Metres 5-9

V

You can perceive clearly by the sun
and by all the other stars which brightest shine across the cities.
If the dark clouds should hang before them,
then they could not send down their rays so radiant,
until the thick clouds become thinned.

So often the south wind grimly stirs up
the smooth sea, grey and glassy-clear,
when they are mixed by a great tempest,
moving the whale-waters—then they are false
whose face was gleaming before.

So often the wellspring washes forth
from the hoary cliffs, cool and pure,
and flows straight down by rights,
running along with its landscape,
until the mountain’s mighty stone
cleaves it from within, and lies in its midst,
rolling away from that peak.
Afterwards it becomes separated into two—
the brightness of the brook is disturbed and blended,
the stream is diverted from its straight course,
running apart in rivulets.

So now the shadows of your heart
wishes to withstand the light of my teaching
and greatly disturb your heart-thoughts.
But if you now desire it, as well as you might,
to plainly perceive that true light,
that bright belief, you must forsake
this idle and excessive delight, this useless joy.

You must as well abandon the wicked fear
of earthly miseries, nor may you despair for them all,
nor ever allow yourself to be weakened by pride,
lest you become disgraced with your arrogance soon,
and raised up with carelessness and worldly delight.
Nor despair even so weakly in any good things,
when your adversary fattens you for the world,
you may be oppressed by these matters and you
may dread them very strongly. Because the mind
will always be greatly bound up with confusion,
if both of these evils may vex it and toil within.

Therefore these two misfortunes draw together
against the mind before the mist of error,
that the eternal sun may not illuminate it within,
due to the dark clouds, before they melt away.

VI

Then Lady Wisdom unlocked her word-hoard,
singing truth-saws and speaking in this way:

“When the sun is shining its clearest and brightest
from heaven, it quickly becomes obscured
all over the earth by another object in space,
and then its brilliance becomes nothing,
set against the light of the sun.

When the gentle wind blows from the south or west
under the heavens, then the blossoms of the field
quickly grow up and are allowed to be joyful.
But the storm so stark, when he comes in strength,
from the north or the east, he swiftly seizes the lovely rose—
and also the northern tempest afflicts the spacious sea,
stirring it up strongly, beating upon its own shores.

Alas, nothing on earth is of stable work
and may not ever abide in this world!

VII

Next Lady Wisdom attended to her practice,
singing her wise words, a poem according to her message,
chanting a certain true statement further,
speaking that she had never heard that on a high hill
any man could establish a firm-roofed hall.

“No man needs also to believe in these works,
to ever mediate wisdom with pride.
Have you ever heard that any man
who could set a fixed hall on a sand dune?

“Nor could any man raise up wisdom where
covetousness overshadows the mountains.
Bare sand will swallow the rains,
and so does the bottomless greed of the rich
for boasting and trinkets,
drinking to the dregs failing prosperity,
and though the thirst of these beggars will never be cooled.

“Nor can the house of man last for long
on the mountainside, because the swift winds
will sweep it down suddenly.
Nor will sand be any better guardian
of the house to any man against a great rain,
but it will be tumbled to the ground,
the sand sinking after the downpour.

“So will be the mind of every lonely man
greatly undermined from an agitated place,
when the wind of worldly misery
under the skies strongly troubles it,
or the fierce rains moves it about—
a certain anxiety, universal superfluity.

“But he who wishes to possess true and eternal happiness,
he shall quickly fly from these worldly facades,
and build himself afterwards a house of the mind,
where he can find humble stones, a huge fortress
and a ready foundation.

“He will not need to collapse though the winds
of worldly misery should drive against it
or intense rains of anxiety, because in that valley
the lord of settled humility himself dwells,
were wisdom always abides in the mind.
Therefore wise world-men may always lead a secure life
without alteration.

“Then he would reject all this earthly good
and also become accustomed to its predictable evils,
expecting them eternally to follow after,
and then almighty good from every direction
continually and always keeps him
the one dwelling alone through the Measurer’s grace,
though the wind of worldly woe troubles him
greatly and eternal care encumber him,
then the grim wind of worldly good blows angrily
against him, although always his anxiety
of worldly fortune cruelly afflicts him.”

VIII

As soon as Lady Wisdom had these words
plainly related, she then began to afterwards
sing in sooth-words, and spoke herself thusly:

“Listen, the former age was bountiful
for all earth-dwellers throughout the world,
when all of the earth-fruits seemed sufficient
for everyone. Now it is not so!

“There were no opulent homes across the world,
nor was there a wide assortment of food and drink,
nor did they care indeed for these garments
that now lordly men esteem as dearest.

Because none of these things existed yet,
nor were they seen among the sea-dwellers.

“Listen! Nor had they heard anywhere around them.
of these rash and sinful desires, rather
they could attend to what was most apt
by kind, just as Christ himself had made them.

“They only ate one meal during the day,
at even-tide, of the blossoms of the earth,
of the groves and the herbs, not at all drinking
wine shining from the goblet. There was no man
who knew how to mediate his meat or drink,
water with honey, nor did they knit together
their raiment with silk, with cunning skill
girding fine fabrics, nor did they raise up
costly halls with cleverness, instead they always
beslept themselves the whole year
outside, under the shadow of trees,
drinking river water cool from the stream.

Never did a merchant see over the blending of waves
a foreign shore. Indeed, men did not know
about ship-reavers, just as no man had spoken
about fighting. Nor was the earth yet defiled
with the blood of man that dyed the blade red,
just as no world-dwelling man had ever seen
another wounded under the sun.

No one was more worthy in the world then,
if another found his desires to be harmful to humans—
he would be hated by everyone.

Alas! Would that it were so, that God would
now, within our days, here on earth,
throughout the wideness of the world,
make it so in every way, under the sun.

unfinished