mothcorrupteth
Orthodox Christian
The following is a poem inspired by the fiction of Fyodor Dostoevsky and Germanic myth. It is written in an artificial dialect of Elizabethan/Jacobite English that purposely uses German idiomatic phrases with their English equivalents, often diverting into Anglish, which is an artificial reconstruction of what English might have looked like without the Norman invasion of 1066. For instance, "swigh" (German cognate: schweigen) is a verb meaning "to fall silent" which went extinct in Anglo-Saxon times. "Roo" (German cognate: Ruhe) is a noun meaning "peace" or "quiet" that fell into disuse sometime shortly after Shakespeare. "Wifegeld" is an artificial compound noun of my own invention meaning a "bride price" or "dowry," i.e. the amount that a suitor would pay to his in-laws for the right to marry a maid in their guardianship.
The theme is tactful silence. I'll discuss how on the tail end of this post. Until then, please enjoy.
"The swighsome heath"
05/04/2025
In northern waste doth wend a rider swart,
His onely friend a knape who know’th no thild.
Together fare they ‘long the bane athwart
The strand, t’ward frosty farm and grazeland chill’d.
Forebann’d is he, that grizzl’d Northman-knight.
His landgravine hath cast him out with scorn.
For healdrink had he promised ‘gainst her blight,
And she beworth’d it poison simon-sworn.
Cried she, “ ‘Tis wifegeld, nothing less, thou knave!
Now get thee hence for once and all due tide!”
Yet horseman swied, and answer none he gave,
But rather fetch’d he squire and forth set ride.
That squire, that knape, he now doth yammer stead:
“Wherefore did ye, mine auldy sire, not plead?
Why left we home? Why swied ye so and fled?
Are ye not mansome knight? Withspeak her screed!”
That winter heath is deck’d with hoary snow,
And hoof doth crunch as path the steed doth stride,
Yet word doth not that athel-man bestow.
He hath no heart the knape, so rude, to chide.
In heath where Erica so sheen doth grow,
There bloom up also devils frightsome vile.
From borough on to borough knight doth go
And wage campaign against their woeful guile.
The boors do think to thank him now and then
As into elves and mares his sword doth sink.
The knape, unripe, complaineth yet again,
“Our landgravine still needeth healsome drink!”
And ever yet knight’s speech in throat doth drown.
And ever yet he halteth striving tongue.
The loff he earn’th from ev’ry stuff’ring town,
He answ’reth not with even puff of lung.
So years do slowly pass and on break’th roo
Wide over swighsome landship in the North.
“Bedev’ling trolls and lindworms all he slew!”
The bards do sing and tell of rider swarth.
In twenty tearful winters ne’er hath come
A bodeship from beloved landgravine.
Though sound and whole become, beliv’th she dumb.
Like heather, waxeth silence evergreen.
In all those toneless seasons knight did fly
The banner of his trothéd lady dear.
Then cometh endly tide for knight to die,
And at his bed com’th devil black to sneer.
“She cast thee out and curs’d thee, swarthy thain!
Now skimp her loathsome name forevermore!
She never saw that thou didst not seek gain!
Give thou thy gladsome word to thankful boor!”
Then quoth the knight, “Ye knape, your lips do seal,
And learn ye well this truth I never spoke:
‘A pool and not a flux of mouth doth heal.’
Now salt ye heath with service t’ward her folk.”
(c) 2025 Robert E. Phillips III
So, translation: A knight offers an elixir to his countess, and she believes he is trying to buy her love, so she banishes him. He takes his squire and proceeds to slay demons after the tradition of Beowulf, for 20 years. The whole time, his immature squire cannot see the logic of it and whines about how the guy lacks balls. Then finally, on his deathbed, the knight chastises the squire, saying, "Sometimes what mends a person's heart is a tactful refusal to argue." A subtler aspect of the poem at that climax is how the use of "thou" and "ye" become flipped. Classically, you used "thou" to refer to a familiar person who was your equal or inferior, but you used "ye" to address your betters. At the climax of the poem, we see the squire (the final "demon" haunting the knight) switch to "thou" to communicate his utter contempt for the knight at this point. But the knight addresses the squire as "ye" in a show of humility -- despite his years of quietly doing his duty, he still considers others more honorable than himself.
The inspiration of Germanic myth is, I hope, obvious. But permit me to explain the Dostoevskyan angle. My third favorite work of fiction of all time is The Idiot, a novel about love so selfless that the aristocratic hero offers it to a woman who has nothing to offer him, a woman who is crawling with red flags. The novel ends with this woman murdered by the hero's nihilist bourgeois rival, and the hero falls into a kind of holy madness. Dostoevsky's point was that true love has no material end, is not "transactional." This idea of an otherworldly end to love I have combined with the most famous event from the life of St. John Climacus (c. 579-649 A.D.), namely that when a jealous monk accused him of vanity John took a vow of silence for a year, after which the offending monk apologized and begged him to teach in the abbey again his lessons of life wisdom.
The theme is tactful silence. I'll discuss how on the tail end of this post. Until then, please enjoy.
"The swighsome heath"
05/04/2025
In northern waste doth wend a rider swart,
His onely friend a knape who know’th no thild.
Together fare they ‘long the bane athwart
The strand, t’ward frosty farm and grazeland chill’d.
Forebann’d is he, that grizzl’d Northman-knight.
His landgravine hath cast him out with scorn.
For healdrink had he promised ‘gainst her blight,
And she beworth’d it poison simon-sworn.
Cried she, “ ‘Tis wifegeld, nothing less, thou knave!
Now get thee hence for once and all due tide!”
Yet horseman swied, and answer none he gave,
But rather fetch’d he squire and forth set ride.
That squire, that knape, he now doth yammer stead:
“Wherefore did ye, mine auldy sire, not plead?
Why left we home? Why swied ye so and fled?
Are ye not mansome knight? Withspeak her screed!”
That winter heath is deck’d with hoary snow,
And hoof doth crunch as path the steed doth stride,
Yet word doth not that athel-man bestow.
He hath no heart the knape, so rude, to chide.
In heath where Erica so sheen doth grow,
There bloom up also devils frightsome vile.
From borough on to borough knight doth go
And wage campaign against their woeful guile.
The boors do think to thank him now and then
As into elves and mares his sword doth sink.
The knape, unripe, complaineth yet again,
“Our landgravine still needeth healsome drink!”
And ever yet knight’s speech in throat doth drown.
And ever yet he halteth striving tongue.
The loff he earn’th from ev’ry stuff’ring town,
He answ’reth not with even puff of lung.
So years do slowly pass and on break’th roo
Wide over swighsome landship in the North.
“Bedev’ling trolls and lindworms all he slew!”
The bards do sing and tell of rider swarth.
In twenty tearful winters ne’er hath come
A bodeship from beloved landgravine.
Though sound and whole become, beliv’th she dumb.
Like heather, waxeth silence evergreen.
In all those toneless seasons knight did fly
The banner of his trothéd lady dear.
Then cometh endly tide for knight to die,
And at his bed com’th devil black to sneer.
“She cast thee out and curs’d thee, swarthy thain!
Now skimp her loathsome name forevermore!
She never saw that thou didst not seek gain!
Give thou thy gladsome word to thankful boor!”
Then quoth the knight, “Ye knape, your lips do seal,
And learn ye well this truth I never spoke:
‘A pool and not a flux of mouth doth heal.’
Now salt ye heath with service t’ward her folk.”
(c) 2025 Robert E. Phillips III
So, translation: A knight offers an elixir to his countess, and she believes he is trying to buy her love, so she banishes him. He takes his squire and proceeds to slay demons after the tradition of Beowulf, for 20 years. The whole time, his immature squire cannot see the logic of it and whines about how the guy lacks balls. Then finally, on his deathbed, the knight chastises the squire, saying, "Sometimes what mends a person's heart is a tactful refusal to argue." A subtler aspect of the poem at that climax is how the use of "thou" and "ye" become flipped. Classically, you used "thou" to refer to a familiar person who was your equal or inferior, but you used "ye" to address your betters. At the climax of the poem, we see the squire (the final "demon" haunting the knight) switch to "thou" to communicate his utter contempt for the knight at this point. But the knight addresses the squire as "ye" in a show of humility -- despite his years of quietly doing his duty, he still considers others more honorable than himself.
The inspiration of Germanic myth is, I hope, obvious. But permit me to explain the Dostoevskyan angle. My third favorite work of fiction of all time is The Idiot, a novel about love so selfless that the aristocratic hero offers it to a woman who has nothing to offer him, a woman who is crawling with red flags. The novel ends with this woman murdered by the hero's nihilist bourgeois rival, and the hero falls into a kind of holy madness. Dostoevsky's point was that true love has no material end, is not "transactional." This idea of an otherworldly end to love I have combined with the most famous event from the life of St. John Climacus (c. 579-649 A.D.), namely that when a jealous monk accused him of vanity John took a vow of silence for a year, after which the offending monk apologized and begged him to teach in the abbey again his lessons of life wisdom.