Episode 1 Commentary by Tobias Elia
(Read ‘The Ruin’ below)
In this week’s episode, host and poet Helen Wing is joined by Kate to discuss her current favourite poem, ‘The Ruin’ - an ancient Anglo-Saxon piece of unknown origins.
The poem explores themes of loss, imagination, and nostalgia. Written during the dark ages of ancient Britain, the narrator explores the landscape after Rome had ceased its governance of England, taking with it its order and stability. A lonely Anglo-Saxon wanders through the now ruined city of (presumably) Bath, imagining the life, warmth and revelry that would have once flowed through the now quiet and deserted ruins.
Comparisons can be drawn between the world our Anglo Saxon poet inhabits, and our own. Scenes of destruction, abandonment and grief are familiar sights to us now, as is a reminiscence for a time before collapse and uncertainty. The uncertainties that the wanderer faces bring about a desire in them to seek refuge and comfort in the past- a fondness for it that comes more to resemble idealised nostalgia, rather than an accurate recollection. The passing of time and how we are all headed to our own ruin is something further discussed by Helen and Kate.
The time period of the poem is particularly pertinent. After the fall of Rome, Britain was transformed from an organised and advanced civilisation, to one plunged into chaos and disorder. The rise, collapse, and rise again of a nation can call into question our own ideas of progress. Is it linear? Are we always advancing as a society? Perhaps, like the wanderer in the ruins, we are currently in our own dark ages, in which order and reason seem increasingly hard to come by. And so we too can find ourselves looking to the past, to what we believe were the glory days.
However, as Kate Expresses, even if something is in ruin, it can still be reached and reconstructed through memory and connection with others.
The podcast finishes with a reading of the poem in its original Anglo-Saxon, a language which has in itself now become a ruin. The reading is beautifully guttural and it is fascinating to hear it be spoken in its originality, how it was intended to be heard by its original writer.
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This resource is licensed under Creative Commons BY-NC-SA
Text of the extract from The Ruin:
Beorht wæron burgræced, burnsele monige,
heah horngestreon, heresweg micel,
meodoheall monig mondreama full,
oþþæt þæt onwende wyrd seo swiþe.
Crungon walo wide, cwoman woldagas,
swylt eall fornom secgrofra wera;
wurdon hyra wigsteal westen staþolas,
brosnade burgsteall. Betend crungon
hergas to hrusan. Forþon þas hofu dreorgiað,
ond þæs teaforgeapa tigelum sceadeð
hrostbeages hrof. Hryre wong gecrong
gebrocen to beorgum, þær iu beorn monig
glædmod ond goldbeorht gleoma gefrætwed,
wlonc ond wingal wighyrstum scan;
seah on sinc, on sylfor, on searogimmas,
on ead, on æht, on eorcanstan,
on þas beorhtan burg bradan rices.
Translation of the extract from The Ruin:
Bright were the castle buildings,
many the bathing halls,
high the abundance of gables,
great the noise of the multitudes,
many a mead hall full of festivities
until fate, the mighty, changed that.
Far and wide the slain perished.
Days of pestilence came.
Death took all the brave men away.
Their places of war became deserted places.
The city decayed.
The rebuilders perished.
The armies to earth.
And so these buildings grow desolate
and this red curved roof parts
from its tiles of the ceiling vault.
The ruin has fallen to the ground,
broken into mounds where at one time
many a warrior, joyous and ornamented
with bright gold splendour,
proud and flushed with wine,
shone in war trappings,
looked at treasure, at silver, at precious stones,
at wealth, at prosperity, at jewellery
in this bright castle of a broad kingdom.
About the poem:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USlTpdyfebE The Ruin by Tegan Blackwood.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ruin
https://oldenglishpoetry.camden.rutgers.edu/the-ruin/
https://www.mylearning.org/stories/multicultural-york-the-anglosaxons-ad400866/117