C.D. Warner, et al., comp.
The Library of the World’s Best Literature. An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.
IV. Cornish: From ‘Origo Mundi,’ in the ‘Ordinalia’
By Celtic Literature
C
That thou comest so far?
Tell me anon.
Seth—O Angel, I will tell it thee:
My father is old and weary;
He wishes no longer to live;
And through me he prayed thee
To tell the truth
Of the oil of mercy promised
To him at the last day.
Cherubin—Within the gate put thou thy head,
And behold it all, nor fear,
Whatever thou seest.
And look on all sides,
Spy out every detail,
Search out everything carefully.
Seth—Very gladly I will do it;
I am glad to have permission
To know what is there
And tell it to my father.[And he looks and turns round, saying:
Fair field to behold is this;
Hapless he who lost the land.
But for the tree I wonder greatly
That it should be dry.
But I trow that it went dry
And all was made bare, for the sin
Which my father and mother sinned.
Like the prints of their feet,
They all became dry as herbs,
Alas, when the morsel was eaten.
Cherubin—O Seth, thou art come
Within the gate of Paradise:
Tell me what thou sawest.
Seth—All the beauty that I saw
Tongue of man can never tell,
Of good fruits and beauteous flowers,
Of minstrels and sweet song,
A fountain bright as silver,
And flowing from it four great streams,
That there is a desire to gaze upon them.
In it there is a tree,
High and with many boughs,
But they are bare and leafless.
Bark there is none around it;
From the stem to the head
All its branches are bare.
And below when I looked,
I saw its roots
Even into hell descending,
In the midst of great darkness;
And its branches growing up
Even to heaven high in light.
And it was wholly without bark,
Both the head and the boughs.
Cherubin—Look yet again within,
And all else thou shalt see
Before thou come from it.
Seth—I am happy to have leave;
I will go to the gate at once,
That I may see further good.[He goes and looks and returns.
Cherubin—Dost thou see more now
Than what there was just now?
Seth—There is a serpent in the tree:
Truly a hideous beast is he.
Cherubin—Go yet the third time to it,
And look better at the tree.
Look what you can see on it
Besides roots and branches.
Seth—Cherubin, angel of the God of grace,
High in the branches of the tree I saw
A new-born child, wrapped in swaddling clothes
And bound with bands.
Cherubin—It was God’s son that thou sawest,
Like a child in swaddling clothes.
He will redeem Adam thy father
With his flesh and blood likewise,
When the time is come,
And thy mother and all good people.
He is the oil of mercy
Which was promised to thy father.
Through his death truly
Shall all the world be saved.