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Reference
>
Cambridge History
>
From the Beginnings to the Cycles of Romance
>
Pearl, Cleanness, Patience and Sir Gawayne
>
Cleanness
and
Patience
Sources and Metre of
Pearl
Sir Gawayne and the Grene Knight
CONTENTS
·
VOLUME CONTENTS
·
INDEX OF ALL CHAPTERS
·
BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD
The Cambridge History of English and American Literature in 18 Volumes
(190721).
Volume I. From the Beginnings to the Cycles of Romance.
XV.
Pearl, Cleanness, Patience and Sir Gawayne
.
§ 2.
Cleanness
and
Patience
.
The second poem in the MS.,
Cleanness,
relates, in epic style, three great subjects from scriptural history, so chosen as to enforce the lesson of purity. After a prologue, treating of the parable of the Marriage Feast, the author deals in characteristic manner with the Flood, the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, and the fall of Belshazzar. The poem is written in long lines, alliterative and rimeless, and is divided into thirteen sections of varying length, the whole consisting of 1812 lines.
13
The third poem is a metrical rendering of the story of Jonah, and its subject, too, as in the case of
Cleanness,
is indicated by its first word,
Patience.
Though, at first sight, the metre of the two poems seems to be identical throughout, it is to be noted that the lines of
Patience
divide into what may almost be described as stanzas of four lines; towards the end of the poem, there is a three-line group, either designed so by the poet or due to scribal omission. The same tendency towards the four-lined stanza is to be found in parts of
Cleanness,
more especially at the beginning and end of the poem.
Patience
consists of 531 lines; it is terser, more vivid and more highly finished, than the longer poem
Cleanness.
It is a masterly paraphrase of Scripture, bringing the story clearly and forcibly home to English folk of the fourteenth century. The authors delight in his subject is felt in every line. In
Cleanness,
especially characteristic of the author is the description of the holy vesselsthe basins of gold, and the cups, arrayed like castles with battlements, with towers and lofty pinnacles, with branches and leaves portrayed upon them, the flowers being white pearl, and the fruit flaming gems. The two poems,
Cleanness
and
Patience,
judged by the tests of vocabulary, richness of expression, rhythm, descriptive power, spirit and tone, delight in nature, more especially when agitated by storm and tempest, are manifestly by the same author as
Pearl,
to which poem, indeed, they may be regarded as pendants, dwelling more definitely on its two main themes purity and submission to the Divine will. The link that binds
Cleanness
to
Pearl
is unmistakable. The pearl is there again taken as the type of purity:
How canst thou approach His court save thou be clean?
Through shrift thou mayst shine, though thou hast served shame;
thou mayst become pure through penance, till thou art a pearl.
The pearl is praised wherever gems are seen,
though it be not the dearest by way of merchandise.
Why is the pearl so prized, save for its purity,
that wins praise for it above all white stones?
It shineth so bright; it is so round of shape;
without fault or stain; if it be truly a pearl.
It becometh never the worse for wear,
be it neer so old, if it remain but whole.
If by chance t is uncared for and becometh dim,
left neglected in some ladys bower,
wash it worthily in wine, as its nature requireth:
it becometh een clearer than ever before.
So if a mortal be defiled ignobly,
yea, polluted in soul, let him seek shrift;
he may purify him by priest and by penance,
and grow brighter than beryl or clustering pearls.
14
If there were any doubt of identity of authorship in respect of the two poems, it would be readily dispelled by a comparison of the Deluge in
Cleanness
with the sea-storm in
Patience.
Cleanness
and
Patience
place their author among the older English epic poets. They show us more clearly than
Pearl
that the poet is a Cbackward link to the distant days of Cynewulf; it is with the Old English epic poets that he must be compared if the special properties of these poems are to be understood. But in one gift he is richer than his predecessorsthe gift of humour. Earlier English literature cannot give us any such combination of didactic intensity and grim fancy as the poet displays at times in these small epics. One instance may be quoted, namely, the description of Jonahs abode in the whale:
As a mote in at a minster door, so mighty were its jaws,
Jonah enters by the gills, through slime and gore;
he reeled in through a gullet, that seemed to him a road,
tumbling about, aye head over heels,
till he staggers to a place as broad as a hall;
then he fixes his feet there and gropes all about,
and stands up in its belly, that stank as the devil;
in sorry plight there, mid grease that savoured as hell his
bower was arrayed, who would fain risk no ill.
Then he lurks there and seeks in each nook of the navel
the best sheltered spot, yet nowhere he finds
rest or recovery, but filthy mire wherever he goes; but God is ever dear;
and he tarried at length and called to the Prince .
Then he reached a nook and held himself there,
where no foul filth encumbered him about.
He sat there as safe, save for darkness alone,
as in the boats stern, where he had slept ere.
Thus, in the beasts bowel, he abides there alive,
three days and three nights, thinking aye on the Lord,
His might and His mercy and His measure eke;
now he knows Him in woe, who would not in weal.
15
CONTENTS
·
VOLUME CONTENTS
·
INDEX OF ALL CHAPTERS
·
BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD
Sources and Metre of
Pearl
Sir Gawayne and the Grene Knight
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·
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·
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