The Anathemata
Sherthursdaye and Venus day (continued)
He by whom is she to whom by a wise allegory they make apply, ante colles ego parturiebar : she that laughs last.1
Sophia’s child that calls him master
he her groom that is his mother.
Her’s who at twelve years taught men:
the sophists wonder
where they stand.2
Stands a lady
on a mountain
who she is
they could not know.
His waters were in her pail
her federal waters ark’d him.3
He by whom the welling fontes
are from his paradise-font mandated4
to make virid Gwenfrewi’s5 glen, Dyfrdwy
to crystal his ferned Hodni6 dell
dewy for the Dyfrwr7
by this preclear and innocent creature.8
He whose greater signs are
per creaturam aquam9
he of all the schouris balm
and every dew10
continually.
Who primordially separated
this simple and fecund creature
ab arida,11
Mandater of all the roundy-wells12
totius orbis mundia
loosener of the naiad-girdles
(how else his valid matter
David Jones notes
1 Cf. ‘Before the hills was I brought forth’, Pro. VIII, 25 said of Wisdom and applied in the Liturgy to the Mother of God who represents Wisdom. She was quickened by the Spirit and the bringer forth of the Logos-made-Flesh. Or, to use a mythologer’s terms, she is both bride and mother of the cult-hero.
Cf. also ‘she shall laugh in the latter day’, said of the ‘valiant woman’ in Pro. XXXI, 25 in the Douay version.
2 Cf. ‘At twelve years old he talked with men
The Jews all wondering stand
Yet he obeyed his mother then
And came at her command.’
3 Cf. English folk-song:
‘On yonder hill there stands a creature
Who she is I do not know
I’ll go court her for her beauty’
And the nursery rhyme, Simple Simon:
‘All the water he had got
Was in his mother’s pail.’
And the title ‘Feoderis Arca’ in the Litanies of Mary.
4 Cf. the Liturgy for Holy Saturday, the Blessing of the Font, Qui te de paradisi etc. ‘Who made thee flow from the fountain of paradise and commanded thee to water the whole earth with thy four rivers.’
5 Gwenfrewi, better known as Winefred, the well-saint of Holywell, Flints. Pronounce, approx. gwen-vruh-we, accent on middle syllable.
6 Drayton speaks of St David drinking of the ‘crystal Hodni’. This is the same river as the Honddu after which Llanthony is named. Llan Dewi Nant Honddu, the ‘enclosure of David in the dingle of the Honddu’. This stream is crystal clear and its banks are ferny. David had a cell there.
7 Dyfrdwy is the Welsh name of the Dee; pronounce, dovrr-dooy, ov as in gov’nor, accent on first syllable.
Dyfrwr, dove-roorr, accent on first syllable. Y Dyfrwr is the Welsh word for Aquarius, and St David is called Dewi Ddyfrwr, David the Waterman.
8 Cf. the Blessing of the Font, ‘sit haec sancta et innocens creatura’.
9 Cf. the prayer used for the blessing of holy water ‘who . . . hast appointed water to be the foundation of thy greatest sacraments’.
10 Cf. Dunbar ‘Hevins distil your balmy schourís’ and the Benedicite, ‘every shower and dew’.
11 Cf. Blessing of Font, ‘by that God who in the beginning separated thee from the dry land’ (ab arida) and also the words simplices and foecundet used of the water and primordia used of the world in the same rite.
12 Cf. Hopkins: ‘As tumbled over rim in roundy wells
Stones ring . . .’
additional notes
DJ note 1; sophia is Greek for wisdom.
Proverbs 31:25 reads ‘she shall rejoice in time to come’ in the KJV.
The Jerusalem Bible has ‘laugh at the days to come’.
feodaris arca should read foederis arca, the ark of the covenant, the wooden chest clad with gold which contained the two stone tablets on which the ten commandments were incised.
DJ note 4: It is the holy water in the font that is being addressed by the priest. Cf. Genesis 2:10 : ‘And a river went out of Eden to water the garden; and from thence it was parted, and became into four heads.’ There has been much discussion on which the four rivers actually are.
DJ note 8: ‘may this holy and innocent creature [be free from all assaults of the enemy]’.
DL note 9: literally, the Latin is ‘through [his] creature, water, . . . ’
DJ note 10: The Benedicite is a hymn exhorting everything (including explicitly ‘every shower and dew’) to bless the Lord (Benedicite Domino).
DJ note 11: the root meanings of the Latin words are ‘simple’, ‘fruitful’, ‘in the beginning’ respectively.
DJ note 12: the reference is to Hopkins, As Kingfishers Catch Fire.
see DJ note 1 to next page for more about the significance of water.
a [in or throughout] ‘the whole world’.
comments
A general hymn to Mary, followed by a hymn to life-giving water (including some rivers of Wales), which was separated from dry land in the early days of creation.
In the text, this page is preceded by an inscription in water-colours and ink of part of a Chant to the Passion according to St John. It is referred to on page 237.