. They harry, they burn, they spoil and plunder, and carry 10 off to the ships; and lo, what else in these troubles is clear and manifest but God's wrath towards this people? understand who will; and there are yet greater and more manifold that afflict this people. Many are forsworn and greatly purjured; pledges are broken again and again; and it is No wonder misfortune is upon us, for we know full well that now for many years men or deed; but this nation hath become, as it may appear, very sinful, through manifold sins and misdeeds, through murder and evil, through greed and covetousness, rapine and robbery, clear in this land that God's wrath sits heavily 20 treachery and heathen vices, through treason upon us,-let him who can, understand. and deceit, through law-breaking and sedition, through attacks on kinsmen, through manslaughter and violation of religious vows, through adultery and incest and divers forni Lo, how can greater shame come upon men through God's wrath than cometh upon us, for our own deserts? Though a thrall escape from his lord and leave Christendom to become a 25 cations. Also, as we said before, through oathViking, and it come about afterward that thane and thrall come together in battle, if the thrall foully slay the thane, the thane for all his relations must lie without wer-geld, and if the thane foully kill the thrall whom he 30 Also here in the land are reprobate apostates breaking and pledge-breaking, and through divers falsehoods, more than should be are ruined and forsworn. Breaches of the peace and of fasting are wrought again and again. and hostile persecutors of the Church, and cruel tyrants, all too many; despisers of divine law and Christian customs; and everywhere in the nation foolish mockers, most often of those formerly owned, he must pay the wer-geld of a nothing hath prospered within or without, but very often of those things that belong of right to God's law. Therefore hath now come about the wide-spread evil custom that men are more ashamed of good deeds than of misdeeds, for men too often deride good deeds, and all too much revile the pious, and blame and greet with contumely those who love right and have in any measure the fear of God. Because men despise all that they ought to praise and continually loathe what they should love, all too many are brought to evil thoughts and deeds, so that they are not ashamed though they sin greatly and work in all things against God himself; but because of idle calumnies they are 50 ashamed to better their misdeeds, as books teach,-like those fools who for their pride will not save themselves before that time when they cannot though they would. . The thane was of the higher rank, and the thrall of the lowest rank in old English society. Wer-geld, or Man-price, was the sum at which a man's life was valued according to law, the amount varying for the different ranks of society. If one murdered another, the murderer could atone for his crime by paying wer-geld to the kinsmen of the one slain. Wulfstan's complaint is that the law pertaining to wer-gelds was no longer ad- 55 ministered with justice, and that in the case described, the thane who should kill his escaped thrall, or slave, would have to pay the same wer-geld as if he had killed a thane, and this in spite of the fact that the thrall had joined the enemy. The Danes, or Vikings. An historian there was in the time of the Britons, Gildas by name, who wrote of their misdeeds, how by their sins they so greatly 8 Payments of money to buy off the Danes. A Romanized Briton who, about 547, wrote a history of Britain from Roman times to his own day. angered God that He very soon let the army of the English win their land and entirely destroyed the flower of the Britons. This, he said, came about because the clergy broke their vows, and laymen the law, because of plundering by the rich, extortion, evil laws of princes, false judgments; because of the sloth and ignorance of bishops, and the wicked cowardice of God's ministers, who all too often were silent concerning the truth, and mumbled within 10 us. Let us rightly order words and works, and us do as we have need to do, turn to the right and in some measure shun and forsake unrighteousness, and eagerly better what we have heretofore broken. Let us seek Christ on our 5 knees and often call upon Him with trembling heart and earn His mercy. Let us love God and fulfill God's laws, and perform eagerly what we promised when we received baptism, or those promised who at baptism spoke for their jaws when they should have called out. Through foul wantonness of the folk, through gluttony and manifold sins, they ruined their land, and themselves perished. willingly cleanse our inner thoughts, carefully keep oath and pledge, and without weakness have some faith amongst us. Let us often consider the great judgment we shall all come But let us do, as is needful for us,-take 15 to, and eagerly save ourselves from the raging warning by such. Sooth is it that I say, worse deeds we know have been among the English than we have heard of anywhere among the Britons, and therefore have we great need to reflect and to reconcile ourselves to God. Let 20 fire of hell's torment, and earn for us the glory and the gladness that God hath prepared for those who work His will in the world. May God help us. Amen. It readily would learn And follow it, fulfilling it With thought, with word, with deed, And therefore yearnedst thou that I This work for thee should work; And I have forwarded it for thee, And all through help of Christ. And since the holy gospel book All this goodness shows us, This sevenfold good that Christ to us Did grant through His great love, For this 'tis meet all Christian folk Should follow gospel's lore. And therefore have I rendered it That all good English folk 35 There's none so rich, nor none so free, But that he soon shall hence away. Nothing may ever his warrant be, Gold, nor silver, nor ermine gay. Though swift, his end he may not flee, Nor shield his life for a single day. Thus is this world, as thou may'st see, Like to the shadow that glides away. 40 To win through Christ in Christendom The soul's salvation true. This world all passes as the wind, 25 30 50 The love that may not here abide, 35 40 Amadas, Tristram, did they stay, They are as though they never were, How these were slain with tortures dread, For though a mighty man he were And when thou sittest sorrowing, There where he sits in Heaven's high sphere. 125 THE OWL AND THE NIGHTINGALE1 (c. 1216-1225) Once within a summer's dale, In a very secret vale, 75 Heard I 'gainst each other rail Hoary Owl and Nightingale. That strife was stiff, and stark, and strong, 5 Now 'twas soft, now loud it rung, And each bird would the other flout, 80 And all the evil mood let out; And each said of the other's way The very worst she knew to say; Indeed, about each other's song 85 00 90 95 100 The strife they waged was very strong. She sat upon a pleasant bough, Where in a thick and lonely hedge, Mingled soft shoots and greenest sedge. 1 This poem and the following are examples of a popular poetic mode in the middle ages, i. e. debates or disputes. In The Owl and the Nightingale, the two birds are represented as disputing over their respective modes of life. The poem has a broad human interest, as the two birds express two opposing ideals of life: the nightingale that of the refined, joyous, pleasure-lover; the owl, that of the ascetic. The birds submit their case at last to the judgment of Nicholas of Guildford, whom some suppose to be the author of the poem. |