The Anathemata
Sherthursdaye and Venus day (continued)
On rune-height by the garbaged rill
the scree-fall answers the cawed madrigals
and there are great birds flying about.
And (to sustain his kind)
the mated corbie
with his neba
forcipate,b incarnadinedc—
prods at the dreaming arbor
ornated regis purpura1
as his kind, should.
Each, after his kind, must somehow gain his kindly food:
ask of the mother thrush
what brindedd Tib has said.
What does the Gilyak tell
to the gay-kerchiefed bear?2
They say he said he cared
when sparrows fall
shall he deny what’s proper to the raven’s bill:
the hydromele
that moists the mortised arbor
dry-stiped, infelixf
trophy-fronded
effluxedg et fulgida?1
Who furthers the lammergyer?h Who prevents the straight crow-flight? Who goes before the doings of such kind of fowl?
David Jones notes
1 Cf. the Good Friday Liturgy, the hymn Vexilla Regis, ‘Arbor decora et Julgida Ornata regis purpura.’ Tree beautiful and shining, made ornate with royal purple.
2 Cf. the cult of the bear among hunting peoples of the north. Among the Tlingit Indians of Alaska the dead bear was decorated and addressed by the hunters: ‘I am your friend, I am poor and come to you’. ‘I am poor, that is why I am hunting you.’ I have lost the reference to the coloured scarf with which in some cases the bear was adorned, but I think it was a practice of the Gilyaks of North-East Asia.
additional notes
DJ note 2: DJ will have found the coloured scarf tradition in Frazer’s Golden Bough (1922 edition ch. 52).
see also
see page 225 for the reference to the runes.
semantic structures
glossary
a neb: beak.
b forcipate: deeply forked, like forceps.
c incarnadined: of the colour of blood (or flesh).
d brinded: having dark streaks or spots. (A reference to the meeting of the three witches at the beginning of Macbeth Act 4: ‘Thrice the brinded cat hath mewed’).
e hydromel: honey diluted in water.
f infelix: unlucky, unhappy (Latin).
g effluxed: (in this context) radiant.
h lammergyer: the bearded vulture, largest of the European birds of prey.
comments
After a long whitespace in the text, we are on the hill of Calvary at the death of Christ when (according to Matthew 27:51-52) ‘the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom; and the earth did quake, and the rocks rent; [52] And the graves were opened’. It is then, according to the poet, that great birds flew overhead and the scree-fall (the trembling lime-rock of page 237) answered the cawed madrigals.
As well as the Vexilla Regis, the text also refers (in trophy-fronded) to another hymn by the same author, Crux Fidelis:
arbor una nobilis:
nulla silva talem profert,
fronde, flore, germine.
Dulce lignum, dulces clavos, dulce pondus sustinet.
One and only noble tree:
None in foliage, none in blossom,
None in fruit thy peer may be.
Sweetest wood and sweetest iron,
Sweetest weight is hung on thee!
The original text has an image facing this page: Lines 39-41 of The Dream of the Rood. Inscription in water-colours, 1952.