Spelling the Wonders of God’s Creation: The Old English “Order of the World”

There’s a beautiful lesser-known poem from the Old English Exeter Book called “The Order of the World” (alternately, and I think more appropriately, titled “The Wonder of Creation”). The short poem (100 lines) is, as it terms itself, a herespel (line 37), a praise song to God the Father Almighty extolling the beauties of His creation, particularly the sunrise and sunset, the sea and the land.

Sunset over the Pacific Ocean

After an introduction of sorts, the Creation song begins:

Lo! In the beginning the Father Almighty,

High guardian of treasure, formed heaven and earth,

The wide depths of the sea and the visible world, (lines 38-40)

I find this translation by R. M. Liuzza to be lovely.* He has had to modernize many of the obsolete words, but has done so in a way that keeps the original OE alliterative aesthetics in the lines, if not the actual alliterative sounds because so many of the poetic words used in “The Order of the World” have fallen out of the English language.**

Take these lines of the Creation song that introduce the poet’s primary focus on the heavenly bodies, particularly the sun:

So they bear forth beauty into the world,

the glory of God and his generous deeds. (47-48; my emphasis)

The original alliteration in line 47 was on worulde and an obsolete word for beauty, wlite. By translating wlite as “beauty,” Liuzza has shifted the alliteration of the line off of “world” to the verb “bear” (OE berath). It would be a significant shift aesthetically for a listener 1000 years ago, but works just fine for a modern reader.***

We can find another beautiful passage in Liuzza’s translation a few lines later in the praise song:

. . . His power propels

heaven’s candle and the high waves with it,

the Lord of life beckons, and brings

all creation into his own vast embrace. (53-56)

From the general picture of “heaven’s candle” (a popular OE metaphor for the sun) above and the seas beneath, the poet moves into images of the sunrise and then sunset. The sunrise is “this bright light / that comes over the misty cliffs each morning / traversing the waves adorned with wonders” (59-61).

If the sun arrives adorned with wonders, it departs likewise:

Departing with wonder into the western sky,

the most glorious star goes traveling in a troop,

until in the evening it treads the edge

of the outer ocean, and summons another gloom; (68-71)

Like the idealized, often sea-faring Germanic warrior of Old English poetry, the sun travels across the sky with companions, although I’m not sure what the poet envisions these to be (clouds? the unseen heavenly bodies?).

No doubt all of us can recall amazing sunsets (and possibly for you early birds even sunrises) that we have experienced during our lives. Indeed, one of the wonderful things about the old books is how they can help people throughout the ages feel a kinship with each other. As the “Order of the World” poet demonstrates, over a thousand years ago people were just as captivated by the diurnal appearance and disappearance of “heaven’s candle.”

After a brief contemplation on the mystery of the sun after it “passes beyond the horizon / into murk and gloom under the mass of waters” (78-79), the poet offers a beautiful sum-up of his praise song. In more simple, yet highly poetic, lines the poet sings,

And so he knit together—as he well knew how—

Day with night, depth with height,

The sky with the sea, the shore with the streams,

Land and water, fishes and waves.

That work never weakens, he holds it all well; (82-86)

Line 82 is almost an exact replica of line 43, near the beginning of the herespel, which, as typical with OE poetry, is a poem within the poem. The emphasis is on God as the great crafter/shaper with the wisdom to join together all of his Creation.

Such Creation praise songs are familiar in the biblical Psalms and in Old English literature.**** Yet “The Order of the World” is not just a beautiful depiction of the sun and sea and not just a praise song to God. Old English words are often compounds, and the latter half of herespel (line 37, translated by Liuzza “praise-song”), usually means in Old English a discourse, homily/sermon, or narrative. (Just as a side note, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, the noun “spell” in English isn’t associated with enchantment until centuries later.)

Since this very poetic poem is intended as a homily, the poet instructs his hearers to “Learn these lessons!” (Leorna thas lare; literally “Learn this lore”; line 23). Didactic poetry is the norm in the Middle Ages, and the poet operates under the assumption that the order and beauties of God’s creation should result naturally in obedience to the Creator (cf. Romans 1:18-25). The poem thus concludes,

And so a man should strive to obey the Maker,

every child of men should abandon idle lusts,

life’s fleeting fancies, and hurry to true bliss,

abandon every hateful enmity, set aside

old sinful deeds, and set out for that better realm. (98-102)

Abandon idle pleasures, particularly sinful ones, and set your sights on things above, preaches the poet. Why? Because this life is “fleeting,” which is how many translators render the OE word læne (present-day English “loan”). That is, our life is on loan to us—a repeated idea in OE literature (cf. The Wanderer lines 108-10, The Seafarer line 66, Beowulf 2845).

“The Order of the World” thus encourages both its original hearers and its present-day readers, in contemplating the order and beauty of Creation, to humble themselves before their Almighty Creator.*****

* R. M. Liuzza, Old English Poetry: An Anthology (Broadview, 2014). You can view the original poem at the University of Virginia Old English site: http://faculty.virginia.edu/OldEnglish/aspr/a3.14.html

** Old English poetry relies on alliteration and stresses, rather than rhyme, using the beginning sounds of words (alliteration) to link together the two halves of a poetic line. Rhyme in OE poetry is very rare.

*** Line 48 is a perfect example of OE alliterative aesthetics, with two words in the first half of the line alliterating with one in the second half: “dryhtnes duguthe ond his dæda thrym.” Given all the obsolete words, the “d” alliteration does not, however, work when translated to modern English. Liuzza has kept “deeds” (OE “dæda”) but shifted the alliteration to the modern “g” words.

**** See, for example, Psalm 19 or 104, as well as the OE “Cædmon’s Hymn” and Beowulf lines 90-98.

**** Contrast the example of the monster Grendel in the Old English poem Beowulf, who is enraged by the Creation-focused song of praise he hears sung in Hrothgar’s meadhall and lashes out in violence as God’s adversary (line 786), ultimately earning God’s judgment as meted out by Beowulf (cf. lines 86-104, 381-4, 685-7, 711, 928-31, etc.).

Whither Have You Wandered? Lessons from the Old English Poem “Widsith”

Whither Have You Wandered? Lessons from the Old English Poem “Widsith”

This past spring I covered several Old English poems with my graduate class from a relatively recent anthology edited and translated by R. M. Liuzza. The final piece in this collection is a short 143-line poem called “Widsith.” As with most Old English poetry (written in the purely Germanic Anglo-Saxon English language and therefore accessible to modern readers only via translation), its author is unknown.* “Widsith” literally means “wide-traveler.” The poem tells us that Widsith is one of the “gleomen” (lit. glee-men; line 136), or bards, who made their living in the Middle Ages by singing tales while playing a harp. (Widsith has named his harp “Scilling.”)

harp from Anglo-Saxon exhibit at the British Museum

Throughout the poem Widsith boasts of where he has been and what men or tribes of power and influence he has played for, as well as what wisdom he has gleaned about valor, authority, and generosity:

Since I have sojourned in many strange lands

Across the wide world, where I have come to know

Good and evil, cut off from my home,

Wandered wide, far away from my kinsmen,

Therefore I can sing and tell a tale. (lines 50-54)

I had not expected this poem to “do much” for me. For one, it seems like a lot of name-dropping: in places, somewhat like an awards-acceptance speech or the acknowledgements preface to a book. For instance, “And I was with Eormanric all the while, / where the king of the Goths did good for me; / he gave me a ring” (lines 88-90).

In others, the poem reads more like a boastful resumé of contacts and accomplishments, such as “I was also in Italy with Ælfwine” (line 70), and when Widsith sings of the generous queen Ealhhild, “many men, proud of heart, / said in words what they knew well, / that they had never heard a better song” (106-8).

The refrain “I was with” (OE “Ic wæs mid”) echoes throughout the poem/song, as in line 79: “I was with the Scots” (OE “Mid Scottum ic wæs”).

Yet, looking more closely at the variety of people groups “name-dropped,” I realized that as widely traveled as Widsith claims to be, he cannot possibly have been with the Huns, the Angles, and the Romans (lines 57, 61, 69). The Swedes, the Syrians, and the Greeks (58, 75, 76). Nor with Caesar (76). Much less the Israelites, Assyrians, Indians, Egyptians, Medes, and Persians (82-84).

Anyone familiar with the biblical Old Testament immediately starts making connections with people groups in this last passage: the Assyrians conquering the northern kingdom of Israel; the Hebrews enslaved by the Egyptians (OE “Ebreum,” line 83**); the southern kingdom of Judah conquered by the Medo-Persians and taken into exile. Clearly the “Widsith” poet knew his Old Testament Bible: how else could be have been “with” all of these peoples?

His traveling now becomes clear: much of it has been done through his encounter with stories. These “meetings” with people, real and some likely imagined, have helped form his experience.

In the closing chapter of his book An Experiment in Criticism, C. S. Lewis reminds us that such encounters are one of the primary reasons for reading good, imaginative literature (“as opposed to scientific or otherwise informative reading,” p. 136):

“What then,” Lewis says, “is the good of . . . occupying our hearts with stories of what never happened and entering vicariously into feelings which we should try to avoid having in our own person? . . . The nearest I have yet got to an answer,” he continues, “is that we seek an enlargement of our being. We want to be more than ourselves. . . . We want to see with other eyes, to imagine with other imaginations, to feel with other hearts, as well as with our own” (Experiment in Criticism 137).

The stories Widsith has encountered and the ones that he retells have been part of his wide wandering, just as much as any experience with King Guthhere of the Burgundians, who gave him a ring “as my song’s reward” (line 67), or Queen Ealhhild the peace-weaver, whom Widsith says he accompanied on her journey to Eormanric, king of the Ostrogoths (5-8).

Widsith says he has been with both “heathens and heroes” (line 81) and makes several references early on to people and events found in that greatest of Old English poems Beowulf (cf. lines 45-49). (I too have “traveled” back to the land of the Half-Danes under Hrothgar, who is referenced here, and to Beowulf’s home realm of the Geats: have you?) [See my past post on Beowulf.]

Toward the end of “Widsith” the repeated phrase is “I sought” (OE “sohte ic”), followed by individuals’ names, all in the context of “seeking the best companions” (line 110). For example, “I sought Eadwin and Elsa” (117). The poet is clear that he is traveling, as he “pass[es] through all the land of the Goths” and others (109), to find a good “band of comrades” (125).*** Applying that to our figurative wandering through stories, what kind of comrades are we seeking? Are we seeking the most trustworthy companions?

Literature, says C. S. Lewis, “admits us to experiences other than our own.” However, he continues, “They are not, any more than our personal experiences, all equally worth having” (pp. 139-40).

Widsith has sought to enrich himself through his wanderings, both literal (he has been rewarded with rings and other treasures by appreciative patrons) and through tales he has “heard” (cf. lines 10 & 16/17). As with most Old English poets, he looks for lessons, mostly here about leadership: a good prince guides his land well, knowing his authority comes from God (10-13, 131-34).

When Widsith’s wide-traveling enriches him, he is a model of gratitude: “I make known before many in the mead-hall / how my noble patrons chose to reward me” (lines 55-56). Widsith, according to the custom of his society, pays these gifts forward when he returns home, offering his treasures to his own lord, Eadgils, in gratitude for protection and a gift of land (93-95). As a grateful man who recognizes generosity and pays it forward, Widsith is himself commended by the poet-narrator of the poem: “And so, wandering as their fate unfolds, / the singers of men among many lands, / speak[] at need, saying words of thanks” (135-37).

How wide have you wandered? How might you write your own account of wanderings “with” stories/songs/Scriptures (like the “Widsith” poet)?

As a mom of an infant daughter, I don’t get to travel much anymore, whether literally or even figuratively through reading. However, perhaps your traveling is more through television or film stories than through reading. The application works equally well to the latest series binge-watched on Netflix or Amazon. Where have you been wandering? Are you seeking the best companions? Is your traveling enriching you (or impoverishing you)? Is it leading you toward a more thankful heart?

* Old English poetry was composed from the 7^th through the 11^th centuries A.D., before the Norman Conquest of England in A.D. 1066, following which the English language changed dramatically (enter Norman French), as did English poetry in both style and subject. “Widsith” is from the Exeter Book, one of the few surviving manuscripts of Old English texts.

** I do confess to being a bit mystified why Indians (that is, people from India) should come between the obvious Hebrews and Egyptians match-up in line 83, though (OE “mid Ebreum ond mid Indeum ond mid Egyptum”). Perhaps someone can enlighten me here?

*** The same word is in the OE here at lines 110 & 125: “gesitha.” It’s an obsolete word that is used widely in OE heroic poems to refer to loyal warrior companions. They fight together and then socialize together in the meadhall. Essentially a band of brothers: the people you trust to have your back and who accompany you through life.