Aldhelm of Malmesbury, Enigma 100 [De Creatura]

A Creative (Re)Translation from a Poet from Early England

This is the final poem in a collection of Anglo-Latin enigmata written by Aldhelm of Malmesbury (ca. 639–709). This assemblage of verbal puzzles follow Aldhelm’s treatise on Latin poetic meters, perhaps as examples of those forms. The style & format of these riddles is a quite different than the Old English riddles found in the Exeter Book (ca. 950–1000), although two of the later are fairly direct translations of Aldhelm. The 100th poem in the collection is spoken in the voice of Natura (or Dame Nature), the procreative spirit of the universe, often figured as a goddess subordinate to God who gives created things their shape according to a higher plan. Here, Natura encompasses & arranges all the things described in the preceding 99 engimata — while at the same time allowing Aldhelm as theologian to celebrate that universe & its oxymorons & complexities, the ambiguities that make both riddling & figurative language possible at all & as poet to exult in the power of his words & his mastery of his craft. Hardly a humble brag at all.

I produced this attempt at creative revisioning as I prepared an article on Exeter Book Riddle 38 (ASPR #40), which itself a creative adaptation of De creatura. Bafflements are plentiful, however: Aldhelm’s final puzzle appears at more or less the center of the EBR’s 90 poems — and due to manuscript damage, the former’s final challenge to “sōfōs inflātōs” [swollen philosophers] is entirely absent, if it would have appeared at all. Other differences & alterations in EBR 38 call into question common paradigms of auctoritās in medieval culture.

It’s taking me forever to complete the post I wanted to share next — as I’m realizing it’s probably a whole article or a major component of a chapter in my book in progress. So it goes. Meanwhile, enjoy the (re)translation!

Image of Dame Nature from a 13th c. manuscript of Le Roman de Rose [scan source helpfully divested image of provence]

De creatura

The author who scribbles out the sum of all possible worlds 
into columns without edit, wrought me in all variety,
that rector of realms, reining in rule even the lightning,
while lofting heights of high-most heavens revolve,
fashioned me firstly when they wrote down the world.
Thoroughly watchful a warden, it does me no good to nap —
All the same my headlamps clap closed with slumber.

For, just as the Lord legislates out of their own authority,
so I enfold the whole enchilada within the celestial pivot.
No one is more tentative, because night-terrors terrify me,
yet bristling in utmost audacity, I bear down more bold than a boar.
None of you masters me, pining for the pennons,
except for god, who governs ungoverned in bastions of bright.

Beyond a doubt, I smell fresh, better than fuming incense,
whiffing well, like ambrosia & also lilies flourishing in fields
all scarlet alongside rosebushes. I can overwhelm
the inhaling of spikenard, imbued with sweetness —
and now I deliquesce in filth, rank with squalid ordure.

All the things, whatever it may be, ruled beneath the Pole
and its axis — long as the father, holding the freehold, allows it,
I steer in all right, explicating the shapes of all matter,
both dense & refined. Check it — I probe the secrets
of the Thundering, higher than heavens.
Even still, I delve into disgusting Dis, deeper than this earth.

Because I’m more aged than earth, I upstaged before ancient ages —
But look! Just this very year I burst from my mother’s womb.
Brighter than golden baubles when their buckles go brillianting,
I bristle more than brambles, cruder than kelp cast to shore.
See how I spread more spacious than the world’s wide-open spaces,
nevertheleast I am encased in the midst of a fist.
Colder than winter not to mention glittering splinters of frost,
though I’ll be blazing bathed in Vulcan’s flaming flows;
more sweet to taste than basting gooey nectar,
yet harsher than ashen wormwood of the marsh.

I munch up meals mightily gnashing like bottomless Cyclops
though I just might thrive thriftily without a speck more to peck.
More nimble than the eagle, speedier than Zephyr wings —
of course more rapid than raptors, yet also the quaking
earthworm and the snail shaking and the turtle mud-caked & slow,
as well as the dusky spawn of disgusting shit, more quickly
than tongue can trip would all best me ripping in running race.

Dead-heavier than lead, I heft hard as ponderous promontory —
flimsier than feathers, failing the weight even of flickering skippers.
Even stonier than flint, what licks thick hits from fiery guts
or even iron, yet more delicate than roasted delicacies.
Since I’m not crowned with down adorning my head 
from brows on down—none at all: no fringe, no locks, 
no baby curls — yet even so my tresses go blazing from my top,
too many to count, laid & arranged by my dresser.

See this — I puff up plumper, plungered full of lard,
when the swineherds lead their swollen crew back again 
to masted beeches, rejoicing too in their well-fatted flesh —
even so, famine’s ferocity tosses me, pressed in my puniness,
wasting & wan whilst despoiled constantly of all dainty repast.
First to admit I’m fetching, shining more brightly than Titan’s orb,
more brilliant than snow, when the clouds flurry their fleece on down,
but darker too, more than the blackness of shadowy prisons 
or lurking lemures, swallowed up in Tartarus.

I’m molded like a cosmic globe, ground out & round
or else a playful sphere — not to mention a crystal ball —
yet don’t discount I’m all stretched out at times as silken twine,
extended wide in willowy threads or else tunic weaves.
Behold, I spread wider than sixfold zones of any old globe
by which the earth’s breadth is broadened — believe it if you can —
nothing in the cosmos stands below me or above,
except the taproot of all things, whose talk tacks back the world.
I stand mightier than the slatey whale in silvery wave
and tinier than miniature maggots, that munch up the dead,
or else the scanty specks that dance in sunlight rays.
On one hundred toes I goes through grassy heath & field
yet never clatter down the trail, a tail-dragging trotter.

All in this way, my wisdom overarches well-schooled scholars,
yet never a lavish letter in books learned me none —
nor could I ever ascertain what their syllables were made of…
drier than drought of summer’s kindling sun
but dew-damp even so, more drenching than quenching flow.
Saltier by far than seething swells of sea though
I meander more blandishing than refreshing spring,
measured in innumerable meters, 
counting out all the figures & colors,
from which the matter of this universe here is elaborated,
although I’m as insipid as you like, drained of all hue.
Take note, the ones believing all the words I say —
what witty wiseguy could even expound by mouth —
yet the discerning reader shouldn’t reckon them ridiculous.
I demand to know from swollen sophists by what name I go.