The Pearl | Page 2

longing of the poet, but to the mediaevalist symbolic theology was a passion. Precisely in the moment when she begins a discourse concerning the doctrine of redemption, Beatrice turns upon Dante "eyes that might make a man happy in the fire," and at its close he looks upon her and beholds her "grow more beautiful."[3] If even Beatrice has been considered mere personification, it is natural that the Pearl should be so regarded, but the plain reader finds in the symbolic maiden of the English poem, as in the transfigured lady of the Italian, some record of a human being whose loss was anguish, and whose presence rapture, to a poet long ago.
The lover of things medi?val will find in this little book not only the familiar garden of Guillaume de Lorris, of Boccaccio and of Chaucer, but an unexpected and enchanting vision of great forest and rushing water, of hillside and plain, of crystal cliffs and flame-winged birds; of the Pearl among her white peers; of the Apocalyptic Jerusalem, discovered to the poet, it may be, as a goodly Gothic city, though its walls are built of precious stone, and its towers rise from neither church nor minster.
If even a few readers turn from the modern to the original version, the translation will have had fair fortune, for the author of "The Pearl" is, though unknown and unnamed, a poet second only to Chaucer in Chaucer's generation.
It is a pleasure to record my many debts of gratitude: to Professor Frank H. Chase of Beloit, Professor John L. Lowes of Swarthmore, and Dr. Charles G. Osgood of Princeton, for their careful reading of the translation in manuscript, with invaluable assistance and suggestion; to Professor Martha Hale Shackford, and Miss Laura A. Hibbard, for constant aid while the work was in making, and, above all, to Professor Katharine Lee Bates for a critical, line by line, comparison of this version with the original.
[Footnote 1: Par. III.]
[Footnote 2: Pearl, stanza 71.]
[Footnote 3: Par. VII, II. 17-18; Par. VIII, I. 15.]
S.J.?WELLESLEY COLLEGE,?June, 1908.
EDITIONS: R. Morris, Early English text Sc. 1864; I. Gollancz, London, 1891; C.G. Osgood, Boston, 1906 (with admirable introduction, etc.). TRANSLATIONS: Gollancz (above); S. Weir Mitchell, New York, 1906 (poetic, but incomplete); G.G. Coulton, London, 1906 (metre of the original); C.G. Osgood, Princeton, 1907 (prose).
THE PEARL
I
Pearl that the Prince full well might prize,?So surely set in shining gold!?No pearl of Orient with her vies;?To prove her peerless I make bold:?So round, so radiant to mine eyes,?smooth she seemed, so small to hold,?Among all jewels judges wise?Would count her best an hundred fold.?Alas! I lost my pearl of old!?I pine with heart-pain unforgot;?Down through my arbour grass it rolled,?My own pearl, precious, without spot.
Since in that spot it slipped from me?I wait, and wish, and oft complain;?Once it would bid my sorrow flee,?And my fair fortune turn again;?It wounds my heart now ceaselessly,?And burns my breast with bitter pain.?Yet never so sweet a song may be?As, this still hour, steals through my brain,?While verity I muse in vain?How clay should her bright beauty clot;?O Earth! a brave gem thou dost stain,?My own pearl, precious, without spot!
Needs must that spot with spices spread,?Where such wealth falleth to decay;?Fair flowers, golden and blue and red,?Shine in the sunlight day by day;?Nor flower nor fruit have wither��d?On turf wherein such treasure lay;?The blade grows where the grain lies dead,?Else were no ripe wheat stored away;?Of good come good things, so we say,?Then surely such seed faileth not,?But spices spring in sweet array?From my pearl, precious, without spot.
Once, to that spot of which I rhyme,?I entered, in the arbour green,?In August, the high summer-time?When corn is cut with sickles keen;?Upon the mound where my pearl fell,?Tall, shadowing herbs grew bright and sheen,?Gilliflower, ginger and gromwell,?With peonies powdered all between.?As it was lovely to be seen,?So sweet the fragrance there, I wot,?Worthy her dwelling who hath been?My own pearl, precious, without spot.
Upon that spot my hands I crossed?In prayer, for cold at my heart caught,?And sudden sorrow surged and tossed,?Though reason reconcilement sought.?I mourned my pearl, dear beyond cost,?And strange fears with my fancy fought;?My will in wretchedness was lost,?And yet Christ comforted my thought.?Such odours to my sense were brought,?I fell upon that flowery plot,?Sleeping,--a sleep with dreams inwrought?Of my pearl, precious, without spot.
II
From the spot my spirit springs into space,?The while my body sleeping lies;?My ghost is gone in God's good grace,?Adventuring mid mysteries;?I know not what might be the place,?But I looked where tall cliffs cleave the skies,?Toward a forest I turned my face,?Where ranks of radiant rocks arise.?A man might scarce believe his eyes,?Such gleaming glory was from them sent;?No woven web may men devise?Of half such wondrous beauties blent.
In beauty shone each fair hillside?With crystal cliffs in shining row,?While bright woods everywhere