The Anathemata
Mabinog’s Liturgy (continued)
In the first month
in the week of metamorphosisa
the fifth day past
at about the sixth hour after
the dusk of it
toward the ebb-time
in the median silences
for a second time
again in middle night-course
he girds himself.1
Within doors, attended
with lamps lighted.
No hill-pastores lauding2
for Burning Babe
for Shepherd-Bearer.3
Nor now far-duces star-night
nor swaddlings now:
his praetexta is long since cast.
Is it the tinctured picta
he puts on?
Yes, and the flowered palmata
by anticipation:
this is ‘his own raiment’.4
David Jones notes
1 Cf. the Introit for the Sunday within the Octave of Christmas, Dum medium silentium. ‘When all things were in quiet silence and the night was in the midst of her course thy almighty Word, O Lord, came down from heaven . . .
‘The Lord is clothed with strength and has girded himself.’ Wisdom XVII and Ps. XCII (Vulgate) Ps. XCIII (A.V.)
2 Cf. Christmas carol, quem pastores laudavere.
3 Cf. Southwell’s Burning Babe and Paul’s (?) ‘that great shepherd of the sheep’ .
4 The praetexta, as worn by children, the toga picta, dyed red with gold stars, and the tunica palmata, purple embroidered with palm-leaves, worn at triumphs. See Matt. XXVII, 31, ‘. . . they took the robe off from him and put his own raiment on him’, and Isaias LXIII, 1-2, ‘Who is this that cometh from Edom with dyed garments from Bosrah, this that is glorious in his apparel, travelling in the greatness of his strength . . . wherefore art thou red in thine apparel’. (A.V.)
additional notes
DJ note 3: the question mark after ‘Paul’s’ is beacuse the phrase is from the Letter to the Hebrews (13:20), which though traditionally attributed to Paul has long been strongly suspected of having being written by someone else.
a week of metamorphosis: the week of the Passover.
The time is near midnight of Thursday/Friday. As recorded in the Gospels, for a second time Christ
went out into the Garden of Gethsemane to pray while his disciples slept.
see also
semantic structures
Note how the Latin endings in each point out the nice parallelism between the hill-pastores (shepherds) and far-duces (rulers) who were both led to the stable where he was born.
comments
The context now switches from the mythic to the historic: to the time between the Last Supper and the arrest of Jesus and the place to the Garden of Gethsemane. The poet, however, also contrasts this with the birth of Jesus.