It seems, in a time in which your screens are filled with the latest Hot Takes on the latest Outrage, it makes no sense to reach back centuries and present you with a 9th century poem and some words about the writer.
Well, to me, it seems like the best time. The constant, frantic mass of information and opinion that surrounds us demands perspective. This post doesn’t directly relate to disease or racism, but it does, I think, pertain to just…life. The world.
And that is what all of this mess comes down to. How do we live in the world and what do we make of it? What matters? What doesn’t?
I’ve also learned that my intuitions on what to post usually bear some fruit, for someone, somewhere. So, last week’s random find of a Robert Hart Benson passage evidently helped a priest pull together some thoughts for a homily – which lots of people heard. So, sure. Anything for the cause, really.
I’ve been lax on posting thoughts on the various In Our Time podcasts I’ve been listening to on my walks. This one aired back in January, on Alcuin, and it was very good. I mean – they all are – but I am always particularly appreciative of the balance and context In Our Time gives to religious figures from the past, refusing to hold them up to contemporary standards, respectful of who these people were in the place and time in which they lived.
Anyway, here’s the page for the Alcuin program. These programs are very easy to download and listen to, and I believe the entire program’s run – hundreds of shows – are available.
Who’s Alcuin?
You can read the old Catholic Encyclopedia article here.
He’s in the Loyola Kids Book of Heroes.
(Click for a readable version of this page)
But briefly, from the program’s website:
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Alcuin of York, c735-804AD, who promoted education as a goal in itself, and had a fundamental role in the renaissance at Charlemagne’s court. He wrote poetry and many letters, hundreds of which survive and provide insight into his life and times. He was born in or near York and spent most of his life in Northumbria before accepting an invitation to Charlemagne’s court in Aachen. To this he brought Anglo-Saxon humanism, encouraging a broad liberal education for itself and the better to understand Christian doctrine. He left to be abbot at Marmoutier, Tours, where the monks were developing the Carolingian script that influenced the Roman typeface.
There was a great deal that interested me in the broadcast. The discussion about the difference between cathedral and monastic schools, for example – gave me something to consider: the cathedral schools had a more expansive reach and, ultimately, course of study because they took students in from all over – and sent them back out again.
Secondly, Alcuin’s letters, which tell us a great deal about life during this period.
And finally (because I want to make this short[er]) – his poetry. The poem that I want to highlight for you is quite moving. It reflects all sorts of things: the beauty of God’s world, age, change, decline – and inevitability of all of it.
I share it with you just to help you remember – that as the world might seem to be shifting under your feet or changing too fast, leaving you behind – Alcuin wrote this over a thousand years ago. You’re not alone.
Here are the first two lines of O Mea Cella in Latin.
O mea cella, mihi habitatio dulcis, amata,
semper in aeternum, o mea cella, vale.
Even if you don’t know Latin, you can probably work it out. Here’s a full translation, original found here, copyright Steven R. Perkins:
O my cell, for me a dwelling sweet, beloved,
Ever into eternity, o my cell, farewell.
On every side a tree with resounding branches encloses you,
A small forest ever laden with flower-bearing foliage.
All the fields will yet bloom with health-bringing herbs,
Which the doctor’s hand seeks as a resource of health.
Rivers surround you on all sides with flowering banks,
Where the rejoicing fisherman stretches his nets.
Throughout the gardens your cloisters are redolent with fruit-bearing branches,
The white lilies are mixed with little red roses.
Every type of flying creatures cries out the morning odes,
And praises the creator God in its mouth.
In you the nourishing voice of the teacher once cried out,
Which handed on the books of wisdom with a sacred mouth.
In you at certain times the holy praise of the thunderer
Sounded with peacemaking voices and spirits.
You, my cell, I now lament with tearful songs,
And groaning I lament your downfall in my breast.
Because you have suddenly fled the songs of the bards,
And an entirely unknown band holds you now.
Neither Flaccus nor the bard Homer will have you now,
Nor do boys sing the muses through your roofs.
All the glory of the age is thus turned, for suddenly
All things are changed by various orders.
Nothing remains forever, nothing is truly immutable.
Shady night obscures the sacred day,
And suddenly frigid winter casts off the beautiful flowers,
And a harsher wind disturbs the placid sea.
The sacred youth that used to chase deer in the meadows
Now reclines tired, older on a staff.
Poor us, why do we love you a fugitive, o world?
You flee from us always, everywhere rushing.
You who flee, may you flee, let us always love Christ.
Always may the love of God hold our hearts.
May that holy One defend His servants from their dire enemy, 35
Taking our hearts, His own, to heaven.
Whom with our whole heart let us equally praise and love.
That holy One is our glory, life, and welfare.