Patience

Merwin, W S

Patience

A West Midlands poem of the Fourteenth Century

Patience is a virtue, though few are fond of it.

When heavy hearts are hurt by scorn or other harm

Long-suffering may comfort them and soothe the burning,

For she quells all evil and quenches malice,

For if one could endure pain, happiness would come afterward,

So it is better to bear the blow to begin with .

Than to struggle against it, however hard it seems.

I heard, on a holy day at a high mass

How Matthew told of his master teaching his followers.

Eight kinds of happiness he promised them, all of them rewards

Differing according to what each of them deserved.

They are happy that have poverty in their hearts

For theirs is the kingdom of heaven to have forever.

They are happy also that behave with meekness

For they shall possess this world and have their way.

They are happy also that weep for their hurt

For they shall obtain comfort of many kinds.

They are happy also that hunger after the right

For they shall be fully satisfied with every bounty.

They are happy also that have pity in their hearts

For mercy will reward them in every way.

They are happy also that are pure of heart

For with their own eyes that will see their Savior on the throne.

They are happy also that keep peace

For with grace they will be called sons of the gracious God.

They are happy also that can control their hearts

For theirs is the kingdom of heaven as I said before.

These are all eight of the happinesses that were promised to us

if we would love these ladies, emulating their virtues:

Dame Poverty, Dame Pity, and the third, Dame Repentance,

Dame Meekness, Dame Mercy, and Lovely Purity,

And then Dame Peace, and Patience, that were put in after them.

You would be happy with one of them. All would be better.

But since I must pay my respects to Poverty

I shall present Patience and so display both.

For there in the text these two are yoked together.

They are made into one meaning, first and last,

And pursuit of their wisdom earns the same reward,

And in my opinion they are of one nature.

For where Poverty pleases to be she will not be driven out

But stays where she wants to, whatever her welcome,

And where Poverty is oppressive, painful though it prove,

She must be endured, whatever may be said.

So Poverty and Patience must be play-fellows.

Since both have been given to me at once, I must bear it,

And would rather welcome my lot and speak well of it

Than struggle against it in anger and make it worse.

If there is a fixed destiny due to befall me

What is the good of maligning or opposing it?

Or if my liege Lord wants to send me

To ride or to run, roaming on his errand,

What can complaints do but make him angry?

He did not make me to be great, as I might have wished,

And I had to endure troubles as my reward.

I should have bowed to his bidding as I was bound to.

Did not Jonah in Judea try to trick him once,

To stay safe, and it brought him misfortune?,

If you will be patient for a little, and listen a while,

I will let you hear how it went, as holy writ tells it.

It happened one time within the confines of Judea:

Jonah was summoned from there as a prophet to the Gentiles.

When God's command came to him it made him unhappy.

It rang in his ear with a rough clang.

"Rise quickly," He says, "and leave here at once.

Make your way to Ninevah without another word,

And everywhere in that city tell them what I have said

Which I will put in your heart in that place, at that time.

For truly those who are living there are so wicked,

And so great is their malice that I will wait no longer

To take vengeance upon their evil and villainy.

Now go there quickly and take this message from me."

When that voice had ended, his mind was in turmoil.

It rose in a rage of rebellion, and he thought,

"If I bow to his bidding and bear this message to them,

And take myself to Ninevah, my troubles will begin.

He tells me those wicked people are hardened villains.

If I take them these tidings they will lay hold of me,

Pen me in a prison, put me in stocks,

Tie me down for torture, gouge out my eyes.

This is a mad message for a man to preach

Among so many enemies and merciless fiends

Unless my gracious God wants me to come to such grief,

To have me killed because of some sin of mine.

At all costs," the prophet said, "I will stay away from there.

I will go to some other place where he will not see me.

I shall travel into Tarshish and stay there for a while

And maybe when he has lost sight of me he will let me alone."

Then Jonah rises at once and hurries down

Toward the port of Jaffa, muttering with annoyance

At these troubles, with his mind made up not to endure them

Even if the father who formed him did not care about him.

"Our sire sits," he says, "on a seat so high

In his shining glory, it would not matter to him

If I were seized in Ninevah and stripped to the skin

And cruelly torn apart on a cross by a crowd of cutthroats."

So he goes down to that port to look for a vessel,

Finds a fine ship all ready to sail,

Makes friends with the mariners, pays for his passage

For them to take him right away to Tarshish.

Then he steps on board and they put up the mast,

Hoist the square sail, make fast the stays,

Heave at the windlass, weigh her anchors,

Loop the bowline smartly on the bowsprit,

Haul on the halyards-the mainsail falls.

They stood over to larboard to catch the wind.

The sail bellies out with the good breeze behind her.

They steer this sweet ship swiftly out of the harbor.

There had never been a more joyful Jew than Jonah was then

At having escaped the power of God so easily.

He was sure that the one who had fashioned the whole world

Was not able to trouble anyone, out on that sea.

Look at the poor fool, with such woes before him!

Now he has got himself into much deeper danger,

Holding in his mind the ignorant hope

That God could not see him once he was out of Samaria.

Oh yes, the one who loved him could see far and wide, surely.

And often he had heard the words of that king

Noble David on his dais, who had spoken thus

In a psalm that he made part of the psalter:

"Oh foolish people, see things once as they are,

And come to your senses, fools though you may be.

Do you think that he who made all ears does not hear?

He who formed every eye cannot be blind."

But he fears no misfortune, in his fixed folly,

For he was far out at sea, hull-down for Tarshish.

Yet he was so quickly overtaken, it was dear

That he had shot shamefully short of his target.

For the Lord of understanding, who knows everything,

Always watching and waiting, has prepared his own plans.

He called upon creatures he himself had made.

They woke to anger, for he called in anger:

"Eurus and Aquilon, who live in the East,

Blow, both of you, I bid you, upon the gray waters."

Not a moment passed then between his word and their action,

So quick were they both to do as he ordered.

At once the noise begins from the northeast

As both the winds blew upon the gray waters.

Wild storm clouds rose up, red on the undersides.

The sea moaned in woe, a wonder to hear.

The winds on the dark waters wrestled together

Making the maddened waves roll and rise up high

Before they broke into the abyss so that the frightened fish

Did not dare to stay anywhere as the waves crashed on the sea floor.

When the wind and the sea and the boat came together

It was a joyless vessel that Jonah was in

For it reeled around upon the roiling waves.

The fierce wind blew from behind it and snapped all its rigging

Then hurled tiller and rudder on top of it,

Breaking the rest of the ropes first and the mast after them.

The sail swung onto the sea and then the craft

Caught its fill of cold water, and the cry goes up

To cut away the cords and cast them overboard.

Many hands fell to for bailing and emptying,

Scooping out the foul water to save their lives,

For though the way of it may be woeful, still a man's life is sweet.

They set themselves to casting all the cargo overboard,

Their bags and their feather-beds and their bright clothing,

Their chests and their coffers and their casks, every one,

And all to lighten that vessel and save it if they could.

But the sound of the winds went on, as loud as ever,

And ever more angry was the water, and wilder the waves.

Then though they wearied themselves it did no good,

But each one cried out to that god he had his hope in.

Some swore solemn vows to Vernagu,

Some to devout Diana and bold Neptune,

To Mahomet and to Mergot, to the Moon and the Sun.

Then the cleverest of them spoke up, close to despair:

"I think we have some liar, some miserable outlaw here

Who. has made his god angry and got in here among us.

Look, for his sin we are all sinking, and will be lost because of him.

I say we should draw lots, every one of us,

And whoever loses, we throw him overboard.

And when the guilty one is gone, a man may hope

That the ruler of the storm may take pity on the rest."

They agreed to that, and huddled together to do it,

Driven out of their corners to take what came to them.

A helmsman leapt briskly under the hatches

To fetch any from down below to draw their lots

And there was not a man who was missing

Except Jonah the Jew, curled up and hiding.

He had huddled down, afraid of the loud seas,

In the bottom of the boat, lying along a board,

Stretched out in the bilge, away from the wrath of heaven

And had fallen fast sleep, and was lying there snoring.

The fellow kicked him with his foot to make him get up:

The devil Raquel with his chains drive him from his dreams!

Then by the clasps of his clothes he clamps onto him,

And picked him up by the chest to set him on the deck

And asked him roughly what reason he had

To sleep so. soundly with such disaster around him.

They get their lots ready then and deal them all around

And indeed the losing one ended up with Jonah.

Then they shouted at him, asking at the tops of their voices,

"What the devil have you done, you hopeless fool?

Why did you come to sea, you guilty sinner,

With such crimes upon you that you will destroy us all?

Have you no one guiding you, man, no god to call upon,

So that you slide off to sleep when you are close to being killed?

What country have you come from, what do you want here?

Where in the world are you going and what are you going for?

Look now: your doom awaits you for wickedness.

Glorify your god now, before you go from here."

"I am a Hebrew," he said, "born of Israel.

I worship the one who I believe made everything,

The whole world and the heavens, the wind and the stars,

And every living thing in it, with a single word. '

All this trouble has come about now because of me,

For I have vexed my God and have been found guilty,

So throw me overboard and have done with me

Or you will never find fortune, and that is the truth."

He confessed to them until they understood

That he had fled from the face of almighty God.

Then such fear fell on them and panic possessed them

That they fell to the oars and let the man alone.

They ran out the long oars as fast as they could

To row on both sides, since their sail was lost.

They heaved and hauled, hoping to save themselves,

But it was all in vain and they gained nothing by it.

In the churning of the gray water their oars were broken.

Then they had nothing in their hands that might help them.

Then they had no hope, and did not know what to do

But send Jonah to his fate without waiting.

First they pray to the prince whom prophets serve

To grant them the grace never to displease him

Though their hands might be mingled in blameless blood

And though the man they killed belonged to him.

Then they took him up at once by head and by toe

And flung him straight out into the terrible water.

No sooner was he thrown than the storm stopped.

With that, the sea settled as soon as it could.

Then, though their rigging was ruined, raveled on the waves,

Strong channeled currents forced them forward for a while,

Flinging them roughly ahead before the great swells

Until a gentler one lifted them swiftly onto the shore.

There was praise offered up, when they stood on land,

To our merciful God, after the manner of Moses,

With sacrifice made, and solemn vows,

Calling him the only God with no other beside him.

Though they were filled with joy, Jonah was in dread.

Though he wanted to have no trouble his soul is in danger.

For what happened to that man as he touched the water

Would be hard to believe were it not in holy writ.

II

Now Jonah the Jew is condemned to drown.

Then men hurried to hurl him off that shattered ship.

A wild rolling whale, as fate would have it,

Flung up from the abyss, was floating by that boat

And was aware of that man as the water reached for him,

And rushed to swallow him, opening his maw.

The people still had hold of his feet and the fish held him,

Threw him into his throat without a tooth touching him,

Then swiftly he slips down to the sea bottom

Past many jagged cliffs and streaming ledges

With the man in his maw dazed with dread,

And small wonder it was if he felt afraid.

For had not the high king of heaven, with the might of his hand,

Protected this wretch in the monster's bowel

What law could there be that would allow a man

To keep any life at all in there for that long?

But he was saved by that Sire who sits so high,

Though he could hope for no good in the belly of that fish,

And driven, besides, through the deep, rolling in the dark.

Lord! .Cold was his comfort and his care huge

As he thought over all that had happened to him:

From the boat into the wild waves to be snatched by a beast

And flung into its throat all in a moment,

Like a moat in through a minster door, so vast were his jaws!

He slides in past the gills through rheum and slime,

Reeling down a bowel as though it were a road,

On, heel over head, spinning around

Until he blundered.into a cavern as big as a hall

And there he sets his feet down and gropes around him

And stood up in the beast's stomach with its stink of the devil.

There in fat and feces that tasted of hell

His bower was built, who had wanted to be safe.

And then he lurks and looks for the best place to go

In every nook of that gut but he finds nowhere

Any rest or help, only filth and mire

In each gut he got to, but always God is sweet,

And there at last he came to a stop, and called upon the Lord:

"Now prince, have pity upon your prophet!

Though I may be foul and fickle and false in my heart

Be done with your vengeance now through the power of your mercy.

Though I may be guilty of guile, and a disgrace as a prophet,

You are God and all goods belong to you only.

Have mercy upon your man now, and his misdeeds

And show that you are lord truly on land and in water."

With that he went to a corner and settled down into it

Where he was not defiled by filth splashing over him.

There he stayed and was safe, though still in the dark

As in the hold of the boat where he had been sleeping before.

So in the bowel of that beast he stays waiting

Three days and nights, thinking only of God,

His might and his mercy and his moderation.

Now he knows him in woe as he could not in happiness

And all this while the whale rolls through the deep wilderness

Through many rough regions, by the strength of his will,

For that mote in his maw drove him on, I am sure:

Small though it seemed to him, it made him sick at heart.

And as the man sailed on he could hear the loud noise

Of the great sea on his back and beating along his sides.

Then came the moment when the prophet prayed

In this manner, I believe, with a rush of words:

III

"Lord, to you I have called in great trouble.

Out of the hole of the bowels of hell you heard me.

I called and you knew my voice, unclear though it was.

You plunged me into the dark heart of the deep sea.

The great rush of your flood folded around me.

All the currents of your chasms and bottomless abysses

And your streams, so many rivers roiling together

Into one rushing cataract roll over me,

And yet I said as I settled on the sea floor,

`My grief is that I am cast out from your clear eyes,

And cut off from your sight. Yet still I hope

To stand again in your temple, in your service.'

I am wrapped in water as my punishment.

The abyss binds the body that I abide in.

The wild crash of the waters plays upon my head.

I have fallen all the way to the foot of the mountain.

I am held back by barriers on every side

To keep me from any country, and you control my life.

You will save me, sire, setting aside judgment

By the might of your mercy in which all our trust should be

For when the first stroke of anguish buried itself in my soul

Then in good time I remembered my great Lord,

Praying to him to have pity, to heed his prophet

And allow my plea to enter his holy house.

I have listened to your men of learning many a long day

But now I am certain that those unwise people

Who give themselves over to vanity and vain things

Forsake his mercy for things that amount to nothing.

But I make a solemn vow that will hold true

That I will make a sacrifice when I am saved

And offer you a rich gift for rescuing me,

And obey you, whatever you bid me do; here is my word!"

Then our father gave a stem command to the fish

To spit him up at once in a dry bare place.

The whale turns at his bidding and finds a shore

And vomits up the man there, as our Lord had told him to.

Then he was washed ashore in his filthy clothes

He may well have wanted to wash his mantle.

The shore he saw, where he had come to rest,

Was in the very region where he had refused to go.

Then a wind of God's word came to reproach the man:

"Are you the one Who would never go to Ninevah?"

"Yes, Lord," the man said, "grant me your grace

To go at your will; nothing else will help me."

"Rise. Go there to preach, then. See, this is the place.

See: my teaching is locked inside you. Let it be heard here."

Then the man rose up that very moment

And made his way before night to Ninevah.

It was a great city, spreading in every direction,

A full three days' journey from side to side.

Jonah traveled across it one whole day

Before he said a word to anyone,

And then he called out so loudly that they could all hear him

Putting the whole burden of his theme in these words:

"Forty days are all that are left before the end

And then shall Ninevah be, taken and brought to nothing.

It is true that this very city shall fall to the ground

And plunge upside-down into the abyss

And be swallowed up swiftly in the dark earth

And every living thing here shall lose its sweet life."

This speech leapt from him where he stood and spread around him

To the people of that city, the young men who lived there.

Such fear and terror took hold of them

That all their cheer changed and they were chilled at heart.

The man did not stop, but spoke on as before:

"The true vengeance of God will leave this place empty."

Then the people were silent and mourned piteously,

And in dread of God they grieved in their hearts.

They took out hair shirts that scratched them raw

And bound them to their backs and their bare sides,

Dropped dust on their heads and begged under their breaths

For their penance to please him, as they mourned for their sins.

He kept calling out through that country until the king heard him

And rose up in haste and ran from his throne.

He tore the rich robe off his naked back

And sat down in the middle of a heap of ashes.

He shouted for a hair shirt and tied it around himself,

Sewed a sackcloth over it, and groaned in grief.

There, dazed in that dust, with dropping tears,

He wept bitterly for the wrongs he had done.

Then he said to his servants, "Now gather around.

Issue a decree as I dictate it.

For every person living within this city,

Both men and beasts, women and children,

Each prince and priest and all the prelates,

To fast fervently for their false works.

Children are not to suck, however they cry.

No beasts are to graze on the broom or on the grassy plain.

They are not to be put out to pasture nor given gathered grasses.

No hay for the oxen, no horse to the water.

All shall cry out in salvation, with their whole strength.

The sound shall rise to him who will take pity.

Who can say what will be pleasing to the Lord

There in the heights where he governs us in grace?

Such is his might, I know, that though he maybe displeased

Yet in his mildness he may find mercy.

And if we give up the habit of our loathsome sins

And keep to the way he himself set out for us,

He will turn from his anger and be done with his wrath

And forgive us this guilt, if we trust him as God."

Then they all believed in his law and left their sins,

Performed every penance the prince commanded;

And God in his goodness forgave, as he had promised.

Though he had pronounced sentence he withheld his judgment.

IV

Much sorrow settled then upon that man Jonah.

He was as wrathful as the wind toward our Lord.

With anger lashing in his heart he calls

In passion a prayer to the high prince, with these words:

"Now Sire, I beg you, judge for yourself.

Have not my own words been borne out now,

That I said in my own country when you commanded me

To come to this town to preach your message.

Well I knew your loving-kindness, your wise forbearance,

The bounty of your benevolence, and your good grace,

Your long-suffering with loss, your slowness to take vengeance,

And the fullness of your mercy always, however huge the offense.

I was sure that when I had said whatever I could

To warn all the proud people living in this city

For a prayer and penance they would be pardoned

And so I wanted to flee far off into Tarshish.

Now Lord, take away my life. It has lasted too long.

Bring me now to my death-bed and put an end to me,

For I think it would be sweeter to die at once

Than to preach your word any longer, since it makes me a liar."

The sound of our sovereign stirred in his ear then,

Upbraiding this man with fierce severity:

"Hear me, man! Have you any right to be so angry

At anything I ever did or said to you?"

Jonah gets up,. all joyless and muttering,

And goes out to the east of the high town

And looks around the fields for a good place to settle

To wait and see what might happen next.

There he built himself a bower, as best he could,

Of hay and the common ferns and a few plants,

For that place was bare of swaying greenery

To shield against the glare or cast any shade.

He lay down in his little hut with his back to the sun

And there he slumbered and slept soundly the whole night,

While God, in his grace, grew from that soil

The loveliest vine over him that any man ever saw.

When the Almighty brought the day to dawning

Then the man woke up under the woodbine,

Looked up at the green foliage fluttering there.

No man ever had so sumptuous a bower,

For it was broad at the base, vaulted above,

Covered over on both sides like a house,

An opening on the north and no other anywhere

But all lapped in leaves whose shade kept it cool.

The man gazed at the green delicate leaves

Waving all the while in a cool, gentle wind.

The bright sun glittered through them, but not a single beam

Could shine, by so much as a mote, upon that man.

Then he was glad to have his lovely lodging,

To lie in lazily, looking toward the town,

So happy with his woodbine that he lolls around under it

All day without giving a devil's thought to his food.

And he kept laughing as he looked around his lodging

And wished it were in his own country so that he could live in it,

Up on Ephraim's or Hermon's hills.

"Indeed, a finer house I never found."

And when the night came on, and time for sleep,

He fell into a deep slumber under the leaves

While God fetched a worm that tunneled the root

And by the time the man woke the woodbine was withered.

And then softly he wakens the west wind

And bids Zephyrus blow a warm breath

So that no cloud could come before the bright sun

So that it shone far and wide, burning like a candle.

Then the man woke out of his wandering dreams

And saw how his woodbine had come to ruin,

Its lovely leaves all faded and withered.

The bright sun had parched them before he was aware of it,

And then the heat had climbed and scorched them completely.

The hot wind from the west burns the roots.

The man groaned, on the ground, with nowhere to hide.

His woodbine was gone. He wept with grief.

In the heat of anger and rage he calls out,

Oh maker of man, what good does it do you

To torment your servant worse than anyone, this way.

You never spare any harm you can do me.

I found one single comfort and now that is taken away:

My beautiful woodbine that covered my head.

But now I see that you want to rob me of every solace.

Why do you not give me my death? I have lived too long."

Yet the Lord spoke in answer to the man:

"Is this right, man, all this loud ranting,

Working up such a rage, suddenly, for a woodbine.

Why are you so sad, man, about so little?"

"It is not little," the man said. "It seems like a sentence.

I wish I were wrapped in the earth of this world."

"Then think, man, if you grieve so much for this,

Are you surprised that I help my own handiwork.

You are in such torment over your woodbine

Which you never spent a single hour caring for,

But which grew here one moment and was gone the next,

That in your anger you would throw your life away.

Then do not blame me for wanting to help what I have made

And for taking pity on those lost creatures who lament their sins.

First I formed them out of elements I myself had made

And then I watched over them a long time and led them on the way.

And if my labor should be lost after so long

And I were to destroy that town after they have repented

Sorrow would sink into my heart for so sweet a place

Where so many wicked men are repenting their evils,

Some of them no more sense in their heads

Than babies at the breast that never did harm,

And others foolish women who cannot tell

One hand from the other, for all this wide world,

Nor distinguish the rungs of a ladder from the side pieces,

Nor say what secret rule runs between the right hand

And the left though their lives depended on it.

And besides there are many dumb beasts in that town

That never sinned and have nothing to be sorry for.

Why should my anger fall on them, when some will yet turn

And come and know me for their king, and heed my words?

If I were as hasty as you in this, harm would come of it.

If my patience were no better than yours, few would prosper.

I cannot be so harsh and be called kind,

For sternness must be matched by mercy within."

Do not be so angry, good man, but go your ways.

Be restrained and patient in pain and joy.

For he that is too quick to tear his clothes

May come to sit in his rags sewing them back together.

So when poverty oppresses me, and pains torment me

I should endure it with long-suffering, patiently.

For repentance and pain finally prove

That patience is a noble virtue though few are fond of it.

Amen.

NOTE

The Middle English original comes from one manuscript in the British Museum known as Cotton Nero Ax + 4, named for the former owner, Sir. R. Cotton, who had acquired it from the library of Henry Saville, of Yorkshire, "a great collector who secured spoils from northern monasteries and abbeys," in the time of Henry VIII and Elizabeth I. In the same manuscript, to which handwriting experts have ascribed a date close to 1400, are the sole surviving texts of three other poems (two of them, at least, among the greatest literary artifacts of the period): Purity, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and Pearl. Most scholars agree that all four of the poems were written by the same poet, whose name is unknown, and that the author came from the north midlands, from Cheshire, Lancashire, or Yorkshire. If the same poet wrote them all, we do not know the order of their composition, but the transition from the alliterative early English line to the rhymed Romance stanza suggests that Purity and Patience came first, followed by Sir Gawain and Pearl.

While I was a college student, I found in a second-hand bookstore a copy of Henry Bateson's 1918 (second) edition of Patience, published by Manchester University Press. It had once belonged (in England, because penciled marks inside the front cover knock the price down from a JG to i/) to someone named P.R.C. Potter, who had penciled English words above the originals, occasionally, in tiny script, already shadowy.

I blundered through the Middle English lines as well as I could, looking up word after word in the back-something that could hardly be called reading-and in this manner made my way through Patience before I approached Sir Gawain or Pearl. One image, a

single phrase, from that first acquaintance with the poem, "Like a mote in through a minster door," never left me, and out ofall of Middle English poetry continued to echo, and brought me back to the poem and to others of its time.

When I wanted to translate a few lines of Patience, I went back to the old Bateson edition that had been with me for years, and that is the edition I went on using. Bateson must have been working over his text during the years when J. R. R. Tolkien and E. V. Gordon were embarking on their studies of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, referring to the same manuscript from more than five hundred years earlier. A mote in through a minster door.

W. S. MERWIN is the author of more than fifteen books of poetry and twenty volumes of translations. His honors include the Bollingen Prize, the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, and fellowships from The Academy of American Poets, the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Rockefeller Foundation. He recently began a five-year term as judge of the Yale Series of Younger Poets. He lives and works in Hawaii.

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