Part 5 (1/2)
Other inscriptions are as follows:--
On an old bra.s.s, quoted by W. Williams, _Notes and Queries_, I. vii.
577, and thought by him to belong to the Church of St. Helen's, London[25]:--
'Here lyeth y^e bodyes of James Pomley, y^e sonne of ould Dominick Pomley and Jane his wyfe: y^e said James deceased y^e 7th day of Januarie Anno Domini 1592 he beyng of y^e age of 88 years, & y^e sayd Jane deceased y^e -- day of -- D --
Earth goeth up Earth as moulde up moulde; Earth goeth up Earth all glittering as golde, As though earth to y^e earth never turne sholde; And yet shall earth to y^e earth sooner than he wolde.
On a tomb at Edmonton of unknown date (possibly sixteenth century), mentioned by Weever (_Ancient Funerall Monuments_) in 1631, and by Pettigrew (_Chronicles of the Tombs_, p. 67) in 1857:--
Erth goyth upon erth as mold upon mold, Erth goyth upon erth al glisteryng in gold, As though erth to erth ner turne shold, And yet must erth to erth soner than he wolde.
Formerly on a headstone in St. James's Churchyard, Clerkenwell, deciphered about 1812, but already lost in 1851, probably owing to the dismantling of the churchyard. (Cf. _Notes and Queries_, III. i. 389):--
Earth walks on Earth like glittering gold; Earth says to Earth 'We are but mold'.
Earth builds on Earth castles & towers; Earth says to Earth, 'All shall be ours!'
Formerly on a tombstone at St. Martin's, Ludgate, to Florens Caldwell esq. of London & Ann Mary Wilde, his wife (Pettigrew, p. 67)[26]:--
Earth goes to Earth, as mold to mold; Earth treads on Earth, glittering in gold: Earth as to Earth returne ne'er shoulde; Earth shall to Earth goe e'er he wolde.
Earth upon Earth consyder may; Earth goes to Earth naked away.
Earth though on Earth be stowt & gay Earth shall from Earth pa.s.se poore away.
Be mercifull & charitable, Relieve the poor as thou art able.
A shrowd to the grave Is all thou shalt have.
This interesting monument has unfortunately disappeared. Doubtless there are many other traces of the poem to be found, but it appears to have been rarely used on tombstones after 1700,[27] and earlier monuments, unless specially preserved, are rarely decipherable at the present day.
LITERARY INTEREST.
_Erthe upon Erthe_ cannot be said to possess great literary value in itself. The interest of the poem lies chiefly in its evident popularity, and in the insight it gives into the kind of literature which became popular in the Middle Ages. It belongs essentially to the same cla.s.s as the _Soul and Body_ Poems, and the _Dance of Death_. In the early days of its introduction into Western Europe, Christianity made great use in its appeal to the ma.s.s of the people of the fear of death and dread of the Judgement. The early monastic writers dwelt upon the idea of man's mortality and decay, and the transitoriness of human rank and pleasure.
Hence the frequency with which such themes as the _Dance of Death_ were treated in literature and in art. Closely allied with this idea of the fleeting nature of earthly things, and to some extent a result of it, was the conception of the separation of man's bodily from his spiritual self which pervades all mediaeval post-Christian literature. In Old English times already, this sense of a sharp division between the two is embodied in No. xliv of the O.E. _Riddles_:--
[28]Ic wat indryhtne aeelum deorne ?iest in ?eardum, aem se grimma ne maeg hunger scean ne se hata urst, yldo ne adle [ne se enga dea], ?if him arlice esne ena, se e agan sceal [his ?eongorscipe]
on am sifaete: hy gesunde aet ham finda witode him wiste ? blisse, cnosles unrim, care, ?if se esne his blaforde hyre yfle frean on fore, ne wile forht wesan broer orum: him aet bam scee, onne hy from bearme begen hweorfa anre magan ellorfuse moddor ? sweostor.
This sets forth the same conception of the duality in man as is represented in the O.E. _Speech of the Soul to the Body_, and in the whole group of _Soul and Body_ poems, and the idea recurs constantly in other monastic texts, cf. Morris, _O. E. Miscellany_, iii (_Sinners Beware_), p. 83:--
326. e feondes heom for lede Boe lychom and saule.
331-336. e saule sey to e lychome, Accursed wure i nome, in heaued and in heorte.
u vs hauest iwroht es schome, And alle ene eche grome Vs schall euer smerte.
_MS. Harl._ 2253, fol. 106, v^o, l. 7: e fleysh stont a?eyn e gost.
These two fundamental ideas of the transitoriness and hence worthlessness of man's earthly part, and the cleavage between it and his spiritual part, lie at the root of much of the mediaeval literature, and represent the two not incompatible extremes to which the monastic ideal of life, from its very one-sidedness, was capable of leading: on the one hand a certain morbid materialism, on the other an ascetic mysticism.