The Ballad of the White Horse

Preface
This reissue of the illustrated tenth edition of The Ballad of the White Horse provides an elegant copy of Chesterton’s epic of Alfred. Robert Austin’s illustrations place the reader in King Alfred’s embattled world; the introduction and endnotes supply the historical and legendary underpinnings of the “aboriginal struggle of the Pagans and the Christians.” The uniqueness of the notes lies in excerpts from Asser’s Deeds of Alfred, in the inclusion of annals from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, and in criticisms and appreciations by modern scholars. Now on its eighty-second anniversary through the generosity of Kathleen Bohn, Thelma A. Haley, Janet Happy Jackson, Jean Scanlan, and Anna Marie Summerlin, a new generation of readers may ponder and savor Chesterton’s way of looking at life.
My warmest gratitude goes to Anna Mary Waickman whose love and encouragement have promoted the publication of this literary classic.
Donald F. Finlay, Louise H. Girard, and Connie Lewin of St. Michael University College Library in Toronto receive special mention for providing ideal facilities for users of the Chesterton Archives.
The editor is deeply indebted to A. P. Watt Ltd. on behalf of the Royal Literary Fund for permission to use quotations from G. K. Chesterton’s Cobbett, A Short History of England, and for excerpts from the Chesterton Archives: the first stanza of an early unpublished poem about Moses and two lines from a rejected stanza of the BWH.
The editor gratefully acknowledges the permission to quote from the following publications: James Campkell’s The Anglo-Saxons, Cornell University Press; Alice S. Green’s History of the Irish to 1014, Macmillan; P. J. Chandlery’s Mary’s Praise on Every Tongue, Manresa Press; Christopher Hollis’s The Mind of Chesterton, University of Miami Press; Richard Muir’s History from the Air, Mickael Joseph Ltd.; Duncan Norton-Taylor’s The Emergence of Man: The Celts. Time-Life Books; Maisie Ward’s The English Way, Gilbert Keith Chesterton, and The Splendor of the Rosary, Sheed & Ward; Gilbert Keith Chesterton’s Autobiography, and The Queen of Seven Swords, Sheed & Ward; Garry Wills’s Chesterton, Man and Mask, Sheed & Ward.
The following periodicals allow quotations from their pages: Archaeological Journal (G. B. Grundy’s “Ancient Highways and Tracks”), Christian Century (Garry Wills’s “A Chesterton for the Right”), New York Times Book Review (“The Ballad of the White Horse”), (“The Making of England”), and (“The Ebullient Genius of G.K. Chesterton”), Times Literary Supplement (“Mr. Chesterton in Verse”), and (“G.K. Chesterton: Child and Man”).
Sincere appreciation goes to Linnea Dudley and LaTayna Hurt for their valuable technical assistance. Revisions, clarifications, and new interpretations resulted from the critical reading of the manuscript by Garry Wills, Patricia Glaab, David Adam Ezel, Hilda Bonham, Ruth McGuire, Mary Laubacher, and Anne Marie Murphy.
The editor also expresses thanks to Andrea Lee, John R. Novak, Candace Webster, Catherine Mulroy, Helena Connelly, and Rose C. Burgess who in important ways contributed to the publication of this edition of The Ballad of the White Horse.
Bernadette Sheridan, IHM

Introduction
“The Ballad of the White Horse” is the record of a noble vision flung on to the canvas with told strong colours. It is what Matthew Arnold said poetry should always be: “A criticism of life.” Chesterton tells the story of Alfred, following and rightly following the popular legend. The story of how he played the harp and sang in the Danish camp, of how he burnt the cakes in the herdsman’s hut, and how his ultimate victory came about in the Valley of the White Horse. That is the bones of the story, and this is treated in the true ballad form by a masterly hand, and with driving inspiration. Besides this, there is the philosophic import and significance of the poem, “The Criticism of Life” which is so large that it almost swamps the ballad element. The point of this is the contrast between Pagan and Christian ideals. Alfred, in the poem, is the incarnation of the Christian tradition. The Danes Chesterton represents as the types of paganism. (Excerpted from Baring 1911,378-79).
The introduction is limited to five topics: an overview of The Ballad of the White Horse, the White Horse in reality and symbol, the BWH on the stocks (1901-1911), the locale of Ethandune, and sidelights on the Ballad.
i
The Ballad of the White Horse presents the struggle between Christianity and heathenism in the heroic days of King Alfred, and at the same time touches contemporary issues of the twentieth century. In form it employs the rhymed romantic poetry so suited to the stirring events unfolded, while in substance it depicts the valorous Wessex king as “a conqueror, with no ambition; an author only too glad to be a translator; a concentrated, wary man, watching the fortunes of one thing, which he piloted both boldly and cautiously, and which he saved at last” (Chesterton 1917,52). The use of King Alfred’s addition to Boethius for the epigraph emphasizes that people and events are under the influence of “a divine purpose that rules.” The scope of this narrative includes the story of the Anglo-Saxon people during the late ninth century when the Danes seriously threatened their autonomy. Its subject-matter deals with history, legend, mythology, and religion. Since the supernatural element is quite pronounced and some of the events are under its control, it has the atmosphere appropriate for an epic. Action is on a huge scale. Not only do events center around an ultimate battle, but true to epic requirements, the characters are also heroes or supernatural beings. Alfred is a national hero, Guthrum is a historical national leader, and Mary a celestial being. These characters interest us by the part they play in furthering or hindering the efforts to dominate England.
Symmetry characterizes the development of the plot. Stanzas fourteen to thirty of book I refer to previous Danish incursions. The succeeding three boohs show Alfred recruiting, reconnoitering, and planning for the all-out battle with the entire Danish army. Boohs V and VI tell of the battle at Ethandune, while booh VII relates how the routed West Saxons rallied and with heavenly help win the day. To balance the brief account of Alfred’s encounters with the heathen in the first booh, the last part of the eighth records how the king checked the invaders in 892-96. Chesterton could have focused only on Ethandune. Instead he depicts Alfred continuously at work preparing for the return of the Danes who, in fact, assaulted his kingdom during the last decade of his rule. In this allotment of material, Chesterton puts a bloody stress on Ethandune and gives his poem proper balance and proportion.
While integrating the events and legends related by the chroniclers, Chesterton embellishes the Ballad by the inclusion of preternatural and magical charms. Since it is common knowledge that the Gaels and the Northmen of the ninth century held strange beliefs, Colan’s superstition and Elf’s magic sword abet the genuineness of the narrative even while introducing elements from a fairy world. Supernatural intervention accounts for the victory of the Christians, as well as for the subsequent conversion of Guthrum.
The characters are an intriguing assemblage. They stand out before us alive—deftly drawn by a few strokes of the poet’s pen. In presenting the Saxon Eldred, the Roman Mark, and the Gaelic-Welsh Colan, he suggests the characteristics of their races and sustains these features each time the chieftains appear. Mary’s presence and effectiveness in books I and VII are ineffable. The irascible woman in the forest serves as a foil to Alfred’s humble forbearance (IV:161-279). Among the Danish leaders, King Guthrum, educated in the Latin tongue, possesses a more discerning nature than the three earls: Harold, Ogier, and Elf. While looking at things as they are, he is not impelled by hatred. He is thoughtful, seeks truth, yet is despairing. Chesterton describes Guthrum quite thoroughly, not only because he is the war-chief, but also to prepare us for his embracing Christianity (ASC).
Chesterton achieved unity in this epic by binding together its episodes by a common relationship to Alfred who is responding to a message from Mary.
“But out of the mouth of the Mother of God
I have seen the truth like fire,
This—that the sky grows darker yet
And the sea rises higher.”
(II:153-56)
The king excels in martial pursuits as well as in peacetime achievements. From Alfred’s skirmishes with the enemy in the first booh to his triumphant ride into London in the eighth, readers follow his deeds with interest.
Considered under the Coleridgian concept of organic unity, the poem has atmosphere, continuous moral concern, chronological continuity of the main events and characters, references hack and forward to people and occurrences, and links between tales and legends. In commenting on “the satisfactory character of a poem” Coleridge suggests it should “produce the pleasurable interest which it is the peculiar business of poetry to impart” ([1817]1907,2:6). “It must be one, the parts of which mutually support and explain each other; all in their proportion harmonizing with, and supporting the purpose and known influences of metrical arrangement—The reader should be carried forward… by the pleasurable activity of mind excited by the attractions of the journey itself… . Like the motion of a serpent,… at every step he pauses and half recedes, and from the retrogressive movement collects the force which again carries him onward” ([1817] 1907,2:10-11). Chesterton uses this serpentine movement frequently. Observe how it emphasizes and clarifies meaning and feeling. Note how the second stanza looks back at the previous one while moving forward:
But halted in the woodways
Christ’s few were grim and grey,
And each with a small, far, bird-like sight
Saw the high folly of the fight;
And though strange joys had grown in the night,
Despair grew with the day.
And when white dawn crawled through the wood,
Like cold foam of a flood,
Th en weakened every warrior’s mood,
In hope, though not in hardihood;
And each man sorrowed as he stood
In the fashion of his blood.
(V:46-57)
“Finally, good sense is the body of poetic genius, fancy its drapery, motion its life, and imagination the soul that is everywhere, and in each; and forms all into one graceful and intelligent whole” ([1817] 1907,2:13).
Chesterton displays all the marks of poetic genius mentioned by Coleridge. Good sense is shown in his choice of Alfred “boldly and cautiously defending his kingdom.” Wisdom is apparent in his use of the ballad stanza to relate his romantic tale. Fancy is evident in surprising ways. Particularly noteworthy is the appearance of the Mother of God in book VII. Imagination is truly everywhere. Here it has a humorous turn:
A mighty man was Eldred,
A bulk for casks to fill,
His face a dreaming furnace,
His body a walking hill.
(II:42-45)
GK splashes his pages with color (III:108-11), makes his stanzas reverberate with sound (VII:225-234), and hurries his readers on into the heart of the battle (VII:179-94); re-creating at the same time the atmosphere and setting of ninth century England. His use of alliteration, kennings, and words of Anglo-Saxon and Middle English origin effectively flavor and enliven this story of West Saxon times. Critics, commenting on the BWH, “cannot believe that verse in which the living spirit of balladry exults more simply in its strength than ever since Scott will wholly disappear” (Times Literary Supplement, 7 November 1936). John Raymond asserts, “Alfred will be making his last stand at Ethandune long after the sun has gone down on Notting Hill and the Flying Inn” (Conlon 1987,161).
ii
Aerial View of the White Horse, Uffington, Berkshire Courtesy of the British Information Services
But he only pointed: bade them heed
Those peasants of the Berkshire breed,
Who plucked the old Horse of the weed
As they pluck it to this hour.
(VIII:180-83)
“Towards the west, above Uffington, the hills reach a culminating point of 856 feet in White Horse Hill. In its northern flank, a gigantic figure of a horse is cut, the turf being removed to show the white chalky sub-soil beneath… . It is 374 feet long and of the rudest outline, the neck, body and tail varying little in width. Its origin is unknown” (Encyclopaedia Britannica 11 ed. s.v. “White Horse”). In the Prefatory Note to the Ballad, Chesterton asserts that “a tradition connects the ultimate victory of Alfred with the valley in Berkshire called the Vale of the White Horse.” Thomas Hughes (1822-1896), a native of the locality, recorded this tradition associated with the Vale: “Here [there are] legends connecting [the White Horse] with the name of our greatest king, and with his great victory over the Pagans, and a festival which has been held at very short intervals ever since the ninth century” (1859, viii-ix). This written evidence confirms the Berkshire White Horse as the one Chesterton selected for his epic of Alfred. It also corrects statements made by distinguished English writers. Patrick Braybrooke recognizes the Wiltshire horse: “There have been many white horses, but there is The White Horse, and he lies alone on the side of a hill down Wiltshire way” (1922,68). Christopher Hollis also missed Chesterton’s many references to the location of the battle. “There are a number of White Horses scattered about… but there are two of immemorial antiquity—the Wiltshire White Horse above Westbury and the Berkshire White Horse above Wantage. It is characteristic of Chesterton’s carelessness about detail that he never in his Ballad makes up his mind which of these horses was the scene of the battle and talks indifferently of ‘Berkshire hinds’ and of finding the horse ‘along the road to Frome’ ” (1970,149). Dudley Barker (1973) as well as Michael Coren (1989) also mistakenly refer to the horse in Wilts. On the contrary, Chesterton in the poem invariably pinpointed White Horse Hill and the Vale of the White Horse in Berkshire as the location of Ethandune. In his final proof reading of VIII: 181 he changed Wessexto Berkshire (Chesterton Archives). The Westbury White Horse, Wiltshire, has no place in Chesterton’s epic.
In his Autobiography Chesterton mentions seeing the White Horse while he was electioneering in its vicinity (1936, 127-28). Elsewhere he says that the White Horse may have been picked out of the grass in a previous “geological age before the sea burst through the narrow Straits of Dover… . That rude but evident white outline that I saw across the valley may have been begun when Britain was not an island” (1911,256). On another occasion GKC points out that it is local patriotism that keeps alive “the memory of Alfred in that noble Berkshire valley where the White Horse has been picked clean of grass continuously for a thousand years” (Illustrated London News, 8 August 1908).
Chesterton personifies the Horse in the opening stanzas of The Ballad of the White Horse. The White Horse “looked on,” he “knew England,” he “saw the first oar break or bend.” Two verses from a rejected stanza, originally placed after 111:372, portray the White Horse as figuratively alive.
The White Horse struggles in the grass
The White Horse whinnyeth
(Chesterton Archives)
From his vantage point on the brow of White Horse Hill, the Horse looks down upon Berkshire’s valley of decision. When Alfred’s men are winning, “the White Horse stamps in the White Horse Vale.” In the eighth book
The still-eyed King sat pondering,
As one that watches a live thing,
The scoured chalk;
(VIII:233-35)
Here Alfred speaks directly to the Horse about a vision of the return of the heathen.
King Alfred the Great very probably knew the White Horse. Born at Wantage, a few miles east of the Hill, he must have seen it often while hunting or traveling in the vicinity. One should look up before ascending the Hill, because the White Horse is too large to be seen in its entirety at close range. [This hill-top site is a country park with ample parking within a few hundred yards of the Horse. Admission is free.]
The White Horse may serve as a readers’ scoreboard which reveals whether the Christians or the pagans are in command. If the Horse lies unkempt, the Danes are lording it over Wessex.
The great White Horse was grey,
For it was ill scoured of the weed;
And lichen and thorn could crawl and feed,
Since the foes of settled house and creed
Had swept old works away.
(III:33-37)
But if the White Horse is as white “as the first plume of the snows” (VIII:138), the countryside is at peace. Repeated scourings remind people that they can no more stop evil from cropping up in the nation, in politics, and in themselves, than they can prevent weeds from growing on the Horse by uprooting them but once (VIII:184-87). No, this cannot be, for weeds shall grow in England “faster than men can hum.” So, ’
If we would have the horse of old,
Scour ye the horse anew.
(VIII:206-7)
Just how do readers feel about the White Horse? A random sampling shows a diversity of opinions. To one the galloping Horse is a symbol of the aliveness and forward movement of the English nation. Thomas Hughes regarded it as a presence which is worthy of respectful attention. Celeste Desmond states, “Chesterton uses the White Horse as a symbol as well as a landmark—a symbol of the conserving power of Christianity in opposition to the destructive forces of a many-headed Paganism” (1958,2). Douglas Woodruff sees the old White Horse of Uffington as “a symbol of all the human inheritance of the past.” Christopher Hollis thinks [Chesterton] “took the white horse as the symbol of continuing English life” (1970,149). Patrick Braybrooke believes, “The White Horse stands for something that year by year we are forgetting, those quaint old English feasts that have done so much to make England merry, and have made history into a beautiful legend that bears the name of Alfred” (1922,68). Garry Wills shares these insights: “The figure of the White Horse on the hill is a sacrament meant to reveal Alfred’s love of his native earth in all its autonomy” (1961,141). To Professor Wills the White Horse is unfathomable: “An honest mind will soon disappear into the depths of that richest of Chesterton’s symbols” (1961,132).
Every biographer refers to the number of white horses which have played a part in Chesterton’s existence. Writing of Irirnself in 1926, GK said, “To this day I can never see a big white horse in the street without a sudden sense of indescribable things” (1929,165). In an analytical mood he comments: “There are, as we say, certain real advantages in pictorial symbols, and one of them is that everything that is pictorial suggests without naming or defining. There is a road from the eye to the heart that does not go through the intellect” (1906,77-78).
iii
Chesterton was thirty-seven when The Ballad of the White Horse came off the press in 1911. He labored in between times from 1901 until 1911 in planning, researching, and writing the Ballad. In addition to his contributions to newspapers and periodicals, he published twenty-two books. His sustained attention to the epic of Alfred the Great [2683 lines] is unassailable proof that he could and did take trouble with his writing. Ronald Knox called it a “polished performance.”
Although Chesterton may have begun research even earlier on the poem, it is probable the Millenary of King Alfred’s death inspired and motivated him to write The Ballad of the White Horse in honor of “England’s darling.” [26 October 1899 was the actual date of the anniversary.]

NATIONAL COMMEMORATION 1901
17 September Tuesday Exhibition at the British Museum
Program at Winchester
18 Visit to the ancient Westgate, Winchester Castle, etc.
19 Visit to Wolvesey, site of the palace of the Saxon kings
20 Procession Unveiling of Statue Address by the Earl of Rosebery
21 Visit to St. Cross Garden party at Stratton
Two of Chesterton’s essays about Alfred the Great show his awareness of the Commemoration. His earlier article quotes Lord Rosebery as saying that the personality of Alfred was peculiarly English: “The great magnificence of the English character is expressed in the word ‘service’ ” (1905,203). In the later account (Ward 1933,56-64), he recalls the 1901 celebrations in both the United States and Great Britain. See E VII:54-55.
Chesterton had a special interest in epics during the opening years of the century. His précis of famous epics are brilliant: “Every great literature has always been allegorical—allegorical of some view of the whole universe. The ‘Iliad’ is only great because all life is a battle, the ‘Odyssey’ because all life is a journey, the Book of Job because all life is a riddle” (1906,47).
In Father Brown on Chesterton John O’Connor informs us that in March 1904, after he and Mr. Chesterton had walked across the moors to the Steinthals, Mrs. Chesterton told him about “the Epic in contemplation.” Since he was writing about 35 years after the fact, it is not surprising that he has rearranged events and misdated them also. Fortunately, Father O’Connor’s 6 December 1903 letter in the Chesterton Archives sets the record straight. Chesterton’s Keighley lecture was on Thursday, 3 December 1903. Their walk together across the moors to Steinthals’s residence on the following day was on 4 December 1903, not in March 1904. Father O’Connor’s remark in the 6 December 1903 letter to Mrs. Chesterton, “I hope he got home to you undamaged and with his cold better,” proved that Mrs. Chesterton was in Battersea not in Ilkley when the two men arrived that December day. It follows that Father O’Connor’s remarks about the Ballad belong to a later occasion when the three were present. The 14 February 1904 letter from Fr. O’Connor to Mrs. Chesterton says: “I hope to see you both at Easter [3 April] in Ilkley.” Was it during this visit to the Steinthals that Frances, between lunch and tea, delighted Father O’Connor with samples from the ballad epic of Alfred? Frances also told Father O’Connor on that occasion that “a deal [of the epic] was already composed” (O’Connor 1938,30). “All through the ensuing year Gilbert kept planning and adding to the Epic of Alfred, now extant as The Ballad of the White Horse” (O’Connor 1938,31).
In Alarms and Discursions there are essays about Ethandune, Athelney, White Horses, and Glastonbury which give evidence of his trips alone or with his wife to “the battle-places and hiding places” of Alfred the Great. He was killing two birds with one stone: writing for the newspapers and doing research on The Ballad of the White Horse.
Chesterton’s veiled reference to the Ballad in his Autobiography reveals his inner thoughts and feelings about the “primitive things” revolving in his mind.
For all this funny little fuss of politics was in this case spread out like a sprawling sham fight… . For I remember the faint and hazy inspiration that troubled me one evening on the road, as I looked beyond the little hamlet, patched so incongruously with a few election posters, and saw hung upon the hills, as if it were hung upon the heavens, remote as a pale cloud and archaic as a gigantic hieroglyph; the White Horse (1936,127-28).
In the Chesterton Archives an early title of the poem is given as The Epic of the White Horse. Six microfiche (F22-F27) contain holograph copies of passages of the Ballad, stanzas copied by his wife, and a typescript of the poem. The evidence is there of sufficient minute corrections: insertions and deletions of stanzas, phrases, and words to convince everyone that Chesterton took infinite pains in composing and revising his epic of Alfred. Christopher Hollis’s statement that Chesterton wrote it in a fortnight may be true of the final version in 1911 (1970,151). Father O Connor mentions how the completed copy was given to him for appraisal in July 1911. Methuen published 1500 copies on 31 August 1911. [A second and third edition were called for in October and November 1911, with a fourth reprinted in 1912. John Lane brought out the first of many American editions in 1911.]
There is a facetious reference to the Tryggvhessa Saga in a letter Chesterton wrote to Frances on 11 July 1899. Could this suggest that he was doing background research on the Vikings in preparation for writing his epic? (Ward 1943,109-10)
From the foregoing it seems credible that Chesterton worked off and on for at least ten years researching and composing his tribute to the great Alfred who “rules England to the doom.”
iv
But who shall look from Alfred’s hood
Or breathe his breath alive?
His century like a small dark cloud
Drifts far; it is an eyeless crowd,
Where the tortured trumpets scream aloud
And the dense arrows drive.
(D:41-46)
Determining the true site of Alfred’s victory in 878 is still vexing Wessex antiquarians in the twentieth century. Chesterton’s choice of the Vale of the White Horse in Berkshire exposed him to the wrath of the archaeologists of Wilts and Somerset. To forestall unpleasantness, he declared in his preface, “This ballad needs no historical notes.” A careful reading of the Prefatory Note reveals that GK is emphasizing tradition not denying history. In fact in his Autobiography he says the epic concerns “the genesis of all our history” (1936, 127-28). [Maurice Baring affirms this, “It is historical in the true sense of the word, in that it aims at and achieves seizing the spirit if not the letter of history” (Eye Witness, 7 September 1911,378).]
To discern why Chesterton penned that alibi, one must be aware of the wrangling among the antiquarians from Somerset, Wiltshire, and Berkshire regarding the location of Alfred’s great victory at Ethandune. Chesterton knew his selection of Berkshire would provoke an outcry. Yet his decision to place Ethandune in the Berkshire Vale of the White Horse preceded every other consideration. He side-stepped the issue by the following explanation: “I write as one ignorant of everything, except that I have found the legend of a King of Wessex still alive in the land… . A tradition connects the ultimate victory of Alfred with the valley in Berkshire called the Vale of the White Horse” (Prefatory Note). Was there belated appeasement for the Wiltshire faction in his 1933 essay on “Alfred the Great?” “He [Alfred] gradually gathered round him the remnants of the Christian population, and in the spring of 878 appeared suddenly with an army before the Danish camp at Ethandune, possibly Edington [Wiltshire]; smashed in their palisades, captured their royal leader and bis raven banner, and imposed on him the famous treaty of Wedmore, by which he and his people were baptized and withdrew their forces from Wessex, retaining only lands further to the north and east” (Ward 1933,57).
Not long before the publication of The Ballad of the White Horse, Chesterton wrote in the Illustrated London News about these opposing claims for the site of Ethandune:
Mr. Greswell argues from the place of surrender, if, he says, the fight occurred in Wiltshire, why was the treaty at Wedmore and not at Chippenham? If I remember aright, Mr. Oman, in bis book on England before the Conquest, maintains that the surrender and treaty were made at the Wiltshire town, and not at Wedmore at all. He even calls the Treaty of Wedmore the Pact of Chippenham, which is a very desperate and ruthless thing to do. Whether or no he is right to maintain this, I am, of course, quite unfitted to discuss. But if he is right, it would get over this one objection of Mr. Greswell, the Somerset champion. I use the last phrase for the sake of brevity; I fear it sounds rather pugilistic. But if people will start quarrels… about battles long ago the pugilistic atmosphere is difficult to avoid. I only say that nothing will induce me to interpose my person between Greswell, the Somerset Bruiser, and Oman, the Wiltshire Pet. (19 November 1910,633)
Evidence that Chesterton knew before the publication of the poem that the decisive battle of Ethandune was probably fought near Chippenham in Wutshire is found in the concluding paragraph of his essay on Ethandune: “It gave me a queer emotion to think that, sword in hand, as the Danes poured with the torrents of their blood down to Chippenham, the great king may have lifted up his head and looked at that oppressive shape” (1911,230).
Appreciating Chesterton’s desire to feature the Berkshire White Horse in his epic and his aversion to hurt the feelings of his countrymen in Somerset and Wilts who were quite certain that the battle of Ethandune occurred within their confines, points up the predicament which occasioned his declaration “this ballad needs no historical notes.” But this misleading statement led some reviewers and critics to misinterpret the poem.
The learned English archaeologists and antiquarians feel very strongly about historical accuracy. Consider the exchanges between various claimants: John Thurman, “On the Barrow at Lanhill near Chippenham, with Remarks on the Site of, and on the Events Connected with the Battles of Cynuit and Ethandune, A.D. 878,” Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Magazine 3(1857):67-86. [Yatton favored as the site of the Battle of Ethandune.] George Matcham, “The Battle of Ethandun,” Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Magazine 3(1857): 175-88. [Favors Ethandune (Edington). He was correct.] G. Poulett Scrope, “The Battle of Ethandun,” Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Magazine 3(1857):298-308. [Acrimoniously disagrees with Mr. Matcham.] In 1875 we find Bishop William Clifford, inquiring again into the real “Site of the Battle of Aethandune.” His opening sentences cogently express why this battle deserves epic treatment: “The battle of Aethandune, which took place in the year 878 between the English under King Aelfred and the Danish army under Gothrum, may justly be regarded as one of the most important events in our national history. The existence of the English as a nation was decided on that day” Proceedings of the Somersetshire Archaeological and Natural History Society 21:1. Thirty years later, W. L. Radford writing in the same Somersetshire Proceedings probes again into the location of Ethandune. Athelney in Somerset is where King Alfred hid out while rallying his supporters. Aller and Wedmore, also in Somerset, have historic interest, too. Guthrum was baptized at Aller, and the chrism-loosing occurred at Wedmore eight days later. Mr. Radford believed that the decisive battle was also fought nearby 51(1905):169-80. Dr. B. G. Grundy in “Ancient Highways and Tracks of Wilts, Berks, and Hants, and the Saxon Battlefields of Wilts” placed the battle of Ethandune on the down at Bratton Castle in Wiltshire. He includes sketches of the preliminary movements of the Wessex army. Archaeological Journal 75(1918):178-81 [The eminent historians Hodgkin and Stenton approved of Dr. Grundy’s reconstruction.] Lieutenant Colonel Alfred Burne in “Ancient Wiltshire Battlefields: Ellandun—Ethandun” applies the test of inherent military probability to alternative sites for the battle of Ethandune. He accepts Dr. Grundy’s equating Ethandune with Edington. Wutshire Archaeological and Natural History Magazine 53(1950):397-412.
Timothy Wilson Smith calls our attention once again to the battle of Ethandune in “King Alfred: An Eleventh Centenary,” History Today 28(1978): 423-28. The commemorations continue of Alfred’s birth, death, and of his victory at Ethandune. It is to Chesterton’s credit that he reared the marvel of The Ballad of the White Horse over Alfred such as the
great Vergilius
Wrought for the Roman king.
(VIII:271-72)
v
In a letter written to his fiancé in 1901, Chesterton solemnly dedicated his pen to the spreading of truth. “All the same, my dear, this is a great and serious hour [the burial of Queen Victoria] felt so completely by all England that I cannot deny the enduring wish I have,… to renew… private vows of a very real character to do my Lest for this country of mine which I love with a love passing the love of Jingoes. It is sometimes easy to give one’s country blood and easier to give her money. Sometimes the hardest thing of all is to give her truth” (Ward 1943,144). Chesterton fulfilled his private vows to do his best for his native land by composing the ballad epic of Alfred the Great.
■ ■ ■
In Father Brown on Chesterton Father John O’Connor describes a memorable moment in his life. “I was confused, and then transfused with sober delight, when one July evening [1911] at Overroads, Beaconsfield, he [GKC] put the whole MS. of the Ballad into my hands, and Mrs. Chesterton explained that I was to censor it, as so much of mine was in it” (1938,67).
How Father John O’Connor of Yorhs became acquainted with the Chestertons in Battersea is revealed through letters found in the G. K. Chesterton Archived.
xi II 03
St. Ann’s Keighley,
Yorks
Dear Mr. Chesterton,
In the language of the responsive and discerning person who arranged Buck Fanshaw’s funeral, I like you, and advised by the Autocrat of the Breakfast-table I make bold to tell you so.
I am a Catholic priest, and though I may not find you quite orthodox in details, I first wish to thank you heartily, or shall I say, to thank God for having gifted you with the spirituality which alone makes literature immortal, as I think. I have not been so edified by prose work since I read Coventry Patmore’s Essays a few years since. My appreciation is based on ‘The Defendant’ and ‘Twelve Types’. When in the former book I met the phrase ‘the foolish and valiant heart of man’, I said to myself: ‘Blessed be God’, for that is often the only word that relieves my feelings. I can say no more except that even yet it gives me new pleasure to think it over. But I find many a kernel of brain renewing or heart renewing sweetness in your books. Francis, Savonarola, Walter Scott, your ‘types’ do appeal to me especially, but all through the latter book I find a keynote running ‘Oh! folly of Love, the intense last culmination of intelligence’.
But as you think immortal thoughts I hope you will distill them into verse some day. I feel very much impelled to send you a faulty sonnet I made last year containing the same keynote as so many of your essays. But I forbear, as I don’t know whether this will reach you, or if you care for such things, and I dread above all things to knock up against what D’Annunzio calls ‘inconsapevolezza’.
Very truly yours,
J. O’Connor
Father O’Connor was probably 33 and Gilbert 29 when this letter was sent. How affirmed Chesterton must have felt when he read: “I first wish to thank you heartily, or shall I say, to thank God for having gifted you with the spirituality which alone makes literature immortal, as I think. I have not keen so edified by prose work since I read Coventry Patmore’s Essays a few years since.” Here is a person acquainted with American, British, and Italian writers recognizing GK’s inner giftedness and extolling his essays. Is it any wonder that Chesterton wanted to meet him?
Eight months later:
iv X 03
St. Ann’s Keighley
Dear Mr. Chesterton,
It was a most pleasant surprise to me to read your letter with the good news it contains. I see by our Literary etc. Soc. Prospectus that you are lecturing to us in December. Prosit Amen.
Certainly you may come and see me. You are hereby cordially invited. Are you the guest of any member of the K. L. S.? If you are, so; if not, though I am hut a salaried minion of this establishment, I may get you put up for the night here. The rector is the uncle to Walter Crawley, who spoke as though he had met you more than once. [Four paragraphs omitted]
Yours very sincerely,
J. O’Connor
This is the beginning of a lifelong friendship. In Father Brown on Chesterton, Father O’Connor writes about their many conversations, including his influence on the composition of the Ballad and of his slight connection with the Father Brown detective stories.
■ ■ ■
Celeste Desmond contributed to the analysis of the prosody of The Ballad of the White Horse when she completed a master’s thesis on the Ballad. Chapter III, “Structures of Sound,” details the quantitative and qualitative elements of the 280 lines of Book II. Interested persons may examine this thesis in the Mullen Library, Catholic University of America, Washington, D.C.
■ ■ ■
Julius West pleads with readers to respect the living wholeness of GK’s poems. “There is a temptation to treat… most of Chesterton’s poems, with special reference to their technique, but we must resist this temptation… . To give way to it would be to commit a form of vivisection. GKC is not a text, praise be, and whether he lives or dies, long may he be spared the hands of an editor or interpreter who is also an irrepressible authority on anapests and suchlike things” (1915,106).
Although Celeste Desmond practiced “vivisection” in me third chapter of her thesis, her final paragraph acclaims: “Structures of meaning and structures of sound have been explored and discoveries given. Yet, the most striking single feature of the ballad remains its ‘organic’ form, that is… such perfect fitting together of structural elements and meanings as will produce for a mind that contemplates the completed structure a sense of perfect harmony and consistency” (1958, 45-46).
■ ■ ■
As one ponders the commentaries on Chesterton’s epic of Alfred, the appraisals reveal its riches and the discernment of its critics. Two quotations, both from the Times Literary Supplement of London are poles apart in their evaluations. The 31 August 1911 review praises the poetry but objects to Chesterton’s method:
We are aware all trie while that Mr. Chesterton is trying to explain his ideas to us, and we see him behind all his Danes and Saxons… . At the end Alfred prophesies now ‘in some far century, sad and slow’, the heathen will come hack in a new guise to threaten faith and civilization again. When he does this the voice of Mr. Chesterton is clearer than ever and we know that he is telling us of our present sins.
A contrary viewpoint appeared shortly after GK’s death:
Criticism is in daring mood when it undertakes to deliver certificates of immortality… . But perhaps among the passages that will he remembered is that in which the disguised Alfred answers the heathen minstrels with the essence of the poet’s own faith:
“That though you hunt the Christian man
Like a hare on the hill-side,
That hare has still more heart to run
Than you have heart to ride.
“That though all lances split on you,
All swords he heaved in vain,
We have more lust again to lose
Than you to win again.
(III:335-42)
He could always find those grave and simple words for prose as for verse when his heart was most deeply stirred. And words of that stamp are seldom written in water. (7 November 1936)
An annotated edition of the BWH would have enabled two critics in the New York Times Book Review to recognize the epic’s historical background. The linguistic observation of the first reviewer is striking:
It is being debated in London literary clubs whether ‘The Ballad of the White Horse’ will live longer than the author’s essays and biographies. It is more than an epic poem related in simple narrative form. It is an attempt to do what Balzac did when he told his friends that he had discovered a rare MS of stories written in fifteenth century French, deceived everybody, and then confessed himself to be the author. Although the orthography of Mr. Chesterton’s ballad would prevent it from taking in a philologist, the style and coloring are as good as any of Chatterton’s imitations. But, as the author says in his preface, it needs no historical notes. The career of King Alfred, which is the theme, unlike that of King Arthur, is not a legend, although legends are the most important things about him. Mr. Chesterton has now augmented the list. (3 December 1911)
Chesterton is partly to blame for this estimate. He misled the American reviewers by saying “This ballad needs no historical notes.” The second review on 4 February 1912 begins:
And poetry is still being written. If any doubt, let him read Gilbert K. Chesterton’s ‘Ballad of the White Horse’. It is based upon legends told of Alfred the Great, and is (with the exception of some talky-talky monologues on the part of King Alfred) a rattling good poem of religion and war—two excellent things that in their purity usually go together. Here and there stanzas stand out in fairly startling relief… . ‘The Ballad of the White Horse’ is too long. There is good stuff even in its redundancies, but that is beside the point. If Mr. Chesterton had had the resolution to lop it discriminately, he might have produced one of the most robustly picturesque poems of the century.
■ ■ ■
The Anglo-American Pulitzer prize poet, W. H. Auden, approves of the length: “In the case of his longest and perhaps, greatest serious poem, ‘The Ballad of the White Horse’, I do not, however, I am happy to say, find the length excessive. When, for example, Elf the Minstrel, Earl Ogier, and Guthrum express in turns their conceptions of the Human Condition, what they sing could not be further condensed without loss” (Cordon 1987,319).
■ ■ ■
Professor Garry Wills, an eminent Chestertonian, perceives Alfred’s openness to God’s plans (1961,142):
Alfred’s vision at Athelney is only the beginning of the revelation, in and through him, of this Christian mysticism. The poem builds to a higher vision at its climax, the center of calm light in which a child plays—an odd, idyllic interlude placed dramatically in a setting of war and slaughter. It is this white light which fires the motley colors of battle and heroism and victory. Every line of the poem leads to that vision or follows from it. Alfred expresses a new facet of it in each episode.
Thirty years later Garry Wills laments: The Ballad of the White Horse is a “neglected masterpiece in narrative verse” 107 (1990):532.
■ ■ ■
Space permits only brief selections from the chorus of admirers: C. S. Lewis asserts the poem is “permanent and dateless”: “Does not the central theme of the Ballad—the highly paradoxical message which Alfred receives from the Virgin—embody the feeling, and the only possible feeling, with which in any age almost defeated men take up such arms as are left them and win?” (Cordon 1987,71). James Dollard, while extolling the “masculine vigor and purity of tone,” predicts “The Ballad of the White Horse will continue to perpetuate the name of the author down through future years, and be treasured as a classic of English literature” Catholic World 95 (April 1912):41-55.
Reflect, too, on Christopher Hollis’s insightful summation:
The Ballad of the White Horse tells the story of the battle of Alfred and his Christian army against the heathen Danish invaders and their defeat of them at the battle of Ethandune in the shadow of the White Horse, but it is far more than a mere account of battle and victory. It is the story of the eternal warfare against evil to which the Christian man is by the nature of his profession unendingly committed. But of course it is totally to misinterpret the poem to see in it some promise of security finally achieved as a result of a victory. The whole lesson of the poem is that security can never be finally achieved. It is always of its nature under challenge and death is always the end (1970,150).
Michael Ffinch agrees in substance with many readers: “The theme is the cause Chesterton himself had championed, the cause of Christendom against the forces of pagan darkness that constantly assail it” (1986,197). In the opinion of George N. Shuster: “ ‘The Ballad of the White Horse’ is a poem to love and even to sing, which are more important matters than putting it on a shelf and calling it great” (1922,234).

Unities of Time and Place
Chesterton embodies prehistory, history, tradition, legend, mythology, the supernatural, and romance in The Ballad of the White Horse. While remaining faithful to history, GKC takes liberties with the geography of Wessex. He follows a popular tradition and locates the battle of Ethandune in the White Horse Vale within sight of the White Horse on White Horse Hill in Berkshire. In Book IV Chesterton places the woman in the forest near Egbert’s Stone, several miles from her legendary home on the marshy island of Athelney.
In early 878 the Mother of God appears to Alfred on the river island of Athelney in Somersetshire. In the Gathering of the Chiefs Alfred first goes north toward Eldred, the Franklin by the Severn estuary, then north and east to Mark, probably in the vicinity of Bath, and lastly into southeastern Wales to Colan at Caerleon on the Usk. In the Harp of Alfred we find the disguised king in Berkshire scouting the environs of the Danish camp in White Horse Vale. Some carousing Danes bring him into the camp where Guthrum invites him to play and sing. Wiser after his exploratory visit, Alfred awaits the arrival of his troops. See E IV:59-60.
The events in Books V, VI, and VII occur 6-20 May 878 in the Valeof the White Horse. Book VIII spans the interval between the baptism of Guthrum (878) and the conclusion of Alfred’s last war in 896. Action in the 892-896 conflict takes place in various sectors of Britain and along the coastal waters (VIII: 214-30,315-71, and Endnotes).

PREFATORY NOTE
HIS ballad needs no historical notes, for the simple reason that it does not profess to be historical. All of it that is not frankly fictitious, as in any prose romance about the past, is meant to emphasize tradition rather than history. King Alfred is not a legend in the sense that King Arthur may be a legend; that is, in the sense that he may possibly be a lie. But King [10] Alfred is a legend in this broader and more human sense, that the legends are the most important things about him.
The cult of Alfred was a popular cult, from the darkness of the ninth century to the deepening twilight of the twentieth. It is wholly as a popular legend that I deal with him here. I write as one ignorant of everything, except that I have found the legend of a King of Wessex [20] still alive in the land. I will give three curt cases of what I mean. A tradition connects the ultimate victory of Alfred with the valley in Berkshire called the Vale of the White Horse. I have seen doubts of the tradition, which may be valid doubts. I do not know when or where the story started; it is enough that it started somewhere and ended with me; for I only seek to write upon a hearsay, [30] as the old balladists did. For the second case, there is a popular tale that Alfred played the harp and sang in the Danish camp; I select it because it is a popular tale, at whatever time it arose. For the third case, there is a popular tale that Alfred came in contact with a woman and cakes: I select it because it is a popular tale, because it is a vulgar one. It has been disputed by grave historians, [40] who were, I think, a little too grave to be good judges of it. The two chief charges against the story are, that it was first recorded long after Alfred’s death, and that (as Mr. Oman urges) Alfred never really wandered all alone without any thanes or soldiers. Both these objections might possibly be met. It has taken us nearly as long to learn the whole truth about Byron, and perhaps longer to learn [50] the whole truth about Pepys, than elapsed between Alfred and the first writing of such tales. And as for the other objection, do the historians really think that Alfred after Wilton, or Napoleon after Leipsic, never walked about in a wood by himself for the matter of an hour or two? Ten minutes might be made sufficient for the essence of the story. But I am not concerned to prove the truth of these [60] popular traditions. It is enough for me to maintain two things: that they are popular traditions; and that without these popular traditions we should have bothered about Alfred about as much as we bother about Eadwig.
One other consideration needs a note. Alfred has come down to us in the best way (that is by national legends) solely for the same reason as Arthur and Roland [70] and the other giants of that darkness, because he fought for the Christian civilization against the heathen nihilism. But since this work was really done by generation after generation, by the Romans before they withdrew, and by the Britons while they remained, I have summarised this first crusade in a triple symbol, and given to a fictitious Roman, Celt, and Saxon, a part in the glory of Ethandune. [80] I fancy that in fact Alfred’s Wessex was of very mixed bloods: but in any case, it is the chief value of legend to mix up the centuries while preserving the sentiment; to see all ages in a sort of splendid foreshortening. That is the use of tradition: it telescopes history.
G. K. C.

TO
MY WIFE

DEDICATION
F great limbs gone to chaos,
A great face turned to night—
Why bend above a shapeless shroud
Seeking in such archaic cloud
Sight of strong lords and light? [5]
Where seven sunken Englands
Lie buried one by one,
Why should one idle spade, I wonder,
Shake up the dust of thanes like thunder
To smoke and choke the sun? [10]
In cloud of clay so cast to heaven
What shape shall man discern?
These lords may light the mystery
Of mastery or victory,
And these ride high in history, [15]
But these shall not return.
Gored on the Norman gonfalon
The Golden Dragon died;
We shall not wake with ballad strings
The good time of the smaller things, [20]
We shall not see the holy kings
Ride down by Severn side.
Stiff, strange, and quaintly coloured
As the broidery of Bayeux
The England of that dawn remains, [25]
And this of Alfred and the Danes
Seems like the tales a whole tribe feigns
Too English to be true.
Of a good king on an island
That ruled once on a time; [30]
And as he walked by an apple tree
There came green devils out of the sea
With sea-plants trailing heavily
And tracks of opal slime.
Yet Alfred is no fairy tale; [35]
His days as our days ran,
He also looked forth for an hour
On peopled plains and skies that lower,
From those few windows in the tower
That is the head of a man. [40]
But who shall look from Alfred’s hood
Or breathe his breath alive?
His century like a small dark cloud
Drifts far; it is an eyeless crowd,
Where the tortured trumpets scream aloud [45]
And the dense arrows drive.
Lady, by one light only
We look from Alfred’s eyes,
We know he saw athwart the wreck
The sign that hangs about your neck, [50]
Where One more than Melchizedek
Is dead and never dies.
Therefore I bring these rhymes to you,
Who brought the cross to me,
Since on you flaming without flaw [55]
I saw the sign that Guthrum saw
When he let break his ships of awe,
And laid peace on the sea.
Do you remember when we went
Under a dragon moon, [60]
And ‘mid volcanic tints of night
Walked where they fought the unknown fight
And saw black trees on the battle-height,
Black thorn on Ethandune?
And I thought, “I will go with you, [65]
As man with God has gone,
And wander with a wandering star,
The wandering heart of things that are,
The fiery cross of love and war
That like yourself, goes on.” [70]
O go you onward; where you are
Shall honour and laughter be,
Past purple forest and pearled foam,
God’s winged pavilion free to roam,
Your face, that is a wandering home, [75]
A flying home for me.
Ride through the silent earthquake lands,
Wide as a waste is wide,
Across these days like deserts, when
Pride and a little scratching pen [80]
Have dried and split the hearts of men,
Heart of the heroes, ride.
Up through an empty house of stars,
Being what heart you are,
Up the inhuman steeps of space [85]
As on a staircase go in grace,
Carrying the firelight on your face
Beyond the loneliest star.
Take these; in memory of the hour [90]
We strayed a space from home
And saw the smoke-hued hamlets, quaint
With Westland king and Westland saint,
And watched the western glory faint
Along the road to Frome.
G. K. C.

BOOK I
THE VISION OF THE KING

THE BALLAD OF THE
WHITE HORSE
EFORE the gods that made the gods
Had seen their sunrise pass,
The White Horse of the White Horse Vale
Was cut out of the grass.
Before the gods that made the gods [5]
Had drunk at dawn their fill,
The White Horse of the White Horse Vale
Was hoary on the hill.
Age beyond age on British land,
Aeons on aeons gone, [10]
Was peace and war in western hills,
And the White Horse looked on.
For the White Horse knew England
When there was none to know;
He saw the first oar break or bend, is
He saw heaven fall and the world end,
O God, how long ago.
For the end of the world was long ago—
And all we dwell to-day
As children of some second birth, [20]
Like a strange people left on earth
After a judgment day.
For the end of the world was long ago,
When the ends of the world waxed free,
When Rome was sunk in a waste of slaves, [25]
And the sun drowned in the sea.
When Caesar’s sun fell out of the sky
And whoso hearkened right
Could only hear the plunging
Of the nations in the night. [30]
When the ends of the earth came marching in
To torch and cresset gleam,
And the roads of the world that lead to Rome
Were filled with faces that moved like foam,
Like faces in a dream. [35]
And men rode out of the eastern lands,
Broad river and burning plain;
Trees that are Titan flowers to see,
And tiger skies, striped horribly,
With tints of tropic rain. [40]
Where Ind’s enamelled peaks arise
Around that inmost one,
Where ancient eagles on its brink,
Vast as archangels, gather and drink
The sacrament of the sun. [45]
And men brake out of the northern lands,
Enormous lands alone,
Where a spell is laid upon life and lust
And the rain is changed to a silver dust
And the sea to a great green stone. [50]
And a Shape that moveth murkily
In mirrors of ice and night,
Hath blanched with fear all beasts and birds,
As death and a shock of evil words
Blast a man’s hair with white. [55]
And the cry of the palms and the purple moons,
Or the cry of the frost and foam,
Swept ever around an inmost place,
And the din of distant race on race
Cried and replied round Rome. [60]
And there was death on the Emperor
And night upon the Pope;
And Alfred, hiding in deep grass,
Hardened his heart with hope.
A sea-folk blinder than the sea [65]
Broke all about his land,
But Alfred up against them bare
And gripped the ground and grasped the air,
Staggered, and strove to stand.
He bent them back with spear and spade, [70]
With desperate dyke and wall,
With foemen leaning on his shield
And roaring on him when he reeled
And no help came at all.
He broke them with a broken sword [75]
A little towards the sea,
And for one hour of panting peace,
Ringed with a roar that would not cease,
With golden crown and girded fleece
Made laws under a tree. [80]
• • • • • • •
The Northmen came about our land
A Christless chivalry:
Who knew not of the arch or pen,
Great, beautiful half-witted men
From the sunrise and the sea. [85]
Misshapen ships stood on the deep
Full of strange gold and fire,
And hairy men, as huge as sin,
With horned heads, came wading in
Through the long, low sea-mire. [90]
Our towns were shaken of tall kings
With scarlet beards like blood;
The world turned empty where they trod,
They took the kindly cross of God
And cut it up for wood. [95]
Their souls were drifting as the sea,
And all good towns and lands
They only saw with heavy eyes,
And broke with heavy hands.
Their gods were sadder than the sea, [100]
Gods of a wandering will,
Who cried for blood like beasts at night,
Sadly, from hill to hill.
They seemed as trees walking the earth,
As witless and as tall, [105]
Yet they took hold upon the heavens
And no help came at all.
They bred like birds in English woods,
They rooted like the rose,
When Alfred came to Athelney [110]
To hide him from their bows.
There was not English armour left,
Nor any English thing,
When Alfred came to Athelney
To be an English king. [115]
For earthquake swallowing earthquake
Uprent the Wessex tree;
The whirlpool of the pagan sway
Had swirled his sires as sticks away
When a flood smites the sea. [120]
And the great kings of Wessex
Wearied and sank in gore,
And even their ghosts in that great stress
Grew greyer and greyer, less and less,
With the lords that died in Lyonesse [125]
And the king that comes no more.
And the God of the Golden Dragon
Was dumb upon his throne,
And the lord of the Golden Dragon
Ran in the woods alone. [130]
And if ever he climbed the crest of luck
And set the flag before,
Returning as a wheel returns,
Came ruin and the rain that burns,
And all began once more. [135]
And naught was left King Alfred
But shameful tears of rage,
In the island in the river
In the end of all his age.
In the island in the river [140]
He was broken to his knee;
And he read, writ with an iron pen,
That God had wearied of Wessex men
And given their country, field and fen,
To the devils of the sea. [145]
And he saw in a little picture,
Tiny and far away,
His mother sitting in Egbert’s hall,
And a book she showed him, very small,
Where a sapphire Mary sat in stall [150]
With a golden Christ at play.
It was wrought in the monk’s slow manner,
From silver and sanguine shell,
Where the scenes are little and terrible,
Keyholes of heaven and hell. [155]
In the river island of Athelney,
With the river running past,
In colours of such simple creed
All things sprang at him, sun and weed,
Till the grass grew to be grass indeed [160]
And the tree was a tree at last.
Fearfully plain the flowers grew,
Like the child’s book to read,
Or like a friend’s face seen in a glass;
He looked; and there Our Lady was, [165]
She stood and stroked the tall live grass
As a man strokes his steed.
Her face was like an open word
When brave men speak and choose,
The very colours of her coat
Were better than good news. [170]
She spoke not, nor, turned not,
Nor any sign she cast,
Only she stood up straight and free,
Between the flowers in Athelney, [175]
And the river running past.
One dim ancestral jewel hung
On his ruined armour grey,
He rent and cast it at her feet:
Where, after centuries, with slow feet, [180]
Men came from hall and school and street
And found it where it lay.
“Mother of God,” the wanderer said,
“I am but a common king,
Nor will I ask what saints may ask, [185]
To see a secret thing.
“The gates of heaven are fearful gates,
Worse than the gates of hell;
Not I would break the splendours barred
Or seek to know the thing they guard, [190]
Which is too good to tell.
“But for this earth most pitiful,
This little land I know,
If that which is for ever is,
Or if our hearts shall break with bliss, [195]
Seeing the stranger go?
“When our last bow is broken, Queen,
And our last javelin cast,
Under some sad, green evening sky,
Holding a ruined cross on high, [200]
Under warm westland grass to lie,
Shall we come home at last?”
And a voice came human but high up,
Like a cottage climbed among
The clouds; or a serf of hut and croft [205]
That sits by his hovel fire as oft,
But hears on his old bare roof aloft
A belfry burst in song.
“The gates of heaven are lightly locked,
We do not guard our gain, [210]
The heaviest hind may easily
Come silently and suddenly
Upon me in a lane,
“And any little maid that walks
In good thoughts apart, [215]
May break the guard of the Three Kings
And see the dear and dreadful things
I hid within my heart.
“The meanest man in grey fields gone
Behind the set of sun, [220]
Heareth between star and other star,
Through the door of the darkness fallen ajar,
The council, eldest of things that are,
The talk of the Three in One.
“The gates of heaven are lightly locked, [225]
We do not guard our gold,
Men may uproot where worlds begin,
Or read the name of the nameless sin;
But if he fail or if he win
To no good man is told. [230]
“The men of the East may spell the stars,
And times and triumphs mark,
But the men signed of the cross of Christ
Go gaily in the dark.
“The men of the East may search the scrolls, [235]
For sure fates and fame,
But the men that drink the blood of God
Go singing to their shame.
“The wise men know what wicked things
Are written on the sky, [240]
They trim sad Lamps, they touch sad strings,
Hearing the heavy purple wings,
Where the forgotten seraph kings
Still plot how God shall die.
“The wise men know all evil things [245]
Under the twisted trees,
Where the perverse in pleasure pine
And men are weary of green wine
And sick of crimson seas.
“But you and all the kind of Christ [250]
Are ignorant and brave,
And you have wars you hardly win
And souls you hardly save.
“I tell you naught for your comfort,
Yea, naught for your desire, [255]
Save that the sky grows darker yet
And the sea rises higher.
“Night shall be thrice night over you,
And heaven an iron cope.
Do you have joy without a cause, [260]
Yea, faith without a hope?”
Even as she spoke she was not,
Nor any word said he,
He only heard, still as he stood
Under the old night’s nodding hood, [265]
The sea-folk breaking down the wood
Like a high tide from sea.
He only heard the heathen men,
Whose eyes are blue and bleak,
Singing about some cruel thing [270]
Done by a great and smiling king
In daylight on a deck.
He only heard the heathen men,
Whose eyes are blue and blind,
Singing what shameful things are done [275]
Between the sunlit sea and the sun
When the land is left behind.

BOOK II
THE GATHERING OF THE CHIEFS

P across windy wastes and up
Went Alfred over the shaws,
Shaken of the joy of giants,
The joy without a cause.
In the slopes away to the western bays, [5]
Where blows not ever a tree,
He washed his soul in the west wind
And his body in the sea.
And he set to rhyme his ale-measures,
And he sang aloud his laws, [10]
Because of the joy of the giants,
The joy without a cause.
For the King went gathering Wessex men,
As grain out of the chaff,
The few that were alive to die, [15]
Laughing, as littered skulls that lie
After lost battles turn to the sky
An everlasting laugh.
The King went gathering Christian men,
As wheat out of the husk; [20]
Eldred, the Franklin by the sea,
And Mark, the man from Italy,
And Colan of the Sacred Tree,
From the old tribe on Usk.
The rook croaked homeward heavily, [25]
The west was clear and warm,
The smoke of evening food and ease
Rose like a blue tree in the trees
When he came to Eldred’s farm.
But Eldred’s farm was fallen awry, [30]
Like an old cripple’s bones,
And Eldred’s tools were red with rust,
And on his well was a green crust,
And purple thistles upward thrust,
Between the kitchen stones. [35]
But smoke of some good feasting
Went upwards evermore,
And Eldred’s doors stood wide apart
For loitering foot or labouring cart,
And Eldred’s great and foolish heart [40]
Stood open like his door.
A mighty man was Eldred,
A bulk for casks to fill,
His face a dreaming furnace,
His body a walking hill. [45]
In the old wars of Wessex
His sword had sunken deep,
But all his friends, he sighed and said,
Were broken about Ethelred;
And between the deep drink and the dead [50]
He had fallen upon sleep.
“Come not to me, King Alfred,
Save always for the ale;
Why should my harmless hinds be slain
Because the chiefs cry once again, [55]
As in all fights, that we shall gain,
And in all fights we fail?
“Your scalds still thunder and prophesy
That crown that never comes;
Friend, I will watch the certain things, [60]
Swine, and slow moons like silver rings,
And the ripening of the plums.”
And Alfred answered, drinking,
And gravely, without blame,
“Nor bear I boast of scald or king, [65]
The thing I bear is a lesser thing,
But comes in a better name.
“Out of the mouth of the Mother of God,
More than the doors of doom,
I call the muster of Wessex men [70]
From grassy hamlet or ditch or den,
To break and be broken, God knows when,
But I have seen for whom.
“Out of the mouth of the Mother of God
Like a little word come I; [75]
For I go gathering Christian men
From sunken paving and ford and fen,
To die in a battle, God knows when,
By God, but I know why.
“And this is the word of Mary, [80]
The word of the world’s desire:
‘No more of comfort shall ye get,
Save that the sky grows darker yet
And the sea rises higher.’ ”
Then silence sank. And slowly [85]
Arose the sea-land lord,
Like some vast beast for mystery,
He filled the room and porch and sky,
And from a cobwebbed nail on high
Unhooked his heavy sword. [90]
Up on the shrill sea-downs and up
Went Alfred all alone,
Turning but once e’er the door was shut,
Shouting to Eldred over his butt,
That he bring all spears to the woodman’s hut [95]
Hewn under Egbert’s Stone.
And he turned his back and broke the fern,
And fought the moths of dusk,
And went on his way for other friends,
Friends fallen of all the wide world’s ends, [100]
From Rome that wrath and pardon sends
And the grey tribes on Usk.
He saw gigantic tracks of death
And many a shape of doom,
Good steadings to grey ashes gone [105]
And a monk’s house white like a skeleton
In the green crypt of the combe.
And in many a Roman villa
Earth and her ivies eat,
Saw coloured pavements sink and fade [110]
In flowers, and the windy colonnade
Like the spectre of a street.
But the cold stars clustered
Among the cold pines
Ere he was half on his pilgrimage [115]
Over the western lines.
And the white dawn widened
Ere he came to the last pine,
Where Mark, the man from Italy,
Still made the Christian sign. [120]
The long farm lay on the large hill-side,
Flat like a painted plan,
And by the side the low white house,
Where dwelt the southland man.
A bronzed man, with a bird’s bright eye, [125]
And a strong bird’s beak and brow,
His skin was brown like buried gold,
And of certain of his sires was told
That they came in the shining ship of old,
With Caesar in the prow. [130]
His fruit trees stood like soldiers
Drilled in a straight line,
His strange, stiff olives did not fail,
And all the kings of the earth drank ale,
But he drank wine. [135]
Wide over wasted British plains
Stood never an arch or dome,
Only the trees to toss and reel,
The tribes to bicker, the beasts to squeal;
But the eyes in his head were strong like steel, [140]
And his soul remembered Rome.
Then Alfred of the lonely spear
Lifted his lion head;
And fronted with the Italian’s eye,
Asking him of his whence and why, [145]
King Alfred stood and said:
“I am that oft-defeated King
Whose failure fills the land,
Who fled before the Danes of old,
Who chaffered with the Danes with gold, [150]
Who now upon the Wessex wold
Hardly has feet to stand.
“But out of the mouth of the Mother of God
I have seen the truth like fire,
This—that the sky grows darker yet [155]
And the sea rises higher.”
Long looked the Roman on the land;
The trees as golden crowns
Blazed, drenched with dawn and dew-empearled,
While faintlier coloured, freshlier curled, [160]
The clouds from underneath the world
Stood up over the downs.
“These vines be ropes that drag me hard,”
He said. “I go not far;
Where would you meet? For you must hold [165]
Half Wiltshire and the White Horse wold,
And the Thames bank to Owsenfold,
If Wessex goes to war.
“Guthrum sits strong on either bank
And you must press his lines [170]
Inwards, and eastward drive him down;
I doubt if you shall take the crown
Till you have taken London town.
For me, I have the vines.”
“If each man on the Judgment Day [175]
Meet God on a plain alone,”
Said Alfred, “I will speak for you
As for myself and call it true
That you brought all fighting folk you knew
Lined under Egbert’s Stone. [180]
“Though I be in the dust ere then,
I know where you will be.”
And shouldering suddenly his spear
He faded like some elfin fear,
Where the tall pines ran up, tier on tier, [185]
Tree overtoppling tree.
He shouldered his spear at morning
And laughed to lay it on,
But he leaned on his spear as on a staff,
With might and little mood to laugh, [190]
Or ever he sighted chick or calf
Of Colan of Caerleon.
For the man dwelt in a lost land
Of boulders and broken men,
In a great grey cave far off to south [195]
Where a thick green forest stopped the mouth,
Giving darkness in his den.
And the man was come like a shadow,
From the shadow of Druid trees,
Where Usk, with mighty murmurings, [200]
Past Caerleon of the fallen kings,
Goes out to ghostly seas.
Last of a race in ruin—
He spoke the speech of the Gaels;
His kin were in holy Ireland, [205]
Or up in the crags of Wales.
But his soul stood with his mother’s folk,
That were of the rain-wrapped isle,
Where Patrick and Brandan westerly
Looked out at last on a landless sea [210]
And the sun’s last smile.
His harp was carved and cunning,
As the Celtic craftsman makes,
Graven all over with twisting shapes
Like many headless snakes. [215]
His harp was carved and cunning,
His sword prompt and sharp,
And he was gay when he held the sword,
Sad when he held the harp.
For the great Gaels of Ireland [220]
Are the men that God made mad,
For all their wars are merry,
And all their songs are sad.
He kept the Roman order,
He made the Christian sign; [225]
But his eyes grew often blind and bright,
And the sea that rose in the rocks at night
Rose to his head like wine.
He made the sign of the cross of God,
He knew the Roman prayer, [230]
But he had unreason in his heart
Because of the gods that were.
Even they that walked on the high cliffs,
High as the clouds were then,
Gods of unbearable beauty [235]
That broke the hearts of men.
And whether in seat or saddle,
Whether with frown or smile,
Whether at feast or fight was he,
He heard the noise of a nameless sea [240]
On an undiscovered isle.
Lifting the great green ivy
And the great spear lowering,
One said, “I am Alfred of Wessex,
And I am a conquered king.” [245]
And the man of the cave made answer,
And his eyes were stars of scorn,
“And better kings were conquered
Or ever your sires were born.
“What goddess was your mother, [250]
What fay your breed begot,
That you should not die with Uther
And Arthur and Lancelot?
“But when you win you brag and blow,
And when you lose you rail, [255]
Army of eastland yokels
Not strong enough to fail.”
“I bring not boast or railing,”
Spake Alfred not in ire,
“I bring of Our Lady a lesson set, [260]
This—that the sky grows darker yet
And the sea rises higher.”
Then Colan of the Sacred Tree
Tossed his black mane on high,
And cried, as rigidly he rose, [265]
“And if the sea and sky be foes,
We will tame the sea and sky.”
Smiled Alfred, “Seek ye a fable
More dizzy and more dread
Than all your mad barbarian tales [270]
Where the sky stands on its head?
“A tale where a man looks down on the sky
That has long looked down on him;
A tale where a man can swallow a sea
That might swallow the seraphim. [275]
“Bring to the hut by Egbert’s Stone
All bills and bows ye have.”
And Alfred strode off rapidly,
And Colan of the Sacred Tree
Went slowly to his cave. [280]

BOOK III
THE HARP OF ALFRED

N a tree that yawned and twisted
The King’s few goods were flung,
A mass-book mildewed, line by line,
And weapons and a skin of wine,
And an old harp unstrung. [5]
By the yawning tree in the twilight
The King unbound his sword,
Severed the harp of all his goods,
And there in the cool and soundless woods
Sounded a single chord. [10]
Then laughed; and watched the finches flash,
The sullen flies in swarm,
And went unarmed over the hills,
With the harp upon his arm.
Until he came to the White Horse Vale [15]
And saw across the plains,
In the twilight high and far and fell,
Like the fiery terraces of hell,
The camp fires of the Danes—
The fires of the Great Army [20]
That was made of iron men,
Whose lights of sacrilege and scorn
Ran around England red as morn,
Fires over Glastonbury Thorn—
Fires out on Ely Fen. [25]
And as he went by White Horse Vale
He saw lie wan and wide
The old horse graven, God knows when,
By gods or beasts or what things then
Walked a new world instead of men [30]
And scrawled on the hill-side.
And when he came to White Horse Down
The great White Horse was grey,
For it was ill scoured of the weed,
And lichen and thorn could crawl and feed, [35]
Since the foes of settled house and creed
Had swept old works away.
King Alfred gazed all sorrowful
At thistle and mosses grey,
Till a rally of Danes with shield and bill [40]
Rolled drunk over the dome of the hill,
And, hearing of his harp and skill,
They dragged him to their play.
And as they went through the high green grass
They roared like the great green sea; [45]
But when they came to the red camp fire
They were silent suddenly.
And as they went up the wastes away
They went reeling to and fro;
But when they came to the red camp fire [50]
They stood all in a row.
For golden in the firelight,
With a smile carved on his lips,
And a beard curled right cunningly,
Was Guthrum of the Northern Sea, [55]
The emperor of the ships—
With three great earls King Guthrum
Went the rounds from fire to fire,
With Harold, nephew of the King,
And Ogier of the Stone and Sling, [60]
And Elf, whose gold lute had a string
That sighed like all desire.
The Earls of the Great Army
That no men born could tire,
Whose flames anear him or aloof [65]
Took hold of towers or walls of proof,
Fire over Glastonbury roof
And out on Ely, fire.
And Guthrum heard the soldiers’ tale
And bade the stranger play; [70]
Not harshly, but as one on high,
On a marble pillar in the sky,
Who sees all folk that live and die—
Pigmy and far away.
And Alfred, King of Wessex, [75]
Looked on his conqueror—
And his hands hardened; but he played,
And leaving all later hates unsaid,
He sang of some old British raid
On the wild west march of yore. [80]
He sang of war in the warm wet shires,
Where rain nor fruitage fails,
Where England of the motley states
Deepens like a garden to the gates
In the purple walls of Wales. [85]
He sang of the seas of savage heads
And the seas and seas of spears,
Boiling all over Offa’s Dyke,
What time a Wessex club could strike
The kings of the mountaineers. [90]
Till Harold laughed and snatched the harp,
The kinsman of the King,
A big youth, beardless like a child,
Whom the new wine of war sent wild,
Smote, and began to sing— [95]
And he cried of the ships as eagles
That circle fiercely and fly,
And sweep the seas and strike the towns
From Cyprus round to Skye.
How swiftly and with peril [100]
They gather all good things,
The high horns of the forest beasts,
Or the secret stones of kings.
“For Rome was given to rule the world,
And gat of it little joy— [105]
But we, but we shall enjoy the world,
The whole huge world a toy.
“Great wine like blood from Burgundy,
Cloaks like the clouds from Tyre,
And marble like solid moonlight, [110]
And gold like frozen fire.
“Smells that a man might swill in a cup,
Stones that a man might eat,
And the great smooth women like ivory
That the Turks sell in the street.” [115]
He sang the throne of the thief of the world,
And the gods that love the thief;
And he yelled aloud at the cloister-yards,
Where men go gathering grief.
“Well have you sung, O stranger, [120]
Of death on the dyke in Wales,
Your chief was a bracelet-giver;
But the red unbroken river
Of a race runs not for ever,
But suddenly it fails. [125]
“Doubtless your sires were sword-swingers
When they waded fresh from foam,
Before they were turned to women
By the god of the nails from Rome;
“But since you bent to the shaven men, [130]
Who neither lust nor smite,
Thunder of Thor, we hunt you,
A hare on the mountain height.”
King Guthrum smiled a little,
And said, “It is enough, [135]
Nephew, let Elf retune the string;
A boy must needs like bellowing,
But the old ears of a careful king
Are glad of songs less rough.”
Blue-eyed was Elf the minstrel, [140]
With womanish hair and ring,
Yet heavy was his hand on sword,
Though light upon the string.
And as he stirred the strings of the harp
To notes but four or five, [145]
The heart of each man moved in him
Like a babe buried alive.
And they felt the land of the folk-songs
Spread southward of the Dane,
And they heard the good Rhine flowing [150]
In the heart of all Allemagne.
They felt the land of the folk-songs,
Where the gifts hang on the tree,
Where the girls give ale at morning
And the tears come easily. [155]
The mighty people, womanlike,
That have pleasure in their pain
As he sang of Balder beautiful,
Whom the heavens loved in vain.
As he sang of Balder beautiful, [160]
Whom the heavens could not save,
Till the world was like a sea of tears
And every soul a wave.
“There is always a thing forgotten
When all the world goes well; [165]
A thing forgotten, as long ago
When the gods forgot the mistletoe,
And soundless as an arrow of snow
The arrow of anguish fell.
“The thing on the blind side of the heart, [170]
On the wrong side of the door,
The green plant groweth, menacing
Almighty lovers in the spring;
There is always a forgotten thing,
And love is not secure.” [175]
And all that sat by the fire were sad,
Save Ogier, who was stern,
And his eyes hardened, even to stones,
As he took the harp in turn;
Earl Ogier of the Stone and Sling [180]
Was odd to ear and sight,
Old he was, but his locks were red,
And jests were all the words he said,
Yet he was sad at board and bed
And savage in the fight. [185]
“You sing of the young gods easily
In the days when you are young;
But I go smelling yew and sods,
And I know there are gods behind the gods,
Gods that are best unsung. [190]
“And a man grows ugly for women,
And a man grows dull with ale,
Well if he find in his soul at last
Fury, that does not fail.
“The wrath of the gods behind the gods [195]
Who would rend all gods and men,
Well if the old man’s heart hath still
Wheels sped of rage and roaring will,
Like cataracts to break down and kill,
Well for the old man then— [200]
“While there is one tall shrine to shake,
Or one live man to rend;
For the wrath of the gods behind the gods
Who are weary to make an end.
“There lives one moment for a man [205]
When the door at his shoulder shakes,
When the taut rope parts under the pull,
And the barest branch is beautiful
One moment, while it breaks.
“So rides my soul upon the sea [210]
That drinks the howling ships,
Though in black jest it bows and nods
Under the moons with silver rods,
I know it is roaring at the gods,
Waiting the last eclipse. [215]
“And in the last eclipse the sea
Shall stand up like a tower,
Above all moons made dark and riven,
Hold up its foaming head in heaven,
And laugh, knowing its hour. [220]
“And the high ones in the happy town
Propped of the planets seven,
Shall know a new light in the mind,
A noise about them and behind,
Shall hear an awful voice, and find
Foam in the courts of heaven. [225]
“And you that sit by the fire are young,
And true loves wait for you;
But the King and I grow old, grow old,
And hate alone is true.” [230]
And Guthrum shook his head but smiled,
For he was a mighty clerk,
And had read lines in the Latin books,
When all the north was dark.
He said, “I am older than you, Ogier; [235]
Not all things would I rend,
For whether life be bad or good
It is best to abide the end.”
He took the great harp wearily,
Even Guthrum of the Danes, [240]
With wide eyes bright as the one long day
On the long polar plains.
For he sang of a wheel returning,
And the mire trod back to mire,
And how red hells and golden heavens [245]
Are castles in the fire.
“It is good to sit where the good tales go,
To sit as our fathers sat;
But the hour shall come after his youth,
When a man shall know not tales but truth, [250]
And his heart fail thereat.
“When he shall read what is written
So plain in clouds and clods,
When he shall hunger without hope
Even for evil gods. [255]
“For this is a heavy matter,
And the truth is cold to tell;
Do we not know, have we not heard,
The soul is like a lost bird,
The body a broken shell. [260]
“And a man hopes, being ignorant
Till in white woods apart
He finds at last the lost bird dead:
And a man may still lift up his head
But never more his heart. [265]
“There comes no noise but weeping
Out of the ancient sky,
And a tear is in the tiniest flower
Because the gods must die.
“The little brooks are very sweet, [270]
Like a girl’s ribbons curled,
But the great sea is bitter
That washes all the world.
“Strong are the Roman roses,
Or the free flowers of the heath, [275]
But every flower, like a flower of the sea,
Smelleth with the salt of death.
“And the heart of the locked battle
Is the happiest place for men;
When shrieking souls as shafts go by [280]
And many have died and all may die;
Though this word be a mystery,
Death is most distant then.
“Death blazes bright above the cup,
And clear above the crown; [285]
But in that dream of battle
We seem to tread it down.
“Wherefore I am a great king,
And waste the world in vain,
Because man hath not other power, [290]
Save that in dealing death for dower,
He may forget it for an hour
To remember it again.”
And slowly his hands and thoughtfully
Fell from the lifted lyre, [295]
And the owls moaned from the mighty trees
Till Alfred caught it to his knees
And smote it as in ire.
He heaved the head of the harp on high
And swept the framework barred, [300]
And his stroke had all the rattle and spark
Of horses flying hard.
“When God put man in a garden
He girt him with a sword,
And sent him forth a free knight [305]
That might betray his lord;
“He brake Him and betrayed Him,
And fast and far he fell,
Till you and I may stretch our necks
And burn our beards in hell. [310]
“But though I lie on the floor of the world,
With the seven sins for rods,
I would rather fall with Adam
Than rise with all your gods.
“What have the strong gods given? [315]
Where have the glad gods led?
When Guthrum sits on a hero’s throne
And asks if he is dead?
“Sirs, I am but a nameless man,
A rhymester without home, [320]
Yet since I come of the Wessex clay
And carry the cross of Rome,
“I will even answer the mighty earl
That asked of Wessex men
Why they be meek and monkish folk, [325]
And bow to the White Lord’s broken yoke;
What sign have we save blood and smoke?
Here is my answer then.
“That on you is fallen the shadow,
And not upon the Name; [330]
That though we scatter and though we fly,
And you hang over us like the sky,
You are more tired of victory,
Than we are tired of shame.
“That though you hunt the Christian man [335]
Like a hare on the hill-side,
The hare has still more heart to run
Than you have heart to ride.
“That though all lances split on you,
All swords be heaved in vain, [340]
We have more lust again to lose
Than you to win again.
“Your lord sits high in the saddle,
A broken-hearted king,
But our King Alfred, lost from fame, [345]
Fallen among foes or bonds of shame,
In I know not what mean trade or name,
Has still some song to sing;
“Our monks go robed in rain and snow,
But the heart of flame therein, [350]
But you go clothed in feasts and flames,
When all is ice within;
“Nor shall all iron dooms make dumb
Men wondering ceaselessly,
If it be not better to fast for joy [355]
Than feast for misery.
“Nor monkish order only
Slides down, as field to fen,
All things achieved and chosen pass,
As the “White Horse fades in the grass, [360]
No work of Christian men.
“Ere the sad gods that made your gods
Saw their sad sunrise pass,
The White Horse of the White Horse Vale,
That you have left to darken and fail, [365]
Was cut out of the grass.
“Therefore your end is on you,
Is on you and your kings,
Not for a fire in Ely fen,
Not that your gods are nine or ten, [370]
But because it is only Christian men
Guard even heathen things.
“For our God hath blessed creation,
Calling it good. I know
What spirit with whom you blindly band [375]
Hath blessed destruction with his hand;
Yet by God’s death the stars shall stand
And the small apples grow.”
And the King, with harp on shoulder,
Stood up and ceased his song; [380]
And the owls moaned from the mighty trees,
And the Danes laughed loud and long.

BOOK IV
THE WOMAN IN THE FOREST

HICK thunder of the snorting swine,
Enormous in the gloam,
Rending among all roots that cling,
And the wild horses whinnying,
Were the night’s noises when the King, [5]
Shouldering his harp, went home.
With eyes of owl and feet of fox,
Full of all thoughts he went;
He marked the tilt of the pagan camp,
The paling of pine, the sentries’ tramp, [10]
And the one great stolen altar-lamp
Over Guthrum in his tent.
By scrub and thorn in Ethandune
That night the foe had lain;
Whence ran across the heather grey [15]
The old stones of a Roman way;
And in a wood not far away
The pale road split in twain.
He marked the wood and the cloven ways
With an old captain’s eyes, [20]
And he thought how many a time had he
Sought to see Doom he could not see;
How ruin had come and victory,
And both were a surprise.
Even so he had watched and wondered [25]
Under Ashdown from the plains;
With Ethelred praying in his tent,
Till the white hawthorn swung and bent,
As Alfred rushed his spears and rent
The shield-wall of the Danes. [30]
Even so he had watched and wondered,
Knowing neither less nor more,
Till all his lords lay dying,
And axes on axes plying,
Flung him, and drove him flying [35]
Like a pirate to the shore.
Wise he had been before defeat,
And wise before success;
Wise in both hours, and ignorant,
Knowing neither more nor less. [40]
As he went down to the river-hut
He knew a night-shade scent,
Owls did as evil cherubs rise,
With little wings and lantern eyes,
As though he sank through the under-skies; [45]
But down and down he went.
As he went down to the river-hut
He went as one that fell;
Seeing the high forest domes and spars.
Dim green or torn with golden scars, [50]
As the proud look up at the evil stars,
In the red heavens of hell.
For he must meet by the river-hut
Them he had bidden to arm,
Mark from the towers of Italy, [55]
And Colan of the Sacred Tree,
And Eldred who beside the sea
Held heavily his farm.
The roof leaned gaping to the grass,
As a monstrous mushroom lies; [60]
Echoing and empty seemed the place;
But opened in a little space
A great grey woman with scarred face
And strong and humbled eyes.
King Alfred was but a meagre man, [65]
Bright eyed, but lean and pale,
And swordless, with his harp and rags,
He seemed a beggar, such as lags
Looking for crusts and ale.
And the woman, with a woman’s eyes [70]
Of pity at once and ire,
Said, when that she had glared a span,
“There is a cake for any man
If he will watch the fire.”
And Alfred, bowing heavily, [75]
Sat down the fire to stir,
And even as the woman pitied him
So did he pity her.
Saying, “O great heart in the night,
O best cast forth for worst, [80]
Twilight shall melt and morning stir,
And no kind thing shall come to her,
Till God shall turn the world over
And all the last are first.
“And well may God with the serving-folk [85]
Cast in His dreadful lot;
Is not He too a servant,
And is not He forgot?
“For was not God my gardener
And silent like a slave; [90]
That opened oaks on the uplands
Or thicket in graveyard gave?
“And was not God my armourer,
All patient and unpaid,
That sealed my skull as a helmet, [95]
And ribs for hauberk made?
“Did not a great grey servant
Of all my sires and me,
Build this pavilion of the pines,
And herd the fowls and fill the vines, [100]
And labour and pass and leave no signs
Save mercy and mystery?
“For God is a great servant,
And rose before the day,
From some primordial slumber torn; [105]
But all we living later born
Sleep on, and rise after the morn,
And the Lord has gone away.
“On things half sprung from sleeping,
All sleepy suns have shone, [110]
They stretch stiff arms, the yawning trees,
The beasts blink upon hands and knees,
Man is awake and does and sees—
But Heaven has done and gone.
“For who shall guess the good riddle [115]
Or speak of the Holiest,
Save in faint figures and failing words,
Who loves, yet laughs among the swords,
Labours, and is at rest?
“But some see God like Guthrum, [120]
Crowned, with a great beard curled,
But I see God like a good giant,
That, labouring, lifts the world.
“Wherefore was God in Golgotha,
Slain as a serf is slain; [125]
And hate He had of prince and peer,
And love He had and made good cheer
Of them that, like this woman here,
Go powerfully in pain.
“But in this grey morn of man’s life [130]
Cometh sometime to the mind
A little light that leaps and flies,
Like a star blown on the wind.
“A star of nowhere, a nameless star,
A light that spins and swirls, [135]
And cries that even in hedge and hill,
Even on earth, it may go ill
At last with the evil earls.
“A dancing sparkle, a doubtful star,
On the waste wind whirled and driven, [140]
But it seems to sing of a wilder worth,
A time discrowned of doom and birth,
And the kingdom of the poor on earth
Come, as it is in heaven.
“But even though such days endure, [145]
How shall it profit her?
Who shall go groaning to the grave,
With many a meek and mighty slave,
Field-breaker and fisher on the wave,
And woodman and waggoner. [150]
“Bake ye the big world all again
A cake with kinder leaven;
Yet these are sorry evermore—
Unless there be a little door,
A little door in heaven.” [155]
And as he wept for the woman
He let her business be,
And like his royal oath and rash
The good food fell upon the ash
And blackened instantly. [160]
Screaming, the woman caught a cake
Yet burning from the bar,
And struck him suddenly on the face,
Leaving a scarlet scar.
King Alfred stood up wordless, [165]
A man dead with surprise,
And torture stood and the evil things
That are in the childish hearts of kings
An instant in his eyes.
And even as he stood and stared [170]
Drew round him in the dusk
Those friends creeping from far-off farms,
Marcus with all his slaves in arms,
And the strange spears hung with ancient charms
Of Colan of the Usk. [175]
With one whole farm marching afoot
The trampled road resounds,
Farm-hands and farm-beasts blundering by
And jars of mead and stores of rye,
Where Eldred strode above his high [180]
And thunder-throated hounds.
And grey cattle and silver lowed
Against the unlifted morn,
And straw clung to the spear-shafts tall.
And a boy went before them all [185]
Blowing a ram’s horn.
As mocking such rude revelry,
The dim clan of the Gael
Came like a bad king’s burial-end,
With dismal robes that drop and rend [190]
And demon pipes that wail—
In long, outlandish garments,
Torn, though of antique worth,
With Druid beards and Druid spears,
As a resurrected race appears [195]
Out of an elder earth.
And though the King had called them forth
And knew them for his own,
So still each eye stood like a gem,
So spectral hung each broidered hem, [200]
Grey carven men he fancied them,
Hewn in an age of stone.
And the two wild peoples of the north
Stood fronting in the gloam,
And heard and knew each in its mind [205]
The third great thunder on the wind,
The living walls that hedge mankind,
The walking walls of Rome.
Mark’s were the mixed tribes of the west,
Of many a hue and strain, [210]
Gurth, with rank hair like yellow grass,
And the Cornish fisher, Gorlias,
And Halmer, come from his first mass,
Lately baptized, a Dane.
But like one man in armour [215]
Those hundreds trod the field,
From red Arabia to the Tyne
The earth had heard that marching-line,
Since the cry on the hill Capitoline,
And the fall of the golden shield. [220]
And the earth shook and the King stood still
Under the greenwood bough,
And the smoking cake lay at his feet
And the blow was on his brow.
Then Alfred laughed out suddenly, [225]
Like thunder in the spring,
Till shook aloud the lintel-beams,
And the squirrels stirred in dusty dreams,
And the startled birds went up in streams,
For the laughter of the King. [230]
And the beasts of the earth and the birds looked down,
In a wild solemnity,
On a stranger sight than a sylph or elf,
On one man laughing at himself
Under the greenwood tree— [235]
The giant laughter of Christian men
That roars through a thousand tales,
Where greed is an ape and pride is an ass,
And Jack’s away with his master’s lass,
And the miser is banged with all his brass, [240]
The farmer with all his flails;
Tales that tumble and tales that trick,
Yet end not all in scorning—
Of kings and clowns in a merry plight,
And the clock gone wrong and the world gone right, [245]
That the mummers sing upon Christmas night
And Christmas Day in the morning.
“Now here is a good warrant,”
Cried Alfred, “by my sword;
For he that is struck for an ill servant [250]
Should be a kind lord.
“He that has been a servant
Knows more than priests and kings,
But he that has been an ill servant,
He knows all earthly things. [255]
“Pride flings frail palaces at the sky,
As a man flings up sand,
But the firm feet of humility
Take hold of heavy land.
“Pride juggles with her toppling towers, [260]
They strike the sun and cease,
But the firm feet of humility
They grip the ground like trees.
“He that hath failed in a little thing
Hath a sign upon the brow; [265]
And the Earls of the Great Army
Have no such seal to show.
“The red print on my forehead,
Small flame for a red star,
In the van of the violent marching, then [270]
When the sky is torn of the trumpets ten,
And the hands of the happy howling men
Fling wide the gates of war.
“This blow that I return not
Ten times will I return [275]
On kings and earls of all degree,
And armies wide as empires be
Shall slide like landslips to the sea
If the red star burn.
“One man shall drive a hundred, [280]
As the dead kings drave;
Before me rocking hosts be riven,
And battering cohorts backwards driven,
For I am the first king known of heaven
That has been struck like a slave. [285]
“Up on the old white road, brothers,
Up on the Roman walls!
For this is the night of the drawing of swords,
And the painted tower of the heathen hordes
Leans to our hammers, fires and cords, [290]
Leans a little and falls.
“Follow the star that lives and leaps,
Follow the sword that sings,
For we go gathering heathen men,
A terrible harvest, ten by ten, [295]
As the wrath of the last red autumn—then
When Christ reaps down the kings.
“Follow a light that leaps and spins,
Follow the fire unfurled!
For riseth up against realm and rod, [300]
A thing forgotten, a thing downtrod,
The last lost giant, even God,
Is risen against the world.”
Roaring they went o’er the Roman wall,
And roaring up the lane, [305]
Their torches tossed, a ladder of fire,
Higher their hymn was heard and higher,
More sweet for hate and for heart’s desire,
And up in the northern scrub and brier
They fell upon the Dane. [310]

BOOK V
ETHANDUNE: THE FIRST
STROKE

ING GUTHRUM was a dread king,
Like death out of the north;
Shrines without name or number
He rent and rolled as lumber,
From Chester to the Humber [5]
He drove his foemen forth.
The Roman villas heard him
In the valley of the Thames,
Come over the hills roaring
Above their roofs, and pouring [10]
On spire and stair and flooring
Brimstone and pitch and flames.
Sheer o’er the great chalk uplands
And the hill of the Horse went he,
Till high on Hampshire beacons [15]
He saw the southern sea.
High on the heights of Wessex
He saw the southern brine,
And turned him to a conquered land,
And where the northern thornwoods stand, [20]
And the road parts on either hand,
There came to him a sign.
King Guthrum was a war-chief,
A wise man in the field,
And though he prospered well, and knew [25]
How Alfred’s folk were sad and few.
Not less with weighty care he drew
Long lines for pike and shield.
King Guthrum lay on the upper land,
On a single road at gaze, [30]
And his foe must come with lean array,
Up the left arm of the cloven way,
To the meeting of the ways.
And long ere the noise of armour,
An hour ere the break of light, [35]
The woods awoke with crash and cry,
And the birds sprang clamouring harsh and high,
And the rabbits ran like an elves’ army
Ere Alfred came in sight.
The live wood came at Guthrum, [40]
On foot and claw and wing,
The nests were noisy overhead,
For Alfred and the star of red,
All life went forth, and the forest fled
Before the face of the King. [45]
But halted in the woodways
Christ’s few were grim and grey,
And each with a small, far, bird-like sight
Saw the high folly of the fight;
And though strange joys had grown in the night, [50]
Despair grew with the day.
And when white dawn crawled through the wood,
Like cold foam of a flood,
Then weakened every warrior’s mood,
In hope, though not in hardihood; [55]
And each man sorrowed as he stood
In the fashion of his blood.
For the Saxon Franklin sorrowed
For the things that had been fair,
For the dear dead women, crimson-clad, [60]
And the great feasts and the friends he had;
But the Celtic prince’s soul was sad
For the things that never were.
In the eyes Italian all things
But a black laughter died; [65]
And Alfred flung his shield to earth
And smote his breast and cried—
“I wronged a man to his slaying,
And a woman to her shame,
And once I looked on a sworn maid [70]
That was wed to the Holy Name.
“And once I took my neighbour’s wife,
That was bound to an eastland man,
In the starkness of my evil youth,
Before my griefs began. [75]
“People, if you have any prayers,
Say prayers for me:
And lay me under a Christian stone
In that lost land I thought my own,
To wait till the holy horn is blown, [80]
And all poor men are free.”
Then Eldred of the idle farm
Leaned on his ancient sword,
As fell his heavy words and few;
And his eyes were of such alien blue [85]
As gleams where the Northman saileth new
Into an unknown fiord.
“I was a fool and wasted ale—
My slaves found it sweet;
I was a fool and wasted bread, [90]
And the birds had bread to eat.
“The kings go up and the kings go down,
And who knows who shall rule;
Next night a king may starve or sleep,
But men and birds and beasts shall weep [95]
At the burial of a fool.
“O, drunkards in my cellar,
Boys in my apple tree,
The world grows stern and strange and new,
And wise men shall govern you, [100]
And you shall weep for me.
“But yoke me my own oxen,
Down to my own farm;
My own dog will whine for me,
My own friends will bend the knee, [105]
And the foes I slew openly
Have never wished me harm.”
And all were moved a little,
But Colan stood apart,
Having first pity, and after [110]
Hearing, like rat in rafter,
That little worm of laughter
That eats the Irish heart.
And his grey-green eyes were cruel,
And the smile of his mouth waxed hard, [115]
And he said, “And when did Britain
Become your burying-yard?
“Before the Roman lit the land,
When schools and monks were none,
We reared such stones to the sun-god [120]
As might put out the sun.
“The tall trees of Britain
We worshipped and were wise,
But you shall raid the whole land through
And never a tree shall talk to you, [125]
Though every leaf is a tongue taught true
And the forest is full of eyes.
“On one round hill to the seaward
The trees grow tall and grey
And the trees talk together [130]
When all men are away.
“O’er a few round hills forgotten
The trees grow tall in rings,
And the trees talk together
Of many pagan things. [135]
“Yet I could lie and listen
With a cross upon my clay,
And hear unhurt for ever
What the trees of Britain say.”
A proud man was the Roman, [140]
His speech a single one,
But his eyes were like an eagle’s eyes
That is staring at the sun.
“Dig for me where I die,” he said,
“If first or last I fall— [145]
Dead on the fell at the first charge,
Or dead by Wantage wall;
“Lift not my head from bloody ground,
Bear not my body home,
For all the earth is Roman earth [150]
And I shall die in Rome.”
Then Alfred, King of England,
Bade blow the horns of war,
And fling the Golden Dragon out,
With crackle and acclaim and shout, [155]
Scrolled and aflame and far.
And under the Golden Dragon
Went Wessex all along,
Past the sharp point of the cloven ways,
Out from the black wood into the blaze [160]
Of sun and steel and song.
And when they came to the open land
They wheeled, deployed, and stood;
Midmost were Marcus and the King,
And Eldred on the right-hand wing, [165]
And leftwards Colan darkling,
In the last shade of the wood.
But the Earls of the Great Army
Lay like a long half moon,
Ten poles before their palisades, [170]
With wide-winged helms and runic blades
Red giants of an age of raids,
In the thornland of Ethandune.
Midmost the saddles rose and swayed,
And a stir of horses’ manes, [175]
Where Guthrum and a few rode high
On horses seized in victory;
But Ogier went on foot to die,
In the old way of the Danes.
Far to the King’s right Elf the bard [180]
Led on the western wing
With songs and spells that change the blood;
And on the King’s left Harold stood,
The kinsman of the King.
Young Harold, coarse, with colours gay, [185]
Smoking with oil and musk,
And the pleasant violence of the young,
Pushed through his people, giving tongue
Foewards, where, grey as cobwebs hung,
The banners of the Usk. [190]
But as he came before his line
A little space along,
His beardless face broke into mirth,
And he cried: “What broken bits of earth
Are here? For what their clothes are worth [195]
I would sell them for a song.”
For Colan was hung with raiment
Tattered like autumn leaves,
And his men were all as thin as saints,
And all as poor as thieves. [200]
No bows nor slings nor bolts they bore,
But bills and pikes ill-made;
And none but Colan bore a sword,
And rusty was its blade.
And Colan’s eyes with mystery [205]
And iron laughter stirred,
And he spoke aloud, but lightly,
Not labouring to be heard.
“Oh, truly we be broken hearts,
For that cause, it is said, [210]
We light our candles to that Lord
That broke Himself for bread.
“But though we hold but bitterly
What land the Saxon leaves,
Though Ireland be but a land of saints, [215]
And Wales a land of thieves,
“I say you yet shall weary
Of the working of your word,
That stricken spirits never strike,
Nor lean hands hold a sword. [220]
“And if ever ye ride in Ireland,
The jest may yet be said,
There is the land of broken hearts,
And the land of broken heads.”
Not less barbarian laughter [225]
Choked Harold like a flood,
“And shall I fight with scarecrows
That am of Guthrum’s blood?
“Meeting may be of war-men,
Where the best war-man wins; [230]
But all this carrion a man shoots
Before the fight begins.”
And stopping in his onward strides,
He snatched a bow in scorn
From some mean slave, and bent it on [235]
Colan, whose doom grew dark; and shone
Stars evil over Caerleon,
In the place where he was born.
For Colan had not bow nor sling,
On a lonely sword leaned he, [240]
Like Arthur on Excalibur
In the battle by the sea.
To his great gold ear-ring Harold
Tugged back the feathered tail,
And swift had sprung the arrow, [245]
But swifter sprang the Gael.
Whirling the one sword round his head,
A great wheel in the sun,
He sent it splendid through the sky,
Flying before the shaft could fly— [250]
It smote Earl Harold over the eye,
And blood began to run.
Colan stood bare and weaponless,
Earl Harold, as in pain,
Strove for a smile, put hand to head, [255]
Stumbled and suddenly fell dead;
And the small white daisies all waxed red
With blood out of his brain.
And all at that marvel of the sword,
Cast like a stone to slay, [260]
Cried out. Said Alfred: “Who would see
Signs, must give all things. Verily
Man shall not taste of victory
Till he throws his sword away.”
Then Alfred, prince of England, [265]
And all the Christian earls,
Unhooked their swords and held them up,
Each offered to Colan, like a cup
Of chrysolite and pearls.
And the King said, “Do thou take my sword [270]
Who have done this deed of fire,
For this is the manner of Christian men,
Whether of steel or priestly pen,
That they cast their hearts out of their ken
To get their hearts’ desire. [275]
“And whether ye swear a hive of monks,
Or one fair wife to friend,
This is the manner of Christian men,
That their oath endures the end.
“For Love, our Lord, at the end of the world, [280]
Sits a red horse like a throne,
With a brazen helm and an iron bow,
But one arrow alone.
“Love with the shield of the Broken Heart
Ever his bow doth bend, [285]
With a single shaft for a single prize,
And the ultimate bolt that parts and flies
Comes with a thunder of split skies,
And a sound of souls that rend.
“So shall you earn a king’s sword, [290]
Who cast your sword away.”
And the King took, with a random eye,
A rude axe from a hind hard by
And turned him to the fray.
For the swords of the Earls of Daneland [295]
Flamed round the fallen lord.
The first blood woke the trumpet-tune,
As in monk’s rhyme or wizard’s rune
Beginneth the Battle of Ethandune
With the throwing of the sword. [300]

BOOK VI
ETHANDUNE: THE SLAYING
OF THE CHIEFS

S the sea flooding the flat sands
Flew on the sea-born horde,
The two hosts shocked with dust and din,
Left of the Latian paladin,
Clanged all Prince Harold’s howling kin [5]
On Colan and the sword.
Crashed in the midst on Marcus,
Ogier with Guthrum by,
And westward of such central stir,
Far to the right and faintlier, [10]
The house of Elf the harp-player,
Struck Eldred’s with a cry.
The centre swat for weariness,
Stemming the screaming horde,
And wearily went Colan’s hands [15]
That swung King Alfred’s sword.
But like a cloud of evening
To westward easily,
Tall Eldred broke the sea of spears
As a tall ship breaks the sea. [20]
His face like a sanguine sunset,
His shoulder a Wessex down,
His hand like a windy hammer-stroke;
Men could not count the crests he broke,
So fast the crests went down. [25]
As the tall white devil of the Plague,
Moves out of Asian skies,
With his foot on a waste of cities
And his head in a cloud of flies;
Or purple and peacock skies grow dark [30]
With a moving locust-tower;
Or tawny sand-winds tall and dry,
Like hell’s red banners beat and fly,
When death comes out of Araby,
Was Eldred in his hour. [35]
But while he moved like a massacre
He murmured as in sleep,
And his words were all of low hedges
And little fields and sheep.
Even as he strode like a pestilence, [40]
That strides from Rhine to Rome,
He thought how tall his beans might be
If ever he went home.
Spoke some stiff piece of childish prayer,
Dull as the distant chimes, [45]
That thanked our God for good eating
And corn and quiet times—
Till on the helm of a high chief
Fell shatteringly his brand,
And the helm broke and the bone broke [50]
And the sword broke in his hand.
Then from the yelling Northmen
Driven splintering on him ran
Full seven spears, and the seventh [55]
Was never made by man.
Seven spears, and the seventh
Was wrought as the faerie blades,
And given to Elf the minstrel
By the monstrous water-maids;
By them that dwell where luridly [60]
Lost waters of the Rhine
Move among roots of nations,
Being sunken for a sign.
Under all graves they murmur,
They murmur and rebel, [65]
Down to the buried kingdoms creep,
And like a lost rain roar and weep
O’er the red heavens of hell.
Thrice drowned was Elf the minstrel,
And washed as dead on sand; [70]
And the third time men found him
The spear was in his hand.
Seven spears went about Eldred,
Like stays about a mast;
But there was sorrow by the sea [75]
For the driving of the last.
Six spears thrust upon Eldred
Were splintered while he laughed;
One spear thrust into Eldred,
Three feet of blade and shaft. [80]
And from the great heart grievously
Came forth the shaft and blade,
And he stood with the face of a dead man,
Stood a little, and swayed—
Then fell, as falls a battle-tower, [85]
On smashed and struggling spears,
Cast down from some unconquered town
That, rushing earthward, carries down
Loads of live men of all renown—
Archers and engineers. [90]
And a great clamour of Christian men
Went up in agony,
Crying, “Fallen is the tower of Wessex
That stood beside the sea.”
Centre and right the Wessex guard [95]
Grew pale for doubt and fear,
And the flank failed at the advance,
For the death-light on the wizard lance—
The star of the evil spear.
“Stand like an oak,” cried Marcus, [100]
“Stand like a Roman wall!
Eldred the Good is fallen—
Are you too good to fall?
“When we were wan and bloodless
He gave you ale enow; [105]
The pirates deal with him as dung,
God! are you bloodless now?”
“Grip, Wulf and Gorlias, grip the ash!
Slaves, and I make you free!
Stamp, Hildred hard on English land, no
Stand Gurth, stand Gorlias, Gawen stand!
Hold, Halfgar, with the other hand,
Halmer, hold up on knee!
“The lamps are dying in your homes,
The fruits upon your bough; us
Even now your old thatch smoulders, Gurth,
Now is the judgment of the earth,
Now is the death-grip, now!”
For thunder of the captain,
Not less the Wessex line, [120]
Leaned back and reeled a space to rear
As Elf charged with the Rhine maids’ spear,
And roaring like the Rhine.
For the men were borne by the waving walls
Of woods and clouds that pass, [125]
By dizzy plain and drifting sea,
And they mixed God with glamoury,
God with the gods of the burning tree
And the wizard’s tower and glass.
But Mark was come of the glittering towns [130]
Where hot white details show,
Where man can number and expound,
And his faith grew in a hard ground
Of doubt and reason and falsehood found,
Where no faith else could grow. [135]
Belief that grew of all beliefs
One moment back was blown
And belief that stood on unbelief
Stood up iron and alone.
The Wessex crescent backwards [140]
Crushed, as with bloody spear
Went Elf roaring and routing,
And Mark against Elf yet shouting,
Shocked, in his mid-career.
Right on the Roman shield and sword [145]
Did spear of the Rhine maids run;
But the shield shifted never,
The sword rang down to sever,
The great Rhine sang for ever,
And the songs of Elf were done. [150]
And a great thunder of Christian men
Went up against the sky,
Saying, “God hath broken the evil spear
Ere the good man’s blood was dry.”
“Spears at the charge!” yelled Mark amain, [155]
“Death on the gods of death!
Over the thrones of doom and blood
Goeth God that is a craftsman good,
And gold and iron, earth and wood,
Loveth and laboureth. [160]
“The fruits leap up in all your farms,
The lamps in each abode;
God of all good things done on earth
All wheels or webs of any worth,
The God that makes the roof, Gurth, [165]
The God that makes the road.
“The God that heweth kings in oak
Writeth songs on vellum,
God of gold and flaming glass,
Confregit potentias, [170]
Arcuum, scutum, Gorlias,
Gladium et bellum.”
Steel and lightning broke about him,
Battle-bays and palm,
All the sea-kings swayed among [175]
Woods of the Wessex arms upflung,
The trumpet of the Roman tongue,
The thunder of the psalm.
And midmost of that rolling field
Ran Ogier ragingly, [180]
Lashing at Mark, who turned his blow,
And brake the helm about his brow,
And broke him to his knee.
Then Ogier heaved over his head
His huge round shield of proof; [185]
But Mark set one foot on the shield,
One on some sundered rock upheeled,
And towered above the tossing field,
A statue on a roof.
Dealing far blows about the fight, [190]
Like thunder-bolts a-roam,
Like birds about the battle-field,
While Ogier writhed under his shield
Like a tortoise in his dome.
But hate in the buried Ogier [195]
Was strong as pain in hell,
With bare brute hand from the inside
He burst the shield of brass and hide,
And a death-stroke to the Roman’s side
Sent suddenly and well. [200]
Then the great statue on the shield
Looked his last look around
With level and imperial eye;
And Mark, the man from Italy,
Fell in the sea of agony, [205]
And died without a sound.
And Ogier, leaping up alive,
Hurled his huge shield away
Flying, as when a juggler flings
A whizzing plate in play. [210]
And held two arms up rigidly,
And roared to all the Danes:
“Fallen is Rome, yea, fallen
The city of the plains!
“Shall no man born remember, [215]
That breaketh wood or weald,
How long she stood on the roof of the world
As he stood on my shield.
“The new wild world forgetteth her
As foam fades on the sea, [220]
How long she stood with her foot on Man
As he with his foot on me.
“No more shall the brown men of the south
Move like the ants in lines,
To quiet men with olives [225]
Or madden men with vines.
“No more shall the white towns of the south,
Where Tiber and Nilus run,
Sitting around a secret sea
Worship a secret sun. [230]
“The blind gods roar for Rome fallen,
And forum and garland gone,
For the ice of the north is broken,
And the sea of the north comes on.
“The blind gods roar and rave and dream [235]
Of all cities under the sea,
For the heart of the north is broken,
And the blood of the north is free.
“Down from the dome of the world we come,
Rivers on rivers down, [240]
Under us swirl the sects and hordes
And the high dooms we drown.
“Down from the dome of the world and down,
Struck flying as a skiff
On a river in spate is spun and swirled [245]
Until we come to the end of the world
That breaks short, like a cliff.
“And when we come to the end of the world
For me, I count it fit
To take the leap like a good river, [250]
Shot shrieking over it.
“But whatso hap at the end of the world,
Where Nothing is struck and sounds,
It is not, by Thor, these monkish men
These humbled Wessex hounds— [255]
“Not this pale line of Christian hinds,
This one white string of men,
Shall keep us back from the end of the world,
And the things that happen then.
“It is not Alfred’s dwarfish sword, [260]
Nor Egbert’s pigmy crown,
Shall stay us now that descend in thunder,
Rending the realms and the realms thereunder,
Down through the world and down.”
There was that in the wild men back of him, [265]
There was that in his own wild song,
A dizzy throbbing, a drunkard smoke,
That dazed to death all Wessex folk,
And swept their spears along.
Vainly the sword of Colan [270]
And the axe of Alfred plied—
The Danes poured in like a brainless plague,
And knew not when they died.
Prince Colan slew a score of them,
And was stricken to his knee; [275]
King Alfred slew a score and seven
And was borne back on a tree.
Back to the black gate of the woods,
Back up the single way,
Back by the place of the parting ways [280]
Christ’s knights were whirled away.
And when they came to the parting ways
Doom’s heaviest hammer fell,
For the King was beaten, blind, at bay,
Down the right lane with his array, [285]
But Colan swept the other way,
Where he smote great strokes and fell.
The thorn-woods over Ethandune
Stand sharp and thick as spears,
By night and furze and forest-harms [290]
Far sundered were the friends in arms;
The loud lost blows, the last alarms,
Came not to Alfred’s ears.
The thorn-woods over Ethandune
Stand stiff as spikes in mail; [295]
As to the Haut King came at morn
Dead Roland on a doubtful horn,
Seemed unto Alfred lightly borne
The last cry of the Gael.

BOOK VII
ETHANDUNE: THE LAST CHARGE

WAY in the waste of White Horse Down
An idle child alone
Played some small game through hours that pass,
And patiently would pluck the grass,
Patiently push the stone. [5]
On the lean, green edge for ever,
Where the blank chalk touched the turf,
The child played on, alone, divine,
As a child plays on the last line
That sunders sand and surf. [10]
For he dwelleth in high divisions
Too simple to understand,
Seeing on what morn of mystery
The Uncreated rent the sea
With roarings, from the land. [15]
Through the long infant hours like days
He built one tower in vain—
Piled up small stones to make a town,
And evermore the stones fell down,
And he piled them up again. [20]
And crimson kings on battle-towers,
And saints on Gothic spires,
And hermits on their peaks of snow,
And heroes on their pyres,
And patriots riding royally, [25]
That rush the rocking town,
Stretch hands, and hunger and aspire,
Seeking to mount where high and higher,
The child whom Time can never tire,
Sings over White Horse Down. [30]
And this was the might of Alfred,
At the ending of the way;
That of such smiters, wise or wild,
He was least distant from the child,
Piling the stones all day. [35]
For Eldred fought like a frank hunter
That killeth and goeth home;
And Mark had fought because all arms
Rang like the name of Rome.
And Colan fought with a double mind, [40]
Moody and madly gay;
But Alfred fought as gravely
As a good child at play.
He saw wheels break and work run back
And all things as they were; [45]
And his heart was orbed like victory
And simple like despair.
Therefore is Mark forgotten,
That was wise with his tongue and brave;
And the cairn over Colan crumbled, [50]
And the cross on Eldred’s grave.
Their great souls went on a wind away,
And they have not tale or tomb;
And Alfred born in Wantage
Rules England till the doom. [55]
Because in the forest of all fears
Like a strange fresh gust from sea,
Struck him that ancient innocence
That is more than mastery.
And as a child whose bricks fall down [60]
Re-piles them o’er and o’er,
Came ruin and the rain that burns,
Returning as a wheel returns,
And crouching in the furze and ferns
He began his life once more. [65]
He took his ivory horn unslung
And smiled, but not in scorn:
“Endeth the Battle of Ethandune
With the blowing of a horn.”
On a dark horse at the double way [70]
He saw great Guthrum ride,
Heard roar of brass and ring of steel,
The laughter and the trumpet peal,
The pagan in his pride.
And Ogier’s red and hated head [75]
Moved in some talk or task;
But the men seemed scattered in the brier,
And some of them had lit a fire,
And one had broached a cask.
And waggons one or two stood up, [80]
Like tall ships in sight,
As if an outpost were encamped
At the cloven ways for night.
And joyous of the sudden stay
Of Alfred’s routed few, [85]
Sat one upon a stone to sigh,
And some slipped up the road to fly,
Till Alfred in the fern hard by
Set horn to mouth and blew.
And they all abode like statues— [90]
One sitting on the stone,
One half-way through the thorn hedge tall,
One with a leg across a wall,
And one looked backwards, very small,
Far up the road, alone. [95]
Grey twilight and a yellow star
Hung over thorn and hill;
Two spears and a cloven war-shield lay
Loose on the road as cast away,
The horn died faint in the forests grey, [100]
And the fleeing men stood still.
“Brothers at arms,” said Alfred,
“On this side lies the foe;
Are slavery and starvation flowers,
That you should pluck them so? [105]
“For whether is it better
To be prodded with Danish poles,
Having hewn a chamber in a ditch,
And hounded like a howling witch,
Or smoked to death in holes? [110]
“Or that before the red cock crow
All we, a thousand strong,
Go down the dark road to God’s house,
Singing a Wessex song?
“To sweat a slave to a race of slaves, [115]
To drink up infamy?
No, brothers, by your leave, I think
Death is a better ale to drink,
And by all the stars of Christ that sink,
The Danes shall drink with me. [120]
“To grow old cowed in a conquered land,
With the sun itself discrowned,
To see trees crouch and cattle slink—
Death is a better ale to drink,
And by high Death on the fell brink, [125]
That flagon shall go round.
“Though dead are all the paladins
Whom glory had in ken,
Though all your thunder-sworded thanes
With proud hearts died among the Danes, [130]
While a man remains, great war remains:
Now is a war of men.
“The men that tear the furrows,
The men that fell the trees,
When all their lords be lost and dead [135]
The bondsmen of the earth shall tread
The tyrants of the seas.
“The wheel of the roaring stillness
Of all labours under the sun,
Speed the wild work as well at least [140]
As the whole world’s work is done.
“Let Hildred hack the shield-wall
Clean as he hacks the hedge;
Let Gurth the fowler stand as cool
As he stands on the chasm’s edge; [145]
“Let Gorlias ride the sea-kings
As Gorlias rides the sea,
Then let all hell and Denmark drive,
Yelling to all its fiends alive,
And not a rag care we.” [150]
When Alfred’s word was ended
Stood firm that feeble line,
Each in his place with club or spear,
And fury deeper than deep fear,
And smiles as sour as brine. [155]
And the King held up the horn and said,
“See ye my father’s horn,
That Egbert blew in his empery,
Once, when he rode out commonly,
Twice, when he rode for venery, [160]
And thrice on the battle-morn.
“But heavier fates have fallen
The horn of the Wessex kings,
And I blew once, the riding sign,
To call you to the fighting line [165]
And glory and all good things.
“And now two blasts, the hunting sign,
Because we turn to bay;
But I will not blow the three blasts,
Till we be lost or they. [170]
“And now I blow the hunting sign,
Charge some, by rule and rod;
But when I blow the battle sign,
Charge all, and go to God.”
Wild stared the Danes at the double ways [175]
Where they loitered, all at large,
As that dark line for the last time
Doubled the knee to charge—
And caught their weapons clumsily,
And marvelled how and why— [180]
In such degree, by rule and rod,
The people of the peace of God
Went roaring down to die.
And when the last arrow
Was fitted and was flown, [185]
When the broken shield hung on the breast,
And the hopeless lance was laid in rest,
And the hopeless horn blown,
The King looked up, and what he saw
Was a great light like death, [190]
For Our Lady stood on the standards rent,
As lonely and as innocent As when between white walls she went
And the lilies of Nazareth.
One instant in a still light [195]
He saw Our Lady then,
Her dress was soft as western sky,
And she was a queen most womanly—
But she was a queen of men.
Over the iron forest [200]
He saw Our Lady stand,
Her eyes were sad withouten art,
And seven swords were in her heart—
But one was in her hand.
Then the last charge went blindly, [205]
And all too lost for fear:
The Danes closed round, a roaring ring,
And twenty clubs rose o’er the King,
Four Danes hewed at him, halloing,
And Ogier of the Stone and Sling [210]
Drove at him with a spear.
But the Danes were wild with laughter,
And the great spear swung wide,
The point stuck to a straggling tree,
And either host cried suddenly, [215]
As Alfred leapt aside.
Short time had shaggy Ogier
To pull his lance in line—
He knew King Alfred’s axe on high,
He heard it rushing through the sky, [220]
He cowered beneath it with a cry—
It split him to the spine:
And Alfred sprang over him dead,
And blew the battle sign.
Then bursting all and blasting [225]
Came Christendom like death,
Kicked of such catapults of will,
The staves shiver, the barrels spill,
The waggons waver and crash and kill
The waggoners beneath. [230]
Barriers go backwards, banners rend,
Great shields groan like a gong
Horses like horns of nightmare
Neigh horribly and long.
Horses ramp high and rock and boil [235]
And break their golden reins,
And slide on carnage clamorously,
Down where the bitter blood doth lie,
Where Ogier went on foot to die,
In the old way of the Danes. [240]
“The high tide!” King Alfred cried.
“The high tide and the turn!
As a tide turns on the tall grey seas,
See how they waver in the trees,
How stray their spears, how knock their knees, [245]
How wild their watchfires burn!
“The Mother of God goes over them,
Walking on wind and flame,
And the storm-cloud drifts from city and dale,
And the White Horse stamps in the White Horse Vale, [250]
And we all shall yet drink Christian ale
In the village of our name.
“The Mother of God goes over them,
On dreadful cherubs borne;
And the psalm is roaring above the rune, [255]
And the Cross goes over the sun and moon,
Endeth the Battle of Ethandune
With the blowing of a horn.”
For back indeed disorderly
The Danes went clamouring, [260]
Too worn to take anew the tale,
Or dazed with insolence and ale,
Or stunned of heaven, or stricken pale
Before the face of the King.
For dire was Alfred in his hour [265]
The pale scribe witnesseth,
More mighty in defeat was he
Than all men else in victory,
And behind, his men came murderously,
Dry-throated, drinking death. [270]
And Edgar of the Golden Ship
He slew with his own hand,
Took Ludwig from his lady’s bower,
And smote down Harmar in his hour,
And vain and lonely stood the tower— [275]
The tower in Guelderland.
And Torr out of his tiny boat,
Whose eyes beheld the Nile,
Wulf with his war-cry on his lips,
And Hacro born in the eclipse, [280]
Who blocked the Seine with battleships
Round Paris on the Isle.
And Hacon of the Harvesting,
And Dirck from the Elbe he slew,
And Cnut that melted Durham bell, [285]
And Fulk and fiery Oscar fell,
And Goderic and Sigael,
And Uriel of the Yew.
And highest sang the slaughter,
And fastest fell the slain, [290]
When from the wood-road’s blackening throat
A crowning and crashing wonder smote
The rearguard of the Dane.
For the dregs of Colan’s company—
Lost down the other road— [295]
Had gathered and grown and heard the din,
And with wild yells came pouring in,
Naked as their old British kin,
And bright with blood for woad.
And bare and bloody and aloft [300]
They bore before their band
The body of their mighty lord,
Colan of Caerleon and its horde,
That bore King Alfred’s battle-sword
Broken in his left hand. [305]
And a strange music went with him,
Loud and yet strangely far;
The wild pipes of the western land,
Too keen for the ear to understand,
Sang high and deathly on each hand [310]
When the dead man went to war.
Blocked between ghost and buccaneer,
Brave men have dropped and died;
And the wild sea-lords well might quail
As the ghastly war-pipes of the Gael [315]
Called to the horns of White Horse Vale,
And all the horns replied.
And Hildred the poor hedger
Cut down four captains dead,
And Halmer laid three others low, [320]
And the great earls wavered to and fro
For the living and the dead.
And Gorlias grasped the great flag,
The Raven of Odin, torn;
And the eyes of Guthrum altered, [325]
For the first time since morn.
As a turn of the wheel of tempest
Tilts up the whole sky tall,
And cliffs of wan cloud luminous
Lean out like great walls over us, [330]
As if the heavens might fall.
As such a tall and tilted sky
Sends certain snow or light,
So did the eyes of Guthrum change,
And the turn was more certain and more strange [335]
Than a thousand men in flight.
For not till the floor of the skies is split,
And hell-fire shines through the sea,
Or the stars look up through the rent earth’s knees,
Cometh such rending of certainties, [340]
As when one wise man truly sees
What is more wise than he.
He set his horse in the battle-breach
Even Guthrum of the Dane,
And as ever had fallen fell his brand, [345]
A falling tower o’er many a land,
But Gurth the fowler laid one hand
Upon this bridle rein.
King Guthrum was a great lord,
And higher than his gods— [350]
He put the popes to laughter,
He chid the saints with rods,
He took this hollow world of ours
For a cup to hold his wine;
In the parting of the woodways [355]
There came to him a sign.
In Wessex in the forest,
In the breaking of the spears,
We set a sign on Guthrum
To blaze a thousand years. [360]
Where the high saddles jostle
And the horse-tails toss,
There rose to the birds flying
A roar of dead and dying;
In deafness and strong crying [365]
We signed him with the cross.
Far out to the winding river
The blood ran down for days,
When we put the cross on Guthrum
In the parting of the ways. [370]

BOOK VIII
THE SCOURING OF THE HORSE

N the years of the peace of Wessex,
When the good King sat at home;
Years following on that bloody boon
When she that stands above the moon
Stood above death at Ethandune [5]
And saw his kingdom come—
When the pagan people of the sea
Fled to their palisades,
Nailed there with javelins to cling
And wonder smote the pirate king, [10]
And brought him to his christening
And the end of all his raids.
(For not till the night’s blue slate is wiped
Of its last star utterly,
And fierce new signs writ there to read, [15]
Shall eyes with such amazement heed,
As when a great man knows indeed
A greater thing than he.)
And there came to his chrism-loosing
Lords of all lands afar, [20]
And a line was drawn north-westerly
That set King Egbert’s empire free,
Giving all lands by the northern sea
To the sons of the northern star.
In the days of the rest of Alfred, [25]
When all these things were done,
And Wessex lay in a patch of peace,
Like a dog in a patch of sun—
The King sat in his orchard,
Among apples green and red, [30]
With the little book in his bosom
And the sunshine on his head.
And he gathered the songs of simple men
That swing with helm and hod,
And the alms he gave as a Christian [35]
Like a river alive with fishes ran;
And he made gifts to a beggar man
As to a wandering god.
And he gat good laws of the ancient kings,
Like treasure out of the tombs; [40]
And many a thief in thorny nook,
Or noble in sea-stained turret shook,
For the opening of his iron book,
And the gathering of the dooms.
Then men would come from the ends of the earth, [45]
Whom the King sat welcoming,
And men would go to the ends of the earth
Because of the word of the King.
For folk came in to Alfred’s face
Whose javelins had been hurled [50]
On monsters that make boil the sea,
Crakens and coils of mystery,
Or thrust in ancient snows that be
The white hair of the world.
And some had knocked at the northern gates [55]
Of the ultimate icy floor,
Where the fish freeze and the foam turns black,
And the wide world narrows to a track,
And the other sea at the world’s back
Cries through a closed door. [60]
And men went forth from Alfred’s face,
Even great gift-bearing lords,
Not to Rome only, but more bold,
Out to the high hot courts of old,
Of negroes clad in cloth of gold, [65]
Silence, and crooked swords,
Scrawled screens and secret gardens
And insect-laden skies—
Where fiery plains stretch on and on
To the purple country of Prester John [70]
And the walls of Paradise.
And he knew the might of the Terre Majeure,
Where kings began to reign;
Where in a night-rout, without name,
Of gloomy Goths and Gauls there came [75]
White, above candles all aflame,
Like a vision, Charlemagne.
And men, seeing such embassies,
Spake with the King and said:
“The steel that sang so sweet a tune [80]
On Ashdown and on Ethandune,
Why hangs it scabbarded so soon,
All heavily like lead?
“Why dwell the Danes in North England,
And up to the river ride? [85]
Three more such marches like thine own
Would end them; and the Pict should own
Our sway; and our feet climb the throne
In the mountains of Strathclyde.”
And Alfred in the orchard, [90]
Among apples green and red,
With the little book in his bosom,
Looked at green leaves and said:
“When all philosophies shall fail,
This word alone shall fit; [95]
That a sage feels too small for life,
And a fool too large for it.
“Asia and all imperial plains
Are too little for a fool;
But for one man whose eyes can see, [100]
The little island of Athelney
Is too large a land to rule.
“Haply it had been better
When I built my fortress there,
Out in the reedy waters wide, [105]
I had stood on my mud wall and cried:
‘Take England all, from tide to tide—
Be Athelney my share.’
“Those madmen of the throne-scramble—
Oppressors and oppressed— [110]
Had lined the banks by Athelney,
And waved and wailed unceasingly,
Where the river turned to the broad sea,
By an island of the blest.
“An island like a little book [115]
Full of a hundred tales,
Like the gilt page the good monks pen,
That is all smaller than a wren,
Yet hath high towns, meteors, and men,
And suns and spouting whales; [120]
“A land having a light on it
In the river dark and fast,
An isle with utter clearness lit,
Because a saint had stood in it;
Where flowers are flowers indeed and fit, [125]
And trees are trees at last,
“So were the island of a saint;
But I am a common king,
And I will make my fences tough
From Wantage Town to Plymouth Bluff, [130]
Because I am not wise enough
To rule so small a thing.”
And it fell in the days of Alfred,
In the days of his repose,
That as old customs in his sight [135]
Were a straight road and a steady light,
He bade them keep the White Horse white
As the first plume of the snows.
And right to the red torchlight,
From the trouble of morning grey, [140]
They stripped the White Horse of the grass
As they strip it to this day.
And under the red torchlight
He went dreaming as though dull,
Of his old companions slain like kings, [145]
And the rich irrevocable things
Of a heart that hath not openings,
But is shut fast, being full.
And the torchlight touched the pale hair
Were silver clouded gold, [150]
And the frame of his face was made of cords,
And a young lord turned among the lords
And said: “The King is old.”
And even as he said it
A post ran in amain, [155]
Crying: “Arm, Lord King, the hamlets arm,
In the horror and the shade of harm,
They have burnt Brand of Aynger’s farm—
The Danes are come again!
“Danes drive the white East Angles [160]
In six fights on the plains,
Danes waste the world about the Thames,
Danes to the eastward—Danes!”
And as he stumbled on one knee,
The thanes broke out in ire, [165]
Crying: “Ill the watchmen watch, and ill
The sheriffs keep the shire.”
But the young earl said: “Ill the saints,
The saints of England, guard
The land wherein we pledge them gold; [170]
The dykes decay, the King grows old,
And surely this is hard,
“That we be never quit of them;
That when his head is hoar
He cannot say to them he smote, [175]
And spared with a hand hard at the throat,
‘Go, and return no more.’ ”
Then Alfred smiled. And the smile of him
Was like the sun for power.
But he only pointed: bade them heed [180]
Those peasants of the Berkshire breed,
Who plucked the old Horse of the weed
As they pluck it to this hour.
“Will ye part with the weeds for ever?
Or show daisies to the door? [185]
Or will you bid the bold grass
Go, and return no more?
“So ceaseless and so secret
Thrive terror and theft set free;
Treason and shame shall come to pass [190]
While one weed flowers in a morass;
And like the stillness of stiff grass
The stillness of tyranny.
“Over our white souls also
Wild heresies and high [195]
Wave prouder than the plumes of grass,
And sadder than their sigh.
“And I go riding against the raid,
And ye know not where I am;
But ye shall know in a day or year, [200]
When one green star of grass grows here;
Chaos has charged you, charger and spear,
Battle-axe and battering-ram.
“And though skies alter and empires melt,
This word shall still be true: [205]
If we would have the horse of old,
Scour ye the horse anew.
“One time I followed a dancing star
That seemed to sing and nod,
And ring upon earth all evil’s knell; [210]
But now I wot if ye scour not well
Red rust shall grow on God’s great bell
And grass in the streets of God.”
Ceased Alfred; and above his head
The grand green domes, the Downs, [215]
Showed the first legions of the press,
Marching in haste and bitterness
For Christ’s sake and the crown’s.
Beyond the cavern of Colan,
Past Eldred’s by the sea, [220]
Rose men that owned King Alfred’s rod,
From the windy wastes of Exe untrod,
Or where the thorn of the grave of God
Burns over Glastonbury.
Far northward and far westward [225]
The distant tribes drew nigh,
Plains beyond plains, fell beyond fell,
That a man at sunset sees so well,
And the tiny coloured towns that dwell
In the corners of the sky. [230]
But dark and thick as thronged the host,
“With drum and torch and blade,
The still-eyed King sat pondering,
As one that watches a live thing,
The scoured chalk; and he said, [235]
“Though I give this land to Our Lady,
That helped me in Athelney,
Though lordlier trees and lustier sod
And happier hills hath no flesh trod
Than the garden of the Mother of God [240]
Between Thames side and the sea,
“I know that weeds shall grow in it
Faster than men can burn;
And though they scatter now and go,
In some far century, sad and slow, [245]
I have a vision, and I know
The heathen shall return.
“They shall not come with warships,
They shall not waste with brands,
But books be all their eating, [250]
And ink be on their hands.
“Not with the humour of hunters
Or savage skill in war,
But ordering all things with dead words,
Strings shall they make of beasts and birds, [255]
And wheels of wind and star.
“They shall come mild as monkish clerks,
With many a scroll and pen;
And backward shall ye turn and gaze,
Desiring one of Alfred’s days, [260]
When pagans still were men.
“The dear sun dwarfed of dreadful suns,
Like fiercer flowers on stalk,
Earth lost and little like a pea
In high heaven’s towering forestry, [265]
—These be the small weeds ye shall see
Crawl, covering the chalk.
“But though they bridge St. Mary’s sea,
Or steal St. Michael’s wing—
Though they rear marvels over us, [270]
Greater than great Vergilius
Wrought for the Roman king,
“By this sign you shall know them,
The breaking of the sword,
And Man no more a free knight, [275]
That loves or hates his lord.
“Yea, this shall be the sign of them,
The sign of the dying fire;
And Man made like a half-wit,
That knows not of his sire. [280]
“What though they come with scroll and pen,
And grave as a shaven clerk,
By this sign you shall know them,
That they ruin and make dark;
“By all men bond to Nothing, [285]
Being slaves without a lord,
By one blind idiot world obeyed,
Too blind to be abhorred;
“By terror and the cruel tales
Of curse in bone and kin, [290]
By weird and weakness winning,
Accursed from the beginning,
By detail of the sinning,
And denial of the sin;
“By thought a crawling ruin, [295]
By life a leaping mire,
By a broken heart in the breast of the world,
And the end of the world’s desire;
“By God and man dishonoured,
By death and life made vain, [300]
Know ye the old barbarian,
The barbarian come again—
“When is great talk of trend and tide,
And wisdom and destiny,
Hail that undying heathen [305]
That is sadder than the sea.
“In what wise men shall smite him,
Or the Cross stand up again,
Or charity or chivalry,
My vision saith not; and I see [310]
No more; but now ride doubtfully
To the battle of the plain.”
And the grass-edge of the great down
Was cut clean as a lawn,
While the levies thronged from near and far, [315]
From the warm woods of the western star,
And the King went out to his last war
On a tall grey horse at dawn.
And news of his far-off fighting
Came slow and brokenly [320]
From the land of the East Saxons,
From the sunrise and the sea.
From the plains of the white sunrise,
And sad St. Edmund’s crown,
Where the pools of Essex pale and gleam [325]
Out beyond London Town—
In mighty and doubtful fragments,
Like faint or fabled wars,
Climbed the old hills of his renown,
Where the bald brow of White Horse Down [330]
Is close to the cold stars.
But away in the eastern places
The wind of death walked high,
And a raid was driven athwart the raid,
The sky reddened and the smoke swayed, [335]
And the tall grey horse went by.
The gates of the great river
Were breached as with a barge,
The walls sank crowded, say the scribes,
And high towers populous with tribes [340]
Seemed leaning from the charge.
Smoke like rebellious heavens rolled
Curled over coloured flames,
Mirrored in monstrous purple dreams
In the mighty pools of Thames. [345]
Loud was the war on London wall,
And loud in London gates,
And loud the sea-kings in the cloud
Broke through their dreaming gods, and loud
Cried on their dreadful Fates. [350]
And all the while on White Horse Hill
The horse lay long and wan,
The turf crawled and the fungus crept,
And the little sorrel, while all men slept,
Unwrought the work of man. [355]
With velvet finger, velvet foot,
The fierce soft mosses then
Crept on the large white commonweal
All folk had striven to strip and peel,
And the grass, like a great green witch’s wheel, [360]
Unwound the toils of men.
And clover and silent thistle throve,
And buds burst silently,
With little care for the Thames Valley
Or what things there might be— [365]
That away on the widening river,
In the eastern plains for crown
Stood up in the pale purple sky
One turret of smoke like ivory;
And the smoke changed and the wind went by, [370]
And the King took London Town.

The Ballad of the White Horse
Documentation and Abbreviations
The notes use the author-date system. Authors names and the publication dates of their books appear in the text, usually in parentheses. For more complete documentation consult the references on pages 225-231.
Abbreviations
GK, GKC, Chesterton Gilbert Keith Chesterton
BWH The Ballad of the White Horse
ASC Anglo-Saxon Chronicle
P Prefatory Note
D Dedication
E III: 109 Endnote Book III: line 109
IV:11 Book IV: line 11
Chesterton at Battersea in 1905

Notes: Prefatory Note
P:1. This ballad needs historical notes, for the simple reason that it is steeped in history. Chesterton’s emphatic disavowal is linked to his need as a poet to place the important battle of Ethandune in Berkshire near White Horse Hill. He knew better. Yet he dared not say, “Although I believe that the battle of Ethandune was probably fought at Edington in the vicinity of Bratton Castle in Wiltshire, I intend, for my own reasons, to locate it in Berkshire. The ancient White Horse is a significant presence in the Ballad.” See Introduction iv.
P:22-25. ultimate victory of Alfred: The battle of Ethandune.
P:25-31. tradition: Chesterton avoids the controversy by claiming to write from hearsay. Wherever it occurred, King Alfred decisively defeated the Danes in 878. This victory made possible “the gradual re-conquest of the Danelaw in the tenth century” and preserved England from losing its language, culture, and religion.
P:31-35. Alfred played the harp and sang in the Danish camp: William of Malmesbury, writing in the early twelfth century, is the first historian to mention this legend (Keynes and Lapidge 1983,22,212).
P:36-59. Alfred came in contact with a woman and cakes: The earliest extant version of this legend occurs in an anonymous account of The Life of St. Neot. This manuscript was probably written in the late tenth century after the removal of the relics of St. Neot from Cornwall to a priory at Eyenesbury in Huntingdonshire (Keynes and Lapidge 1983,197-202).
P:66. Eadwig: A youthful king of England whose short reign accomplished little of significance (ASC 955-59).
P:72-86. He fought for the Christian civilization against the heathen nihilism: Here is the theme of the Ballad: Life is an ongoing struggle between good and evil forces. Down to the last verse Chesterton spells out this theme on multiple levels of life.

Notes: Dedication
Synopsis: Chesterton speaks to the reader (1-46): These rhymes are about the warfare waged between King Alfred and the Danes in the latter part of the ninth century. Chesterton speaks to his wife (47-94): I am dedicating this poem to you out of love and appreciation for your joyful companionship, and the spiritual inspiration you are and have been in my life.
Therefore I bring these rhymes to you,
Who brought the cross to me,
Since on you flaming without flaw
I saw the sign that Guthrum saw
When he let break his ships of awe,
And laid peace on the sea.
(D:53-58)
D: 1-16. Chesterton opens his epic of King Alfred the Great by emphasizing that this is an account of the aboriginal struggle of the Christians and the heathens for the control of England. Alfred is the great face turned toward the darkness enveloping his kingdom after the Danish surprise invasion of Wessex in January 878.
Garry Wills (1961,136) pointed out that the first two lines are from Chesterton’s early unpublished poem on Moses. The first stanza is included here through the courtesy of Wills and of A. P. Watt Ltd. on behalf of the Royal Literary Fund.
Of great limbs gone to chaos
Of a great face turned to night
From the grey old earth’s first twilight
The soul of a man of might
The man of the shattered tables
The man of the living rod
The man who gave to the nations
The Ten Great Words of God.
D:3-16. Why does a poet look back a thousand years at the England of Alfred’s day? He wants to remind readers that it was Alfred the Great who saved England.
D:6-16. Chesterton refers to previous eras as “sunken Englands.” In “telescoping history” he declares: “The prime function of imagination is to see our whole orderly system of life as a pile of stratified revolutions” (1906,60).
D:9. thanes: Men who held lands of the king or other superior in Anglo-Saxon times. They gave military service and usually had hereditary rank.
D:17. gonfalon: A pennon or flag affixed to the end of a lance. The gonfalon under which the Normans fought at Hastings in 1066 was a white banner sent by the Pope to William of Normandy.
D:17-18. The Normans conquered the Anglo-Saxons.
D:18. The Anglo-Saxon flag was a golden dragon mounted on a blood-red held.
D:19-28. We will not touch on the deeds of King Arthur nor on events after the Norman Conquest. Our chief concern is with the last third of the ninth century when a great Christian King withstood the Pagan Danes.
D:21-22. holy kings: King Arthur’s allies against the Saxons.
D:23-24. Bayeux: The town in France which displays the embroidery known as the Bayeux Tapestry. Of Saxon workmanship, it pictorially depicts events connected with the Norman Conquest.
D:25. dawn: The early sixth century when Arthur supposedly fought twelve battles against the heathen invaders.
D:26-28. Alfred’s achievements are so remarkable and varied that moderns find them almost incredible.
D:41-44. The recent outpouring of Anglo-Saxon studies enables readers to enter into the life and times of Alfred. James Campbell gives a brief, illustrated, interpretative account of Anglo-Saxon history with notes and a bibliography. Simon Keynes and Michael Lapidge have extensive references listed in Alfred the Great (1983,345-59). Their new translation of Asser’s Life of King Alfred provides excellent background reading for The Ballad of the White Horse. Dorothy Whitelock’s writings about the Anglo-Saxon era are both authoritative and illuminating.
D:47-52. Alfred realized that it was only by relying on help from God that he could defeat the pagans.
D:53-56. Gilbert Chesterton dedicates The Ballad of the White Horse to his wife, Frances.
D:56-58. Guthrum: See E VII:325.
D:59-64. Gilbert and Frances toured the area around Chippenham where the Danes surrendered. Compare his poetic and his prose descriptions of the battleground. [Here is proof that GKC knew before 1911 that Wiltshire had a better claim than Berkshire as the site of Ethandune.] “But the other day under a wild sunset and moonrise I passed the place which is best reputed as Ethandune, a high, grim upland, partly bare and partly shaggy; like that savage and sacred spot in those great imaginative lines about the demon lover and the waning moon. The darkness, the red wreck of sunset, the yellow and lurid moon, the long fantastic shadows, actually created that sense of monstrous incident which is the dramatic side of landscape. The bare grey slopes seemed to rush downhill like routed hosts; the dark clouds drove across like riven banners; and the moon was like a golden dragon, like the Golden Dragon of Wessex” (1911,228-29).
D:65-94. Chesterton here expresses his appreciation for Frances’s loving companionship, giftedness, and her sterling qualities.
Father John O’Connor, a close personal friend of the Chestertons, confirms how well-founded was Chesterton’s love and esteem for Frances. “It is to her that we owe the most and some of the best of Gilbert Chesterton. In all things she was his angel, a small Cockney, a connection of the first editor of Punch. She even converted him from what he calls the Higher Unitarianism to the more loyal and rational kind of Anglicanism—Tractarian more than Ritualistic” (1938,28).
D:77-82. A reference to certain contemporary writers and editors. See VIII: 248-302 and Endnotes.
D:94. Frome. An urban district in Somersetshire, England.

Notes: The Vision of the King
Synopsis: Chesterton introduces the White Horse, and then presents an overview of the chaotic migration of nations after the Fall of Rome (1-80). The heathen Northmen, a sea-folk, caused widespread havoc, and by 878 had subjugated all of Britain except Wessex. After the Danish surprise raid at Chippenham in January 878, Alfred at his wit’s end hid out on the marshy island of Athelney (81-161). At this impasse Mary appears to Alfred (162-277).
Night shall he thrice night over you,
And heaven an iron cope.
Do you have joy without a cause,
Yea, faith without a hope?
(I:258-61)
I:17. The White Horse of the White Horse Vale: Meet the White Horse which Chesterton recognizes as a prehistoric presence (1911,257). Thomas Hughes quotes the description of this gigantic White Horse given by the author of A Tour through England: “Looking south from the Vale, we see a trench cut on the side of a high green hill, in the shape of a horse, and not ill-shaped neither; the trench is about a yard deep, and filled almost up with chalk, so that at a distance you see the exact shape of a White Horse, but so large, as to take up near an acre of ground… . From this figure the hill is called in our maps White Horse Hill, and the low or flat country under it the Vale of the White Horse” (1859,216).
I:18-60. End of the world: The downfall of Rome. Darkness settled over the civilized world. Hordes of barbarians poured from the east and the north into the Roman Empire. “That outer world of universal anarchy which lay beyond Christendom” (Chesterton 1917,50).
I:32. cresset: An iron vessel for holding burning oil or pitch. It may be mounted as a torch, or hung as a lantern.
I:38. Titan flowers: Gigantic flowers.
I:41. Ind’s: India’s.
I:42. inmost one: Mt. Everest.
I:61-80. The death of the Emperor Charlemagne in 814 weakened the defenses which Christendom had in Europe. During the latter part of the ninth century, Alfred with God’s help stayed the pagan tide of invasion.
I:62. The ninth century was a dark period for the Papacy. Lay investiture multiplied evils in the disintegrating Carolingian Empire. The Saracens pillaged southern Italy and threatened the Papal States. Within the city of Rome itself, the Italian nobles frequently fought to secure position and wealth. As unscrupulous politicians, they endeavored to put someone who belonged to their party on the papal throne. By this means they hoped to gain control of the temporal government of the city, and to enrich themselves by graft. Weak and unworthy men were in some cases appointed Popes. In 1059, the revision of the system of electing the Pope freed these elections from irregularities and imperial control (Mann 1925, vols.2,3,4).
I:63-76. Alfred’s kingdom was in the hands of the Danes after their surprise attack at Chippenham in January, 878. While mustering his army for the counter-attack in the spring, Alfred hid on the island of Athelney (ASC). After Easter [23 March] that year, Alfred with the help of the inhabitants of Somerset, Wiltshire, and Hampshire fought against the entire Danish army at Ethandune and was victorious (ASC 878).
I:77-80. During the ensuing years King Alfred strengthened the fortifications in his kingdom. This enabled him in 886 to quickly defeat the army which was attacking London and to overcome renewed attacks from 892-96. Meanwhile he initiated programs for the revival of religion and learning. His composite law code showed his judicious concern for maintaining social and political order among his subjects (Keynes and Lapidge 1983,16370).
I:81-111. Chesterton refers to the Northmen as “a horde of heathen raiders out of the northern seas and forests” (1930,114).
These pirates were at first satisfied with booty, devastation, and tribute. Their encroachments brought ruination and the depressing impoverishment of civilization. After 865 they aspired to conquer and settle. By 878 much of Britain was under their sway, and they were making concerted efforts to take over Wessex.
I:89. horned heads: The Northmen are often erroneously pictured with horned helmets. See E V:171.
I:102. The barbarous religious ceremony of shedding the blood of animals as well as that of men was not entirely abolished in Scandinavia until well into the ninth century when they received the light of the Gospel (Mallet 1882,111).
I:108. A great heathen army came to East Anglia in the autumn of 866 and took winter quarters there (ASC). From this time onwards we read of the heathen army being somewhere in Britain.
I:116-22. Alfred’s sires courageously opposed the recurring onslaughts of the Danish warriors.
Egbert (802-39), the paternal grandfather of Alfred, brought about a short-lived, fragile union of the Anglo-Saxon monarchies about the year 829. Ethelwulf, Alfred’s father, reigned from 839 to 858. Alfred’s brothers, who ruled in turn were Ethelbald, 85860; Ethelbert, 860-66; and Ethelred, 866-71. Alfred governed the kingdom from 871-99.
I:125. Lyonesse: In Arthurian legend, a country fabled to have been formerly contiguous to Cornwall but to have long since sunk beneath the sea.
I:125-26. Arthur is “the king that comes no more.” Chesterton compares the vanishing memory of Alfred’s family with the folk tales still afloat about King Arthur and his “lords” who fought against the invading Saxons.
I:127. The Golden Drag on: The flag of the West Saxons.
I:129. King Alfred.
I:138. In 878 Athelney was an island in Somersetshire at the junction of the Parrett and Tone rivers. Today it is a hill on farm land that can be viewed from the layby on the A361 about half a mile northeast of Lyng.
I:141. broken to his knee: After the surprise attack in January 878 Alfred is stunned but not defeated.
I:146-55. Alfred recalls the incident in his childhood when he obtained an illuminated manuscript from his mother (Keynes and Lapidge 1983,75).
I:148. Alfred’s mother was Osburh, “a religious woman, noble both by birth and by nature” (Giles 1891,44).
I:162-76. There are no recorded traditions about the appearance of Our Lady to Alfred. The pivotal part Chesterton has Mary take in assembling the soldiers (Book II), winning the battle (Book VII), and watching over England as Protectress (Book VIII), is evidence of the sincere love he had for the Mother of God. See E VII:189-204.
I:177-82. The Alfred Jewel: This jewel of Anglo-S axon workmanship is a gold plaque having the portrait of a man in cloisonné enamel. Round the edge in Anglo-Saxon workmanship are the words “Alfred had me worked” (Keynes and Lapidge 1983, 203-6). The Jewel, found in 1693 at Newton Park some four miles north of Athelney, is the most treasured possession of the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford University.
I:183-202. Chesterton was vividly conscious of Mary’s nearness to people everywhere. Maisie Ward tells us that he often spoke of “Our Lady returning to his own land, to all lands, and saving the world” (Ward 1945,4). Rather than attribute Alfred’s victory to the legendary miraculous help given either by St. Neot or by St. Cuthbert, Chesterton chose to have Alfred ask Our Lady whether or not he and his Christian warriors would eventually become victorious.
I:205. croft: A small enclosed field adjacent to a house.
I:211. hind: A peasant; a farm laborer.
I:216. the Three Kings: The three Persons of the Holy Trinity.
I:209-61. At the age of thirty, a thoroughly humbled Alfred realizes that Mary’s visit to him meant that victory would come after a tremendous struggle. “Do you have… faith without a hope?” From now on he goes “gaily in the dark.”

Notes: The Gathering of the Chiefs
Synopsis: “Alfred of the lonely spear” gathers his Christian freedom fighters from western Wessex and Wales for an all-out battle with the pagan Danes. Mary’s message convinces the Roman, Gael, and Saxon to assemble at Egbert’s Stone.
Out of the mouth of the Mother of God
Like a little word come I;
For I go gathering Christian men
From sunken paving and ford and fen,
To die in a battle, God knows when,
By God, but I know why.
And this is the word of Mary,
The word of the world’s desire:
“No more of comfort shall ye get,
Save that the sky grows darker yet
And the sea rises higher.”
(II:74-84)
II:2. shaw: A strip of woodland forming the border of a held; a small wood or grove; a thicket [Dial.].
Chesterton creates the atmosphere of ninth century England by using words taken from the vocabulary of the people of that day.
II:1-8. In “A Romance of the Marshes” Chesterton describes the terrain around Athelney: “Everything in that strange countryside seemed to be lying low, as if to avoid the incessant and rattling rain of the Danish arrows. There were indeed hills of no inconsiderable height quite within call; but those pools and flats of the old Parrett seemed to separate themselves like a central and secret sea; and in the midst of them stood up the rock of Athelney as isolate as it was to Alfred… . One stooped to stroke the grass, as if the earth were all one kind beast that could feel” (1911,299-300).
II:9-24. Alfred, buoyed up after meeting Mary, sings as he travels north toward the estuary of the Severn river in search of Eldred the Saxon. Alfred needs the help of all the Christians to drive out the pagan Danes.
II:21. Franklin: A substantial landholder but not a nobleman.
II:23. Sacred Tree: An oak tree. To the druids the oak was an “emblem of the Divinity” (Lingard [1849] 1912,1:16-17).
II:24. Usk: A river in Wales that flows through southwest England into the Severn estuary.
II:25-62. Compare Chesterton’s description of Eldred with the “English virtues” he cites in Cobbett. “The love of loafing and of lonely adventure; the spirit of the genial eccentric; the capacity to be a hermit without being a misanthrope; the love of landscape and of roads astray; and above all, that love of the grotesque that is as brave as a broad grin. Nor… was he without that softer side, only that with him it was generally the inside. I mean that it was in his private and domestic character that we see the English aversion to what is painful and severe. He was a very gentle father” (1926,203-4).
II:46-57. Eldred has lost interest in fighting the Danes because of the unending defeats. Out of nine battles in 871, only Englefield and Ashdown were clearly Saxon victories. Alfred then saved lives and bought time by paying the heathens to leave Wessex. Five years later Guthrum and his entire army returned with the intention of taking possession of Wessex.
II:58. scalds: Bards who sang or recited heroic poems and eulogies.
II:94. butt: Probably a cask of ale near Eldred.
II:96. Egbert’s Stone: This meeting place cannot be identified with certainty. It was in Wiltshire east of Selwood Forest, and within a day’s march of the next camping place, Iley Oak. According to the ASC, men from Somersetshire, Wiltshire, and Hampshire assembled there.
II:103-12. The marauding Danes ravaged the homesteads of the natives and the dwellings of the hermits. Alfred sees destruction on all sides.
II:105. steading: A farmstead [Dial.].
II:107. combe: A narrow valley or deep hollow, especially one enclosed on all but one side.
II:117-41. After walking all night Alfred arrives at Mark’s farm at daybreak. The organization evident everywhere reflects the character of the owner.
II:147-52. Alfred humbly introduces himself to the Roman as one who is still struggling to defeat the heathen Danes. He acknowledges that he bought peace by paying them to withdraw from his kingdom.
II:151. wold: An upland plain; a region without woods.
II:166. Wiltshire: A county in southern England. White Horse wold: This upland plain takes its name from the prehistoric White Horse located atop White Horse Hill.
II:165-68. Mark shows his military competence by forming a judgment of the situation in Wessex.
II:167. Owsenfold: An unidentified place.
II:191. Or: Before, ere [Archaic].
II:192. Caerleon: Atown on the Usk river in southern Wales.
II:194. broken men: Colan’s ancestors fled into the crags of Wales to evade the Saxons. His forefathers preferred freedom in a mountainous terrain to slavery elsewhere under the Saxons.
II:199. Druid trees: The Druids venerated the oak.
II:201. the fallen kings: Arthur and the legendary allied kings of sixth century Britain. They were the Christian Celtic champions against the pagan Saxon invaders.
II:203. Last of a race in ruin: Colan is a proud Celt whose ancestors retreated into the rocky fastnesses of Wales to preserve their lives and their freedom. They were the Christian resistance forces in the sixth century opposing the onslaught of the pagan Saxons. Now three centuries later a Christianized Saxon is seeking help to conquer invading heathens. Alfred’s meekness and his message from Mary win Colan’s assistance.
II:204-6. The Irish overran Britain both during the Roman occupation and after the legions were withdrawn (Collingwood [1936] 1937,282). They colonized Wales to such an extent that Gaelic became the language of the people (Oman [1904] 1925,158-59). When the Irish settlements lost their independence to the Welsh, Gaelic gradually became extinct in Wales.
II:208-9. Ireland is “the rain-wrapped isle.” Brandan [Brendan] in reality is the sixth century founder of the monastery of Clonfert.
In story books Brendan has fantastic adventures as a navigator sailing westward from Ireland.
II:231-41. Colan’s deeply rooted pagan past influences him.
Catherine Mulroy, an older woman from northwestern Ireland, wrote this account of early Celtic religious beliefs.
Before Christianity came to Ireland the people there worshipped pagan gods, e.g., sun, moon, stars, seas, rivers, trees, fire, stone, iron, etcetera. The Irish have always been a deeply religious people—constantly searching for a greater being to pay homage to.
This worship was inspired more out of fear than love. They believed that their gods governed people according to a pattern of dark, unreasoned fate. This left them an easy prey to chance, luck, sadness and despair. They did their best to appease their gods by their worship, but they lived in fear and dread of how fate would turn for them.
Here and there throughout the land there were mounds, forts, and stone altars set up for worship, and at festivals fires were lighted on high mountains as an outward sign of worship. The great tall boulders along the Atlantic coast, for example, the high cliffs of Moher in Co. Clare are places where the gods were worshipped. These tall cliffs today can be termed “the gods of unbearable beauty” as one walks along the high cliffs on that rugged western coast.
These were the types of gods our ancestors worshipped and when Christianity came with St. Patrick, the country was steeped in pagan worship. The conversion was long and arduous but very real as the Gaels were searching for the One and true Living God which Patrick brought. The sod was ready for conversion and the seed took root and began to grow, spreading through the length and breadth of that land. The worship of pagan gods bed to be abandoned, hut as this was a deep-down thing, it was not easy for the New Christians to relinquish all their old deep-rooted nature worship.
They feared to let go of everything and held on to what they thought was important in the line of small manners and customs—just in case there was anything important in them. These superstitions have been passed down from generation to generation and there are still some slight traces in evidence in certain areas in the West [of Ireland], even in the twentieth century.
Catherine Mulroy, R.S.M. 1988. Manuscript to editor. (London: Bellord House, 7 Gun St.)
II:235-36. The gods could break the hearts of men because the pagan Cert believed that death could come suddenly upon a person who broke his word to the Sun, Moon, etcetera. The people lived in rear of the avenging action of the elements.
Professor Eoin MacNeill made an insightful summation: “The Celt was plying an age-long warfare against the crude primeval forces of the physical world, and was everywhere face to face, not with measure, but with immensity—with vast forest regions, the rigors of the northern… winter, the mystery of the boundless ocean. This experience has shaped and coloured all his thought and all his literature; most ofJ his legends of antiquity” (1910,4-5).
II:268-75. Early Irish literature relates the legendary deeds of Cuchulainn, Deirdre and Naoise, Oisin and Fionn, and many others.
II:277. See E V:201-2 where hills and pikes are described.

Notes: The Harp of Alfred
Synopsis: While Alfred awaits his allies he visits the Danish camp disguised as a harper. This interlude provides a fine opportunity for comparing Pagan and Christian ideals and gives the motive for the whole campaign.
The Harp of Alfred is a “tournament of song, in which the sensual Pagan [Harold], the poetic Pagan [Elf], the savage Pagan [Ogier], and the cultured Pagan [Guthrum] say their say with music, before Alfred says the say of Christian Fact” (O’Connor 1938,65).
For our God hath blessed creation,
Calling it good. I know
What spirit with whom you blindly band
Hath blessed destruction with his hand;
Yet by God’s death the stars shall stand
And the small apples grow.
(III:373-78)
III:3. mass-book: A book containing the prayers and rites used by persons assisting at the celebration of the Eucharist [Mass]. Asser, Alfred’s biographer, mentions that King Alfred assisted at daily Mass (Keynes and Lapidge 1983,91).
III:20-25. Dr. John Lingard describes the destruction of the monasteries in A.D. 870: “From the ashes of Medeshamstede they proceeded to Huntingdon, and from the destruction of that place to the Isle of Ely. The nuns of this monastery, who were descended from the noblest of the Saxon families, were sacrificed to their lust and cruelty; the treasures of the country, which had been deposited in the island, were divided among the barbarians, and the edifice, with every other building… was devoured by the flames” ([1849] 1912,1:184-85).
III:24. Fires over Glastonbury Thorn: The Danes during their raids in Somerset ravaged and despoiled the monastery established at Glastonbury.
III:24. Glastonbury Thorn: A variety of hawthorn which has the peculiarity of flowering twice in the year, first about Christmas and again in May. According to an ancient legend, the original tree grew from the staff of St. Joseph of Arimathea (E VIII:223-24), (Chesterton 1911,112-18).
III:2-39. From the foot of White Horse Hill one sees the shape of the White Horse. The whiteness of the gigantic White Horse is indicative of whether the pagans or the Christians are in control. While the heathens are harrying the countryside, the Horse is overrun with weeds, but when the country is at peace, the Christians keep the Horse well cleaned. Today the National Trust for Places of Historic Interest keeps the Horse white.
III:52-74. Guthrum is a Danish king who occupies a notable place in Anglo-Saxon history.
III:79-80. He sang of some old British raid: Asser relates that Alfred listened carefully to Saxon poems which he often heard recited, “and he [Alfred] readily retained them in his memory” (Keynes and Lapidge 1983,75).
III:80. wild west march: The borderland between Mercia and Wales.
III:86-90. Offa, the King of Mercia (757-96), constructed this dyke to prevent Welsh penetration of Mercia. Offa’s Dyke consisted “of a ditch to the west about 6 feet deep and a rampart rising up to 25 feet above it to the east; the whole structure being 60 feet across” (Campbell 1982,120). Asser writing in the 890s mentions its extent. “Offa … had a great rampart built from sea to sea between Britain [Wales] and Mercia” (Giles 1891,47). Eighty of the one hundred fifty miles of this phenomenal structure are extant.
III:99. The marauding Northmen terrified the peoples between Cyprus in the Mediterranean and the island of Skye in the Heb rides off the northwest coast of Scotland.
III:109. Tyre, famous for its purple dyes, was a maritime city in ancient Phoenicia.
III:116. In Norse mythology Loki is the contriver of fraud.
III:122,126. Chesterton introduces kennings, those metaphorical compound words such as “bracelet-giver” (king) and “sword-swinger” (warrior). These give “a slight feeling of antiquity” and place the reader into the ninth century ambience.
III:130. shaven men: Clerics. Before becoming clerics, laymen received the sacred rite of tonsure.
III:151. Allemagne: Germany [Fr.].
III:153. For the May Day festivities in the Rhineland, the people decorate a tree with ribbons, wreaths, cookies, etcetera.
III:158-75. Balder beautiful: Balder, the son of Odin and Frigga, dies because his mother neglected to ask the mistletoe not to hurt her son.
III:164-75. The sentimental Elf is sad because there is no security. His gods are superior beings, yet like himself mortal and subject to mishaps. Even Balder, the noblest and gentlest of the gods, was killed through a sneaky scheme of Loki.
III:180. Stone and Sling: Although “the bow and arrows, the battle-axe, and the sword” were commonly used by the Northmen, some armed themselves with “javelins, slings, clubs stuck round with points, lances and a sort of daggers” (Mallet 1882,165-66).
III:188. yew: The yew tree is symbolic of grief and death.
III:188-230. The pessimistic Ogier, soured by hatred, delighting only in his power to destroy, awaits the final cataclysm. Stern and ruthless, he shares in the wrath of the gods who wait for the final break up of the universe.
III:216-26. the last eclipse: Ragnarok, or the Twilight of the Gods, is the destruction of the gods and all things in a final battle with evil powers (Mallet 1882,451-58).
III:221. the high ones in the happy town: All who died in a violent manner were received into Valhalla in the happy town of Asgard.
III:231-34. King Guthrum was an educated Dane who knew how to read and write.
III:235-95. Guthrum, recognizing the certainty of death and the uncertainty of a life to come, is happiest in battle where he can become oblivious of death.
III:258-65. The soul is like a lost bird: This may be a reference to the speech [A.D. 627] of one of King Edwin’s counselors who compared the life of a man to that of a sparrow that flies in one door and disappears out another. “So this life of man appears for a short space, but of what went before or what is to follow we are utterly ignorant” (Beda 1910,91).
III:303-318. Alfred declares his view of life. He begins with the Fall of Adam in the garden. Man misused his free will. The evil in the world is the result of “the wrong use of the will, and… it can eventually be righted by the right use of the will” (Chesterton 1930,226).
III:329-42. Alfred’s faith in God is his basis for hope. Though “the sky grows darker,” he has an inner conviction that persistent efforts aided by God will somehow bring success.
III:357-66. Alfred tells the Danes their way of life eventually ends in failure. Creators and preservers in the long run will be the survivors.
For our God hath blest creation,
Calling it good… .
(III:373-74), (Gen. 1:12)

Notes: The Woman in the Forest
Synopsis: Alfred scouts the environs of the Danish camp at Ethandune before going to the river-hut at Egbert Stone. There a woman asks him to watch the fire. While he pities her poverty he lets the cakes burn. The woman deals Alfred such a blow in the face that it leaves a scarlet scar. At this juncture Eldred, Colan, and Mark arrive. Note how Chesterton uses this incident to move his epic closer to the decisive battle of Ethandune.
This blow that I return not
Ten times will I return
On kings and earls of all degree,
And armies wide as empires be
Shall slide like landslips to the sea
If the red star burn.
(IV:274-79)
IV:10. paling of the pine: Apalisade made of pointed pine logs.
IV:11. altar-lamp: The sanctuary lamp of a church.
IV:16. The old stones of a Roman way: The Romans paved some of the important roadways in Britain with stones.
IV:22. Doom: Future, outcome.
IV:23-24. The ASC explains how ruin alternated with victory in 871. “And this year there fought against the Host, in the land from Thames southward, nine stricken fields. Yea, and beside these, Alfred the King’s brother and many an Alderman, and many a King’s Thane, ofttimes made, each for himself, raids upon them, which are not counted. And within the year nine Earls were slain, and one King thereto” (Conybeare 1900,123).
IV:25-30. Chesterton knows and uses authentic sources. Asser supplies him with each detail about the battle of Ashdown, even to the hawthorn tree.
But Alfred, with his men, as we have heard from truthful eyewitnesses came the quicker to the field and more readily. Nor wonder was it; for his brother King Ethelred was still in his tent, fixed in prayer, hearing Mass. Needs must he either draw him back from the battle, or charge the enemy ere yet his brother came into the fray. And, at the last, in manly wise, charged he, with the rush of a wild boar, leading his Christian forces against the iceman’s hosts. But here those who know not the place must be told it was no fair field of battle, for the Heathen had seized the higher ground, and the Christian battle-line was charging uphill. There was also in that same place a lone thorn-tree and a low, which we ourselves have beheld. Around this, then, came the lines together, with a mighty shouting, in warrior wise, the one side bent upon all mischief, the other to fight for life and land and dear ones. Most part of their force [Danes] were slain, and with all shame they betook them to flight (Conybeare 1900,93-94).
IV:41-52. under-skies: Chesterton takes us on an imaginary trip to Hades. While descending to the river-hut Alfred notes the foul smelling night-shade plant, the murky atmosphere in which “evil cherubs” [owls] flit about.
IV:59-60. The tilted roof implies that this peasant’s home had been damaged by the Danes. It was probably a thatched timber-built structure shared by the household and the livestock.
[Alfred’s legendary encounter with the Woman and the Cakes took place while he was hiding on the island of Athelney in Somerset; Chesterton moves it to Egbert Stone in Wiltshire.]
IV:70-74. J. A. Giles included a version of the legend of Alfred and the Cakes in his Asser’s Life of Alfred:
But it happened on a certain Jay, that the country woman, wife of the cowherd, was preparing some loaves to bake, and the king, sitting at the hearth, made ready his bow and arrows and other warlike instruments. The unlucky woman espying the cakes burning at the fire, ran up to remove them, and rebuking the brave king, exclaimed:
Ca’sn thee mind the ke-aks, man, an’ doossen zee ’em burn?
I’m boun thee’s eat ’em vast enough, az zoon az ’tis the turn.
The blundering woman little thought that it was King Alfred who had fought so many battl es against the pagans, and gained so many victories over them (1891,60). See E P:36-59.
IV:84. And all the last are first: “Many who are first will be last, and the last first” (Mark 10:31).
IV:85. “Here am I among you as one who serves” (Luke 22:27).
IV:85-155. Alfred explains the ways God serves him every day.
IV:89-91. God is Alfred’s gardener who planted oak trees on the plateaus and placed dense growths of shrubbery in the graveyards.
IV:124-25. Golgotha: “So Jesus went out, carrying his own cross to the place named after a skull; its Hebrew name is Golgotha” (John 19:17).
IV:130-40. Perhaps the best interpretation of the significance of the star that “spins and swirls” is that it refers to the tiny spark of hope in Alfred’s breast that the Christian cause will ultimately triumph after tremendous trials.
Chesterton uses the “wandering star,” the “dancing star,” the “light that leaps and flies” as one of the means of unity in the poem. Watch his references to it throughout the several hooks.
IV:142. A time discrowned of doom and birth: One’s value will not depend upon such accidents as personal status or family origin. Chesterton champions the dignity of the individual and hints that better days are coming after the defeat of the “evil earls.”
IV:143-44. “How happy are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 5:3).
IV:156-60. Alfred’s thoughts are far away. It was rash of him to promise to watch the cakes.
IV:173. Marcus with all his slaves in arms: Dorothy Whitelock explains that the slave class in Wessex consisted of persons of different origins. Some were descendants of the Britons, others were persons captured in wars. The greater number “were the penal slaves, persons enslaved as a punishment for certain specific crimes, or because of their inability to pay the fines and compensations which they had incurred” ([1952] 1968,112).
IV:174-75. Colan and his followers had a mingling of pagan and Christian beliefs. Their “strange spears hung with ancient charms” indicate a superstitious reliance on magic.
IV:179. jars of mead: Mead is a fermented drink made of water and honey with malt, yeast, and sometimes other ingredients.
IV:190-202. The impoverished followers of Colan, clothed in the remnants of former finery, were a far cry from their kin who went to war “in graceful shirts and many-colored enfolding tunics over comfortable long vests” (Green 1925,408).
IV:194. With Druid beards and Druid spears: Chesterton goes along with the popular imagining of the appearance of the Druids.
IV:206. Mark’s disciplined army marching in step together sounded like “great thunder.”
IV:207-8. living walls: The interlocking shields carried hy the soldiers in battle formation formed living walls. Rome hedged mankind by her military outposts throughout the civilized world.
IV:217. From red Arabia to the Tyne: Arabia in Asia marked the southeastern extent of the Roman Empire, and the Tyne river in Britain was the northwestern boundary.
IV:219. Since the cry on the hill Capitoline: The cry on the Capitoline hill occurred about 753 B.C. when Romulus was trying to obtain wives from the Sabines for the Roman youths.
A legend describes how the early Romans resorted to cunning in order to secure wives from the neighboring tribes. During a special entertainment to which the nearby tribes were invited, it had been agreed upon that at a certain outcry the Roman men would seize and carry off the young maiden visitors (Livy 1913,14-15).
IV:220. And the fall of the golden shield: Titus Livius relates the legend how Tatius, a Sabine, bribes Tarpeia, the daughter of the commander of the Roman citadel, to give them access to the city in exchange for the golden rings and bracelets they wore on their left arms. Instead of these ornaments, they threw their shields (which they also carried on their left arms) upon her and crushed her to death (1913,17-18).
IV:227. lintel beams: The horizontal crosspieces over doors or windows which support the weight above the openings.
IV:236-41. The laughter of Christians rings through popular tales in which people poke fun at the foibles of one another.
IV:246-47. The mummers in England are groups of persons, grotesquely dressed, who go round from house to house on the morning of Christmas Day and act a sort of drama founded on the legend of St. George. The verses repeated by the mummers of the different localities have the same origin, but as they are not committed to writing, they vary in a trifling degree, and have in some instances considerable interpolations.
The following version of the drama is given in The Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Magazine 1(1854): 80-81.
The characters are:

1. OLD FATHER CHRISTMAS
2. MINCE PIE
3. A TURKISH (evidently a Saracen) KNIGHT
4. ST. GEORGE
5. AN ITALIAN DOCTOR
6. A character called LITTLE JACK And the verses they repeat, divested of modern extraneous matter, are as follows:
   [Enter OLD FATHER CHRISTMAS, with a long beard.]
   Oh! here come I old Father Christmas, welcome, or welcome not,
   I hope old Father Christmas will never be forgot.
   Make room! room! I say!
   That I may lead Mince Pie this way.
   Walk in Mince Pie, and act thy part,
   And show the gentles thy valiant heart.
   [Enter MINCE PIE.]
   Room! room! you gallant souls give me room to rhyme,
   I’ll show you some festivity this Christmas time.
   [Enter a TURKISH KNIGHT, with a wooden sword.]
   I am a valiant Turkish Knight,
   And dare with any man to fight;
   Bring me the man that bids me stand,
   Who says he’ll cut me down with audacious hand,
   I’ll cut him and hew him as small as a fly,
   And send him to Satan to make mince pie.
   [Enter ST. GEORGE with a wooden sword.]
   Oh! in come I, St. George, the man of courage bold,
   With my sword and buckler I’ve won three crowns of gold;
   I fought the fiery dragon and brought him to the slaughter;
   I won a beauteous Queen—a King of Egypt’s daughter;
   If thy mind is high, my mind is bold,
   If thy blood is hot, I will make it cold.
   [ST. GEORGE and the TURKISH KNIGHT fight—the latter falls.]
   Turkish Knight. Oh! St. George spare my life!
   Father Christmas. Is no Doctor to be found
   To cure this man who’s bleeding on
   the ground?
   [Enter the DOCTOR.]
   Yes! an Italian Doctor’s to be found
   To cure the Knight who’s bleeding on the ground:
   I cure the sick of ev’ry pain,
   And raise the dead to life again.
   Father Christmas. Doctor, what is thy fee?
   The Doctor. Ten pounds is my fee,
   But fifteen I must take of thee
   Before I set this gallant free.
   Father Christmas. Work thy will, doctor.
   The Doctor. I have a little bottle by my side
   The fame of which spreads far and wide,
   I drop a drop on this poor man’s nose.
   [The DOCTOR touches the TURKISH KNIGHT’S nose, and he instantly springs on his feet quite recovered.]
   [Enter LITTLE JACK, a Dwarf, with several dolls strapped at his back.]
   Oh! in come I, little saucy Jack,
   With all my family at my back.
   Christmas comes but once a year,
   And when it comes it brings good cheer;
   Roast beef, plum pudding, and mince pie,
   Who likes that any better than I?
   Christmas ale makes us dance and sing;
   Money in purse is a very fine thing.
   Ladies and gentlemen give us what you please.
   IV:256. Pride flings frail palaces at the sky: This is the opening verse of Alfred’s hymn to humility. King Alfred, mindful of his sins, knows he is unworthy to receive help from heaven. He believes that the success of the Danes in overrunning his kingdom is a punishment for his transgressions.
   IV:274-79. Alfred is going against the powers of evil by using the spiritual strength he receives from a humiliation rightly borne.
   IV:286. Alfred leads his men as brothers to the first attack.
   IV:287. Roman roads came in many forms. The more important routeways ran on raised, ditch-flanked banks which resembled walls.

Notes: Ethandune: the First Stroke
Synopsis: With practically all of England under Danish control, Alfred’s war-men sum up their situation. Each one has a sinking feeling that his death is imminent. After repenting of their sins, they put on a bold front. Colan slays the over confident Harold and receives King Alfred’s sword.
To his great gold ear-ring Harold
Tugged back the feathered tail,
And swift had sprung the arrow,
But swifter sprang the Gael.
(V:243-46)
V:1-6. King Guthrum was a dread king: Guthrum collaborated with Healfdene in pillaging, devastating, depopulating, and subjugating much of Northumbria, East Anglia, and the eastern part of Mercia. Healfdene went north to divide the Northumbrians’ lands among his followers, and three Danish kings (Guthrum, Oscetel, and Anwend) went south to Cambridge where they began to concentrate on the conquest of Wessex (Chesterton 1917,51).
V:5. Chester: A city on the Dee river in northwestern England.
V:5. Humber: The confluence of the Trent and Ouse rivers form the Humber estuary in eastern Englsnd.
V:5-6. From the “Chester to the Humber” implies that before the battle of Ethandune the Danes dominated much of the territory between western Mercia and the eastern seaboard.
V:7. Roman villas: A Roman villa in Roman Britain was usually the center of a large farm. Not a single villa has survived (Collingwood 1937,209-21).
V:16. He saw the southern sea: The Southampton Water.
V:17-19. With the exception of the territories south of the Thames and north of the Tyne, all the petty kingdoms were under Danish control in 877. Guthrum’s surprise raid in January 878 was an indication that he meant to make King Alfred and the West Saxons submissive to him. See E I:63-76.
V:20-28. Guthrum’s scouts had most likely informed him that Alfred’s troops were assembling at Egbert’s Stone. Guthrum likewise collected all his warriors and carefully positioned them on the higher land overlooking the left fork of the road.
V:35. Chesterton here relies on Asser for the time when Alfred engaged his foe: “Very early in the morning, he advanced his banners, and came to a place called Ethandune. And there against the whole Heathen host formed he firm his shield-wall, and fought a deadly fight” (Conybeare [1900] 1914,111-12).
V:46. While still out of sight of the enemy, Alfred’s troops halt. They are losing their courage.
V:58-151. This section is typical of epic poetry. Chesterton gives his characters voices. Note how each chieftain reveals himself “in the fashion of his blood.”
V:62-63. Col an was sad because he did not have the amenities of ordinary living conditions.
V:68-81. Chesterton is following John Lingard’s estimate of King Alfred’s early conduct.
It has been said that the character of Alfred was without a blemish. Such unqualified praise is the language of rhetorical declamation, rather than historical truth. In his early years, indeed, his opening virtues endeared him to the nation; and in a more advanced age he was the guardian and the benefactor of his country. But at the commencement of his reign there was much in his conduct to reprehend. The young monarch seems to have considered his high dignity an emancipation from restraint; and to have found leisure, even amidst his struggles with the Danes to indulge the impetuosity of his passions. The scandal of Wallingford* may be dismissed with the contempt which it perhaps deserves; and we learn from more ancient authorities that his immorality and despotism provoked the censure of his virtuous kinsman St. Neot; and Asser, his friend and panegyrist, acknowledges, that he was haughty to his subjects, neglected the administration of justice, and treated with contempt the complaints of the indigent and oppressed. It was to this ‘indiscretion’ (to borrow the term under which the partiality of the biographer was willing to veil the misconduct of his patron), that Alfred himself attributed the severe and unexpected calamity, which overwhelmed him in the eighth year of his reign ([1849] 1912,19798).

• John of Wallingford’s Chronicle, written about mid-thirteenth century, mentions on p. 535 that “in the beginning of his reign Alfred was given to ‘serve the old man,’ and lived a slave to luxury” Cf. Conybeare (1914,222). V:79. lost land: Wessex.
  V:80. holy horn is blown: A reference to the Last Judgment (Matt. 24:31).
  V:118-20. Alice Stopford Green verifies that during prehistoric times Neolithic Stone Age people displayed extraordinary skill in budding cairns, stone circles, megalithic tombs, and fortresses (1925,5-9).
  Newgrange, County Meath, Ireland, is an outstanding neolithic passage grave built about 5000 years ago.
  Richard Muir’s History from the Air enables us to view some of these ancient tombs, temples, and stoneworks located in Ireland, England, and Wales. He comments that these relics provide many insights into prehistoric life: “They shatter the myth of the inept aboriginal savage, for the greater monuments could only be the handiwork of people who were sufficiently numerous and adept… as to be able to set the need for food-raising aside and dispatch sizable labour forces for work on building tombs or temples” (1983,33). [Reproduced by permission of Michael Joseph Ltd.]
  V:120. sun-god: Lug is the sun-god whose festival was formerly celebrated in Ireland on August 1.
  V:122-27. Lingard attributes to the druidical priests the ryn or mysterious language so often mentioned by the bards: “To every tree and shrub, to their leaves, flowers, and branches, they seem to have affixed a fanciful and symbolical meaning: and these allegorical substitutes for the real names of beings and their properties must have formed, in their numerous combinations, a species of jargon perfectly unintelligible to any but the adepts… . Taliessin boasts with complacency, that he is acquainted with every sprig in the cave of the diviner: that he knows the intent of the trees in the memorial of compact: that he knows both good an devil” ([1849] 1912,1:19-20n).
  V:130-33. Lingard relates that the Druids dwelt in huts or caves at a distance from the common people. “There, at the hours of noon or midnight, when the Deity was supposed to honour the sacred spot with his presence, the trembling votary was admitted within a circle of lofty oaks, to prefer his prayer, and listen to the responses of the minister” ([1849] 1912,1:17).
  V:146. fell: A rocky or barren hill, a down. (British)
  V:147. Wantage: In 848 King Alfred was born in Berkshire at the royal estate called Wantage.
  V:164-90. The Saxon kings actually fought on foot in the forefront of the battle.
  V:170. ten poles: Apole is a unit of length equal to 16 1/2 feet.
  V:171. wide-winged helms: The ninth century Danes wore conical helmets made of iron or leather. Although a helmet with curved horns dating from the Bronze Age has been unearthed in Denmark, it is a misconception to believe that the Danes who fought at Ethandune in the ninth century also wore horned helmets.
  V:171. runic blades: Paul Mallet describes the swords of the Scandinavian chieftains: “Their champions or heroes took particular care to procure very keen swords, which they inscribed with mysterious characters, and called by such names as might inspire terror” (1882,165-66).
  V:182. With songs and spells that change the blood: When they [Danes] went to meet their enemies, each warrior raised his shield up to a level with his upper lip, so that the round of the shield “formed a sort of sounding-board for their song.” They predicted the outcome of the battle by the impression the song made upon themselves. The runes of victory were supposed to stop weapons from wounding those whom Odin loved (Rydberg 1907,1:160-65).
  V:197-204. poor: lingard explains why the Britons became impoverished: “To escape from the exterminating sword of their enemies, the natives, as soon as opposition appeared fruitless, fled with their most valuable effects to the hills and forests. Multitudes found a secure asylum among the mountains which cover the west of the island: where, struggling with poverty, and engaged in constant warfare, they rapidly lost the faint polish of provincial civilization… . The captives were divided, together with the land, among the conquerors: they became the property, the chattels, of the lord” ([1849] 1912,1:84-85).
  V:201-4. sling: A leathern sling was used to propel stones, bolts, burning darts, and hot clay pellets. A bill was a shafted weapon having at its head a hooklike cutting blade with a beak at the back. A pike was a shafted weapon having a spiked tip.
  Chesterton shows his great love of arms in Book V: “This love of weapons, his revolver, his favorite sword-stick, remained with him all his life… . But they stood also in his mind for freedom, adventure, personal responsibility and much else” (Ward 1943,151-52).
  V:211-12. broke Himself for bread: This is a reference to the institution of the Holy Eucharist by Jesus Christ on Holy Thursday night (Matt. 26: 26-28).
  V:241. Excalibur: King Arthur’s magic sword.
  V:242. In the battle by the sea: Probably King Arthur’s battle at Carrdan where he uses Excalibur for the last time.
  V:243. great gold ear-ring: The Northmen with the help of foreign master craftsmen learned the secrets of metalworking and became expert in making bronze and gold jewelry. The women wore ear rings, and since Chesterton has Harold wearing one, it is possible that some men did too.
  V:247. The huge double-bladed swords of the Gaels were lifted above the head to strike.
  V:257. The small white daisy that grows amid the grass in England is known as the “turfing daisy.” It is a low perennial herb of Asia Minor having white daisylike flowers.
  V:265-69. The instant response of each of the Christian earls is to give Colan their most treasured and necessary possession.
  V:269. like a cup of chrysolite and pearls: Chrysolite is a transparent olive-green gem.
  V:274-75. The only way to get one’s heart’s desire is to put this desire out of one’s thoughts. This is a mystical insight. In order to save his life Colan gave up—let go—the one thing that could save his life (John 12:25).
  V:280-89. The “Broken Heart” has a personal love for each soul. Each individual is the target of His love. [In a prepublication holograph of the BWH these verses are a handwritten insertion. G. K. Chesterton Archives.]

Notes: Ethandune: the Slaying
of the Chiefs
Synopsis: The warriors fan out left and right on either side of their leaders. Noting the battle positions given below is a preparation for following the action that ensues. [In the text Alfred’s left wing faces Guthrum’s left wing. Even though this was pointed out to him, GKC kept the original wording (O’Connor 1938,67).]
Guthrum on horseback
Harold Ogier Elf
Colan Mark Eldred
Alfred
After Elf slays Eldred, Mark overcomes Elf. Ogier kills Mark. The Danes push Alfred’s men back to the fork in the road. The King’s men retreat down the road to the right. Colan dies while opposing the enemy down the left branch.
And when they came to the parting ways
Doom’s heaviest hammer fell,
For the King was beaten, blind, at bay,
Down the right lane with his array.
But Colan swept the other way,
Where he smote great strokes and fell.
(VI:282-87)
VI:4. Latian paladin: Mark. A paladin is a military kero. Latian is the adjective form of Latium, the name of a country southeast of Rome in ancient Italy.
VI:5-6. On Alfred’s left: Harold’s kin vs. Colan.
VI:7-8. In the midst: Guthrum watching—Ogier vs. Marcus.
VI:10-12. On Alfred’s right: Elf vs. Eldred.
VI:13. swat: To sweat over a task; to grind [Dial.].
VI:17-51. Eldred overwhelms everyone until his sword breaks.
VI:49. brand: A sword [Archaic & Poetical].
VI:56-62. faerie blades: In accounting for Elf’s wizard’s lance Chesterton takes us underwater into the never-never courses of the Rhine where the mermaids bestowed this magical spear on the thrice drowned Dane.
VI:61-63. Lost waters of the Rhine: The Rhine river rises in the eastern part of Switzerland close to the Italian border, moves along the edges of Austria and of the miniature state of Liechtenstein, winds westward and then northward between France and Germany before passing through the Netherlands on its way to the North Sea. Geologists and oceanographers teach that the Thames river was a tributary of the Rhine before England was separated from the Eurasian landmass.
VI:63-68. buried kingdoms: These lost waters have an unearthly fiery glow. While creeping down to the buried kingdoms, they “murmur and rebel,” “roar and weep / O’er the red heavens of hell.”
Duncan Norton-Taylor and the Editors of Time-Life Books in The Emergence of Man: The Celts have identified part of western Europe as the “Celtic heartland, where the earliest identifiable Celtic culture developed during the Seventh and Sixth centuries B.C.” Parts of present day France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia approximate the area covered (1974,13).
VI:95-99. Chesterton’s descriptions open up a fairylike world where Elf obtains a magical spear from the water-maids of the Rhine river. The “death-light on the wizard lance— / The star of the evil spear” heighten the eerie and sinister feelings which unnerve the Wessex troops. They believe Elf’s spear is lethal because of its faerie blade.
VI:100-118. Mark encourages his own and Eldred’s men to stiffen their resolve to fight for their farms and homes.
VI:108. ash: Bow. The tough, elastic wood of the ash tree was used to make bows for the archers.
VI:119-29. Superstitious fears weaken their trust in God.
VI:124-54. The soldiers’ latent belief in the magical powers of all objects, animate and inanimate, almost paralyzes them until Mark defeats Elf and breaks the evil spear.
VI:127. glamoury: Magic.
VI:127-29. The wizard’s tower and glass: These lines emphasize the superstition which is destroying the soldiers’ morale. In my quest for an explanation of this passage I have read many otherworldly accounts of magic. Merlin is known as the wizard of British folklore. “Glass” is associated with Glastonbury since people of Celtic stock used to call Glastonbury Ineswitrin, the Island of Glass. But what the exact references are to “the gods of the burning tree” and the “wizard’s tower and glass” elude me.
VI:133. faith: “Whatever may be the meaning of faith, it must always mean a certainty about something we cannot prove” (Chesterton 1905,162).
VI:138. Mark’s faith was above reason but not contrary to it.
VI:140-50. In the sight of his fearful men, Mark’s sword ends any further action from Elf.
VI:155-72. Mark encourages the men by reminding them that God is working through those who build, cultivate, weave, copy, compose, and create works of art.
VI:170-72. “Gorlias, He [God] has broken the might of the bows, the shield, the sword, and the battle” (Pss. 76:3,46:9).
VI:173-78. Battle-bays and palm branches are symbols of victory. The Wessex men seem to have seized the offensive after Mark has silenced Elf.
VI:198. shield of brass and hide: Paul Mallet describes the shield used by the Scandinavians: “This most commonly was of wood, bark, or leather. The shields belonging to warriors of distinction were of iron or brass… ornamented with painting and sculpture… . Their shape and size varied…: the Scandinavians generally had them of a long oval form, just the height of the bearer, to protect him from arrows, darts, and stones” (1882,166).
VI:216. weald: A wooded or wild open country.
VI:216-64. Ogier rants and brags much as he did in Book III. To find similar contempt and boasting expressed by a Viking, read “The Dying Ode of Regner Lodbrog” (Alfred the Great [1858] 1969,1:376-78).
VI:261. Egbert: See E I:116-22.
VI:290. furze: Alow, spiny, much-branched shrub with yellow flowers, common on wastelands in Europe.
VI:296. Haut King: Charlemagne (768-814). Legend has made him the uncle of Roland.
VI:297. Roland: Roknd, the hero of the French epic poem, The Song of Roland, died at Roncesvalles in A.D. 778 defending the Christian cause against the Moors.
VI:296-99. The final time Roland blew his horn the sound could scarcely be heard by Charlemagne. Chesterton here compares the last cry Alfred heard from the retreating Gael with the feeble note Charlemagne recognized as coming from Roland.

Notes: Ethandune: the Last Charge
Synopsis: Book VII tells how the childlike Alfred, with Mary’s aid, changes a rout into a decisive victory. The opening stanzas refer to Alfred’s way of handling reverses. His appeal to the fleeing soldiers restored their derring-do. In the renewed fighting Alfred strikes down Ogier. As Mary, sword in hand, aids the Wessex warriors, Colan’s followers rejoin the battle. In his defeat Guthrum experiences an inner conversion and becomes a Christian.
The Mother of God goes over them,
Walking on wind and flame,
And the storm-cloud drifts from city and dale,
And the White Horse stamps in the White Horse Vale,
And ye all shall yet drink Christian ale
In the village of our name.
(VII:247-52)
For dire was Alfred in his hour
The pale scribe witnesseth,
More mighty in defeat was he
Than all men else in victory;
And behind, his men came murderously,
Dry-throated, drinking death.
(VII:265-70)
VII:1-65. Chesterton returns the reader to the White Horse on the crest of the hill above the White Horse Vale. This prehistoric White Horse has an unobstructed view. He “looks on” while the battle of Ethandune is in progress.
VII:14-15. Chesterton adds the sound effects “roarings.” The image “rent the sea / With roarings from the land” helps one to envision the cosmic upheaval taking place while the waters come “together into a single mass” (Gen. l:9-10).
VII:16-20. The description of a child playing on the edge of White Horse Hill provides a quiet reflective interlude which reveals King Alfred’s character and his subsequent mode of action. Note the singleness of purpose and the unhurried calm and patience in tirelessly piling and repiling the stones. Alfred knew what he had to accomplish and he never accepted a reverse as final. He regrouped and started again. He “began to conquer because he did not mind defeat” (Chesterton 1911,9-10).
VII:25-55. Patriots like Eldred, Colan, and Mark “rush,” “strain,” and “aspire” but lack Alfred’s patience, his staying power, his clogged determination to oust the pagan pirates from his kingdom.
VII:54-55. Wantage, Alfred’s birthplace, was a royal estate in Berkshire near the traditional battleground of Ethandune. To celebrate the millennium of Alfred’s birth in 1849, the townspeople erected a statue to his memory. [There has been much discussion about the dates of Alfred’s birth and death.] Charles Plummer’s notes ([1899] 1965,2:79) fixed Alfred’s birth as 848; Dorothy Whitelock verified that his death occurred on 26 October 899 (Plummer [1899] 1965,2:cxlii).
Chesterton has his finger on the pulse of the nation when he claims that Alfred “rules England to the doom.” The following excerpt records GK’s memories of the millennial celebrations of King Alfred’s death in September 1901: “A thousand years of thanks and praise have rightly concentrated upon Alfred a light of unique and universal admiration. From the first words of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle to the last wireless messages to the Anglor Saxon clubs and dinners in Boston or Philadelphia, there has been a chiming unanimity, a chain of polite or popular compliment, in which there is actually no break at all… . He is one of two or three men who have been nearly obliterated by praise” (Ward 1933,5758).
VII:56-69. He began his life once more: Things are as bad as before, but Alfred doesn’t mind. Even though he and his warriors are separated from Colan and his followers, Alfred appeals to his men to consider the alternatives. Then he urges them to spare nothing in striving for victory.
VII:70. double way: Guthrum’s choice of a battlefield facing a single branching road has strategic importance. V:29-33, 159, VII:279-87,291, VII:70,83,175.
VII:70-87. After scattering Alfred’s men, the Danes are relaxing jubilantly.
VII:84-87. sudden stay: “Stay” means a change of direction. “Alfred’s routed few” dispersed in all directions (VII:78-86). Some of the Danes, thinking it’s all over because they have defeated Alfred’s men, have “slipped up the road to fly.” When Alfred blows the horn he gets the attention of several of the foe as well as that of his soldiers.
VII:102-26. Brothers… . Are slavery and starvation flowers: Haakon Shetelig confirms what Alfred has told his troops: “To a large extent, of course, the Vikings reduced the original inhabitants to the state of dependent serfs, appropriating all land to themselves” (1940,1:91). See also ASC 876.
VII:127-55. Alfred’s respect for each individual transforms the men: “Stood firm that feeble line.” Together they “went roaring down to die.”
VII:137. bondsmen: Serfs or slaves.
VII:158. empery: The territory ruled over by King Egbert (802-839).
VII:160. venery: The activity of hunting.
VII:184-258.
And when the last arrow
Was fitted and was flown,
takes us back to The Vision of the King when Alfred asks Our Lady:
“When our last bow is broken, Queen,
And our last javelin cast,
… … … … … … … . .
Shall we come home at last?”
(I:197-98,202)
In reply, Our Lady intimated Alfred would endure difficulties before victory, but hints at success by asking him,
“Do you have joy without a cause,
Yea, faith without a hope?”
(I:260-61)
Now “the queen of men,” sword in hand, shows kindness to Alfred by reversing the tide of war.
VII:189-91. Instead of referring to the legendary apparition of St. Neot to King Alfred on the night before the battle, Chesterton gives Our Lady the role of obtaining Divine help for King Alfred.
The following account from The Chronicle of St. Neots was in print in 1900 and was probably well known to Chesterton:
On the night before the Battle of Ethandune, while Alfred slumbered, ‘there showed unto him an apparition in the likeness of St. Neot, erst his own dear friend and kinsman, and bade him “Cast away all fear and dreed of the Barbarians, neither be of faint heart because of their multitude. For tomorrow will the Lord visit thee and thy people, seeing that for the arrogance of thy youth hast thou suffered all this trouble.” “Yea, tomorrow,” added he, “will I go on all day long before thy banners, that the more surely thou mayest fight against thy foes, fearing nought; and mayest know that the Lord Almighty fighteth for thee and for thy people.” Thereupon up woke the King, gladdened indeed by the heavenly vision’ (Conybeare 1900,226).
According to another legend St. Cuthbert appeared to Alfred at Athelney and foretold his eventual triumph (Conybeare [1900] 1914,179).
VII:189-204. Chesterton’s use of this fiction about Our Lady’s appearance bears out his love for Mary. Speaking of himself in Chaucer: “I do not quite understand why Chaucer must have ‘passed through’ this fit of devotion; as if he had Mariolatry like the measles. Even an amateur who has encountered the malady may be allowed to testify that it does not usually visit its victim for a brief ‘period’; it is generally chronic and (in some sad cases I have known) quite incurable” (1932,118).
VII:200-202. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle for 994 tells about Mary’s compassion on her birthday (8 September) for the citizens of London. She prevented Anlaf, Sweyn, and their host from sacking and setting fire to the city. With Mary’s help the garrison inflicted great harm and loss on the attackers. Stymied, they withdrew from London and continued to plunder elsewhere. Later in the same year, Anlaf received the sacrament of Confirmation, and he made and kept a promise never to attack England again (ASC 994).
Was Chesterton’s choice of Mary as a heavenly helper in 878 inspired by Mary’s action in 994? The ASC chronicler records Mary’s repulse of the assault on London in 994; Chesterton ascribes to Mary’s assistance the decisive victory of Ethandune in 878. King Guthrum becomes King Athelstan of East Anglia; Anlaf becomes King Olaf Tryggvason of Norway. The spiritual conversions in both cases were lasting: “We set a sign on Guthrum / To blaze a thousand years;” King Olsf Tryggvason strove vigorously to establish Christianity in Norway. See the “Saga of Olsf Tryggvason” by Sturluson Snorri.
VII:202. withouten: without [Archaic & Dial.].
VII:203-4. The seven swords symbolize the seven sorrows of Our Lady. “And a sword will pierce your own soul too—so that the secret thoughts of many may be laid bare” (Luke 2:35).
VII:241-42. The London Times used these lines during World War I when Winston Churchill spoke of “the end of the beginning.”
VII:250. The White Horse responds to the upswing in events by stamping his hooves.
VII:252. village: Wantage. [Alfred’s birthplace]
VII:255. The psalm is roaring above the rune: The Christians have conquered the heathens.
Runes came into use among the Germans by the third century, A.D., chiefly for magic (Campbell 1982,26). Johannes Brondsted in The Vikings devotes chapter eleven to runic inscriptions (1965). He points out that the inscriptions are the most important direct sources through which the Vikings speak to us with their own voices and in their own language. Charles Mills Gayley explains why the Latin alphabet replaced the runic letters: “The association of the runic letters with heathen mysteries and superstition caused the first Christian teachers to discourage, and, indeed, as far as possible, suppress their use. They were therefore superseded by the Latin alphabet, which in First English was supplemented by the retention of two of the runes named ‘thorn’ and ‘wen’ to represent sounds of the ‘th’ and V for which the Latin alphabet had no letters provided” ([1893] 1911,539).
VII:265-66. Asser tells how “dire was Alfred” at Ethandune:
And there against the whole Heathen host formed he firm his shield-wall, and fought a deadly fight. Stoutly and long kept they at it; and, by God’s help, in the end he got the victory, and laid low the Heathen with a very great slaughter, and followed hard upon their flight, with blow on blow, even unto their stronghold [Chippenham]. And everything without the stronghold, men to wit, and horses, and herds, caught he and took, and the men he slew at once; and before the gates of the Heathen stronghold did he and all his host take camp, like men. And when he had there tarried 14 days, the Heathen, anhungered, and a-cold, and a-dread, and at last, hopeless, became sore afraid, and begged for peace, on this troth that the King should name and take from them such sureties as he would, giving none in return. Never before had they made peace with anyone after this sort (Conybeare 1900,100).
VII:276. Guelderland: Gelderland, a province of the eastern Netherlands.
VII:281-82. An unsuccessful siege of Paris by the Northmen occurred in 885-86 (Hodgkin [1935] 1952,2:654).
VII:285. Durham: A city located in northeastern England on the Wear river.
VII:285. melted Durham bell: Here is another reference to Danish destruction.
VII:299. woad: A blue dye-stuff prepared from the leaves of the Isatis plant.
VII:299. bright with blood for woad: “Woad” is here used in a figurative sense. The red blood stained the naked bodies of the Celts as the blue juice of woad had previously colored the skins of their British kin.
VII:324. The Raven of Odin,
torn: The Danish flag was “a black raven on a blood red held” (Gordon 1924,3). “They say that the three daughters of Lodbrok [the lather of Hubba] wove it, and that in one day. They say, moreover, that in every fight, whensoever that flag went before them, the Raven in the midst thereof, if they were fated to win that day, would seem to flutter as if alive; but were their doom to be worsted, then would it droop, still and lifeless. And oft was this well proven” (Conybeare 1914,37).
VII:324. Odin: The chief god of the Northmen.
VII:325. And the eyes of Guthrum altered: Walter Besant accounts for the remarkable change in the Danish leader: “He perceived—this logical pagan—that King Alfred’s Gods had shown their superiority over his own in a manner so unexpected, so amazing, and so decisive, that he hesitated no longer. He acknowledged that superiority; he was baptized, and he never afterwards relapsed” (Bowker 1899,17).
VII:359-60. In speaking of the baptism of Guthrum and the Treaty of Wedmore, Chesterton emphasizes the importance of the conversion of the Danish King: “In all the tacts that followed, the baptism of Guthrum is really much more important than the Treaty of Wedmore. The treaty itself was a compromise, and even as such did not endure; a century afterwards a Danish king like Canute was really ruling in England. But though the Dane got the crown, he aid not get rid of the cross” (1917,53).
VII:366. Asser and the ASC state that Guthrum was baptized three weeks after the battle of Ethandune: “Then did the Host give him sureties, with many an oath, that they would leave his kingdom. And they plighted unto him their troth that their King should undergo Baptism, and this they fulfilled even so. And, some three weeks after, came unto him King Guthrum, with some thirty more, the worthiest men in the Host, at Aller, near Athelney. And in Baptism the King was his Godfather. And his chrism-loosing was at Wedmore. And twelve nights abode he with the King; and many a worthy gift gave he [Alfred] to him and his” (Conybeare 1900,124-25).
VII:367. Far out to the winding river: The Ock river flows through the Vale of the White Horse and joins the Thames, the winding river, at Abingdon.

Notes: The Scouring of the Horse
Synopsis: While Wessex lies in “a patch of peace” (879-892), Alfred not only strengthens English life and culture on all levels, but he also maintains and expands military preparedness. Alfred’s hospitality and generosity encourage foreign visitors, and his ambassadors represent Wessex’s interests around the world. Informed that the Danish armies were raiding southeastern England again, Alfred discloses his vision which foresees in some far century the arrival of a different type of invader. They will be writers and teachers who poison minds by spreading falsehoods. After four hard years of fighting, the enemy withdraws to the continent. Alfred has not definitively defeated the Danes, hut he has prevented them from occupying his kingdom.
And though shies alter and empires melt,
This word shall still he true:
If we would have the horse of old,
Scour ye the horse anew.
(VII:204-7)
VIII:1. The years between the victory of Ethandune in 878 and the return of the Danes in 892 are the “years of the peace of Wessex.” Alfred had many skirmishes with the Danes on sea and land during this interval, but no serious threat to the kingdom. In 892, Haesten, with a fleet of eighty ships, and the Great Army in 250 vessels established themselves in the southeastern section of England. Book VIII relates Alfred’s successful meeting of this crisis.
VIII:3. bloody boon: Mary’s help during the battle of Ethandune (VII:189-258).
VIII:4. An allusion to Mary (Rev. 12:1).
VIII:12. Guthrum withdrew to East Anglia where he distributed land among his followers.
VIII:19-20. The chronicler Aethelweard mentions the presence of ealdorman Aethelnoth of Somerset at the “chrism-loosing” of Guthrum (Conybeare 1900,139). Lingard describes the baptism and the chrism-loosing: “After a few weeks, Guthrum with thirty of his officers was baptized at Aller, near Athelney. He took the surname Athelstan, and Alfred was his sponsor. After the ceremony both princes removed to Wedmore, where on the eighth day Guthrum put off the white robe and the chrysmal fillet, and on the twelfth hade adieu to his adopted father, whose generosity he had learned to admire as much as he had before respected his valour” ([1849] 1912,1:204). In his History and Antiquities of the Anglo-Saxon Church John Lingard gives greater detail: “The priest depressed his head three times below the surface, saying, I baptize thee in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. He was now anointed on the crown with chrism in the form of the cross, and a white linen cap called a chrismal was fastened over his head… . Still it was expected that he should return to the church on each of the next seven days, to attend to daily instruction and to receive daily the communion. On the last the chrysmal was removed, and the ceremony was concluded” (1845,1:318-319).
VIII:21-24. After withdrawing from Wessex, the Danes retained lands north and east of the following boundaries: “Along the Thames, then up on the Lea unto its source; then on right to Bedford; then up on the Ouse unto Watling Street” (Alfred the Great [1858] 1969,2:139). [This territory became known as the Danelaw.] The text of the two treaties containing the terms of peace between Alfred and Guthrum is still in existence. Dorothy Whitelock’s translation of the longer version is in English Historical Documents ([1955] 1979,416-17). J. A. Giles included both treaties in the second volume of The Whole Works of King Alfred the Great ([1858] 1969). See R. H. Hodgkin for an explanation of the clauses of the treaty ([1935] 1952,2:578-81).
VIII:33-34. John Earle stresses the fact that King Alfred’s educational revival installed the mother tongue as the medium of elementary teaching (Bowker 1899,205). In the same collection of essays, Sir Walter Besant explains how King Alfred laid the foundations of English poetry and prose: “He collected and preserved the poetry based on the traditions and legends brought from the German Forests. He himself delighted to hear and to repeat these legends and traditions: the deeds of the mighty warriors who fought with monsters, dragons, wild boars, and huge serpents. He made his children learn their songs; he had them sung in his Court. The tradition goes that he could himself sing them to the music of his own harp” (Bowker 1899,29). Asser speaks of the application of Alfred’s children to learning: “For they have learnt the psalms, and Saxon hooks, and Saxon songs above all, and are for ever reading” (Conybeare 1900,104).
VIII:35. the alms he gave as a Christian: The ASC 883 notes: “Sigehelm and Athelstan bare to Rome the alms that the King had vowed to send thither, and eke to India, to St. Thomas and St. Bartholomew, when they sat down against [opposed] the Host that was in London” (Conybeare 1900,125). This addition belongs to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle for 886. It was in 886 that Alfred vowed to send alms if he defeated the Danish army that was occupying London. The ASC also states that Alfred sent alms to Rome in 887, 888, and 890. Simeon of Durham describes Alfred’s generosity to those of his own kingdom: “At the holy solemnities of the Festivals, what boons he bestowed on his bishops and chieftains and knights, none may declare. Then did the poor leap for gladness, then were widows and orphans full of joy; and heartfelt praises they gave him. Full well he knew that saying of the Teacher—‘Then is money of true worth, when it has been handed over to others. Almsgiving is the end of ownership’ ” (Conybeare 1900,158).
VIII:37-38. An examination of the account given by Asser, Alfred’s biographer, shows that the King considered himself only a steward of the wealth entrusted to him:
He bade his officers divide his annual income always into two equal shares, to begin with. When this was done he assigned the first share to secular affairs; and bade it be divided again into three shares… .[This went to his warriors, craftsmen, and foreigners from many lands.] But the second half of all the wealth which yearly came in to him, from whatever source, he vowed freely and fully to God. And he bade his officers heedfully to part the same into four shares, in such wise, that the first of these shares should be paid over to the poor of every race that came unto him. And the second part he gave to the two Abbeys of his own foundation. And the third to the School, wherein he had so carefully gathered many of the high-born of his own race. And the fourth to the Abbeys round about (Conybeare 1900,115-16).
VIII:39. Keynes and Lapidge cite King Alfred’s own testimony that he used the earlier laws of Kings Ine, Offa, and Ethelberht as his sources (1983,164).
VIII:45-46. Asser, as a companion and confidant living at the court, can be relied upon when he says that Alfred set aside one-third of the income which he had designated for secular use to be assigned to foreigners: “And the third share gave he to the strangers of every race who flocked unto him from far and near and asked of him money. Nay, even though they asked not, yet gave he to each according to his several worthiness, full gladly, and with a wondrously open hand, beyond all praise” (Conybeare 1900,116). Asser specifies “the ends of the earth” from which visitors came: “For the time would fail me to tell… how day by day had he embassies from the folk that dwell by the Tyrrhenian [Mediterranean] Sea, and unto the uttermost parts of Ireland” (Conybeare 1900,112).
Among the famous visitors to the court were Ohthere and Wulfstan, who gave detailed reports of their voyages of discovery and exploration to King Alfred. The King inserted an account of these expeditions in his Anglo-Saxon translation of Orosius. From this source one learns that Ohthere doubled the North Cape and entered the White Sea on the first trip northward. Wulfstan reported his findings in the Baltic lands. Judging from the space devoted to Wulfstan’s exposition of the curious customs of the Esti, King Alfred must have been captivated by the strange reports he heard (Alfred the Great [1858] 1969,2:39-56).
Through his generosity in paying for their services, King Alfred attracted numerous craftsmen to his kingdom. Tradesmen came “together from many a race, and in almost countless numbers, well skilled in every kind of building known on earth.” Their expert work promoted Alfred’s plans for the upbuilding of Wessex.
VIII:45-48. Asser in writing of Alfred’s munificence, states that he gave alms to abbeys outside of his own kingdom: “And in some years, too, he gave, as he might, by turn to the churches in Wales and Cornwall, in Gaul, Brittany, Northumbria, and even, now and then, in Ireland, and to the servants of God who dwelt therein” (Conybeare 1900,116).
VIII:47-48. See E VIII:35.
VIII:52. crakens: Mythical sea-monsters or enormous size, said to have been seen at times off the coast of Norway.
VIII:55-60. Chesterton seems to be referring to Ohthere, the navigator. Dr. Joseph Bosworth says in an explanatory note appended to bis translation of King Alfred’s “Orosius”:
Ohthere was a Norwegian nobleman of great wealth and influence, anxious to state nothing, but that to which he could bear personal testimony. It appears impossible for any one to read this simple narrative, without being convinced, that this daring Northman is giving a detail of his voyage, on the north coast of Norway into the White Sea… . Ohthere had made discoveries, which he communicated to the king, and Alfred thought them of such importance, that he wrote and inserted this detail of them in his Geographical and Historical view of Europe (Alfred the Great [1858] 1969, 2:39).
VIII:61-66. Chesterton may be alluding to Sigehelm and Athelstan as the “great gift-bearing lords” who in 883 [886] went even as far as India. William of Malmesbury mentions that Sigehelm, Bishop of Sherborne, brought back “many a strange and brilliant jewel” (Conybeare 1900,165).
VIII:70. Prester John: This mythical priest-king supposedly ruled a mysterious kingdom in India. Before his palace stood a crystal mirror in which he could watch his entire kingdom. Chesterton treats this myth in “The Modern Magic” (1944,19).
VIII:72. Terre Majeure: The Carolingian Empire. Before 814, Charlemagne had much of western Europe under his control.
VIII:72-77. Alfred recognized the civilizing influence of the empire established by Charlemagne.
VIII:87. Chesterton identifies the Picts as the people “who lay beyond Agricola’s boundary in what is now the Scotch Lowlands” (1917,27).
VIII:88-89. In the ninth century, Strathclyde was the name given to the territory governed by the Northern Welsh. It included the valley of the Clyde river.
VIII:94-114. Alfred replies with a proveth to his advisers who are pressing him to drive out the Danes and to conquer the country above Hadrian’s wall. “A seer feels too small for life, / And a fool too large for it.”
(VIII:96-97). This passage is a rebuke to the ambitious empire-builders of Chesterton’s day. In What’s Wrong with the World he writes: “I have thus explained… why I do not believe in Imperialism as commonly understood. I think it not merely an occasional wrong to other peoples, but a continual feebleness, a running sore, in my own” (1910,106). King Alfred, unlike his grandfather Egbert, had engaged only in defensive warfare.
VIII:96-97. King Alfred’s actions and writings affirm his humility and wisdom.
VIII:129-30. From Wantage Town to Plymouth Bluff: At strategic locations Alfred “made his fences tough” by ordering the construction of burhs [forts]. Hodgkin explains Alfred’s well planned system of defense ([1935] 1967,2:585-90).
VIII:135-42. Thomas Hughes wrote a lively account of the 1857 festival that followed the scouring of the White Horse. Thousands of spectators assembled on 17 and 18 September to enjoy the merrymaking, as well as to admire the Horse. Money prizes were awarded winners in backsword play, wrestling, a jingling match, climbing a greased pole; and in foot, hurdle, cart-horse, and donkey races. Whoever captured the pig that was released could claim it as a prize (1859,92-93).
VIII:149-53. At the opening of his last war, Alfred was forty-four years old. He had aged prematurely because of his strenuous labors as king.
VIII:160-63. The Danes from Boulogne invaded Kent in two large companies in 892. Numerous skirmishes occurred during the early months of the war. At the outset Alfred tried diplomacy, but eventually detachments of his army fought successfully in various engagements with the Danes. It appears that Alfred acted as a commander in chief while his son Edward, son-in-law Ethelred, and others led the troops. For greater detail of the 892-96 war see: ASC 892-96; Hodgkin ([1935] 1952,2:655-69); “Aethelweard’s Chronicle, AD. 893-95,” Keynes and Lapidge (1983,114-19; 189-91).
VIII:170. dykes: These simulate running earthworks in certain districts. Some dykes provided protection; others established boundaries.
VIII:184-213. In Orthodoxy, Chesterton enlarges on the fact that things naturally tend to grow worse. The chapter, “The Eternal Revolution,” explains: “if you leave a white post alone it will soon be a black post, if you particularly want it to be white you must be always painting it again; that is, you must be always having a revolution. Briefly, if you want the old white post you must have a new white post” (1908,212).
VIII:211. wot: First and third person singular present of wit, to know. (Archaic except Scotch and Dialectal English.)
VIII:214-30. Aethelweard’s Chronicle (Keynes and Lapidge 1983,189-91) and the ASC are primary sources for Alfred’s last war. By 893 fighting men from all over England outside the Danelaw were hastening to the aid of Alfred. The “distant tribes” included those from Wales, Cornwall, and English Mercia. Alfred’s allies realized that their survival was bound up with that of Wessex. Hodgkin ([1935] 1952,2:653-69) has an excellent chapter on Alfred’s last war. Alfred’s previous attention to shipbuilding, to the improvement of the fortifications, and to the military reorganization of manpower contributed to his success.
VIII:216-18. Leg ions of drafted men marched by “in haste and bitterness / For Christ’s sake and the crown’s.”
VIII:223-24. According to the “Legend of Glastonbury, A.D. 62,” the pilgrim staff of Joseph of Arimathea “came from a thornbrake that had furnished thorns for a crown [Christ’s]” Catholic World 7 (July 1868):522. This pilgrim staff is supposed to have miraculously taken root in the soil of Glastonbury.
Chesterton refers to St. Joseph of Arimathea as a wealthy missionary who took the body of our Lord down from the Cross and laid it in his own tomb… (Matt. 26: 26-28). Here Chesterton links up the part St. Joseph of Arimathea had in the burial of Jesus with a legendary role attributed to him of introducing Christianity into Britain (1917,35-36).
VIII:233-35,245-47. While the soldiers are thronging past him on their way to drive out the pagan Danes, Alfred has a vision, an inner certitude, that in some far century “the heathen shall return.” For Maurice Evans, Alfred’s vision is the most significant part of the Ballad (1939,114-15).
VIII:236-37. King Alfred gives his kingdom to Our Lady. The king’s reverence for Mary may be assumed from the fact that her name is mentioned after God in one of his charters: “I Alfred king, in honour of God and of the blessed virgin Mary and of all the saints, give and grant, being alive and still thriving, to the church of Scepton a hundred hides of land” (Alfred the Great [1858] 1969,1:388). For details about the ancient devotions, shrines, and pilgrimages in England, consult H. W. R. Lillie, S.J., England, the Dowry of Mary.
VIII:248-56. The modern barbarians will not be warriors but writers and orators who will use “dead words” to eliminate God as the Creator and Designer of the universe. In Orthodoxy Chesterton denounces the evil influence of Herbert Spencer on H. G. Wells (1908,111). Mr. Wells set down the theory of Natural Selection as a fact of modern science. Adherence to this teaching was an attempt to get rid of God. Elsewhere in Orthodoxy Chesterton gives the Christian viewpoint: “And the root phrase for all Christian theism was this, that God was a creator… . It was the prime philosophic principle of Christianity that this divorce in the divine act of making (such as severs the poet from the poem or the mother from the new-born child) was the true description of the act whereby the absolute energy made the world. According to most philosophers, God in making the world enslaved it. According to Christianity, in making it, He set it free. God had written, not so much a poem, but rather a play; a play he had planned as perfect, but which had necessarily been left to human actors and stage-managers, who had since made a great mess of it” (1908,142-43).
VIII:249. brands: Probably in this context: torches.
VIII:262-65. Herbert Spencer “popularized this contemptible notion that the size of the solar system ought to over-awe the spiritual dogma of man. Why should a man surrender his dignity to the solar system any more than to a whale?” (Chesterton 1908,110)
VIII:268-69. These are references to the accomplishment of impossible feats.
VIII:270-72. Vergil composed the Aeneid, it is said, at the request of Augustus. In form it followed closely the great Homeric poems, while in substance it magnified Rome and the ruler of Rome.
VIII:273-306. Chesterton fights for “Christian civilization against heathen nihilism.” The modern barbarians come as scholars who know too much to believe in God, and by their teachings they undermine and destroy the faith of others. VIII:293-94 Chesterton points out the reality of sin:
Modern masters of science are much impressed with the need of beginning all inquiry with a fact. The ancient masters of religion were quite equally impressed with that necessity. They began with the fact of sin—a fact as practical as potatoes. Whether or no man could be washed in miraculous waters, there was no doubt at any rate that he wanted washing. But certain religious leaders in London, not mere materialists, have begun in our day not to deny the highly disputable water, but to deny the indisputable dirt. Certain new theologians dispute original sin, which is the only part of Christian theology which can be really proved. Some followers of the Reverend R. J. Campbell, in their almost too fastidious spirituality, admit divine sinlessness, which they cannot see even in their dreams. But they essentially deny human sin, which they can see in the street (1908,24).
VIII:295-96. Ibsen and Nietzsche are two writers whom Chesterton singles out for attack. “My meaning is that Ibsen has throughout,… a certain vagueness and a changing attitude as well as a doubting attitude towards what is really wisdom and virtue in this life… . All previous ages have sweated and been crucified in an attempt to realize what is really the right life, what was really the good man. A definite part of the modern world has come beyond question to the conclusion that there is no answer to these questions” (1905a,31-32). Some of the philosophers who are by “thought a crawling ruin” come in for attack in Orthodoxy:
Nietzsche will stand very well as the type of the whole of this failure of abstract violence. The softening of the brain which ultimately overtook him was not a physical accident. If Nietzsche had not ended in imbecility, Nietzscheism would end in imbecility. Thinking in isolation and with pride ends in being an idiot… . By the accident of my present detachment, I can see the inevitable smash of the philosophies of Schopenhauer and Tolstoy, Nietzsche and Shaw, as clearly as an inevitable railway smash could be seen from a balloon (1908,75-77).
VIII:296. By life a leaping mire: Since Oscar Wilde was a notorious decadent, this phrase could refer to him. Chesterton comments: “Oscar Wilde said that sunsets were not valued because we could not pay for sunsets. But Oscar Wilde was wrong; we can pay for sunsets. We can pay for them by not being Oscar Wilde” (1908,104).
VIII:324. St. Edmund, king of East Anglia, obtained his martyr’s crown when he opposed the Danish invaders in 870.
VIII:332-50. After the East Anglian violation of peace with Alfred, the king used force to recover London in 886 (ASC 886).
VIII:351-71. The thriving “clover and silent thistle” have “unwound the toils of men.” The contest continues. Unchecked nature defaces the White Horse.
VIII:366-71. “Abrupt and absolute as an epic ends, …” (Chesterton 1926a,29). Against the backdrop of a “pale purple sky” and ivory battle smoke, the great Alfred continues the unending defense of his realm.

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Thurman, John. 1857. “On the Barrow at Lanhill near Chippenham; and on the Battles of Cynuit and Ethandun, A.D. 878.” Wutshire Archaeological and Natural History Magazine 3:67-86.
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Typeface: Bernhard

Prefazione
Questa ristampa della decima edizione illustrata della Ballata del Cavallo Bianco offre una copia elegante dell’epopea chestertoniana di Alfredo. Le illustrazioni di Robert Austin collocano il lettore nel mondo assediato di re Alfredo; l’introduzione e le note finali forniscono i fondamenti storici e leggendari della “lotta aborigena fra i Pagani e i Cristiani”. L’unicità delle note risiede negli estratti dalle Gesta di Alfredo di Asser, nell’inclusione degli annali della Cronaca Anglosassone e nelle critiche e negli apprezzamenti di studiosi moderni. Ora, nel suo ottantaduesimo anniversario, grazie alla generosità di Kathleen Bohn, Thelma A. Haley, Janet Happy Jackson, Jean Scanlan e Anna Marie Summerlin, una nuova generazione di lettori può meditare e assaporare il modo in cui Chesterton guardava la vita.
La mia gratitudine più calorosa va ad Anna Mary Waickman, il cui amore e incoraggiamento hanno promosso la pubblicazione di questo classico della letteratura.
Donald F. Finlay, Louise H. Girard e Connie Lewin della Biblioteca dello St. Michael University College di Toronto meritano una menzione speciale per aver messo a disposizione strutture ideali per gli utenti degli Archivi Chesterton.
Il curatore è profondamente debitore alla A. P. Watt Ltd., per conto del Royal Literary Fund, per il permesso di usare citazioni da Cobbett e da A Short History of England di G. K. Chesterton, e per gli estratti dagli Archivi Chesterton: la prima strofa di una poesia giovanile inedita su Mosè e due versi di una strofa scartata della BWH.
Il curatore riconosce con gratitudine il permesso di citare dalle seguenti pubblicazioni: The Anglo-Saxons di James Campkell, Cornell University Press; History of the Irish to 1014 di Alice S. Green, Macmillan; Mary’s Praise on Every Tongue di P. J. Chandlery, Manresa Press; The Mind of Chesterton di Christopher Hollis, University of Miami Press; History from the Air di Richard Muir, Mickael Joseph Ltd.; The Emergence of Man: The Celts di Duncan Norton-Taylor, Time-Life Books; The English Way, Gilbert Keith Chesterton e The Splendor of the Rosary di Maisie Ward, Sheed & Ward; Autobiography e The Queen of Seven Swords di Gilbert Keith Chesterton, Sheed & Ward; Chesterton, Man and Mask di Garry Wills, Sheed & Ward.
I seguenti periodici consentono citazioni dalle loro pagine: Archaeological Journal (“Ancient Highways and Tracks” di G. B. Grundy), Christian Century (“A Chesterton for the Right” di Garry Wills), New York Times Book Review (“The Ballad of the White Horse”), (“The Making of England”) e (“The Ebullient Genius of G.K. Chesterton”), Times Literary Supplement (“Mr. Chesterton in Verse”) e (“G.K. Chesterton: Child and Man”).
Un sincero apprezzamento va a Linnea Dudley e LaTayna Hurt per la loro preziosa assistenza tecnica. Revisioni, chiarimenti e nuove interpretazioni sono scaturiti dalla lettura critica del manoscritto da parte di Garry Wills, Patricia Glaab, David Adam Ezel, Hilda Bonham, Ruth McGuire, Mary Laubacher e Anne Marie Murphy.
Il curatore esprime inoltre la propria riconoscenza ad Andrea Lee, John R. Novak, Candace Webster, Catherine Mulroy, Helena Connelly e Rose C. Burgess, che in modi importanti hanno contribuito alla pubblicazione di questa edizione della Ballata del Cavallo Bianco.
Bernadette Sheridan, IHM

Introduzione
“La Ballata del Cavallo Bianco” è il resoconto di una nobile visione gettata sulla tela con colori forti e arditi. È ciò che secondo Matthew Arnold la poesia dovrebbe sempre essere: “una critica della vita”. Chesterton racconta la storia di Alfredo, seguendo — e giustamente — la leggenda popolare. La storia di come suonò l’arpa e cantò nel campo danese, di come bruciò le focacce nella capanna del mandriano, e di come giunse infine la sua vittoria nella Valle del Cavallo Bianco. Questa è l’ossatura della storia, trattata in autentica forma di ballata da una mano magistrale e con ispirazione travolgente. Oltre a ciò, vi sono la portata e il significato filosofici del poema, la “critica della vita”, così vasta da sommergere quasi l’elemento di ballata. Il suo punto è il contrasto fra gli ideali pagani e quelli cristiani. Alfredo, nel poema, è l’incarnazione della tradizione cristiana. I Danesi Chesterton li rappresenta come i tipi del paganesimo. (Estratto da Baring 1911,378-79.)
L’introduzione si limita a cinque argomenti: una panoramica della Ballata del Cavallo Bianco, il Cavallo Bianco nella realtà e nel simbolo, la BWH in cantiere (1901-1911), il luogo di Ethandune e note a margine sulla Ballata.
i
La Ballata del Cavallo Bianco presenta la lotta fra il cristianesimo e il paganesimo nei giorni eroici di re Alfredo, e al tempo stesso tocca questioni contemporanee del ventesimo secolo. Nella forma impiega la poesia romantica rimata così adatta agli eventi travolgenti che vi si dispiegano, mentre nella sostanza ritrae il valoroso re del Wessex come “un conquistatore senza ambizione; un autore fin troppo lieto di essere un traduttore; un uomo concentrato e guardingo, che vegliava sulle sorti di una sola cosa, che pilotò con audacia e insieme con cautela, e che alla fine salvò” (Chesterton 1917,52). L’uso dell’aggiunta di re Alfredo a Boezio per l’epigrafe sottolinea che persone ed eventi sono sotto l’influsso di “un disegno divino che governa”. L’ambito di questa narrazione comprende la storia del popolo anglosassone nel tardo nono secolo, quando i Danesi ne minacciarono seriamente l’autonomia. La sua materia tratta di storia, leggenda, mitologia e religione. Poiché l’elemento soprannaturale è assai pronunciato e alcuni eventi sono sotto il suo controllo, il poema possiede l’atmosfera propria di un’epopea. L’azione è su scala immensa. Non solo gli eventi ruotano attorno a una battaglia decisiva ma, fedeli alle esigenze dell’epopea, i personaggi sono anche eroi o esseri soprannaturali. Alfredo è un eroe nazionale, Guthrum è un condottiero nazionale storico e Maria un essere celeste. Questi personaggi ci interessano per la parte che svolgono nel favorire od ostacolare gli sforzi di dominare l’Inghilterra.
La simmetria caratterizza lo sviluppo dell’intreccio. Le strofe dalla quattordicesima alla trentesima del libro I si riferiscono alle precedenti incursioni danesi. I tre libri successivi mostrano Alfredo che recluta, perlustra e prepara la battaglia campale contro l’intero esercito danese. I libri V e VI narrano la battaglia di Ethandune, mentre il libro VII racconta come i Sassoni occidentali in rotta si riorganizzarono e, con l’aiuto del cielo, vinsero la giornata. A bilanciare il breve resoconto degli scontri di Alfredo con i pagani nel primo libro, l’ultima parte dell’ottavo registra come il re contenne gli invasori nell’892-96. Chesterton avrebbe potuto concentrarsi soltanto su Ethandune. Invece ritrae Alfredo continuamente all’opera per prepararsi al ritorno dei Danesi che, di fatto, assalirono il suo regno nell’ultimo decennio del suo governo. In questa distribuzione della materia, Chesterton pone su Ethandune un accento cruento e conferisce al poema equilibrio e proporzione adeguati.
Pur integrando gli eventi e le leggende riferiti dai cronisti, Chesterton impreziosisce la Ballata con l’inclusione di incantesimi preternaturali e magici. Poiché è risaputo che i Gaeli e gli Uomini del Nord del nono secolo nutrivano strane credenze, la superstizione di Colan e la spada magica di Elf accrescono la genuinità della narrazione pur introducendo elementi di un mondo fatato. L’intervento soprannaturale spiega la vittoria dei cristiani, come pure la successiva conversione di Guthrum.
I personaggi sono un insieme affascinante. Ci stanno davanti vivi — tratteggiati con destrezza da pochi tocchi della penna del poeta. Nel presentare il sassone Eldred, il romano Mark e il gaelico-gallese Colan, egli suggerisce i caratteri delle loro stirpi e mantiene questi tratti ogni volta che i condottieri compaiono. La presenza e l’efficacia di Maria nei libri I e VII sono ineffabili. L’irascibile donna della foresta fa da contraltare all’umile pazienza di Alfredo (IV:161-279). Fra i capi danesi, re Guthrum, istruito nella lingua latina, possiede una natura più perspicace dei tre conti: Harold, Ogier ed Elf. Pur guardando le cose come sono, non è mosso dall’odio. È riflessivo, cerca la verità, eppure dispera. Chesterton descrive Guthrum in modo assai approfondito, non solo perché è il capo di guerra, ma anche per prepararci al suo abbracciare il cristianesimo (ASC).
Chesterton ha conseguito l’unità in questa epopea legando insieme i suoi episodi mediante una comune relazione con Alfredo, che risponde a un messaggio di Maria.
“Ma dalla bocca della Madre di Dio
ho visto la verità come fuoco,
questo: che il cielo si fa ancor più buio
e il mare sale più alto.”
(II:153-56)
Il re eccelle nelle imprese guerresche non meno che nelle conquiste del tempo di pace. Dalle scaramucce di Alfredo col nemico nel primo libro alla sua cavalcata trionfale in Londra nell’ottavo, i lettori ne seguono le gesta con interesse.
Considerato secondo il concetto coleridgiano di unità organica, il poema possiede atmosfera, costante tensione morale, continuità cronologica degli eventi principali e dei personaggi, richiami all’indietro e in avanti a persone e accadimenti, e legami fra racconti e leggende. Commentando “il carattere soddisfacente di un poema”, Coleridge suggerisce che esso debba “produrre quell’interesse piacevole che è compito peculiare della poesia impartire” ([1817]1907,2:6). “Deve essere uno, e le sue parti devono sostenersi e spiegarsi a vicenda; tutte, nella loro proporzione, in armonia con lo scopo e con gli influssi noti della disposizione metrica, e a loro sostegno. Il lettore dovrebbe essere portato avanti… dalla piacevole attività della mente eccitata dalle attrattive del viaggio stesso… . Come il moto di un serpente,… a ogni passo si ferma e quasi arretra, e dal movimento retrogrado raccoglie la forza che di nuovo lo porta avanti” ([1817] 1907,2:10-11). Chesterton usa spesso questo movimento serpentino. Si osservi come esso sottolinei e chiarisca significato e sentimento. Si noti come la seconda strofa guardi indietro alla precedente pur muovendo in avanti:
Ma fermi sui sentieri del bosco
i pochi di Cristo eran grigi e tetri,
e ognuno, con vista d’uccello, piccola e lontana,
vedeva l’alta follia della pugna;
e benché strane gioie fossero cresciute nella notte,
la disperazione cresceva col giorno.
E quando la bianca alba strisciò per il bosco,
come fredda schiuma di piena,
allora s’infiacchì l’animo d’ogni guerriero,
nella speranza, ma non nell’ardimento;
e ogni uomo si doleva, lì ritto,
secondo l’indole del suo sangue.
(V:46-57)
“Infine, il buon senso è il corpo del genio poetico, la fantasia il suo panneggio, il moto la sua vita e l’immaginazione l’anima che è ovunque e in ciascuna parte, e che tutto plasma in un unico insieme aggraziato e intelligente” ([1817] 1907,2:13).
Chesterton mostra tutti i segni del genio poetico menzionati da Coleridge. Il buon senso si rivela nella scelta di Alfredo che “con audacia e cautela difende il suo regno”. La saggezza è palese nell’uso della strofa di ballata per narrare il suo racconto romantico. La fantasia affiora in modi sorprendenti. Particolarmente notevole è l’apparizione della Madre di Dio nel libro VII. L’immaginazione è davvero ovunque. Qui assume una piega umoristica:
Un uomo possente era Eldred,
una mole da colmare di botti,
il volto una fornace sognante,
il corpo una collina che cammina.
(II:42-45)
GK schizza le sue pagine di colore (III:108-11), fa riverberare le sue strofe di suono (VII:225-234) e sospinge i lettori nel cuore della battaglia (VII:179-94), ricreando al tempo stesso l’atmosfera e lo scenario dell’Inghilterra del nono secolo. Il suo uso di allitterazioni, kenningar e parole di origine anglosassone e medio-inglese insaporisce e ravviva efficacemente questa storia dei tempi sassoni occidentali. I critici, commentando la BWH, “non riescono a credere che scomparirà del tutto un verso in cui lo spirito vivo della ballata esulta nella propria forza con più semplicità che mai dai tempi di Scott” (Times Literary Supplement, 7 novembre 1936). John Raymond afferma: “Alfredo starà ancora opponendo la sua ultima resistenza a Ethandune molto dopo che il sole sarà tramontato su Notting Hill e sulla Flying Inn” (Conlon 1987,161).
ii
Veduta aerea del Cavallo Bianco, Uffington, Berkshire Per gentile concessione dei British Information Services
Ma egli soltanto indicò: ingiunse di badare
a quei contadini di stirpe del Berkshire,
che mondavano il vecchio Cavallo dall’erbaccia
come lo mondano ancora in quest’ora.
(VIII:180-83)
“Verso ovest, sopra Uffington, le colline raggiungono il punto culminante di 856 piedi in White Horse Hill. Sul suo fianco settentrionale è intagliata una gigantesca figura di cavallo, con la cotica erbosa rimossa per mostrare il bianco sottosuolo gessoso… . È lunga 374 piedi e di rozzissimo profilo: collo, corpo e coda variano poco in larghezza. La sua origine è ignota” (Encyclopaedia Britannica 11ª ed., s.v. “White Horse”). Nella Nota preliminare alla Ballata, Chesterton afferma che “una tradizione collega la vittoria finale di Alfredo con la valle del Berkshire chiamata Vale of the White Horse”. Thomas Hughes (1822-1896), nativo della località, registrò questa tradizione legata alla Valle: “Qui [vi sono] leggende che collegano [il White Horse] al nome del nostro più grande re, e alla sua grande vittoria sui Pagani, e una festa che si è tenuta a intervalli brevissimi fin dal nono secolo” (1859, viii-ix). Questa testimonianza scritta conferma che il White Horse del Berkshire è quello che Chesterton scelse per la sua epopea di Alfredo. Corregge inoltre affermazioni di illustri scrittori inglesi. Patrick Braybrooke riconosce il cavallo del Wiltshire: “Ci sono stati molti cavalli bianchi, ma c’è Il White Horse, e giace solo sul fianco di una collina dalle parti del Wiltshire” (1922,68). Anche a Christopher Hollis sfuggirono i molti riferimenti di Chesterton al luogo della battaglia. “Ci sono parecchi Cavalli Bianchi sparsi qua e là… ma due sono di antichità immemorabile: il White Horse del Wiltshire sopra Westbury e il White Horse del Berkshire sopra Wantage. È tipico della noncuranza di Chesterton per il dettaglio che nella sua Ballata egli non decida mai quale di questi cavalli fu teatro della battaglia, e parli indifferentemente di ‘villani del Berkshire’ e di trovare il cavallo ‘lungo la strada per Frome’ ” (1970,149). Dudley Barker (1973) così come Michael Coren (1989) si riferiscono anch’essi erroneamente al cavallo del Wiltshire. Al contrario, Chesterton nel poema indicò invariabilmente White Horse Hill e la Vale of the White Horse nel Berkshire come luogo di Ethandune. Nell’ultima revisione delle bozze di VIII:181 cambiò Wessex in Berkshire (Archivi Chesterton). Il White Horse di Westbury, nel Wiltshire, non ha posto nell’epopea di Chesterton.
Nella sua Autobiografia Chesterton racconta di aver visto il White Horse mentre faceva campagna elettorale nei suoi paraggi (1936, 127-28). Altrove dice che il White Horse potrebbe essere stato ritagliato dall’erba in una precedente “era geologica, prima che il mare irrompesse attraverso lo stretto passaggio di Dover… . Quel rozzo ma evidente profilo bianco che vidi al di là della valle potrebbe essere stato cominciato quando la Britannia non era un’isola” (1911,256). In un’altra occasione GKC osserva che è il patriottismo locale a tenere viva “la memoria di Alfredo in quella nobile valle del Berkshire dove il White Horse è stato ripulito dall’erba senza interruzione per mille anni” (Illustrated London News, 8 agosto 1908).
Chesterton personifica il Cavallo nelle strofe d’apertura della Ballata del Cavallo Bianco. Il Cavallo Bianco “guardava”, “conosceva l’Inghilterra”, “vide il primo remo spezzarsi o piegarsi”. Due versi di una strofa scartata, collocata in origine dopo III:372, ritraggono il Cavallo Bianco come figuratamente vivo.
Il Cavallo Bianco si dibatte nell’erba
Il Cavallo Bianco nitrisce
(Archivi Chesterton)
Dal suo punto di vedetta sul ciglio di White Horse Hill, il Cavallo guarda giù sulla valle della decisione del Berkshire. Quando gli uomini di Alfredo stanno vincendo, “il Cavallo Bianco scalpita nella Valle del Cavallo Bianco”. Nell’ottavo libro
Il re dallo sguardo immoto sedeva pensoso,
come chi osserva una cosa viva,
il gesso ripulito;
(VIII:233-35)
Qui Alfredo parla direttamente al Cavallo di una visione del ritorno dei pagani.
Re Alfredo il Grande molto probabilmente conosceva il White Horse. Nato a Wantage, poche miglia a est della collina, deve averlo visto spesso cacciando o viaggiando nei dintorni. Conviene guardare in alto prima di salire la collina, perché il White Horse è troppo grande per essere visto per intero da vicino. [Questo sito in cima alla collina è un parco naturale con ampio parcheggio a poche centinaia di iarde dal Cavallo. L’ingresso è gratuito.]
Il Cavallo Bianco può servire da tabellone segnapunti per i lettori, che rivela se al comando siano i cristiani o i pagani. Se il Cavallo giace trasandato, i Danesi spadroneggiano sul Wessex.
Il grande Cavallo Bianco era grigio,
ché mal era mondato dall’erbaccia;
e lichene e spino potevano strisciare e pascersi,
poiché i nemici di casa stabile e di credo
avevano spazzato via le opere antiche.
(III:33-37)
Ma se il Cavallo Bianco è bianco “come la prima piuma delle nevi” (VIII:138), la campagna è in pace. Le ripetute ripuliture ricordano alla gente che non si può impedire al male di spuntare nella nazione, nella politica e in se stessi, più di quanto si possa impedire alle erbacce di crescere sul Cavallo estirpandole una volta sola (VIII:184-87). No, ciò non può essere, perché le erbacce cresceranno in Inghilterra “più in fretta di quanto gli uomini possano canticchiare”. Perciò,
Se vogliamo il cavallo d’un tempo,
mondate il cavallo di nuovo.
(VIII:206-7)
Ma che cosa provano i lettori per il Cavallo Bianco? Un campione casuale mostra opinioni diverse. Per uno, il Cavallo al galoppo è simbolo della vitalità e del moto in avanti della nazione inglese. Thomas Hughes lo considerava una presenza degna di rispettosa attenzione. Celeste Desmond afferma: “Chesterton usa il Cavallo Bianco come simbolo oltre che come punto di riferimento — simbolo del potere conservatore del cristianesimo in opposizione alle forze distruttrici di un Paganesimo dalle molte teste” (1958,2). Douglas Woodruff vede il vecchio Cavallo Bianco di Uffington come “un simbolo di tutta l’eredità umana del passato”. Christopher Hollis pensa che [Chesterton] “prese il cavallo bianco come simbolo della continuità della vita inglese” (1970,149). Patrick Braybrooke crede: “Il Cavallo Bianco sta per qualcosa che anno dopo anno andiamo dimenticando, quelle bizzarre vecchie feste inglesi che tanto hanno fatto per rendere allegra l’Inghilterra, e che hanno trasformato la storia in una bella leggenda che porta il nome di Alfredo” (1922,68). Garry Wills condivide queste intuizioni: “La figura del Cavallo Bianco sulla collina è un sacramento destinato a rivelare l’amore di Alfredo per la sua terra natale in tutta la sua autonomia” (1961,141). Per il professor Wills il Cavallo Bianco è insondabile: “Una mente onesta presto scomparirà nelle profondità di quello che è il più ricco dei simboli di Chesterton” (1961,132).
Ogni biografo ricorda il numero di cavalli bianchi che hanno avuto parte nell’esistenza di Chesterton. Scrivendo di sé nel 1926, GK disse: “Ancora oggi non posso vedere un grande cavallo bianco per strada senza un improvviso senso di cose indescrivibili” (1929,165). In vena analitica commenta: “Vi sono, come diciamo, certi reali vantaggi nei simboli pittorici, e uno di essi è che tutto ciò che è pittorico suggerisce senza nominare né definire. C’è una strada che va dall’occhio al cuore senza passare per l’intelletto” (1906,77-78).
iii
Chesterton aveva trentasette anni quando La Ballata del Cavallo Bianco uscì dai torchi nel 1911. Vi lavorò a più riprese dal 1901 al 1911, progettando, documentandosi e scrivendo la Ballata. Oltre ai suoi contributi a giornali e periodici, pubblicò ventidue libri. La sua attenzione costante all’epopea di Alfredo il Grande [2683 versi] è prova inconfutabile che sapeva prendersi — e si prese — cura della propria scrittura. Ronald Knox la definì una “prova rifinita”.
Sebbene Chesterton possa aver cominciato anche prima le ricerche sul poema, è probabile che il Millenario della morte di re Alfredo lo abbia ispirato e spinto a scrivere La Ballata del Cavallo Bianco in onore del “beniamino d’Inghilterra”. [Il 26 ottobre 1899 era la data effettiva dell’anniversario.]

COMMEMORAZIONE NAZIONALE 1901
17 settembre martedì Mostra al British Museum
Programma a Winchester
18 Visita all’antico Westgate, al Castello di Winchester, ecc.
19 Visita a Wolvesey, sito del palazzo dei re sassoni
20 Processione Inaugurazione della Statua Discorso del Conte di Rosebery
21 Visita a St. Cross Ricevimento in giardino a Stratton
Due dei saggi di Chesterton su Alfredo il Grande mostrano la sua consapevolezza della Commemorazione. Il suo articolo più antico cita Lord Rosebery, secondo cui la personalità di Alfredo era peculiarmente inglese: “La grande magnificenza del carattere inglese si esprime nella parola ‘servizio’ ” (1905,203). Nel resoconto successivo (Ward 1933,56-64), egli ricorda le celebrazioni del 1901 sia negli Stati Uniti sia in Gran Bretagna. Si veda E VII:54-55.
Chesterton nutrì un interesse speciale per i poemi epici nei primi anni del secolo. I suoi compendi delle epiche famose sono brillanti: “Ogni grande letteratura è sempre stata allegorica—allegoria di una qualche visione dell’intero universo. L’‘Iliade’ è grande solo perché tutta la vita è una battaglia, l’‘Odissea’ perché tutta la vita è un viaggio, il Libro di Giobbe perché tutta la vita è un enigma” (1906,47).
In Father Brown on Chesterton John O’Connor ci informa che nel marzo 1904, dopo che lui e Mr. Chesterton avevano attraversato a piedi le brughiere fino agli Steinthal, Mrs. Chesterton gli parlò dell’“Epica in contemplazione”. Poiché scriveva circa 35 anni dopo i fatti, non sorprende che abbia riordinato gli eventi e li abbia anche datati male. Fortunatamente, la lettera del 6 dicembre 1903 di Father O’Connor negli Archivi Chesterton rimette le cose a posto. La conferenza di Chesterton a Keighley si tenne giovedì 3 dicembre 1903. La loro camminata insieme attraverso le brughiere fino alla residenza degli Steinthal, il giorno seguente, avvenne il 4 dicembre 1903, non nel marzo 1904. L’osservazione di Father O’Connor nella lettera del 6 dicembre 1903 a Mrs. Chesterton, “Spero che sia tornato a casa da voi indenne e con il raffreddore migliorato”, provò che Mrs. Chesterton era a Battersea e non a Ilkley quando i due uomini arrivarono quel giorno di dicembre. Ne segue che le osservazioni di Father O’Connor sulla Ballata appartengono a un’occasione successiva in cui i tre erano presenti. La lettera del 14 febbraio 1904 di Fr. O’Connor a Mrs. Chesterton dice: “Spero di vedervi entrambi a Pasqua [3 aprile] a Ilkley”. Fu durante questa visita agli Steinthal che Frances, tra il pranzo e il tè, deliziò Father O’Connor con saggi dell’epica in ballata di Alfredo? Frances disse anche a Father O’Connor in quell’occasione che “una buona parte [dell’epica] era già composta” (O’Connor 1938,30). “Per tutto l’anno seguente Gilbert continuò a progettare e ad ampliare l’Epica di Alfredo, oggi esistente come La Ballata del Cavallo Bianco” (O’Connor 1938,31).
In Alarms and Discursions vi sono saggi su Ethandune, Athelney, i Cavalli Bianchi e Glastonbury che testimoniano i suoi viaggi da solo o con la moglie verso “i luoghi delle battaglie e i nascondigli” di Alfredo il Grande. Prendeva due piccioni con una fava: scriveva per i giornali e faceva ricerche per La Ballata del Cavallo Bianco.
Il velato riferimento di Chesterton alla Ballata nella sua Autobiografia rivela i suoi pensieri e sentimenti intimi riguardo alle “cose primitive” che gli giravano per la mente.
Perché tutto quel piccolo buffo trambusto della politica era in questo caso disteso come una sgangherata finta battaglia… . Perché ricordo la debole e vaga ispirazione che mi turbò una sera sulla strada, mentre guardavo oltre il piccolo borgo, rattoppato così incongruamente da qualche manifesto elettorale, e vidi appeso sui colli, come fosse appeso ai cieli, remoto come una pallida nube e arcaico come un gigantesco geroglifico, il Cavallo Bianco (1936,127-28).
Negli Archivi Chesterton un titolo primitivo del poema è dato come L’Epica del Cavallo Bianco. Sei microfiche (F22-F27) contengono copie olografe di passi della Ballata, stanze copiate dalla moglie e un dattiloscritto del poema. Vi è l’evidenza di correzioni minuziose in abbondanza: inserimenti e cancellazioni di stanze, frasi e parole, tali da convincere chiunque che Chesterton si prese infinite pene nel comporre e rivedere la sua epica di Alfredo. L’affermazione di Christopher Hollis che Chesterton la scrisse in due settimane può essere vera per la versione finale del 1911 (1970,151). Father O Connor racconta come la copia completata gli fu consegnata per un giudizio nel luglio 1911. Methuen pubblicò 1500 copie il 31 agosto 1911. [Una seconda e una terza edizione furono richieste in ottobre e novembre 1911, con una quarta ristampa nel 1912. John Lane pubblicò la prima delle molte edizioni americane nel 1911.]
Vi è un riferimento faceto alla Tryggvhessa Saga in una lettera che Chesterton scrisse a Frances l’11 luglio 1899. Potrebbe ciò suggerire che stesse facendo ricerche di base sui Vichinghi in preparazione alla scrittura della sua epica? (Ward 1943,109-10)
Da quanto precede sembra credibile che Chesterton abbia lavorato a intervalli per almeno dieci anni ricercando e componendo il suo tributo al grande Alfredo che “governa l’Inghilterra fino al giudizio”.
iv
Ma chi guarderà dal cappuccio di Alfredo
O respirerà vivo il suo respiro?
Il suo secolo come piccola nube scura
Va lontano alla deriva; è una folla senza occhi,
Dove urlano alte le trombe torturate
E fitte s’avventano le frecce.
(D:41-46)
Determinare il vero sito della vittoria di Alfredo nell’878 tormenta ancora gli antiquari del Wessex nel ventesimo secolo. La scelta di Chesterton della Valle del Cavallo Bianco nel Berkshire lo espose all’ira degli archeologi del Wilts e del Somerset. Per prevenire spiacevolezze, dichiarò nella prefazione: “Questa ballata non ha bisogno di note storiche”. Una lettura attenta della Nota Preliminare rivela che GK sta enfatizzando la tradizione, non negando la storia. In effetti nella sua Autobiografia dice che l’epica riguarda “la genesi di tutta la nostra storia” (1936, 127-28). [Maurice Baring lo conferma: “È storica nel vero senso della parola, in quanto mira a cogliere, e vi riesce, lo spirito se non la lettera della storia” (Eye Witness, 7 settembre 1911,378).]
Per discernere perché Chesterton vergò quell’alibi, bisogna essere consapevoli delle dispute fra gli antiquari di Somerset, Wiltshire e Berkshire riguardo alla localizzazione della grande vittoria di Alfredo a Ethandune. Chesterton sapeva che la sua scelta del Berkshire avrebbe provocato proteste. Eppure la sua decisione di collocare Ethandune nella Valle del Cavallo Bianco del Berkshire precedette ogni altra considerazione. Aggirò la questione con la seguente spiegazione: “Scrivo da ignorante di tutto, salvo che ho trovato la leggenda di un Re del Wessex ancora viva nella terra… . Una tradizione collega la vittoria finale di Alfredo con la valle del Berkshire chiamata Valle del Cavallo Bianco” (Nota Preliminare). Vi fu un tardivo rabbonimento per la fazione del Wiltshire nel suo saggio del 1933 su “Alfredo il Grande”? “Egli [Alfredo] raccolse gradualmente intorno a sé i resti della popolazione cristiana, e nella primavera dell’878 apparve all’improvviso con un esercito davanti al campo danese a Ethandune, forse Edington [Wiltshire]; sfondò le loro palizzate, catturò il loro condottiero regale e il suo stendardo del corvo, e gli impose il famoso trattato di Wedmore, con il quale lui e il suo popolo furono battezzati e ritirarono le loro forze dal Wessex, conservando solo le terre più a nord e a est” (Ward 1933,57).
Non molto prima della pubblicazione de La Ballata del Cavallo Bianco, Chesterton scrisse sull’Illustrated London News a proposito di queste pretese contrapposte sul sito di Ethandune:
Mr. Greswell argomenta dal luogo della resa: se, dice, la battaglia avvenne nel Wiltshire, perché il trattato fu a Wedmore e non a Chippenham? Se ben ricordo, Mr. Oman, nel suo libro sull’Inghilterra prima della Conquista, sostiene che la resa e il trattato furono fatti nella cittadina del Wiltshire, e non a Wedmore affatto. Chiama persino il Trattato di Wedmore il Patto di Chippenham, che è cosa assai disperata e spietata da fare. Se abbia o no ragione a sostenerlo, io sono, naturalmente, del tutto inadatto a discuterne. Ma se ha ragione, ciò supererebbe questa singola obiezione di Mr. Greswell, il campione del Somerset. Uso l’ultima espressione per brevità; temo che suoni piuttosto pugilistica. Ma se la gente vuole attaccar briga… su battaglie di tanto tempo fa, l’atmosfera pugilistica è difficile da evitare. Dico solo che nulla mi indurrà a interporre la mia persona tra Greswell, il Picchiatore del Somerset, e Oman, il Beniamino del Wiltshire. (19 novembre 1910,633)
La prova che Chesterton sapesse, prima della pubblicazione del poema, che la battaglia decisiva di Ethandune fu probabilmente combattuta presso Chippenham nel Wiltshire si trova nel paragrafo conclusivo del suo saggio su Ethandune: “Mi diede una strana emozione pensare che, spada in pugno, mentre i Danesi si riversavano con i torrenti del loro sangue giù verso Chippenham, il grande re possa aver sollevato il capo e guardato quella forma opprimente” (1911,230).
Apprezzare il desiderio di Chesterton di dare risalto al Cavallo Bianco del Berkshire nella sua epica, e la sua avversione a ferire i sentimenti dei suoi connazionali del Somerset e del Wilts, che erano ben certi che la battaglia di Ethandune fosse avvenuta entro i loro confini, mette in luce la difficile situazione che occasionò la sua dichiarazione “questa ballata non ha bisogno di note storiche”. Ma questa affermazione fuorviante indusse alcuni recensori e critici a fraintendere il poema.
I dotti archeologi e antiquari inglesi hanno un sentimento fortissimo dell’accuratezza storica. Si considerino gli scambi tra i vari pretendenti: John Thurman, “On the Barrow at Lanhill near Chippenham, with Remarks on the Site of, and on the Events Connected with the Battles of Cynuit and Ethandune, A.D. 878,” Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Magazine 3(1857):67-86. [Yatton favorita come sito della Battaglia di Ethandune.] George Matcham, “The Battle of Ethandun,” Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Magazine 3(1857): 175-88. [Favorisce Ethandune (Edington). Aveva ragione.] G. Poulett Scrope, “The Battle of Ethandun,” Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Magazine 3(1857):298-308. [Dissente aspramente da Mr. Matcham.] Nel 1875 troviamo il vescovo William Clifford indagare di nuovo sul vero “Sito della Battaglia di Aethandune”. Le sue frasi d’apertura esprimono con forza perché questa battaglia meriti un trattamento epico: “La battaglia di Aethandune, che ebbe luogo nell’anno 878 tra gli Inglesi sotto re Aelfred e l’esercito danese sotto Gothrum, può giustamente essere considerata uno degli eventi più importanti della nostra storia nazionale. L’esistenza degli Inglesi come nazione fu decisa quel giorno” Proceedings of the Somersetshire Archaeological and Natural History Society 21:1. Trent’anni dopo, W. L. Radford, scrivendo negli stessi Proceedings del Somersetshire, scandaglia di nuovo la localizzazione di Ethandune. Athelney nel Somerset è dove King Alfred si nascose mentre radunava i suoi sostenitori. Anche Aller e Wedmore, pure nel Somerset, hanno interesse storico. Guthrum fu battezzato ad Aller, e lo scioglimento del crisma avvenne a Wedmore otto giorni dopo. Mr. Radford riteneva che anche la battaglia decisiva fosse stata combattuta nei pressi 51(1905):169-80. Il Dr. B. G. Grundy in “Ancient Highways and Tracks of Wilts, Berks, and Hants, and the Saxon Battlefields of Wilts” collocò la battaglia di Ethandune sull’altura di Bratton Castle nel Wiltshire. Include schizzi dei movimenti preliminari dell’esercito del Wessex. Archaeological Journal 75(1918):178-81 [Gli eminenti storici Hodgkin e Stenton approvarono la ricostruzione del Dr. Grundy.] Il tenente colonnello Alfred Burne in “Ancient Wiltshire Battlefields: Ellandun—Ethandun” applica il criterio dell’intrinseca probabilità militare ai siti alternativi per la battaglia di Ethandune. Accetta l’equazione del Dr. Grundy tra Ethandune ed Edington. Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Magazine 53(1950):397-412.
Timothy Wilson Smith richiama ancora una volta la nostra attenzione sulla battaglia di Ethandune in “King Alfred: An Eleventh Centenary,” History Today 28(1978): 423-28. Continuano le commemorazioni della nascita di Alfredo, della sua morte e della sua vittoria a Ethandune. Va a merito di Chesterton l’aver innalzato la meraviglia de La Ballata del Cavallo Bianco sopra Alfredo, quale il
grande Virgilio
Forgiò per il re romano.
(VIII:271-72)
v
In una lettera scritta alla fidanzata nel 1901, Chesterton dedicò solennemente la sua penna alla diffusione della verità. “Ciò nonostante, mia cara, questa è un’ora grande e seria [la sepoltura della Regina Vittoria], sentita così pienamente da tutta l’Inghilterra che non posso negare il desiderio durevole che ho,… di rinnovare… voti privati di carattere assai reale, di fare del mio meglio per questo mio paese che amo di un amore che supera l’amore degli sciovinisti. È talvolta facile dare al proprio paese il sangue, e più facile darle denaro. Talvolta la cosa più difficile di tutte è darle la verità” (Ward 1943,144). Chesterton adempì i suoi voti privati di fare del suo meglio per la terra natia componendo l’epica in ballata di Alfredo il Grande.
■ ■ ■
In Father Brown on Chesterton Father John O’Connor descrive un momento memorabile della sua vita. “Fui confuso, e poi trasfuso di sobrio diletto, quando una sera di luglio [1911] a Overroads, Beaconsfield, egli [GKC] mi mise fra le mani l’intero manoscritto della Ballata, e Mrs. Chesterton spiegò che dovevo farne il censore, poiché tanto di mio vi era dentro” (1938,67).
Come Father John O’Connor dello Yorkshire fece conoscenza con i Chesterton a Battersea è rivelato da lettere trovate negli Archivi G. K. Chesterton.
xi II 03
St. Ann’s Keighley,
Yorks
Caro Mr. Chesterton,
Nel linguaggio della persona sensibile e perspicace che organizzò il funerale di Buck Fanshaw, lei mi piace, e, consigliato dall’Autocrate della tavola della colazione, oso dirglielo.
Sono un sacerdote cattolico, e sebbene possa non trovarla del tutto ortodosso nei dettagli, desidero anzitutto ringraziarla di cuore, o dovrei dire ringraziare Dio, per averle donato la spiritualità che sola rende immortale la letteratura, come io penso. Non sono stato così edificato da un’opera in prosa da quando lessi i Saggi di Coventry Patmore alcuni anni fa. Il mio apprezzamento si fonda su ‘The Defendant’ e ‘Twelve Types’. Quando nel primo libro incontrai la frase ‘il folle e valoroso cuore dell’uomo’, dissi a me stesso: ‘Benedetto sia Dio’, perché quella è spesso l’unica parola che dà sollievo ai miei sentimenti. Non posso dire di più, se non che ancora adesso mi dà nuovo piacere ripensarci. Ma trovo nei suoi libri più d’un nocciolo di dolcezza che rinnova il cervello o rinnova il cuore. Francesco, Savonarola, Walter Scott, i suoi ‘tipi’ mi parlano in modo speciale, ma per tutto il secondo libro trovo correre una nota dominante: ‘Oh! follia dell’Amore, l’intensa ultima culminazione dell’intelligenza’.
Ma poiché lei pensa pensieri immortali, spero che un giorno li distillerà in versi. Mi sento fortemente spinto a mandarle un difettoso sonetto che composi l’anno scorso, contenente la stessa nota dominante di tanti suoi saggi. Ma me ne astengo, poiché non so se questa lettera la raggiungerà, o se lei abbia caro tal genere di cose, e temo sopra ogni cosa di urtare contro ciò che D’Annunzio chiama ‘inconsapevolezza’.
Con vera devozione,
J. O’Connor
Father O’Connor aveva probabilmente 33 anni e Gilbert 29 quando questa lettera fu inviata. Quanto dovette sentirsi confermato Chesterton nel leggere: “desidero anzitutto ringraziarla di cuore, o dovrei dire ringraziare Dio, per averle donato la spiritualità che sola rende immortale la letteratura, come io penso. Non sono stato così edificato da un’opera in prosa da quando lessi i Saggi di Coventry Patmore alcuni anni fa.” Ecco una persona che conosce gli scrittori americani, britannici e italiani riconoscere la dote interiore di GK ed esaltarne i saggi. C’è da stupirsi che Chesterton volesse incontrarlo?
Otto mesi dopo:
iv X 03
St. Ann’s Keighley
Caro Mr. Chesterton,
È stata per me una sorpresa graditissima leggere la sua lettera con le buone notizie che contiene. Vedo dal Prospetto della nostra Literary etc. Soc. che lei terrà una conferenza da noi in dicembre. Prosit Amen.
Certamente può venire a trovarmi. È qui cordialmente invitato. È ospite di qualche membro della K. L. S.? Se lo è, bene; se no, benché io sia soltanto un salariato servitore di questo istituto, posso farla alloggiare qui per la notte. Il rettore è zio di Walter Crawley, il quale parlava come se l’avesse incontrata più d’una volta. [Quattro paragrafi omessi]
Suo con molta sincerità,
J. O’Connor
Questo è l’inizio di un’amicizia durata tutta la vita. In Father Brown on Chesterton, Father O’Connor scrive delle loro molte conversazioni, compresa la sua influenza sulla composizione della Ballata e il suo lieve legame con i racconti polizieschi di Father Brown.
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Celeste Desmond contribuì all’analisi della prosodia de La Ballata del Cavallo Bianco quando completò una tesi di master sulla Ballata. Il capitolo III, “Structures of Sound,” dettaglia gli elementi quantitativi e qualitativi dei 280 versi del Libro II. Gli interessati possono esaminare questa tesi nella Mullen Library, Catholic University of America, Washington, D.C.
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Julius West implora i lettori di rispettare la vivente interezza delle poesie di GK. “C’è la tentazione di trattare… la maggior parte delle poesie di Chesterton con speciale riferimento alla loro tecnica, ma dobbiamo resistere a questa tentazione… . Cedervi sarebbe commettere una forma di vivisezione. GKC non è un testo, sia lode, e viva o muoia, a lungo gli siano risparmiate le mani di un curatore o interprete che sia anche un’irrefrenabile autorità in fatto di anapesti e cose simili” (1915,106).
Sebbene Celeste Desmond abbia praticato la “vivisezione” nel terzo capitolo della sua tesi, il suo paragrafo finale acclama: “Strutture di significato e strutture di suono sono state esplorate e le scoperte esposte. Eppure, il singolo tratto più notevole della ballata resta la sua forma ‘organica’, vale a dire… un così perfetto combaciare di elementi strutturali e significati da produrre, per una mente che contempli la struttura compiuta, un senso di perfetta armonia e coerenza” (1958, 45-46).
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A ponderare i commenti sull’epica di Alfredo di Chesterton, le valutazioni ne rivelano le ricchezze e il discernimento dei critici. Due citazioni, entrambe dal Times Literary Supplement di Londra, sono ai poli opposti nei loro giudizi. La recensione del 31 agosto 1911 loda la poesia ma obietta al metodo di Chesterton:
Siamo consapevoli per tutto il tempo che Mr. Chesterton sta cercando di spiegarci le sue idee, e lo vediamo dietro tutti i suoi Danesi e Sassoni… . Alla fine Alfredo profetizza che ora, ‘in qualche secolo lontano, triste e lento’, i pagani torneranno sotto nuova veste a minacciare di nuovo la fede e la civiltà. Quando fa questo, la voce di Mr. Chesterton è più chiara che mai e sappiamo che ci sta parlando dei nostri peccati presenti.
Un punto di vista contrario apparve poco dopo la morte di GK:
La critica è d’umore ardito quando s’incarica di rilasciare certificati d’immortalità… . Ma forse tra i passi che saranno ricordati vi è quello in cui Alfredo travestito risponde ai menestrelli pagani con l’essenza della fede stessa del poeta:
“Ché sebbene cacciate l’uomo cristiano
Come una lepre sul fianco della collina,
Quella lepre ha ancora più cuore a correre
Di quanto voi abbiate cuore a cavalcare.
“Ché sebbene ogni lancia su di voi si spezzi,
Ogni spada sia levata invano,
Noi abbiamo più brama di perdere ancora
Che voi di vincere ancora.
(III:335-42)
Egli sapeva sempre trovare quelle parole gravi e semplici, per la prosa come per il verso, quando il suo cuore era mosso più nel profondo. E parole di tale stampo di rado sono scritte sull’acqua. (7 novembre 1936)
Un’edizione annotata della BWH avrebbe permesso a due critici della New York Times Book Review di riconoscere lo sfondo storico dell’epica. L’osservazione linguistica del primo recensore è notevole:
Si dibatte nei circoli letterari di Londra se ‘The Ballad of the White Horse’ vivrà più a lungo dei saggi e delle biografie dell’autore. È più che un poema epico narrato in semplice forma narrativa. È un tentativo di fare ciò che fece Balzac quando disse agli amici di aver scoperto un raro manoscritto di racconti scritti in francese del quindicesimo secolo, ingannò tutti, e poi confessò di esserne l’autore. Benché l’ortografia della ballata di Mr. Chesterton le impedirebbe di trarre in inganno un filologo, lo stile e il colorito valgono qualunque imitazione di Chatterton. Ma, come dice l’autore nella prefazione, non ha bisogno di note storiche. La carriera di King Alfred, che ne è il tema, a differenza di quella di King Arthur, non è una leggenda, benché le leggende siano le cose più importanti che lo riguardano. Mr. Chesterton ha ora accresciuto la lista. (3 dicembre 1911)
Chesterton è in parte da biasimare per questa stima. Fuorviò i recensori americani dicendo “Questa ballata non ha bisogno di note storiche”. La seconda recensione, del 4 febbraio 1912, comincia:
E la poesia si scrive ancora. Se qualcuno ne dubita, legga la ‘Ballad of the White Horse’ di Gilbert K. Chesterton. Si fonda sulle leggende narrate di Alfredo il Grande, ed è (a eccezione di certi monologhi chiacchieroni da parte di King Alfred) un formidabile poema di religione e di guerra—due cose eccellenti che nella loro purezza vanno di solito insieme. Qua e là le stanze risaltano con rilievo quasi sorprendente… . ‘The Ballad of the White Horse’ è troppo lunga. C’è buona stoffa perfino nelle sue ridondanze, ma questo è fuori questione. Se Mr. Chesterton avesse avuto la risolutezza di potarla con discernimento, avrebbe potuto produrre una delle poesie più robustamente pittoresche del secolo.
■ ■ ■
Il poeta anglo-americano premio Pulitzer, W. H. Auden, approva la lunghezza: “Nel caso del suo poema serio più lungo e forse più grande, ‘The Ballad of the White Horse’, non trovo tuttavia, sono lieto di dirlo, la lunghezza eccessiva. Quando, per esempio, Elf il Menestrello, il conte Ogier e Guthrum esprimono a turno le loro concezioni della Condizione Umana, ciò che cantano non potrebbe essere ulteriormente condensato senza perdita” (Cordon 1987,319).
■ ■ ■
Il professor Garry Wills, eminente chestertoniano, percepisce l’apertura di Alfredo ai piani di Dio (1961,142):
La visione di Alfredo ad Athelney è solo l’inizio della rivelazione, in lui e attraverso di lui, di questo misticismo cristiano. Il poema sale a una visione più alta al suo culmine, il centro di calma luce in cui un bambino gioca—uno strano, idillico interludio collocato drammaticamente in uno scenario di guerra e strage. È questa luce bianca che accende i colori variegati della battaglia e dell’eroismo e della vittoria. Ogni verso del poema conduce a quella visione o ne discende. Alfredo ne esprime una nuova faccia in ogni episodio.
Trent’anni dopo Garry Wills si rammarica: La Ballata del Cavallo Bianco è un “capolavoro trascurato del verso narrativo” 107 (1990):532.
■ ■ ■
Lo spazio consente solo brevi selezioni dal coro degli ammiratori: C. S. Lewis asserisce che il poema è “permanente e senza data”: “Non incarna forse il tema centrale della Ballata—il messaggio altamente paradossale che Alfredo riceve dalla Vergine—il sentimento, e il solo sentimento possibile, con cui in ogni epoca uomini quasi sconfitti riprendono le armi che restano loro e vincono?” (Cordon 1987,71). James Dollard, mentre ne esalta il “vigore maschile e la purezza di tono”, predice: “La Ballata del Cavallo Bianco continuerà a perpetuare il nome dell’autore negli anni futuri, e sarà custodita come un classico della letteratura inglese” Catholic World 95 (aprile 1912):41-55.
Si rifletta anche sulla penetrante sintesi di Christopher Hollis:
La Ballata del Cavallo Bianco narra la storia della battaglia di Alfredo e del suo esercito cristiano contro gli invasori danesi pagani e della loro disfatta nella battaglia di Ethandune all’ombra del Cavallo Bianco, ma è assai più di un mero resoconto di battaglia e vittoria. È la storia dell’eterna guerra contro il male cui l’uomo cristiano è, per la natura della sua professione, incessantemente votato. Ma naturalmente è fraintendere totalmente il poema vedervi qualche promessa di sicurezza finalmente conseguita in esito a una vittoria. L’intera lezione del poema è che la sicurezza non può mai essere conseguita in via definitiva. È sempre, per sua natura, sotto sfida, e la morte è sempre la fine (1970,150).
Michael Ffinch concorda in sostanza con molti lettori: “Il tema è la causa che Chesterton stesso aveva difeso, la causa della Cristianità contro le forze delle tenebre pagane che di continuo la assalgono” (1986,197). Nell’opinione di George N. Shuster: “ ‘La Ballata del Cavallo Bianco’ è un poema da amare e persino da cantare, che sono cose più importanti del metterlo su uno scaffale e chiamarlo grande” (1922,234).

Unità di tempo e di luogo
Chesterton incarna preistoria, storia, tradizione, leggenda, mitologia, il soprannaturale e il romanzesco nella Ballata del Cavallo Bianco. Pur restando fedele alla storia, GKC si prende libertà con la geografia del Wessex. Segue una tradizione popolare e colloca la battaglia di Ethandune nella Valle del Cavallo Bianco, in vista del Cavallo Bianco sulla collina del Cavallo Bianco nel Berkshire. Nel Libro IV Chesterton pone la donna nella foresta presso la Pietra di Egbert, a parecchie miglia dalla sua leggendaria dimora sull’isola paludosa di Athelney.
All’inizio dell’878 la Madre di Dio appare ad Alfredo sull’isola fluviale di Athelney nel Somersetshire. Nella Riunione dei Capi Alfredo va dapprima a nord verso Eldred, il franklin presso l’estuario del Severn, poi a nord e a est da Mark, probabilmente nei pressi di Bath, e infine nel Galles sud-orientale da Colan, a Caerleon sull’Usk. Nell’Arpa di Alfredo troviamo il re travestito nel Berkshire a esplorare i dintorni del campo danese nella Valle del Cavallo Bianco. Alcuni danesi in baldoria lo conducono nel campo, dove Guthrum lo invita a suonare e cantare. Più saggio dopo la visita esplorativa, Alfredo attende l’arrivo delle sue truppe. Vedi E IV:59-60.
Gli eventi dei Libri V, VI e VII si svolgono dal 6 al 20 maggio 878 nella Valle del Cavallo Bianco. Il Libro VIII abbraccia l’intervallo tra il battesimo di Guthrum (878) e la conclusione dell’ultima guerra di Alfredo nell’896. L’azione del conflitto 892-896 si svolge in vari settori della Britannia e lungo le acque costiere (VIII: 214-30, 315-71, e Note finali).

NOTA PRELIMINARE
Questa ballata non ha bisogno di note storiche, per la semplice ragione che non pretende d’essere storica. Tutto ciò che in essa non è francamente fittizio, come in ogni romanzo in prosa sul passato, intende sottolineare la tradizione più che la storia. Re Alfredo non è una leggenda nel senso in cui re Artù può essere una leggenda; cioè nel senso che potrebbe forse essere una menzogna. Ma re [10] Alfredo è una leggenda in questo senso più ampio e più umano: che le leggende sono la cosa più importante che lo riguardi.
Il culto di Alfredo fu un culto popolare, dalle tenebre del nono secolo al crepuscolo sempre più fondo del ventesimo. È interamente come leggenda popolare che io lo tratto qui. Scrivo da uomo ignaro di tutto, salvo d’aver trovato la leggenda di un re del Wessex [20] ancora viva nel paese. Darò tre casi succinti di ciò che intendo. Una tradizione lega la vittoria finale di Alfredo alla valle nel Berkshire detta Valle del Cavallo Bianco. Ho visto dubbi sulla tradizione, che possono essere dubbi validi. Non so quando né dove la storia sia cominciata; basta che sia cominciata da qualche parte e finita con me; poiché io cerco solo di scrivere su un sentito dire, [30] come facevano gli antichi balladisti. Per il secondo caso, c’è un racconto popolare che Alfredo suonò l’arpa e cantò nel campo danese; lo scelgo perché è un racconto popolare, in qualunque tempo sia sorto. Per il terzo caso, c’è un racconto popolare che Alfredo ebbe a che fare con una donna e delle focacce: lo scelgo perché è un racconto popolare, perché è un racconto volgare. È stato contestato da storici gravi, [40] i quali erano, credo, un poco troppo gravi per esserne buoni giudici. Le due accuse principali contro la storia sono che fu registrata per la prima volta molto dopo la morte di Alfredo, e che (come sostiene il signor Oman) Alfredo non vagò mai davvero tutto solo senza thane né soldati. Entrambe le obiezioni potrebbero forse essere confutate. Ci è occorso quasi altrettanto tempo per apprendere tutta la verità su Byron, e forse più per apprendere [50] tutta la verità su Pepys, di quanto ne trascorse tra Alfredo e la prima scrittura di tali racconti. E quanto all’altra obiezione, credono davvero gli storici che Alfredo dopo Wilton, o Napoleone dopo Lipsia, non abbiano mai passeggiato in un bosco da soli per un’ora o due? Dieci minuti potrebbero bastare per l’essenza della storia. Ma non mi preme provare la verità di queste [60] tradizioni popolari. Mi basta sostenere due cose: che sono tradizioni popolari; e che senza queste tradizioni popolari ci saremmo curati di Alfredo pressappoco quanto ci curiamo di Eadwig.
Un’altra considerazione richiede una nota. Alfredo è giunto fino a noi nel modo migliore (cioè per leggende nazionali) unicamente per la stessa ragione di Artù e di Rolando [70] e degli altri giganti di quella tenebra: perché combatté per la civiltà cristiana contro il nichilismo pagano. Ma poiché quest’opera fu compiuta in realtà da generazione dopo generazione, dai romani prima di ritirarsi, e dai britanni finché rimasero, ho riassunto questa prima crociata in un triplice simbolo, e ho dato a un romano, a un celta e a un sassone fittizi una parte nella gloria di Ethandune. [80] Immagino che in realtà il Wessex di Alfredo fosse di sangui assai misti: ma in ogni caso, è il pregio principale della leggenda mescolare i secoli conservando il sentimento; vedere tutte le età in una sorta di splendido scorcio. Questo è l’uso della tradizione: essa fa cannocchiale della storia.
G. K. C.

A
MIA MOGLIE

DEDICA
Di grandi membra date al caos,
di un gran volto fatto notte—
perché chinarsi su informe sudario
cercando in nube così arcaica
vista di forti signori e di luce? [5]
Dove sette Inghilterre sommerse
giacciono sepolte una ad una,
perché mai un’oziosa vanga, io mi chiedo,
dovrebbe levare come tuono la polvere dei thane
a far fumo e soffocare il sole? [10]
In nube d’argilla così scagliata al cielo
quale forma discernerà l’uomo?
Questi signori forse rischiarano il mistero
del dominio o della vittoria,
e alti cavalcano nella storia, [15]
ma questi non torneranno.
Trafitto sul gonfalone normanno
morì il Drago d’Oro;
non desteremo con corde di ballata
il buon tempo delle cose più piccole, [20]
non vedremo i santi re
scendere a cavallo lungo il Severn.
Rigida, strana, di curiosi colori
come il ricamo di Bayeux
resta l’Inghilterra di quell’alba, [25]
e questa di Alfredo e dei Danesi
pare fiaba che un’intera tribù finge,
troppo inglese per esser vera.
Di un buon re sopra un’isola
che vi regnò, c’era una volta, un tempo; [30]
e mentre camminava presso un melo
vennero diavoli verdi dal mare
con alghe marine a strascico greve
e scie di bava d’opale.
Eppure Alfredo non è fiaba; [35]
i suoi giorni corsero come i nostri,
anch’egli guardò fuori per un’ora
su piane popolose e cieli incombenti,
da quelle poche finestre della torre
che è la testa di un uomo. [40]
Ma chi guarderà dal cappuccio di Alfredo
o respirerà vivo il suo respiro?
Il suo secolo come piccola nube scura
va lontano alla deriva; è folla senza occhi,
dove urlano alte le trombe torturate [45]
e piombano fitte le frecce.
Signora, per una sola luce
guardiamo dagli occhi di Alfredo,
sappiamo che vide, attraverso il naufragio,
il segno che pende dal tuo collo, [50]
dove Uno più grande di Melchisedec
è morto e mai non muore.
Perciò ti porto queste rime,
tu che mi portasti la croce,
poiché su te, fiammante senza pecca, [55]
vidi il segno che Guthrum vide
quando lasciò infrangersi le sue navi tremende,
e pose pace sul mare.
Ricordi quando andammo
sotto una luna di drago, [60]
e fra tinte vulcaniche di notte
camminammo dove fu combattuta l’ignota battaglia
e vedemmo alberi neri sull’altura della pugna,
nero pruno su Ethandune?
E pensai: «Andrò con te, [65]
come l’uomo è andato con Dio,
e vagherò con una stella errante,
il cuore errante delle cose che sono,
la croce di fuoco d’amore e di guerra
che, come te, va avanti». [70]
O va’ tu avanti; dove sei
saranno onore e riso,
oltre foresta purpurea e spuma imperlata,
padiglione alato di Dio libero al vagare,
il tuo volto, che è errante casa, [75]
una casa in volo per me.
Cavalca per le terre del muto terremoto,
vaste come è vasta una landa,
attraverso questi giorni come deserti, quando
l’orgoglio e una piccola penna che gratta [80]
hanno seccato e spaccato i cuori degli uomini:
cuore degli eroi, cavalca.
Su per una vuota casa di stelle,
essendo il cuore che sei,
su per le inumane erte dello spazio [85]
come su una scala sali in grazia,
portando la luce del focolare sul volto
oltre la stella più sola.
Prendi queste; in memoria dell’ora [90]
che vagammo un poco da casa
e vedemmo i borghi color fumo, pittoreschi
di re dell’Ovest e di santo dell’Ovest,
e guardammo svanire la gloria d’occidente
lungo la strada per Frome.
G. K. C.

LIBRO I
LA VISIONE DEL RE

LA BALLATA DEL
CAVALLO BIANCO
Prima che gli dèi che fecero gli dèi
Vedessero passare la loro aurora,
Il Cavallo Bianco della Valle del Cavallo Bianco
Era intagliato nell’erba.
Prima che gli dèi che fecero gli dèi [5]
Bevessero all’alba a sazietà,
Il Cavallo Bianco della Valle del Cavallo Bianco
Biancheggiava canuto sul colle.
Età dopo età sulla terra britanna,
Eoni su eoni trascorsi, [10]
Fu pace e guerra sui colli d’occidente,
E il Cavallo Bianco stava a guardare.
Ché il Cavallo Bianco conobbe l’Inghilterra
Quando nessuno era a conoscerla;
Vide il primo remo spezzarsi o piegarsi,
Vide cadere il cielo e finire il mondo,
O Dio, quanto tempo fa.
Ché la fine del mondo fu molto tempo fa—
E noi tutti oggi dimoriamo
Come figli di una seconda nascita, [20]
Come un popolo strano lasciato sulla terra
Dopo un giorno del giudizio.
Ché la fine del mondo fu molto tempo fa,
Quando i confini del mondo si fecero liberi,
Quando Roma affondò in una landa di schiavi, [25]
E il sole annegò nel mare.
Quando il sole di Cesare cadde dal cielo
E chi tendeva bene l’orecchio
Poteva udire soltanto il precipitare
Delle nazioni nella notte. [30]
Quando i confini della terra vennero marciando
Al bagliore di torcia e di lanterna,
E le strade del mondo che portano a Roma
Si colmarono di volti mossi come schiuma,
Come volti in un sogno. [35]
E uomini cavalcarono dalle terre d’oriente,
Largo fiume e pianura ardente;
Alberi che a vederli sono fiori di Titani,
E cieli di tigre, orridamente striati,
Con tinte di pioggia tropicale. [40]
Dove sorgono le vette smaltate dell’India
Intorno a quella più interna,
Dove antiche aquile sul suo orlo,
Vaste come arcangeli, si adunano e bevono
Il sacramento del sole. [45]
E uomini irruppero dalle terre del nord,
Terre enormi e solitarie,
Dove un incanto grava sulla vita e sulla brama
E la pioggia è mutata in polvere d’argento
E il mare in una grande pietra verde. [50]
E una Forma che si muove torbida
In specchi di ghiaccio e di notte,
Ha sbiancato di paura ogni bestia e ogni uccello,
Come la morte e un urto di parole malvagie
Sbiancano d’un tratto i capelli d’un uomo. [55]
E il grido delle palme e delle lune purpuree,
O il grido del gelo e della schiuma,
Turbinava senza posa attorno a un luogo più interno,
E il frastuono di stirpe lontana su stirpe
Gridava e rispondeva intorno a Roma. [60]
E ci fu morte sull’Imperatore
E notte sopra il Papa;
E Alfredo, nascosto nell’erba alta,
Si temprò il cuore di speranza.
Un popolo di mare più cieco del mare [65]
Si frangeva tutt’intorno alla sua terra,
Ma Alfredo contro di loro si levò
E strinse il suolo e afferrò l’aria,
Barcollò, e lottò per stare in piedi.
Li ricacciò con lancia e vanga, [70]
Con argine e muro disperati,
Coi nemici addossati al suo scudo
A ruggirgli addosso quando vacillava
E nessun aiuto giungeva.
Li spezzò con una spada spezzata [75]
Un poco verso il mare,
E per un’ora di pace ansimante,
Cinto da un ruggito che non cessava,
Con corona d’oro e vello ai fianchi
Fece leggi sotto un albero. [80]
• • • • • • •
Gli Uomini del Nord calarono sulla nostra terra,
Una cavalleria senza Cristo:
Che nulla sapevano dell’arco o della penna,
Uomini grandi, belli e mezzo dementi
Venuti dall’aurora e dal mare. [85]
Navi deformi stavano sull’abisso
Piene di strano oro e di fuoco,
E uomini irsuti, enormi come il peccato,
Con teste cornute, vennero guadando
Per il lungo, basso fango marino. [90]
Le nostre città furono scosse da re altissimi
Con barbe scarlatte come sangue;
Il mondo si faceva vuoto dove passavano,
Presero la benigna croce di Dio
E la fecero a pezzi per legna. [95]
Le loro anime andavano alla deriva come il mare,
E ogni buona città e terra
La vedevano solo con occhi grevi,
E la spezzavano con grevi mani.
I loro dèi erano più tristi del mare, [100]
Dèi di volontà errante,
Che gridavano per sangue come bestie nella notte,
Tristemente, di colle in colle.
Parevano alberi che camminano la terra,
Altrettanto insensati e alti, [105]
Eppure fecero presa sui cieli
E nessun aiuto giungeva.
Si moltiplicarono come uccelli nei boschi inglesi,
Attecchirono come la rosa,
Quando Alfredo venne ad Athelney [110]
Per celarsi ai loro archi.
Non restava armatura inglese,
Né alcuna cosa inglese,
Quando Alfredo venne ad Athelney
Per essere un re inglese. [115]
Ché terremoto inghiottendo terremoto
Sradicò l’albero del Wessex;
Il vortice del dominio pagano
Aveva travolto i suoi padri come fuscelli
Quando una piena percuote il mare. [120]
E i grandi re del Wessex
Si stancarono e affondarono nel sangue,
E persino i loro spettri in quel gran travaglio
Si fecero sempre più grigi, sempre più scarsi,
Coi signori che morirono in Lyonesse [125]
E il re che non torna più.
E il Dio del Drago d’Oro
Era muto sul suo trono,
E il signore del Drago d’Oro
Correva nei boschi solo. [130]
E se mai saliva la cresta della fortuna
E piantava innanzi il vessillo,
Tornando come torna una ruota,
Venivano la rovina e la pioggia che brucia,
E tutto ricominciava. [135]
E nulla restò a re Alfredo
Se non vergognose lacrime di rabbia,
Nell’isola in mezzo al fiume
Alla fine di tutta la sua età.
Nell’isola in mezzo al fiume [140]
Fu piegato in ginocchio;
E lesse, scritto con penna di ferro,
Che Dio si era stancato degli uomini del Wessex
E aveva dato il loro paese, campo e palude,
Ai demoni del mare. [145]
E vide in una piccola immagine,
Minuscola e lontana,
Sua madre seduta nella sala di Egberto,
E un libro che ella gli mostrava, piccolissimo,
Dove una Maria di zaffiro sedeva in trono [150]
Con un Cristo d’oro che giocava.
Era lavorato alla lenta maniera del monaco,
D’argento e di conchiglia sanguigna,
Dove le scene sono piccole e terribili,
Buchi di serratura sul cielo e sull’inferno. [155]
Nell’isola del fiume di Athelney,
Col fiume che scorreva accanto,
In colori di così semplice credo
Ogni cosa gli balzò incontro, sole ed erbaccia,
Finché l’erba divenne erba davvero [160]
E l’albero fu albero alfine.
Paurosamente nitidi crescevano i fiori,
Come il libro del bambino da leggere,
O come il volto d’un amico visto in uno specchio;
Guardò; e là era Nostra Signora, [165]
Stava e carezzava l’alta erba viva
Come un uomo carezza il suo destriero.
Il suo volto era come una parola aperta
Quando uomini coraggiosi parlano e scelgono,
I colori stessi della sua veste
Erano meglio d’una buona novella. [170]
Non parlò, né si volse,
Né alcun segno diede,
Solo stette dritta e libera,
Tra i fiori di Athelney, [175]
E il fiume che scorreva accanto.
Un fioco gioiello avito pendeva
Dalla sua grigia armatura in rovina,
Lo strappò e lo gettò ai piedi di lei:
Dove, dopo secoli, con lenti piedi, [180]
Uomini vennero da sala e scuola e strada
E lo trovarono dov’era caduto.
«Madre di Dio», disse l’errante,
«Non sono che un re qualunque,
Né chiederò ciò che i santi possono chiedere, [185]
Di vedere una cosa segreta.
«Le porte del cielo sono porte tremende,
Peggiori delle porte dell’inferno;
Non io vorrei violare gli splendori sbarrati
O cercar di sapere la cosa che custodiscono, [190]
Che è troppo buona a dirsi.
«Ma per questa terra pietosissima,
Questa piccola terra che conosco,
Se ciò che è per sempre è,
O se i nostri cuori si spezzeranno di beatitudine, [195]
Vedendo lo straniero andarsene?
«Quando l’ultimo nostro arco sarà spezzato, Regina,
E scagliato l’ultimo giavellotto,
Sotto un qualche triste, verde cielo di sera,
Levando alta una croce in rovina, [200]
Per giacere sotto la calda erba di ponente,
Torneremo a casa, infine?»
E venne una voce umana ma dall’alto,
Come una casupola arrampicata fra
Le nuvole; o un servo di capanna e campo [205]
Che siede come sempre al fuoco del suo tugurio,
Ma ode sul suo vecchio nudo tetto, lassù,
Un campanile prorompere in canto.
«Le porte del cielo son chiuse appena,
Non custodiamo il nostro guadagno, [210]
Il più tardo dei villani può facilmente
Venire silenzioso e improvviso
Su di me per un sentiero,
«E ogni piccola fanciulla che cammina
In disparte, in buoni pensieri, [215]
Può rompere la guardia dei Tre Re
E vedere le cose care e tremende
Che nascosi dentro il mio cuore.
«L’uomo più umile, andato per campi grigi
Dietro il calare del sole, [220]
Ode fra stella e altra stella,
Per la porta della tenebra rimasta socchiusa,
Il concilio, la più antica delle cose che sono,
Il colloquio dei Tre in Uno.
«Le porte del cielo son chiuse appena, [225]
Non custodiamo il nostro oro,
Gli uomini possono sradicare dove i mondi cominciano,
O leggere il nome del peccato senza nome;
Ma che fallisca o che vinca
A nessun uomo buono è detto. [230]
«Gli uomini d’Oriente sanno compitare le stelle,
E segnare tempi e trionfi,
Ma gli uomini segnati della croce di Cristo
Vanno lieti nel buio.
«Gli uomini d’Oriente possono scrutare i rotoli, [235]
Per fati certi e per fama,
Ma gli uomini che bevono il sangue di Dio
Vanno cantando verso la loro vergogna.
«I sapienti sanno quali cose malvagie
Sono scritte sul cielo, [240]
Regolano tristi lampade, toccano tristi corde,
Udendo le grevi ali purpuree,
Dove i dimenticati re serafini
Ancora tramano come Dio morrà.
«I sapienti sanno tutte le cose malvagie [245]
Sotto gli alberi contorti,
Dove i perversi languono nel piacere
E gli uomini sono stanchi del vino verde
E nauseati dei mari cremisi.
«Ma tu e tutta la stirpe di Cristo [250]
Siete ignoranti e coraggiosi,
E avete guerre che a stento vincete
E anime che a stento salvate.
«Nulla ti dico per tuo conforto,
Sì, nulla per tuo desiderio, [255]
Se non che il cielo si fa ancora più scuro
E il mare sale più alto.
«Notte sarà tre volte notte su di te,
E il cielo una cappa di ferro.
Hai tu gioia senza una causa, [260]
Sì, fede senza una speranza?»
Mentre ancora parlava, ella non fu più,
Né parola egli disse,
Solo udì, immobile là dove stava
Sotto il chino cappuccio della vecchia notte, [265]
Il popolo del mare abbattere il bosco
Come un’alta marea venuta dal mare.
Solo udì gli uomini pagani,
Dagli occhi azzurri e desolati,
Cantare di qualche cosa crudele [270]
Compiuta da un grande e sorridente re
In pieno giorno sul ponte d’una nave.
Solo udì gli uomini pagani,
Dagli occhi azzurri e ciechi,
Cantare quali cose vergognose si compiono [275]
Tra il mare assolato e il sole
Quando la terra è lasciata alle spalle.

LIBRO II
L’ADUNATA DEI CAPI

Su per ventose lande, e ancora su
Andò Alfredo oltre i boschetti,
Scosso dalla gioia dei giganti,
La gioia senza causa.
Sui pendii lontani verso le baie d’occidente, [5]
Dove non stormisce mai un albero,
Lavò la sua anima nel vento dell’ovest
E il suo corpo nel mare.
E si mise a rimare le sue misure di birra,
E cantò ad alta voce le sue leggi, [10]
Per la gioia dei giganti,
La gioia senza causa.
Ché il Re andava radunando gli uomini del Wessex,
Come grano fuor dalla pula,
I pochi rimasti vivi per morire, [15]
Ridendo, come i teschi sparsi che giacciono
Dopo battaglie perdute e volgono al cielo
Una risata eterna.
Il Re andava radunando uomini cristiani,
Come frumento fuor dal guscio; [20]
Eldred, il possidente in riva al mare,
E Marco, l’uomo venuto d’Italia,
E Colan dell’Albero Sacro,
Dell’antica tribù dell’Usk.
Il corvo gracchiò grave verso casa, [25]
L’ovest era chiaro e caldo,
Il fumo del cibo serale e del riposo
Saliva come un albero azzurro fra gli alberi
Quando giunse alla fattoria di Eldred.
Ma la fattoria di Eldred era tutta sbilenca, [30]
Come ossa di vecchio storpio,
E gli attrezzi di Eldred rossi di ruggine,
E sul suo pozzo una crosta verde,
E cardi purpurei spuntavano dritti,
Fra le pietre della cucina. [35]
Ma il fumo di qualche buon banchetto
Saliva senza posa verso l’alto,
E le porte di Eldred erano spalancate
Al piede ozioso e al carro affaticato,
E il grande e folle cuore di Eldred [40]
Stava aperto come la sua porta.
Un uomo possente era Eldred,
Una mole da colmare di botti,
Il volto una fornace sognante,
Il corpo una collina che cammina. [45]
Nelle antiche guerre del Wessex
La sua spada era affondata a fondo,
Ma tutti i suoi amici, sospirava e diceva,
Erano stati spezzati intorno a Ethelred;
E fra il bere profondo e i morti [50]
Era caduto nel sonno.
«Non venire da me, Re Alfredo,
Se non sempre per la birra;
Perché dovrebbero morire i miei miti contadini
Perché i capi gridano ancora una volta, [55]
Come in ogni battaglia, che vinceremo,
E in ogni battaglia falliamo?
«I tuoi scaldi ancora tuonano e profetizzano
Quella corona che mai non viene;
Amico, io veglierò sulle cose certe, [60]
I porci, e le lune lente come anelli d’argento,
E il maturare delle prugne.»
E Alfredo rispose, bevendo,
E gravemente, senza biasimo,
«Non porto vanto di scaldo né di re, [65]
Ciò che porto è cosa minore,
Ma viene in un nome migliore.
«Dalla bocca della Madre di Dio,
Più che dalle porte del destino,
Chiamo a raccolta gli uomini del Wessex [70]
Da erboso borgo o fosso o tana,
A spezzare ed essere spezzati, Dio sa quando,
Ma io ho visto per chi.
«Dalla bocca della Madre di Dio
Come una piccola parola io vengo; [75]
Ché vado radunando uomini cristiani
Da lastrico sommerso e guado e palude,
A morire in una battaglia, Dio sa quando,
Ma per Dio, io so perché.
«E questa è la parola di Maria, [80]
La parola del desiderio del mondo:
“Nessun altro conforto avrete,
Se non che il cielo si fa ancora più scuro
E il mare sale più alto.”»
Poi calò il silenzio. E lento [85]
Si levò il signore delle terre di mare,
Come una vasta bestia di mistero,
Riempì la stanza e il portico e il cielo,
E da un alto chiodo coperto di ragnatele
Staccò la sua pesante spada. [90]
Su per le stridule dune marine e su
Andò Alfredo tutto solo,
Voltandosi una sola volta prima che la porta si chiudesse,
Gridando a Eldred sopra la sua botte,
Che portasse ogni lancia alla capanna del boscaiolo [95]
Tagliata sotto la Pietra di Egbert.
E voltò le spalle e spezzò le felci,
E combatté le falene del crepuscolo,
E proseguì il cammino per altri amici,
Amici caduti da ogni estremo del vasto mondo, [100]
Da Roma che manda ira e perdono
E dalle grigie tribù dell’Usk.
Vide orme gigantesche di morte
E molte forme di sventura,
Buone fattorie ridotte in grigia cenere [105]
E la casa d’un monaco bianca come uno scheletro
Nella verde cripta della valle.
E in molte ville romane
Che la terra e le sue edere divorano,
Vide pavimenti colorati affondare e svanire [110]
Tra i fiori, e il colonnato ventoso
Come lo spettro d’una strada.
Ma le fredde stelle s’addensarono
Fra i freddi pini
Prima che fosse a metà del suo pellegrinaggio [115]
Oltre le linee d’occidente.
E la bianca alba si allargò
Prima che giungesse all’ultimo pino,
Dove Marco, l’uomo venuto d’Italia,
Ancora faceva il segno cristiano. [120]
La lunga fattoria giaceva sul largo fianco della collina,
Piatta come una pianta dipinta,
E accanto la bassa casa bianca,
Dove abitava l’uomo del meridione.
Un uomo abbronzato, con l’occhio vivo d’uccello, [125]
E becco e fronte di forte uccello,
La pelle bruna come oro sepolto,
E di certi suoi avi si narrava
Che vennero anticamente sulla splendente nave,
Con Cesare alla prua. [130]
I suoi alberi da frutto stavano come soldati
Schierati in linea retta,
I suoi strani, rigidi ulivi non venivano meno,
E tutti i re della terra bevevano birra,
Ma lui beveva vino. [135]
Per le vaste piane britanniche devastate
Non sorgeva arco né cupola,
Solo gli alberi ad agitarsi e vacillare,
Le tribù a litigare, le bestie a stridere;
Ma gli occhi nel suo capo erano forti come acciaio, [140]
E la sua anima ricordava Roma.
Allora Alfredo dalla lancia solitaria
Alzò la sua testa di leone;
E affrontato dall’occhio dell’italiano,
Che gli chiedeva donde venisse e perché, [145]
Re Alfredo stette e disse:
«Io sono quel Re tante volte sconfitto
Il cui fallimento riempie la terra,
Che un tempo fuggì davanti ai Danesi,
Che coi Danesi mercanteggiò con l’oro, [150]
Che ora sulla brughiera del Wessex
A stento ha piedi per stare ritto.
«Ma dalla bocca della Madre di Dio
Ho visto la verità come fuoco,
Questa — che il cielo si fa ancora più scuro [155]
E il mare sale più alto.»
A lungo guardò il romano la terra;
Gli alberi come corone d’oro
Fiammeggiavano, intrisi d’alba e imperlati di rugiada,
Mentre di colore più tenue, di riccio più fresco, [160]
Le nubi da sotto il mondo
Si levavano sopra le colline.
«Queste viti sono funi che mi trattengono forte»,
Disse. «Io non vado lontano;
Dove vi radunerete? Ché dovete tenere [165]
Mezzo Wiltshire e la brughiera del Cavallo Bianco,
E la riva del Tamigi fino a Owsenfold,
Se il Wessex va in guerra.
«Guthrum siede forte su entrambe le rive
E voi dovete premere le sue linee [170]
Verso l’interno, e ricacciarlo giù a oriente;
Dubito che prenderete la corona
Finché non avrete preso la città di Londra.
Quanto a me, io ho le viti.»
«Se ogni uomo nel Giorno del Giudizio [175]
Incontrerà Dio su una piana, solo»,
Disse Alfredo, «io parlerò per te
Come per me stesso e dirò per vero
Che portasti tutta la gente d’armi che conoscevi
Schierata sotto la Pietra di Egbert. [180]
«E sia pur io nella polvere prima d’allora,
So dove tu sarai.»
E mettendosi d’un tratto la lancia in spalla
Svanì come un elfico timore,
Dove gli alti pini salivano, fila su fila, [185]
Albero sovrastante albero.
Portava la lancia in spalla al mattino
E rideva nel caricarsela,
Ma si appoggiava alla lancia come a un bastone,
Con vigore e poca voglia di ridere, [190]
Prima ancora di scorgere pulcino o vitello
Di Colan di Caerleon.
Ché l’uomo dimorava in una terra perduta
Di macigni e di uomini spezzati,
In una grande grigia caverna lontano a sud [195]
Dove una fitta foresta verde ne chiudeva la bocca,
Dando tenebra alla sua tana.
E l’uomo era venuto come un’ombra,
Dall’ombra degli alberi druidici,
Dove l’Usk, con possenti mormorii, [200]
Oltre Caerleon dei re caduti,
Esce verso mari spettrali.
Ultimo d’una stirpe in rovina —
Parlava la lingua dei Gaeli;
I suoi parenti erano nella santa Irlanda, [205]
O su fra le rupi del Galles.
Ma la sua anima stava con la gente di sua madre,
Ch’era dell’isola avvolta di pioggia,
Dove Patrizio e Brandano a occidente
Guardarono infine un mare senza terra [210]
E l’ultimo sorriso del sole.
La sua arpa era intagliata e ingegnosa,
Come la fa l’artigiano celtico,
Tutta incisa di forme attorte
Come tanti serpenti senza testa. [215]
La sua arpa era intagliata e ingegnosa,
La sua spada pronta e affilata,
Ed era lieto quando impugnava la spada,
Triste quando teneva l’arpa.
Ché i grandi Gaeli d’Irlanda [220]
Sono gli uomini che Dio fece folli,
Ché tutte le loro guerre sono allegre,
E tutti i loro canti sono tristi.
Osservava l’ordine romano,
Faceva il segno cristiano; [225]
Ma i suoi occhi si facevano spesso ciechi e lucenti,
E il mare che saliva fra le rocce di notte
Gli saliva alla testa come vino.
Faceva il segno della croce di Dio,
Conosceva la preghiera romana, [230]
Ma aveva la dissennatezza nel cuore
Per via degli dèi che furono.
Proprio quelli che camminavano sulle alte scogliere,
Alte allora quanto le nuvole,
Dèi di bellezza insostenibile [235]
Che spezzavano i cuori degli uomini.
E fosse su scranno o in sella,
Fosse accigliato o sorridente,
Fosse a banchetto o in battaglia,
Udiva il rumore d’un mare senza nome [240]
Su un’isola mai scoperta.
Sollevando la grande edera verde
E abbassando la grande lancia,
Uno disse: «Io sono Alfredo del Wessex,
E sono un re vinto.» [245]
E l’uomo della caverna rispose,
E i suoi occhi erano stelle di scherno,
«E re migliori furono vinti
Prima ancora che nascessero i tuoi avi.
«Quale dea fu tua madre, [250]
Quale fata generò la tua stirpe,
Perché tu non morissi con Uther
E Artù e Lancillotto?
«Ma quando vincete vi vantate e vi gonfiate,
E quando perdete inveite, [255]
Esercito di bifolchi d’oriente
Non abbastanza forti per fallire.»
«Non porto vanto né invettiva»,
Parlò Alfredo senz’ira,
«Porto da Nostra Signora una lezione assegnata, [260]
Questa — che il cielo si fa ancora più scuro
E il mare sale più alto.»
Allora Colan dell’Albero Sacro
Scosse in alto la nera criniera,
E gridò, mentre rigido si levava, [265]
«E se il mare e il cielo son nemici,
Noi domeremo il mare e il cielo.»
Sorrise Alfredo: «Cercate una favola
Più vertiginosa e più tremenda
Di tutti i vostri folli racconti barbari [270]
Dove il cielo sta a testa in giù?
«Un racconto dove un uomo guarda dall’alto il cielo
Che a lungo dall’alto lo ha guardato;
Un racconto dove un uomo può inghiottire un mare
Che potrebbe inghiottire i serafini. [275]
«Portate alla capanna presso la Pietra di Egbert
Tutte le ronche e gli archi che avete.»
E Alfredo si allontanò a gran passi,
E Colan dell’Albero Sacro
Andò lentamente alla sua caverna. [280]

LIBRO III
L’ARPA DI ALFREDO

N un albero sbadigliante e contorto
Stavano gettati i pochi beni del Re,
Un messale ammuffito, riga per riga,
E armi e un otre di vino,
E una vecchia arpa scordata. [5]
Presso l’albero sbadigliante, nel crepuscolo,
Il Re slacciò la sua spada,
Divise l’arpa da ogni altro suo bene,
E là, nei boschi freschi e senza suono,
Fece risuonare un solo accordo. [10]
Poi rise; e guardò i fringuelli guizzare,
Le mosche cupe in sciame,
E andò disarmato oltre i colli,
Con l’arpa sul braccio.
Finché giunse alla Valle del Bianco Cavallo [15]
E vide oltre le piane,
Nel crepuscolo alto, remoto e crudele,
Come le terrazze infuocate dell’inferno,
I fuochi del campo dei Danesi—
I fuochi della Grande Armata [20]
Ch’era fatta di uomini di ferro,
I cui lumi di sacrilegio e di scherno
Correvano intorno all’Inghilterra rossi come l’alba,
Fuochi sul Biancospino di Glastonbury—
Fuochi laggiù sulla palude di Ely. [25]
E passando per la Valle del Bianco Cavallo
Vide giacere pallido e vasto
Il vecchio cavallo inciso, Dio sa quando,
Da dèi o da bestie o da ciò che allora
Percorreva un mondo nuovo in vece d’uomini [30]
E lo tracciò sul fianco del colle.
E quando giunse al Poggio del Bianco Cavallo
Il gran Bianco Cavallo era grigio,
Ché mal ripulito era dall’erbaccia,
E lichene e spina potevano strisciare e pascersi, [35]
Da che i nemici di casa e fede stabili
Avevano spazzato via le opere antiche.
King Alfred guardava tutto dolente
Cardi e muschi grigi,
Finché una masnada di Danesi con scudo e roncola [40]
Rotolò ubriaca sulla cupola del colle,
E, udito dell’arpa sua e dell’arte,
Lo trascinarono al loro sollazzo.
E mentre andavano per l’alta erba verde
Ruggivano come il gran mare verde; [45]
Ma quando giunsero al rosso fuoco del campo
Tacquero d’improvviso.
E mentre salivano per le lande deserte
Andavano barcollando qua e là;
Ma quando giunsero al rosso fuoco del campo [50]
Stettero tutti in fila.
Ché dorato nella luce del fuoco,
Con un sorriso scolpito sulle labbra,
E una barba arricciata con arte fina,
Stava Guthrum del Mare del Nord, [55]
L’imperatore delle navi—
Con tre grandi conti re Guthrum
Faceva il giro di fuoco in fuoco,
Con Harold, nipote del Re,
E Ogier della Pietra e della Fionda, [60]
Ed Elf, il cui liuto d’oro aveva una corda
Che sospirava come ogni desiderio.
I Conti della Grande Armata
Che nessun nato d’uomo poteva stancare,
Le cui fiamme, vicine o lontane, [65]
S’impadronivano di torri o di mura ben salde,
Fuoco sul tetto di Glastonbury
E laggiù su Ely, fuoco.
E Guthrum udì il racconto dei soldati
E ordinò allo straniero di suonare; [70]
Non con durezza, ma come uno dall’alto,
Su una colonna di marmo nel cielo,
Che vede tutte le genti che vivono e muoiono—
Pigmee e lontane.
E Alfredo, Re del Wessex, [75]
Guardò il suo conquistatore—
E le sue mani s’indurirono; ma suonò,
E tacendo ogni odio a venire,
Cantò di un’antica scorreria britanna
Sulla selvaggia marca d’occidente d’un tempo. [80]
Cantò di guerra nelle contee calde e piovose,
Dove non mancano pioggia né frutti,
Dove l’Inghilterra dagli stati screziati
Si fa folta come un giardino fino alle porte
Nelle mura purpuree del Galles. [85]
Cantò dei mari di teste selvagge
E dei mari e mari di lance,
Ribollenti su tutto il Vallo di Offa,
Al tempo in cui una mazza del Wessex sapeva colpire
I re dei montanari. [90]
Finché Harold rise e strappò l’arpa,
Il congiunto del Re,
Un giovane grosso, imberbe come un bimbo,
Che il vino nuovo della guerra rendeva folle,
Percosse le corde, e prese a cantare— [95]
E gridò delle navi come aquile
Che volteggiano feroci e volano,
E spazzano i mari e colpiscono le città
Da Cipro fino a Skye.
Con che rapidità e con che rischio [100]
Radunano ogni bene,
Le alte corna delle bestie della foresta,
O le pietre segrete dei re.
“Ché a Roma fu dato governare il mondo,
E poca gioia ne trasse— [105]
Ma noi, noi il mondo lo godremo,
L’intero immenso mondo un balocco.
“Gran vino come sangue di Borgogna,
Mantelli come le nubi di Tiro,
E marmo come solido chiaro di luna, [110]
E oro come fuoco gelato.
“Profumi che un uomo potrebbe tracannare in coppa,
Pietre che un uomo potrebbe mangiare,
E le grandi donne lisce come avorio
Che i Turchi vendono per strada.” [115]
Cantò il trono del ladro del mondo,
E gli dèi che amano il ladro;
E urlò forte contro i chiostri,
Dove gli uomini vanno a mietere dolore.
“Bene hai cantato, o straniero, [120]
Della morte sul vallo in Galles,
Il tuo capo era un donatore di anelli;
Ma il rosso fiume ininterrotto
D’una stirpe non scorre in eterno,
D’un tratto viene meno. [125]
“Certo i tuoi padri roteavano la spada
Quando guadavano freschi di schiuma,
Prima d’esser mutati in femmine
Dal dio dei chiodi venuto da Roma;
“Ma da che vi piegaste agli uomini rasati, [130]
Che non bramano né colpiscono,
Tuono di Thor, vi diamo la caccia,
Lepre sull’altura del monte.”
Re Guthrum sorrise appena,
E disse: “Basta così, [135]
Nipote, che Elf riaccordi la corda;
A un ragazzo piace per forza il muggito,
Ma le vecchie orecchie di un re accorto
Godono di canti meno rudi.”
Occhi azzurri aveva Elf il menestrello, [140]
Con chioma e anello da donna,
Ma greve era la sua mano sulla spada,
Benché lieve sulla corda.
E come mosse le corde dell’arpa
Su note quattro o cinque appena, [145]
Il cuore d’ogni uomo si mosse in lui
Come un bimbo sepolto vivo.
E sentirono la terra dei canti del popolo
Stendersi a sud del Danese,
E udirono scorrere il buon Reno [150]
Nel cuore di tutta l’Alemagna.
Sentirono la terra dei canti del popolo,
Dove i doni pendono dall’albero,
Dove le fanciulle versano birra al mattino
E le lacrime vengono facili. [155]
Il popolo possente, come donna,
Che prova piacere nella sua pena
Mentre cantava di Balder il bello,
Che i cieli amarono invano.
Mentre cantava di Balder il bello, [160]
Che i cieli non poterono salvare,
Finché il mondo fu come un mare di lacrime
E ogni anima un’onda.
“C’è sempre una cosa dimenticata
Quando tutto il mondo va bene; [165]
Una cosa dimenticata, come un tempo
Quando gli dèi dimenticarono il vischio,
E silenziosa come freccia di neve
Cadde la freccia dell’angoscia.
“La cosa sul lato cieco del cuore, [170]
Sul lato sbagliato della porta,
La verde pianta cresce, minacciando
Gli onnipotenti amanti in primavera;
C’è sempre una cosa dimenticata,
E l’amore non è al sicuro.” [175]
E tutti quelli seduti al fuoco erano tristi,
Tranne Ogier, che era duro,
E i suoi occhi s’indurirono, fino a farsi pietre,
Quando prese l’arpa a sua volta;
Il conte Ogier della Pietra e della Fionda [180]
Era strano a udirsi e a vedersi,
Vecchio era, ma rosse le sue chiome,
E motti eran tutte le parole che diceva,
Eppure era triste a mensa e a letto
E selvaggio nella battaglia. [185]
“Cantate con leggerezza i giovani dèi
Nei giorni in cui siete giovani;
Ma io vado fiutando tasso e zolle,
E so che vi sono dèi dietro gli dèi,
Dèi che è meglio non cantare. [190]
“E un uomo si fa brutto per le donne,
E un uomo si fa ottuso di birra,
Bene se trova nella sua anima infine
Furia, che non viene meno.
“L’ira degli dèi dietro gli dèi [195]
Che squarcerebbero ogni dio e ogni uomo,
Bene se il cuore del vecchio ha ancora
Ruote lanciate di rabbia e volontà ruggente,
Come cateratte per abbattere e uccidere,
Bene per il vecchio allora— [200]
“Finché resta un alto tempio da scuotere,
O un uomo vivo da squarciare;
Per l’ira degli dèi dietro gli dèi
Che sono stanchi, e vogliono farla finita.
“Vive un solo istante per un uomo [205]
Quando la porta alla sua spalla trema,
Quando la fune tesa si spezza sotto lo strappo,
E il ramo più spoglio è bello
Un istante, mentre si schianta.
“Così cavalca la mia anima sul mare [210]
Che beve le navi urlanti,
E benché per nero scherzo s’inchini e annuisca
Sotto le lune dalle verghe d’argento,
Io so che ruggisce contro gli dèi,
Aspettando l’ultima eclissi. [215]
“E nell’ultima eclissi il mare
Si leverà come una torre,
Sopra tutte le lune oscurate e squarciate,
Alzerà in cielo la testa schiumante,
E riderà, conoscendo la sua ora. [220]
“E gli alti nella città felice
Sorretta dai sette pianeti,
Conosceranno una nuova luce nella mente,
Un rumore intorno a loro e alle spalle,
Udranno una voce tremenda, e troveranno
Schiuma nelle corti del cielo. [225]
“E voi che sedete al fuoco siete giovani,
E veri amori vi attendono;
Ma il Re e io invecchiamo, invecchiamo,
E l’odio soltanto è vero.” [230]
E Guthrum scosse il capo ma sorrise,
Ché era un chierico possente,
E aveva letto righe nei libri latini,
Quando tutto il nord era buio.
Disse: “Sono più vecchio di te, Ogier; [235]
Non ogni cosa vorrei squarciare,
Ché sia la vita mala o buona
È meglio attenderne la fine.”
Prese la grande arpa stancamente,
Persino Guthrum dei Danesi, [240]
Con grandi occhi lucenti come l’unico lungo giorno
Sulle lunghe piane polari.
Ché cantò di una ruota che ritorna,
E del fango ricalpestato in fango,
E di come rossi inferni e cieli d’oro [245]
Siano castelli nel fuoco.
“È bello sedere dove corrono le belle storie,
Sedere come sedettero i nostri padri;
Ma l’ora verrà, dopo la giovinezza,
In cui un uomo conoscerà non storie ma verità, [250]
E il cuore gli verrà meno.
“Quando leggerà ciò che sta scritto
Così chiaro in nuvole e zolle,
Quando avrà fame, senza speranza,
Persino di dèi malvagi. [255]
“Ché questa è materia grave,
E la verità è fredda a dirsi;
Non lo sappiamo, non l’abbiamo udito?
L’anima è come un uccello smarrito,
Il corpo un guscio infranto. [260]
“E un uomo spera, essendo ignaro,
Finché in bianchi boschi in disparte
Trova infine morto l’uccello smarrito:
E un uomo può ancora alzare il capo
Ma mai più il suo cuore. [265]
“Non viene rumore che di pianto
Dal cielo antico,
E c’è una lacrima nel più piccolo dei fiori
Perché gli dèi devono morire.
“I piccoli ruscelli sono assai dolci, [270]
Come nastri arricciati di fanciulla,
Ma il gran mare è amaro
Che lava tutto il mondo.
“Forti sono le rose romane,
O i liberi fiori della brughiera, [275]
Ma ogni fiore, come fiore del mare,
Odora del sale della morte.
“E il cuore della mischia serrata
È il luogo più felice per gli uomini;
Quando anime urlanti passano come dardi [280]
E molti sono morti e tutti possono morire;
Benché questa parola sia un mistero,
La Morte è allora più lontana.
“La Morte arde chiara sopra la coppa,
E nitida sopra la corona; [285]
Ma in quel sogno di battaglia
Ci pare di calpestarla.
“Perciò io sono un grande re,
E devasto il mondo invano,
Perché l’uomo non ha altro potere, [290]
Se non che, dando morte in dote,
Può dimenticarla per un’ora
Per ricordarla di nuovo.”
E lente le sue mani e pensose
Caddero dalla lira levata, [295]
E i gufi gemettero dai grandi alberi
Finché Alfredo se la strinse alle ginocchia
E la percosse come in ira.
Sollevò alta la testa dell’arpa
E spazzò l’intelaiatura di sbarre, [300]
E il suo colpo ebbe tutto lo strepito e la scintilla
Di cavalli in fuga sfrenata.
“Quando Dio pose l’uomo in un giardino
Lo cinse di una spada,
E lo mandò innanzi, cavaliere libero [305]
Che poteva tradire il suo signore;
“Lo infranse e Lo tradì,
E rapido e lontano cadde,
Tanto che tu e io possiamo tendere il collo
E bruciarci le barbe all’inferno. [310]
“Ma benché io giaccia sul fondo del mondo,
Coi sette peccati per verghe,
Preferirei cadere con Adamo
Che sorgere con tutti i vostri dèi.
“Che cosa hanno dato gli dèi forti? [315]
Dove hanno condotto gli dèi lieti?
Se Guthrum siede sul trono di un eroe
E chiede se è morto?
“Signori, io non sono che un uomo senza nome,
Un rimatore senza casa, [320]
Ma poiché vengo dall’argilla del Wessex
E porto la croce di Roma,
“Risponderò pure al conte possente
Che chiese degli uomini del Wessex
Perché siano gente mite e monacale, [325]
E si pieghino al giogo infranto del Bianco Signore;
Che segno abbiamo se non sangue e fumo?
Ecco allora la mia risposta.
“Che su di voi è caduta l’ombra,
E non sul Nome; [330]
Che benché ci disperdiamo e fuggiamo,
E voi pendiate su di noi come il cielo,
Voi siete più stanchi della vittoria
Che noi della vergogna.
“Che benché cacciate il cristiano [335]
Come lepre sul fianco del colle,
La lepre ha ancora più cuore per correre
Di quanto voi ne abbiate per cavalcare.
“Che benché ogni lancia si spezzi su di voi,
Ogni spada si levi invano, [340]
Noi abbiamo più brama di perdere ancora
Che voi di vincere ancora.
“Il vostro signore siede alto in sella,
Un re dal cuore infranto,
Ma il nostro King Alfred, perduto alla fama, [345]
Caduto fra nemici o ceppi di vergogna,
In non so quale umile mestiere o nome,
Ha ancora qualche canto da cantare;
“I nostri monaci vanno vestiti di pioggia e neve,
Ma dentro hanno il cuore di fiamma, [350]
Voi invece andate vestiti di feste e fiamme,
Quando dentro tutto è ghiaccio;
“Né tutte le condanne di ferro faranno muti
Gli uomini che si chiedono senza posa
Se non sia meglio digiunare per gioia [355]
Che banchettare per miseria.
“Né soltanto l’ordine monacale
Scivola giù, come campo in palude,
Ogni cosa compiuta e scelta passa,
Come il “Bianco Cavallo svanisce nell’erba, [360]
Nessuna opera di uomini cristiani.
“Prima che i tristi dèi che fecero i vostri dèi
Vedessero passare la loro triste aurora,
Il Bianco Cavallo della Valle del Bianco Cavallo,
Che avete lasciato oscurarsi e perire, [365]
Fu intagliato nell’erba.
“Perciò la vostra fine vi è addosso,
È su di voi e sui vostri re,
Non per un fuoco nella palude di Ely,
Non perché i vostri dèi siano nove o dieci, [370]
Ma perché soltanto uomini cristiani
Custodiscono persino le cose pagane.
“Ché il nostro Dio ha benedetto la creazione,
Chiamandola buona. Io so
Quale spirito, a cui ciechi vi legate, [375]
Ha benedetto con la sua mano la distruzione;
Ma per la morte di Dio le stelle staranno salde
E le piccole mele cresceranno.”
E il Re, con l’arpa in spalla,
Si levò e cessò il suo canto; [380]
E i gufi gemettero dai grandi alberi,
E i Danesi risero forte e a lungo.

LIBRO IV
LA DONNA NELLA FORESTA

Fitto tuono dei porci sbuffanti,
Enormi nel crepuscolo,
Che frugano fra radici avvinghiate,
E il nitrire dei cavalli selvaggi,
Erano i rumori della notte quando il Re, [5]
L’arpa in spalla, tornò a casa.
Con occhi di gufo e piedi di volpe,
Colmo d’ogni pensiero andava;
Notò l’inclinarsi del campo pagano,
Il pallore dei pini, il passo delle sentinelle, [10]
E la grande lampada d’altare rubata
Sopra Guthrum nella sua tenda.
Fra sterpi e spini a Ethandune
Quella notte il nemico giaceva;
Di là correvano per la grigia brughiera [15]
Le vecchie pietre d’una via romana;
E in un bosco poco lontano
La pallida strada si spartiva in due.
Notò il bosco e le vie divise
Con occhi di vecchio capitano, [20]
E pensò quante volte aveva
Cercato di vedere il Fato che non vedeva;
Come erano giunte rovina e vittoria,
E l’una e l’altra una sorpresa.
Così aveva vegliato e atteso stupito [25]
Sotto Ashdown, dalle pianure;
Con Ethelred in preghiera nella tenda,
Finché il biancospino ondeggiò e si piegò,
Quando Alfredo scagliò le sue lance e squarciò
Il muro di scudi dei Danesi. [30]
Così aveva vegliato e atteso stupito,
Non sapendo né meno né più,
Finché tutti i suoi signori giacquero morenti,
E asce su asce menando colpi
Lo scagliarono, lo cacciarono in fuga [35]
Come un pirata verso la riva.
Saggio era stato prima della sconfitta,
E saggio prima del successo;
Saggio in entrambe le ore, e ignaro,
Non sapendo né più né meno. [40]
Scendendo verso la capanna sul fiume
Sentì un profumo d’ombra notturna,
I gufi si levavano come cherubini maligni,
Con piccole ali e occhi di lanterna,
Come se affondasse sotto i cieli inferi; [45]
Ma giù e più giù andava.
Scendendo verso la capanna sul fiume
Andava come uno che cade;
Vedendo le alte cupole e le antenne della foresta,
Verde cupo o lacerate da cicatrici d’oro, [50]
Come i superbi alzano gli occhi alle stelle maligne,
Nei cieli rossi dell’inferno.
Ché doveva incontrare alla capanna sul fiume
Quelli che aveva chiamato alle armi,
Marco dalle torri d’Italia, [55]
E Colan dell’Albero Sacro,
Ed Eldred che presso il mare
Reggeva a fatica la sua fattoria.
Il tetto pendeva spalancato sull’erba,
Come giace un fungo mostruoso; [60]
Echeggiante e vuoto pareva il luogo;
Ma di lì a poco aprì l’uscio
Una grande donna grigia dal volto segnato
E dagli occhi forti e umiliati.
Re Alfredo non era che un uomo scarno, [65]
Occhi vivi, ma magro e pallido,
E senza spada, con l’arpa e gli stracci,
Pareva un mendicante, di quelli che s’attardano
In cerca di croste di pane e di birra.
E la donna, con occhi di donna [70]
Di pietà insieme e d’ira,
Disse, dopo averlo fissato un poco:
«C’è una focaccia per chiunque
Voglia badare al fuoco».
E Alfredo, con grave inchino, [75]
Sedette ad attizzare il fuoco,
E come la donna ebbe pietà di lui
Così egli ebbe pietà di lei.
Dicendo: «O gran cuore nella notte,
O migliore gettata fra i peggiori, [80]
Il crepuscolo si scioglierà, si desterà il mattino,
E nulla di buono verrà a lei,
Finché Dio non capovolga il mondo
E tutti gli ultimi siano primi.
«E ben può Dio con la gente che serve [85]
Gettare la Sua sorte tremenda;
Non è anch’Egli un servo,
E non è anch’Egli dimenticato?
«Non fu Dio il mio giardiniere,
Silenzioso come uno schiavo, [90]
Che schiuse querce sugli altipiani
O diede macchia al camposanto?
«E non fu Dio il mio armaiolo,
Tutto paziente e senza paga,
Che saldò il mio cranio a elmo, [95]
E delle costole fece un usbergo?
«Non fu un grande servo grigio
Di tutti i miei padri e mio
A costruire questo padiglione di pini,
A radunare gli uccelli, a colmare le viti, [100]
A faticare e passare senza lasciar segni
Fuorché misericordia e mistero?
«Ché Dio è un grande servo,
E si levò prima del giorno,
Strappato a un sonno primordiale; [105]
Ma noi tutti, vivi e nati dopo,
Dormiamo ancora, e ci alziamo dopo il mattino,
E il Signore se n’è andato.
«Su cose a metà sorte dal sonno
Hanno brillato tutti i soli assonnati, [110]
Stirano braccia rigide gli alberi che sbadigliano,
Le bestie sbattono le palpebre carponi,
L’uomo è desto e fa e vede—
Ma il Cielo ha fatto, e se n’è andato.
«Ché chi indovinerà il buon enigma [115]
O parlerà del Santissimo,
Se non per pallide figure e parole che vengono meno,
Di Colui che ama, eppure ride fra le spade,
Fatica, ed è in riposo?
«Ma alcuni vedono Dio come Guthrum, [120]
Coronato, con gran barba ricciuta,
Io invece vedo Dio come un buon gigante,
Che, faticando, solleva il mondo.
«Perciò Dio fu sul Golgota,
Ucciso come si uccide un servo; [125]
E odio ebbe per principe e pari,
E amore ebbe, e fece festa
Di quelli che, come questa donna qui,
Vanno possenti nel dolore.
«Ma in questo grigio mattino della vita dell’uomo [130]
Viene talvolta alla mente
Una piccola luce che balza e vola,
Come stella soffiata sul vento.
«Una stella di nessun luogo, una stella senza nome,
Una luce che gira e turbina, [135]
E grida che perfino fra siepe e colle,
Perfino in terra, può andar male
Alla fine per i conti malvagi.
«Scintilla danzante, stella dubbiosa,
Sul vento deserto travolta e sospinta, [140]
Ma pare cantare d’un valore più selvaggio,
Un tempo scoronato di fato e di nascita,
E il regno dei poveri in terra
Venuto, come è nei cieli.
«Ma pur se tali giorni durassero, [145]
Che gioverà a lei?
Che andrà gemendo alla tomba,
Con tanti schiavi miti e possenti,
Dissodatori di campi e pescatori sull’onda,
E boscaioli e carrettieri. [150]
«Cuocete pure il gran mondo tutto di nuovo,
Focaccia con più benigno lievito;
Questi restano tristi per sempre—
A meno che non vi sia una piccola porta,
Una piccola porta in cielo». [155]
E mentre piangeva per la donna
Trascurò la faccenda di lei,
E come il suo giuramento regale e avventato
Il buon cibo cadde sulla cenere
E annerì in un istante. [160]
Urlando, la donna afferrò una focaccia
Ancora ardente dalla griglia,
E lo colpì d’improvviso sul volto,
Lasciando una cicatrice scarlatta.
Re Alfredo si alzò senza parola, [165]
Uomo morto di stupore,
E la tortura stette, e le cose malvagie
Che sono nei cuori infantili dei re,
Un istante nei suoi occhi.
E mentre stava e fissava [170]
Gli si strinsero intorno nel crepuscolo
Quegli amici strisciando da fattorie lontane,
Marco con tutti i suoi schiavi in armi,
E le strane lance cariche d’antichi amuleti
Di Colan dell’Usk. [175]
D’un’intera fattoria in marcia a piedi
Risuona la strada calpestata,
Braccianti e bestie che passano goffi
E giare d’idromele e scorte di segale,
Dove Eldred incedeva sopra i suoi alti [180]
Cani dalla gola di tuono.
E armenti grigi e argentei muggivano
Contro il mattino non ancora sorto,
E la paglia s’attaccava alle alte aste delle lance.
E un ragazzo andava davanti a tutti [185]
Suonando un corno d’ariete.
Come a beffare tale rozza baldoria,
L’oscuro clan dei Gaeli
Venne come la fine del funerale d’un cattivo re,
Con vesti lugubri che cadono e si strappano [190]
E cornamuse demoniache che gemono—
In lunghe vesti forestiere,
Lacere, benché d’antico pregio,
Con barbe di Druidi e lance di Druidi,
Come appare una razza risorta [195]
Da una terra più antica.
E benché il Re li avesse chiamati
E li sapesse suoi,
Così fermo stava ogni occhio, come gemma,
Così spettrale pendeva ogni orlo ricamato, [200]
Che li immaginò uomini grigi scolpiti,
Tagliati in un’età di pietra.
E i due popoli selvaggi del nord
Stavano a fronte nel crepuscolo,
E udì e riconobbe ciascuno in cuor suo [205]
Il terzo grande tuono sul vento,
Le mura vive che recingono il genere umano,
Le mura in cammino di Roma.
Di Marco erano le tribù miste dell’ovest,
Di molti colori e stirpi, [210]
Gurth, dai capelli folti come erba gialla,
E il pescatore di Cornovaglia, Gorlias,
E Halmer, venuto dalla sua prima messa,
Da poco battezzato, un Danese.
Ma come un sol uomo in armatura [215]
Quelle centinaia calcavano il campo,
Dalla rossa Arabia fino al Tyne
La terra aveva udito quella linea in marcia,
Fin dal grido sul colle Capitolino,
E dalla caduta dello scudo d’oro. [220]
E la terra tremò e il Re stette immobile
Sotto il ramo del verde bosco,
E la focaccia fumante giaceva ai suoi piedi
E il colpo era sulla sua fronte.
Allora Alfredo rise d’improvviso, [225]
Come tuono in primavera,
Finché tremarono forte le travi dell’architrave,
E gli scoiattoli si mossero in sogni polverosi,
E gli uccelli atterriti si levarono a stormi,
Per la risata del Re. [230]
E le bestie della terra e gli uccelli guardarono in giù,
In selvaggia solennità,
Su vista più strana d’una silfide o d’un elfo,
Su un uomo che rideva di se stesso
Sotto l’albero del verde bosco— [235]
La risata gigante degli uomini cristiani
Che rugge per mille racconti,
Dove l’avidità è una scimmia e l’orgoglio un asino,
E Gianni scappa con la ragazza del padrone,
E l’avaro è bastonato con tutto il suo rame, [240]
Il fattore con tutti i suoi correggiati;
Racconti che ruzzolano e racconti che ingannano,
Ma non finiscono tutti in scherno—
Di re e buffoni in lieto imbroglio,
E l’orologio guastato e il mondo raddrizzato, [245]
Che i mimi cantano nella notte di Natale
E il giorno di Natale al mattino.
«Ecco una buona garanzia»,
Gridò Alfredo, «per la mia spada;
Ché chi è battuto da cattivo servo [250]
Dev’essere un signore benigno.
«Chi è stato servo
Sa più di preti e di re,
Ma chi è stato un cattivo servo,
Sa tutte le cose terrene. [255]
«L’Orgoglio scaglia fragili palazzi al cielo,
Come un uomo getta in aria sabbia,
Ma i fermi piedi dell’umiltà
Fanno presa sulla terra greve.
«L’Orgoglio gioca con le sue torri vacillanti, [260]
Toccano il sole e cessano,
Ma i fermi piedi dell’umiltà
Afferrano il suolo come alberi.
«Chi ha fallito in una piccola cosa
Porta un segno sulla fronte; [265]
E i Conti della Grande Armata
Non hanno un tale sigillo da mostrare.
«L’impronta rossa sulla mia fronte,
Piccola fiamma per una stella rossa,
All’avanguardia della marcia violenta, allora [270]
Quando il cielo è squarciato dalle dieci trombe,
E le mani degli uomini felici e urlanti
Spalancano le porte della guerra.
«Questo colpo che non rendo
Dieci volte lo renderò [275]
Su re e conti d’ogni grado,
E armate vaste come imperi
Scivoleranno come frane verso il mare
Se la stella rossa arde.
«Un uomo ne scaccerà cento, [280]
Come scacciavano i re morti;
Davanti a me schiere vacillanti saranno squarciate,
E coorti d’assalto respinte all’indietro,
Ché io sono il primo re noto al cielo
Che sia stato colpito come uno schiavo. [285]
«Su per la vecchia strada bianca, fratelli,
Su per le mura romane!
Ché questa è la notte in cui si sguainano le spade,
E la torre dipinta delle orde pagane
Pende verso i nostri martelli, fuochi e corde, [290]
Pende un poco, e cade.
«Seguite la stella che vive e balza,
Seguite la spada che canta,
Ché andiamo a mietere uomini pagani,
Un raccolto terribile, dieci a dieci, [295]
Come l’ira dell’ultimo rosso autunno—allora
Quando Cristo falcerà i re.
«Seguite una luce che balza e gira,
Seguite il fuoco spiegato!
Ché si leva contro regno e scettro, [300]
Una cosa dimenticata, una cosa calpestata,
L’ultimo gigante perduto, Dio stesso,
È risorto contro il mondo».
Ruggendo passarono il muro romano,
E ruggendo su per il sentiero, [305]
Le torce agitate, una scala di fuoco,
Più alto s’udiva il loro inno, e più alto,
Più dolce per l’odio e per il desiderio del cuore,
E su fra gli sterpi e i rovi del nord
Piombarono sul Danese. [310]

LIBRO V
ETHANDUNE: IL PRIMO
COLPO

RE GUTHRUM era un re tremendo,
come morte venuta dal nord;
santuari senza nome né numero
squarciò e rotolò come legname,
da Chester fino allo Humber [5]
cacciò innanzi a sé i nemici.
Le ville romane l’udirono
nella valle del Tamigi,
venire oltre i colli ruggendo
sopra i loro tetti, e versando [10]
su guglia e scala e impiantito
zolfo e pece e fiamme.
Dritto sui grandi altipiani di gesso
e sul colle del Cavallo passò,
finché alto sui fari dello Hampshire [15]
vide il mare del sud.
Alto sulle alture del Wessex
vide la salsedine del sud,
e si volse a una terra conquistata,
e dove stanno i roveti del nord, [20]
e la strada si parte da due lati,
là gli venne un segno.
Re Guthrum era un capo di guerra,
un uomo saggio sul campo,
e benché prosperasse bene, e sapesse [25]
quanto tristi e pochi fossero gli uomini di Alfredo,
non di meno con grave cura tracciò
lunghe linee per picca e scudo.
Re Guthrum stava sull’alta terra,
in guardia su un’unica strada, [30]
e il nemico doveva salire in magre file,
su per il braccio sinistro della via biforcata,
fino all’incontro delle vie.
E assai prima del fragore delle armi,
un’ora prima che spuntasse la luce, [35]
i boschi si destarono in schianto e grido,
e gli uccelli balzarono stridendo aspri e alti,
e i conigli corsero come un esercito di elfi
prima che Alfredo apparisse.
Il bosco vivo venne su Guthrum, [40]
con piede e artiglio e ala,
i nidi rumoreggiavano in alto,
per Alfredo e la stella rossa
ogni vita uscì, e la foresta fuggì
davanti al volto del Re. [45]
Ma fermi nei sentieri del bosco
i pochi di Cristo erano torvi e grigi,
e ognuno con vista piccola, lontana, d’uccello
vide l’alta follia della battaglia;
e benché strane gioie fossero cresciute nella notte, [50]
la disperazione crebbe col giorno.
E quando la bianca alba strisciò per il bosco,
come fredda schiuma di piena,
allora s’indebolì l’animo d’ogni guerriero,
nella speranza, non però nell’ardire; [55]
e ogni uomo si dolse, così come stava,
secondo il modo del suo sangue.
Ché il franklin sassone si doleva
per le cose che erano state belle,
per le care donne morte, vestite di cremisi, [60]
e le gran feste e gli amici che aveva;
ma l’anima del principe celtico era triste
per le cose che non furono mai.
Negli occhi italiani ogni cosa
morì, fuor che un riso nero; [65]
e Alfredo gettò a terra lo scudo
e si percosse il petto e gridò—
«Feci torto a un uomo fino a ucciderlo,
e a una donna fino alla vergogna,
e una volta posai gli occhi su una vergine giurata [70]
ch’era sposa del santo Nome.
«E una volta presi la moglie del vicino,
legata a un uomo d’oriente,
nella crudezza della mia giovinezza malvagia,
prima che i miei dolori cominciassero. [75]
«Gente, se avete preghiere,
dite preghiere per me:
e deponetemi sotto una pietra cristiana
in quella terra perduta che credevo mia,
ad attendere che suoni il corno santo, [80]
e tutti i poveri siano liberi.»
Allora Eldred della fattoria oziosa
si appoggiò alla sua antica spada,
mentre cadevano le sue parole gravi e poche;
e i suoi occhi erano d’un azzurro così straniero [85]
quale brilla dove l’uomo del Nord veleggia nuovo
in un fiordo sconosciuto.
«Fui uno stolto e sprecai la birra—
i miei servi la trovarono dolce;
fui uno stolto e sprecai il pane, [90]
e gli uccelli ebbero pane da mangiare.
«I re salgono e i re scendono,
e chi sa chi regnerà;
la prossima notte un re può patir fame o dormire,
ma uomini e uccelli e bestie piangeranno [95]
al funerale d’uno stolto.
«O ubriaconi nella mia cantina,
ragazzi sul mio melo,
il mondo si fa severo e strano e nuovo,
e uomini saggi vi governeranno, [100]
e voi piangerete per me.
«Ma aggiogatemi i miei buoi,
giù verso la mia fattoria;
il mio cane guairà per me,
i miei amici piegheranno il ginocchio, [105]
e i nemici che uccisi apertamente
non mi hanno mai voluto male.»
E tutti si commossero un poco,
ma Colan stava in disparte,
provando dapprima pietà, e poi [110]
udendo, come topo fra le travi,
quel piccolo verme di riso
che rode il cuore irlandese.
E i suoi occhi grigioverdi erano crudeli,
e il sorriso della sua bocca si fece duro, [115]
e disse: «E quando mai la Britannia
è divenuta il vostro camposanto?
«Prima che il Romano accendesse la terra,
quando non v’erano scuole né monaci,
alzammo al dio-sole pietre tali [120]
da poter spegnere il sole.
«Gli alti alberi di Britannia
adorammo, e fummo saggi,
ma voi razzierete tutta la terra
e mai un albero vi parlerà, [125]
benché ogni foglia sia lingua ammaestrata al vero
e la foresta sia piena d’occhi.
«Su un tondo colle verso il mare
gli alberi crescono alti e grigi
e gli alberi parlano tra loro [130]
quando tutti gli uomini sono lontani.
«Su pochi tondi colli dimenticati
gli alberi crescono alti in cerchi,
e gli alberi parlano tra loro
di molte cose pagane. [135]
«Eppure potrei giacere e ascoltare
con una croce sopra la mia creta,
e udire illeso per sempre
ciò che dicono gli alberi di Britannia.»
Un uomo fiero era il Romano, [140]
il suo discorso uno solo,
ma i suoi occhi erano come occhi d’aquila
che sta fissando il sole.
«Scavate per me dove morrò», disse,
«ch’io cada per primo o per ultimo— [145]
morto sul colle alla prima carica,
o morto sotto il muro di Wantage;
«non levate il mio capo dal suolo insanguinato,
non portate il mio corpo a casa,
ché tutta la terra è terra romana [150]
e io morirò a Roma.»
Allora Alfredo, Re d’Inghilterra,
fece suonare i corni di guerra,
e gettare al vento il Drago d’Oro,
tra crepitio e acclamazione e grido, [155]
a volute, fiammeggiante e lontano.
E sotto il Drago d’Oro
andò il Wessex tutto intero,
oltre la punta acuta delle vie biforcate,
fuori dal bosco nero dentro la vampa [160]
di sole e acciaio e canto.
E quando giunsero al campo aperto
ruotarono, si schierarono, e stettero;
nel mezzo erano Marco e il Re,
ed Eldred sull’ala destra, [165]
e a sinistra Colan, fosco,
nell’ultima ombra del bosco.
Ma i Conti della Grande Armata
giacevano come una lunga mezza luna,
dieci pertiche innanzi alle palizzate, [170]
con elmi dalle ampie ali e lame runiche,
rossi giganti d’un’età di razzie,
nella terra di rovi di Ethandune.
Nel mezzo le selle si levavano e ondeggiavano,
e un fremito di criniere, [175]
dove Guthrum e pochi cavalcavano alti
su cavalli presi in vittoria;
ma Ogier andò a piedi a morire,
alla vecchia maniera dei Danesi.
Lontano alla destra del Re Elf il bardo [180]
guidava l’ala d’occidente
con canti e incanti che mutano il sangue;
e alla sinistra del Re stava Harold,
il congiunto del Re.
Il giovane Harold, rozzo, dai colori gai, [185]
fumante d’olio e di muschio,
e con la piacevole violenza dei giovani,
si spinse tra la sua gente, levando la voce
verso il nemico, dove, grigi come ragnatele, pendevano
gli stendardi dell’Usk. [190]
Ma come venne davanti alla sua linea
per un piccolo tratto,
il viso imberbe gli si aprì al riso,
e gridò: «Che rotti pezzi di terra
son questi? Per quel che valgono i panni [195]
li venderei per una canzone.»
Ché Colan era vestito di panni
laceri come foglie d’autunno,
e i suoi uomini eran tutti magri come santi,
e tutti poveri come ladri. [200]
Non portavano archi né fionde né quadrelli,
ma roncole e picche mal fatte;
e nessuno fuorché Colan portava una spada,
e arrugginita era la sua lama.
E gli occhi di Colan di mistero [205]
e di ferreo riso fremettero,
e parlò ad alta voce, ma lieve,
senza sforzarsi d’esser udito.
«Oh, davvero siamo cuori spezzati,
per questa causa, si dice, [210]
accendiamo le nostre candele a quel Signore
che spezzò Se stesso per farsi pane.
«Ma benché teniamo solo amaramente
la terra che il Sassone lascia,
benché l’Irlanda non sia che terra di santi, [215]
e il Galles terra di ladri,
«io dico che ancora vi stancherete
dell’opera della vostra parola,
ché spiriti percossi non percuotono mai,
né magre mani reggono una spada. [220]
«E se mai cavalcherete in Irlanda,
il motto si potrà ancora dire:
quella è la terra dei cuori spezzati,
e la terra delle teste spezzate.»
Non minore un riso barbaro [225]
soffocò Harold come una piena:
«E dovrò battermi con spaventapasseri,
io che sono del sangue di Guthrum?
«Incontro può esservi tra uomini di guerra,
dove il miglior guerriero vince; [230]
ma tutta questa carogna la si saetta
prima che la battaglia cominci.»
E arrestando i suoi passi in avanti,
strappò con disprezzo un arco
a un vile schiavo, e lo tese su [235]
Colan, il cui destino s’oscurò; e brillarono
stelle maligne sopra Caerleon,
nel luogo dove era nato.
Ché Colan non aveva arco né fionda,
su una spada solitaria si appoggiava, [240]
come Artù su Excalibur
nella battaglia in riva al mare.
Fino al suo grande orecchino d’oro Harold
trasse indietro la coda impennata,
e rapida sarebbe scattata la freccia, [245]
ma più rapido scattò il Gaelico.
Roteando l’unica spada sopra il capo,
grande ruota nel sole,
la mandò splendida per il cielo,
in volo prima che il dardo potesse volare— [250]
colpì il conte Harold sopra l’occhio,
e il sangue cominciò a scorrere.
Colan stava nudo e senz’armi,
il conte Harold, come in pena,
tentò un sorriso, portò la mano al capo, [255]
vacillò e d’improvviso cadde morto;
e le piccole margherite bianche si fecero tutte rosse
del sangue uscito dal suo cervello.
E tutti, a quel prodigio della spada,
scagliata come pietra per uccidere, [260]
gridarono. Disse Alfredo: «Chi vuol vedere
segni, deve dare ogni cosa. In verità
l’uomo non gusterà vittoria
finché non getti via la sua spada.»
Allora Alfredo, principe d’Inghilterra, [265]
e tutti i conti cristiani,
sganciarono le spade e le levarono in alto,
ciascuna offerta a Colan, come una coppa
di crisolito e di perle.
E il Re disse: «Prendi tu la mia spada [270]
tu che hai compiuto quest’atto di fuoco,
ché questo è il costume degli uomini cristiani,
siano essi d’acciaio o di penna sacerdotale:
gettano i loro cuori fuori dal loro sguardo
per avere il desiderio del loro cuore. [275]
«E che giuriate un alveare di monaci,
o una sola bella sposa ad amica,
questo è il costume degli uomini cristiani:
il loro giuramento regge fino alla fine.
«Ché l’Amore, nostro Signore, alla fine del mondo, [280]
siede un rosso cavallo come un trono,
con elmo di bronzo e arco di ferro,
ma una freccia soltanto.
«L’Amore con lo scudo del Cuore Spezzato
sempre tende il suo arco, [285]
con un solo dardo per un solo premio,
e l’ultimo strale che parte e vola
viene con un tuono di cieli squarciati,
e un suono d’anime che si lacerano.
«Così guadagnerai la spada d’un re, [290]
tu che la tua spada hai gettato via.»
E il Re prese, con occhio distratto,
una rozza ascia da un contadino lì presso
e si volse alla mischia.
Ché le spade dei Conti di Daneland [295]
fiammeggiarono intorno al signore caduto.
Il primo sangue destò il canto delle trombe,
come in rima di monaco o runa di mago
comincia la Battaglia di Ethandune
col lancio della spada. [300]

LIBRO VI
ETHANDUNE: L’UCCISIONE
DEI CAPI

Come il mare che inonda le piatte sabbie
volò l’orda nata dal mare,
i due eserciti cozzarono con polvere e fragore,
a sinistra del paladino laziale,
rimbombò tutta l’ululante stirpe del principe Harold [5]
su Colan e sulla spada.
Nel mezzo si abbatté su Marcus,
Ogier con Guthrum accanto,
e a ovest di quel tumulto centrale,
lontano a destra e più fioca, [10]
la casa di Elf l’arpista
investì con un grido quella di Eldred.
Il centro sudava di stanchezza,
arginando l’orda urlante,
e stanche andavano le mani di Colan [15]
che roteavano la spada di re Alfredo.
Ma come una nube della sera
verso ponente, senza sforzo,
l’alto Eldred rompeva il mare di lance
come un’alta nave rompe il mare. [20]
Il volto come un tramonto sanguigno,
la spalla una collina del Wessex,
la mano come colpo di maglio nel vento;
nessuno poteva contare i cimieri che spezzava,
tanto in fretta i cimieri cadevano. [25]
Come l’alto demone bianco della Peste
avanza dai cieli d’Asia,
col piede su un deserto di città
e il capo in una nube di mosche;
o come cieli di porpora e pavone si fanno scuri [30]
per una torre di locuste in cammino;
o come i fulvi venti di sabbia, alti e aridi,
battono e volano come rosse bandiere d’inferno,
quando la morte esce d’Arabia,
tale era Eldred nella sua ora. [35]
Ma mentre avanzava come un massacro
mormorava come nel sonno,
e le sue parole eran tutte di basse siepi
e di piccoli campi e di pecore.
Pur mentre incedeva come una pestilenza [40]
che marcia dal Reno a Roma,
pensava a quanto alte sarebbero cresciute le sue fave
se mai fosse tornato a casa.
Diceva qualche rigida preghiera infantile,
spenta come campane lontane, [45]
che ringraziava il nostro Dio del buon mangiare
e del grano e dei tempi quieti—
finché sull’elmo di un alto capo
cadde fracassando la sua lama,
e l’elmo si ruppe e l’osso si ruppe [50]
e la spada gli si ruppe in mano.
Allora dai Normanni urlanti
corsero scheggiando su di lui, sospinte,
ben sette lance, e la settima [55]
non fu mai fatta da uomo.
Sette lance, e la settima
era forgiata come le lame fatate,
e donata a Elf il menestrello
dalle mostruose fanciulle dell’acqua;
da quelle che dimorano dove livide [60]
le acque perdute del Reno
scorrono fra le radici delle nazioni,
affondate in segno di presagio.
Sotto tutte le tombe mormorano,
mormorano e si ribellano, [65]
strisciano giù verso i regni sepolti,
e come pioggia perduta ruggono e piangono
sui rossi cieli dell’inferno.
Tre volte annegò Elf il menestrello,
e fu gettato come morto sulla sabbia; [70]
e la terza volta che lo trovarono
la lancia era nella sua mano.
Sette lance cinsero Eldred,
come sartie attorno a un albero;
ma vi fu dolore in riva al mare [75]
per la spinta dell’ultima.
Sei lance vibrate su Eldred
si scheggiarono mentre rideva;
una lancia si infisse in Eldred,
tre piedi di lama e d’asta. [80]
E dal gran cuore dolorosamente
uscirono l’asta e la lama,
ed egli stette col volto di un morto,
stette un poco, e vacillò—
poi cadde, come cade una torre di guerra [85]
su lance infrante e brulicanti,
abbattuta da qualche città invitta
che, precipitando a terra, trascina giù
carichi di uomini vivi d’ogni fama—
arcieri e ingegneri. [90]
E un gran clamore di uomini cristiani
salì in agonia,
gridando: «Caduta è la torre del Wessex
che stava accanto al mare».
Al centro e a destra la guardia del Wessex [95]
impallidì di dubbio e paura,
e il fianco cedette all’avanzata,
per la luce di morte sulla lancia stregata—
la stella della lancia malvagia.
«Sta’ come una quercia», gridò Marcus, [100]
«sta’ come un muro romano!
Eldred il Buono è caduto—
siete voi troppo buoni per cadere?
Quando eravamo pallidi ed esangui
lui vi diede birra in abbondanza; [105]
i pirati lo trattano come letame,
Dio! siete voi esangui adesso?
Stringete, Wulf e Gorlias, stringete il frassino!
Schiavi, e io vi faccio liberi!
Pesta, Hildred, forte sulla terra inglese, no
sta’ saldo Gurth, saldo Gorlias, e tu Gawen!
Tieni, Halfgar, con l’altra mano,
Halmer, reggiti sul ginocchio!
Le lampade muoiono nelle vostre case,
i frutti sul vostro ramo; us
già ora il tuo vecchio tetto fuma, Gurth,
ora è il giudizio della terra,
ora è la stretta di morte, ora!»
Per il tuono del capitano,
non meno la linea del Wessex, [120]
piegò indietro e barcollò per un tratto
quando Elf caricò con la lancia delle fanciulle del Reno,
ruggendo come il Reno.
Perché gli uomini erano portati dai muri ondeggianti
di boschi e di nubi che passano, [125]
da piana vertiginosa e mare alla deriva,
e mescolavano Dio con l’incantesimo,
Dio con gli dèi dell’albero in fiamme
e della torre del mago e del cristallo.
Ma Mark veniva dalle città scintillanti [130]
dove i dettagli splendono caldi e bianchi,
dove l’uomo sa contare ed esporre,
e la sua fede crebbe in un duro terreno
di dubbio e ragione e menzogna smascherata,
dove nessun’altra fede poteva crescere. [135]
La credenza cresciuta da tutte le credenze
un attimo prima fu spazzata via
e la credenza che stava sull’incredulità
si levò, di ferro e sola.
La mezzaluna del Wessex all’indietro [140]
fu schiacciata, mentre con lancia insanguinata
Elf andava ruggendo e sbaragliando,
e Mark contro Elf, ancora gridando,
cozzò, in piena corsa.
Dritta sullo scudo romano e sulla spada [145]
corse la lancia delle fanciulle del Reno;
ma lo scudo non vacillò mai,
la spada calò a recidere,
il gran Reno cantò per sempre,
e i canti di Elf furono finiti. [150]
E un gran tuono di uomini cristiani
salì contro il cielo,
dicendo: «Dio ha spezzato la lancia malvagia
prima che asciugasse il sangue del giusto».
«Lance alla carica!» urlò Mark con forza, [155]
«Morte agli dèi della morte!
Sopra i troni del fato e del sangue
va Dio che è buon artigiano,
e oro e ferro, terra e legno,
ama e lavora. [160]
I frutti balzano su in tutte le vostre fattorie,
le lampade in ogni dimora;
Dio di ogni buona cosa fatta in terra,
di ogni ruota o tela che valga,
il Dio che fa il tetto, Gurth, [165]
il Dio che fa la strada.
Il Dio che intaglia re nella quercia
scrive canti su pergamena,
Dio dell’oro e del vetro fiammante,
Confregit potentias, [170]
Arcuum, scutum, Gorlias,
Gladium et bellum».
Acciaio e folgore gli si ruppero attorno,
allori di battaglia e palma,
tutti i re del mare ondeggiarono fra [175]
selve di braccia del Wessex levate in alto,
la tromba della lingua romana,
il tuono del salmo.
E nel mezzo di quel campo ondeggiante
corse Ogier furibondo, [180]
sferzando Mark, che ne deviò il colpo,
e gli spezzò l’elmo sulla fronte,
e lo abbatté in ginocchio.
Allora Ogier sollevò sopra il capo
l’immane scudo tondo a tutta prova; [185]
ma Mark pose un piede sullo scudo,
uno su una roccia divelta e rovesciata,
e torreggiò sopra il campo in tumulto,
statua sopra un tetto.
Menando lontano colpi sulla mischia, [190]
come folgori vaganti,
come uccelli sopra il campo di battaglia,
mentre Ogier si torceva sotto lo scudo
come testuggine nel suo guscio.
Ma l’odio nell’Ogier sepolto [195]
era forte come la pena nell’inferno,
con la nuda mano brutale da dentro
spezzò lo scudo di bronzo e di cuoio,
e un colpo di morte al fianco del Romano
vibrò d’improvviso e bene. [200]
Allora la grande statua sullo scudo
gettò intorno l’ultimo sguardo
con occhio fermo e imperiale;
e Mark, l’uomo d’Italia,
cadde nel mare dell’agonia, [205]
e morì senza un suono.
E Ogier, balzando su vivo,
scagliò via l’enorme scudo
in volo, come quando un giocoliere lancia
un piatto sibilante nel gioco. [210]
E levò rigide le due braccia,
e ruggì a tutti i Danesi:
«Caduta è Roma, sì, caduta
la città delle pianure!
Nessun uomo nato ricorderà, [215]
fra quanti spaccano bosco o brughiera,
quanto a lungo stette lei sul tetto del mondo
come lui stette sul mio scudo.
Il nuovo mondo selvaggio la dimentica
come svanisce la schiuma sul mare, [220]
quanto a lungo stette col piede sull’Uomo
come lui col piede su di me.
Mai più gli uomini bruni del sud
si muoveranno come formiche in file,
a quietare gli uomini con gli ulivi [225]
o a infiammarli con le viti.
Mai più le bianche città del sud,
dove scorrono Tevere e Nilo,
sedute attorno a un mare segreto
adoreranno un sole segreto. [230]
Gli dèi ciechi ruggiscono per Roma caduta,
per il foro e la ghirlanda perduti,
perché il ghiaccio del nord è rotto,
e il mare del nord avanza.
Gli dèi ciechi ruggiscono e delirano e sognano [235]
tutte le città sotto il mare,
perché il cuore del nord è rotto,
e il sangue del nord è libero.
Giù dalla cupola del mondo veniamo,
fiumi sopra fiumi in giù, [240]
sotto di noi turbinano sette e orde
e gli alti fati noi anneghiamo.
Giù dalla cupola del mondo e giù,
scagliati in volo come una barca
che su un fiume in piena gira e turbina [245]
finché giungiamo alla fine del mondo
che si tronca netta, come una rupe.
E quando verremo alla fine del mondo,
per me, lo stimo degno
spiccare il salto come un buon fiume, [250]
scagliato urlando oltre l’orlo.
Ma qualunque cosa accada alla fine del mondo,
dove il Nulla è percosso e risuona,
non saranno, per Thor, questi uomini da monaci,
questi umiliati cani del Wessex— [255]
non questa pallida fila di villani cristiani,
questa sola bianca corda di uomini,
a tenerci lontani dalla fine del mondo,
e dalle cose che accadono allora.
Non è la spada nana di Alfredo, [260]
né la corona pigmea di Egbert,
che ci fermerà, ora che scendiamo nel tuono,
squarciando i regni e i regni sottostanti,
giù attraverso il mondo e giù».
C’era qualcosa nei selvaggi alle sue spalle, [265]
c’era qualcosa nel suo stesso selvaggio canto,
un pulsare vertiginoso, un fumo da ubriachi,
che stordiva a morte tutta la gente del Wessex,
e ne travolgeva le lance.
Invano la spada di Colan [270]
e la scure di Alfredo si adoprarono—
i Danesi dilagavano come peste senza cervello,
e non sapevano quando morivano.
Il principe Colan ne uccise una ventina,
e fu abbattuto in ginocchio; [275]
re Alfredo ne uccise ventisette
e fu respinto contro un albero.
Indietro fino alla nera porta dei boschi,
indietro su per l’unico sentiero,
indietro fino al luogo delle vie divise [280]
i cavalieri di Cristo furono travolti via.
E quando giunsero alle vie divise
cadde il più greve martello del destino,
ché il re fu battuto, cieco, alle strette,
giù per la via di destra con la sua schiera, [285]
ma Colan fu spazzato dall’altra parte,
dove menò gran colpi e cadde.
I boschi di spine sopra Ethandune
stanno acuti e fitti come lance,
da notte e ginestre e insidie di foresta [290]
furono divisi lontano i compagni d’armi;
i forti colpi perduti, gli ultimi allarmi,
non giunsero alle orecchie di Alfredo.
I boschi di spine sopra Ethandune
stanno rigidi come punte di maglia; [295]
come all’Alto Re giunse al mattino
il morto Orlando su un corno incerto,
parve ad Alfredo lieve recato
l’ultimo grido del Gaelo.

LIBRO VII
ETHANDUNE: L’ULTIMA CARICA

LUNGI nella landa del Colle del Cavallo Bianco
un bimbo ozioso, solo,
giocava un piccolo gioco per ore che passano,
e paziente strappava l’erba,
paziente spingeva la pietra. [5]
Sull’orlo magro e verde, per sempre,
dove il gesso nudo toccava la zolla,
il bimbo giocava, solo, divino,
come gioca un bimbo sull’ultima linea
che divide sabbia e risacca. [10]
Poiché egli dimora in alte divisioni
troppo semplici da comprendere,
vedendo in quale mattino di mistero
l’Increato strappò il mare,
con ruggiti, dalla terra. [15]
Per le lunghe ore infantili come giorni
costruì invano una torre—
ammucchiò sassolini a far città,
e sempre le pietre cadevano,
e lui le riammucchiava ancora. [20]
E re cremisi sulle torri di guerra,
e santi su guglie gotiche,
ed eremiti sulle loro vette di neve,
ed eroi sulle loro pire,
e patrioti che regali cavalcano, [25]
che assaltano la città vacillante,
tendono mani, e bramano e aspirano,
cercando di salire dove alto, più in alto,
il bimbo che il Tempo mai può stancare
canta sul Colle del Cavallo Bianco. [30]
E questa fu la potenza di Alfredo,
al finire del cammino:
che di tali battitori, savi o selvaggi,
egli era il meno distante dal bimbo
che ammucchia pietre tutto il giorno. [35]
Poiché Eldred combatté da schietto cacciatore
che uccide e torna a casa;
e Marco aveva combattuto perché ogni arma
squillava come il nome di Roma.
E Colan combatté con animo doppio, [40]
cupo e follemente gaio;
ma Alfredo combatté con la gravità
d’un buon bimbo che gioca.
Vide ruote spezzarsi e l’opera rifluire,
e tutte le cose com’erano; [45]
e il suo cuore era tondo come la vittoria
e semplice come la disperazione.
Perciò Marco è dimenticato,
che fu savio di lingua e prode;
e crollò il tumulo sopra Colan, [50]
e la croce sulla tomba di Eldred.
Le loro grandi anime se n’andarono via su un vento,
e non hanno racconto né tomba;
e Alfredo nato a Wantage
regge l’Inghilterra fino al giudizio. [55]
Perché nella foresta d’ogni paura,
come strana fresca raffica dal mare,
lo colpì quell’antica innocenza
che è più della maestria.
E come un bimbo cui crollano i mattoni [60]
li riammucchia ancora e ancora,
venne la rovina e la pioggia che brucia,
tornando come torna una ruota,
e rannicchiato tra ginestre e felci
egli ricominciò la sua vita. [65]
Staccò dalla spalla il suo corno d’avorio
e sorrise, ma non di scherno:
«Finisce la Battaglia di Ethandune
col suono d’un corno.»
Su un cavallo scuro alla doppia via [70]
vide cavalcare il grande Guthrum,
udì fragore di bronzo e squillo d’acciaio,
le risa e lo squillar di tromba,
il pagano nella sua superbia.
E la testa rossa e odiata di Ogier [75]
si muoveva in qualche discorso o faccenda;
ma gli uomini parevano sparsi tra i rovi,
e alcuni avevano acceso un fuoco,
e uno aveva spillato una botte.
E un carro o due si levavano, [80]
come alte navi in vista,
quasi un avamposto fosse accampato
ai bivi per la notte.
E lieti dell’improvvisa sosta
dei pochi sbandati di Alfredo, [85]
uno sedette su una pietra a sospirare,
e alcuni scivolarono su per la strada in fuga,
finché Alfredo, tra le felci lì accanto,
portò il corno alla bocca e soffiò.
E tutti rimasero come statue— [90]
uno seduto sulla pietra,
uno a metà dell’alta siepe di spini,
uno con una gamba oltre un muro,
e uno guardava indietro, piccolissimo,
lassù per la strada, solo. [95]
Grigio crepuscolo e una stella gialla
pendevano su spini e colle;
due lance e uno scudo di guerra spaccato giacevano
abbandonati sulla strada come gettati via,
il corno morì fioco nelle foreste grigie, [100]
e i fuggiaschi si fermarono.
«Fratelli d’armi», disse Alfredo,
«da questo lato sta il nemico;
sono la schiavitù e la fame fiori,
che dobbiate coglierli così? [105]
«Che cosa è meglio, dunque:
esser punzecchiati da pertiche danesi,
dopo aver scavato una camera in un fosso,
e braccati come una strega urlante,
o affumicati a morte nelle tane? [110]
«O che prima che canti il gallo rosso
noi tutti, mille in forze,
scendiamo la scura strada verso la casa di Dio,
cantando una canzone del Wessex?
«Sudare da schiavo per una razza di schiavi, [115]
tracannare l’infamia?
No, fratelli, con vostra licenza, io penso
che la Morte sia birra migliore da bere,
e per tutte le stelle di Cristo che tramontano,
i Danesi berranno con me. [120]
«Invecchiare avviliti in terra conquistata,
col sole stesso scoronato,
vedere gli alberi curvarsi e il bestiame strisciare—
la Morte è birra migliore da bere,
e per l’alta Morte sull’orlo crudele, [125]
quel boccale farà il giro.
«Benché morti siano tutti i paladini
che la gloria ebbe in vista,
benché tutti i vostri thane dalle spade di tuono
con cuori fieri siano morti fra i Danesi, [130]
finché resta un uomo, resta grande guerra:
ora è una guerra di uomini.
«Gli uomini che squarciano i solchi,
gli uomini che abbattono gli alberi,
quando i loro signori siano perduti e morti [135]
i servi della terra calpesteranno
i tiranni dei mari.
«La ruota della ruggente quiete
di tutte le fatiche sotto il sole,
affretti l’opera selvaggia almeno così bene [140]
come si compie l’opera del mondo intero.
«Che Hildred squarci il muro di scudi
netto come pota la siepe;
che Gurth l’uccellatore stia freddo
come sta sull’orlo dell’abisso; [145]
«che Gorlias cavalchi i re del mare
come Gorlias cavalca il mare,
poi vengano pure tutto l’inferno e la Danimarca,
urlando a tutti i loro demoni vivi,
e non ce ne importa uno straccio.» [150]
Quando la parola di Alfredo fu finita
stette salda quella debole linea,
ognuno al suo posto con clava o lancia,
e furia più profonda della profonda paura,
e sorrisi aspri come salamoia. [155]
E il Re levò il corno e disse:
«Vedete il corno di mio padre,
che Egbert soffiò nel suo impero,
una volta, quando usciva a cavallo per uso,
due volte, quando cavalcava a caccia, [160]
e tre volte nel mattino di battaglia.
«Ma fati più gravi sono caduti
sul corno dei re del Wessex,
e io ho soffiato una volta, il segnale di marcia,
per chiamarvi alla linea di battaglia [165]
e alla gloria e a ogni bene.
«E ora due squilli, il segnale di caccia,
perché ci voltiamo a fronteggiare;
ma non soffierò i tre squilli
finché non siamo perduti noi, o loro. [170]
«E ora soffio il segnale di caccia:
carichino alcuni, per regola e per verga;
ma quando soffierò il segnale di battaglia,
carichino tutti, e vadano a Dio.»
Sbigottiti fissarono i Danesi alle doppie vie [175]
dove oziavano, tutti sparsi,
quando quella linea scura per l’ultima volta
piegò il ginocchio per caricare—
e afferrarono goffi le armi,
e si chiesero stupiti come e perché— [180]
in tale ordine, per regola e per verga,
il popolo della pace di Dio
scendesse ruggendo a morire.
E quando l’ultima freccia
fu incoccata e volata, [185]
quando lo scudo rotto pendeva sul petto,
e la lancia senza speranza fu messa in resta,
e il corno senza speranza soffiato,
il Re alzò gli occhi, e ciò che vide
fu una gran luce come la morte, [190]
perché Nostra Signora stava sugli stendardi lacerati,
così sola e così innocente come quando andava tra bianche mura
e i gigli di Nazareth.
Un istante in una luce immobile [195]
vide allora Nostra Signora,
la sua veste era morbida come cielo d’occidente,
ed era una regina sommamente donna—
ma era una regina di uomini.
Sopra la foresta di ferro [200]
vide stare Nostra Signora,
i suoi occhi erano tristi senz’arte,
e sette spade aveva nel cuore—
ma una era nella sua mano.
Poi l’ultima carica andò cieca, [205]
e troppo perduta per la paura:
i Danesi si chiusero intorno, anello ruggente,
e venti clave si levarono sul Re,
quattro Danesi lo colpivano, urlando,
e Ogier della Pietra e della Fionda [210]
gli si avventò con una lancia.
Ma i Danesi erano folli di risa,
e la grande lancia deviò larga,
la punta si piantò in un albero sbandato,
e l’una e l’altra schiera gridarono d’un tratto, [215]
quando Alfredo balzò di lato.
Poco tempo ebbe l’irsuto Ogier
per rimettere in linea la lancia—
conobbe l’ascia di re Alfredo levata in alto,
la udì fendere il cielo, [220]
vi si rannicchiò sotto con un grido—
lo spaccò fino alla spina:
e Alfredo balzò sopra il suo cadavere,
e soffiò il segnale di battaglia.
Poi rompendo tutto e travolgendo [225]
venne la Cristianità come la morte,
scagliata da tali catapulte di volontà,
le doghe si schiantano, le botti si rovesciano,
i carri vacillano e crollano e uccidono
i carrettieri di sotto. [230]
Le barriere arretrano, le bandiere si lacerano,
i grandi scudi gemono come un gong,
cavalli come corni d’incubo
nitriscono orribilmente e a lungo.
I cavalli s’impennano alti e ondeggiano e ribollono [235]
e spezzano le redini dorate,
e slittano sulla carneficina con clamore,
giù dove giace l’amaro sangue,
dove Ogier andò a piedi a morire,
all’antica maniera dei Danesi. [240]
«L’alta marea!» gridò re Alfredo.
«L’alta marea e la svolta!
Come una marea si volge sugli alti mari grigi,
guardate come vacillano tra gli alberi,
come vagano le loro lance, come battono i ginocchi, [245]
come ardono selvaggi i loro fuochi di guardia!
«La Madre di Dio passa sopra di loro,
camminando su vento e fiamma,
e la nube di tempesta si dilegua da città e valle,
e il Cavallo Bianco scalpita nella Valle del Cavallo Bianco, [250]
e noi tutti berremo ancora birra cristiana
nel villaggio del nostro nome.
«La Madre di Dio passa sopra di loro,
portata da cherubini tremendi;
e il salmo rugge sopra la runa, [255]
e la Croce passa sopra il sole e la luna,
finisce la Battaglia di Ethandune
col suono d’un corno.»
Perché indietro, in disordine davvero,
i Danesi andarono vociando, [260]
troppo sfiniti per riprendere il conto,
o storditi d’insolenza e di birra,
o attoniti dal cielo, o fatti pallidi
davanti al volto del Re.
Perché tremendo fu Alfredo nella sua ora [265]
— lo attesta il pallido scriba —
più possente fu lui nella sconfitta
che tutti gli altri uomini in vittoria,
e dietro, i suoi uomini venivano micidiali,
gole riarse, bevendo morte. [270]
E Edgar della Nave d’Oro
uccise di sua propria mano,
strappò Ludwig dall’alcova della sua dama,
e abbatté Harmar nella sua ora,
e vana e sola restò la torre— [275]
la torre in Gheldria.
E Torr dalla sua minuscola barca,
i cui occhi videro il Nilo,
Wulf col grido di guerra sulle labbra,
e Hacro nato nell’eclissi, [280]
che sbarrò la Senna con navi da guerra
intorno a Parigi sull’Isola.
E Hacon della Mietitura,
e Dirck dell’Elba egli uccise,
e Cnut che fuse la campana di Durham, [285]
e caddero Fulk e il focoso Oscar,
e Goderic e Sigael,
e Uriel del Tasso.
E più alta cantò la strage,
e più fitti caddero gli uccisi, [290]
quando dalla gola annerita della strada del bosco
un prodigio coronante e fragoroso colpì
la retroguardia del Danese.
Perché i resti della compagnia di Colan—
perduti giù per l’altra strada— [295]
s’erano raccolti e accresciuti e udito il frastuono,
e con urla selvagge vennero riversandosi,
nudi come i loro antichi parenti britanni,
e lucenti di sangue in luogo di guado.
E nudo e insanguinato e in alto [300]
portavano davanti alla loro schiera
il corpo del loro possente signore,
Colan di Caerleon e della sua orda,
che recava la spada di battaglia di re Alfredo
spezzata nella mano sinistra. [305]
E una strana musica andava con lui,
forte eppure stranamente lontana;
le pive selvagge della terra d’occidente,
troppo acute perché l’orecchio le intenda,
cantavano alte e mortali da ogni lato [310]
quando il morto andò alla guerra.
Serrati tra spettro e bucaniere,
uomini prodi sono caduti e morti;
e i selvaggi signori del mare ben potevano tremare
mentre le spettrali pive di guerra del Gaelo [315]
chiamavano i corni della Valle del Cavallo Bianco,
e tutti i corni rispondevano.
E Hildred, il povero siepaio,
abbatté quattro capitani morti,
e Halmer ne stese altri tre, [320]
e i grandi conti ondeggiavano qua e là
per i vivi e per i morti.
E Gorlias afferrò la grande bandiera,
il Corvo di Odino, lacerato;
e gli occhi di Guthrum mutarono, [325]
per la prima volta dal mattino.
Come un giro della ruota della tempesta
solleva alto tutto il cielo,
e rupi di pallida nube luminosa
si sporgono come grandi mura su di noi, [330]
quasi i cieli potessero cadere.
Come un tale cielo alto e inclinato
manda certa neve o luce,
così mutarono gli occhi di Guthrum,
e la svolta fu più certa e più strana [335]
di mille uomini in fuga.
Perché non finché il pavimento dei cieli si spacchi,
e il fuoco d’inferno splenda attraverso il mare,
o le stelle guardino su dalle ginocchia squarciate della terra,
viene tale strappo di certezze, [340]
come quando un savio davvero vede
ciò che è più savio di lui.
Spinse il suo cavallo nella breccia di battaglia,
proprio Guthrum il Danese,
e come sempre era caduta cadde la sua lama, [345]
torre che crolla su molte terre,
ma Gurth l’uccellatore posò una mano
su quella briglia.
Re Guthrum era un gran signore,
e più alto dei suoi dèi— [350]
mise i papi in riso,
sferzò i santi con le verghe,
prese questo nostro mondo cavo
per coppa da tenervi il vino;
al dividersi delle vie del bosco [355]
gli venne un segno.
Nel Wessex, nella foresta,
nello spezzarsi delle lance,
ponemmo un segno su Guthrum
che arda per mille anni. [360]
Dove le alte selle si urtano
e le code dei cavalli si agitano,
là si levò verso gli uccelli in volo
un ruggito di morti e morenti;
nella sordità e nel forte gridare [365]
lo segnammo con la croce.
Lontano fino al fiume serpeggiante
il sangue scorse per giorni,
quando ponemmo la croce su Guthrum
al dividersi delle vie. [370]

LIBRO VIII
LA RIPULITURA DEL CAVALLO

Negli anni della pace del Wessex,
quando il buon Re sedeva in casa;
anni seguiti a quel dono di sangue
quando colei che sta sopra la luna
stette sopra la morte a Ethandune [5]
e vide giungere il suo regno—
Quando il popolo pagano del mare
fuggì alle sue palizzate,
inchiodato là dai giavellotti, avvinghiato,
e lo stupore colpì il re pirata, [10]
e lo condusse al suo battesimo
e alla fine di tutte le sue razzie.
(Ché finché la lavagna azzurra della notte
non sia tersa dell’ultima sua stella,
e nuovi fieri segni non vi sian scritti da leggere, [15]
occhi non guarderanno con tale stupore,
come quando un grand’uomo conosce davvero
una cosa più grande di lui.)
E vennero allo scioglier del suo crisma
signori d’ogni terra lontana, [20]
e una linea fu tratta a nord-ovest
che fece libero l’impero di re Egberto,
dando ogni terra lungo il mare del nord
ai figli della stella del nord.
Nei giorni del riposo di Alfredo, [25]
quando tutte queste cose furon compiute,
e il Wessex giaceva in una chiazza di pace,
come un cane in una chiazza di sole—
il Re sedeva nel suo frutteto,
fra mele verdi e rosse, [30]
col piccolo libro in seno
e la luce del sole sul capo.
E raccoglieva i canti degli uomini semplici
che oscillano con elmo e con secchia,
e l’elemosina che dava da cristiano [35]
correva come un fiume vivo di pesci;
e faceva doni a un mendicante
come a un dio errante.
E trasse buone leggi dagli antichi re,
come tesoro fuor dalle tombe; [40]
e più d’un ladro in anfratto spinoso,
o nobile in torre macchiata dal mare, tremò
all’aprirsi del suo libro di ferro,
e al radunarsi delle sentenze.
Allora uomini venivano dai confini della terra, [45]
che il Re sedeva ad accogliere,
e uomini andavano ai confini della terra
per la parola del Re.
Ché gente giungeva al cospetto di Alfredo
i cui giavellotti erano stati scagliati [50]
su mostri che fanno bollire il mare,
kraken e spire di mistero,
o confitti in nevi antiche che sono
la chioma bianca del mondo.
E alcuni avevano bussato alle porte del nord [55]
dell’estremo pavimento di ghiaccio,
dove il pesce gela e la schiuma si fa nera,
e il vasto mondo si stringe a un sentiero,
e l’altro mare alle spalle del mondo
grida attraverso una porta chiusa. [60]
E uomini partivano dal cospetto di Alfredo,
persino gran signori recanti doni,
non a Roma soltanto, ma più arditi,
fino alle alte corti ardenti e antiche,
di neri vestiti di drappo d’oro, [65]
di silenzio, e di spade ricurve,
paraventi istoriati e giardini segreti
e cieli gravidi d’insetti—
dove pianure di fuoco si stendono senza fine
fino al paese purpureo del Prete Gianni [70]
e alle mura del Paradiso.
E conobbe la potenza della Terre Majeure,
dove i re presero a regnare;
dove in una rotta di notte, senza nome,
di cupi Goti e Galli, venne [75]
bianco, sopra candele tutte in fiamma,
come una visione, Carlomagno.
E gli uomini, vedendo tali ambascerie,
parlarono col Re e dissero:
“L’acciaio che cantò aria sì dolce [80]
ad Ashdown e a Ethandune,
perché pende nel fodero così presto,
tutto greve come piombo?
“Perché dimorano i Danesi nel Nord dell’Inghilterra,
e cavalcano fin su al fiume? [85]
Tre altre marce come la tua
li finirebbero; e il Pitto riconoscerebbe
il nostro dominio; e i nostri piedi salirebbero al trono
sui monti di Strathclyde.”
E Alfredo nel frutteto, [90]
fra mele verdi e rosse,
col piccolo libro in seno,
guardò le verdi foglie e disse:
“Quando ogni filosofia verrà meno,
questa parola sola starà bene; [95]
che un savio si sente troppo piccolo per la vita,
e un folle troppo grande per essa.
“L’Asia e tutte le pianure imperiali
son troppo poco per un folle;
ma per un uomo i cui occhi sanno vedere, [100]
la piccola isola di Athelney
è terra troppo vasta da governare.
“Forse sarebbe stato meglio,
quando vi costruii la mia fortezza,
là fra le ampie acque dei canneti, [105]
che dal mio muro di fango avessi gridato:
‘Prendete tutta l’Inghilterra, da marea a marea—
sia Athelney la mia parte.’
“Quei folli della mischia pel trono—
oppressori e oppressi— [110]
avrebbero gremito le rive presso Athelney,
agitando le mani e gemendo senza posa,
dove il fiume volgeva al mare aperto,
presso un’isola dei beati.
“Un’isola come un piccolo libro [115]
pieno di cento racconti,
come la pagina dorata che vergano i buoni monaci,
che è tutta più piccola d’uno scricciolo,
eppur ha alte città, meteore e uomini,
e soli e balene che soffiano; [120]
“una terra che ha su di sé una luce
nel fiume scuro e rapido,
un’isola accesa di limpidezza assoluta,
perché un santo vi era stato;
dove i fiori sono fiori davvero e degni, [125]
e gli alberi sono alberi alfine,
“tale sarebbe l’isola d’un santo;
ma io sono un re comune,
e farò salde le mie recinzioni
da Wantage fino al promontorio di Plymouth, [130]
perché non sono abbastanza saggio
da governare cosa così piccola.”
E avvenne nei giorni di Alfredo,
nei giorni del suo riposo,
che, essendo ai suoi occhi le antiche usanze [135]
una strada diritta e una luce ferma,
comandò che si serbasse bianco il Bianco Cavallo
come la prima piuma delle nevi.
E fino al rosso lume delle torce,
dal travaglio del grigio mattino, [140]
spogliarono il Bianco Cavallo dell’erba
come lo spogliano ancor oggi.
E sotto il rosso lume delle torce
egli andava sognando come assorto,
dei vecchi compagni caduti come re, [145]
e delle ricche cose irrevocabili
d’un cuore che non ha aperture,
ma è serrato, essendo colmo.
E il lume delle torce sfiorò i pallidi capelli
ch’erano argento velato d’oro, [150]
e l’ossatura del suo volto era fatta di corde,
e un giovane signore si volse fra i signori
e disse: “Il Re è vecchio.”
E mentre ancora lo diceva
un messo entrò di gran carriera, [155]
gridando: “All’armi, sire Re, i borghi all’armi,
nell’orrore e nell’ombra del danno,
hanno arso la fattoria di Brand di Aynger—
i Danesi son tornati!
“I Danesi incalzano i bianchi Angli dell’Est [160]
in sei battaglie sulle pianure,
i Danesi devastano il mondo intorno al Tamigi,
Danesi a oriente—Danesi!”
E mentre cadeva su un ginocchio,
i thane proruppero in ira, [165]
gridando: “Male vegliano le guardie, e male
gli sceriffi custodiscono la contea.”
Ma il giovane conte disse: “Male i santi,
i santi d’Inghilterra, guardano
la terra in cui impegniamo loro oro; [170]
gli argini decadono, il Re invecchia,
e certo questo è duro:
“che mai siamo liberi di loro;
che quando il suo capo è canuto
egli non possa dire a quelli che colpì [175]
e risparmiò, con mano dura alla gola:
‘Andate, e non tornate mai più.’ ”
Allora Alfredo sorrise. E il suo sorriso
era come il sole per potenza.
Ma egli soltanto indicò: li fece badare [180]
a quei contadini di stirpe del Berkshire,
che mondavano il vecchio Cavallo dall’erbaccia
come lo mondano a quest’ora.
“Vi separerete dalle erbacce per sempre?
O mostrerete la porta alle margherite? [185]
O ingiungerete all’erba audace:
va’, e non tornare mai più?
“Così incessanti e così segreti
prosperano terrore e furto lasciati liberi;
tradimento e vergogna verranno [190]
finché un’erbaccia fiorisce in una palude;
e come la quiete dell’erba rigida
è la quiete della tirannia.
“Anche sopra le nostre anime bianche
eresie selvagge e alte [195]
ondeggiano più superbe dei pennacchi d’erba,
e più tristi del loro sospiro.
“E io vado a cavallo contro la razzia,
e voi non sapete dove io sia;
ma lo saprete fra un giorno o un anno, [200]
quando una verde stella d’erba crescerà qui;
il Caos vi ha caricati, destriero e lancia,
ascia da guerra e ariete.
“E benché i cieli mutino e gli imperi si sciolgano,
questa parola resterà vera: [205]
se vogliamo il cavallo antico,
ripulite il cavallo di nuovo.
“Un tempo seguii una stella danzante
che pareva cantare e annuire,
e suonare in terra a morto per ogni male; [210]
ma ora so che, se non ripulite bene,
rossa ruggine crescerà sulla gran campana di Dio
ed erba nelle strade di Dio.”
Tacque Alfredo; e sopra il suo capo
le grandi cupole verdi, i Downs, [215]
mostrarono le prime legioni della calca,
in marcia con fretta e amarezza
per amore di Cristo e della corona.
Oltre la caverna di Colan,
oltre le terre di Eldred presso il mare, [220]
Sorsero uomini soggetti allo scettro di re Alfredo,
dalle lande ventose dell’Exe mai calcate,
o dove la spina della tomba di Dio
arde sopra Glastonbury.
Lontano a nord e lontano a ovest [225]
le tribù remote si fecero vicine,
pianure oltre pianure, altura oltre altura,
che un uomo al tramonto vede così bene,
e le minuscole città colorate che dimorano
negli angoli del cielo. [230]
Ma scura e fitta come s’affollava la schiera,
“con tamburo e torcia e lama,
il Re dagli occhi fermi sedeva pensando,
come chi osserva una cosa viva,
il gesso ripulito; e disse, [235]
“Benché io dia questa terra a Nostra Signora,
che mi soccorse in Athelney,
benché alberi più signorili e zolle più vigorose
e colline più liete carne alcuna non abbia calcato
del giardino della Madre di Dio [240]
fra la riva del Tamigi e il mare,
“so che vi cresceranno erbacce
più svelte di quanto l’uomo bruci;
e benché ora si sparpaglino e vadano,
in qualche secolo lontano, triste e lento, [245]
ho una visione, e so
che i pagani torneranno.
“Non verranno con navi da guerra,
non devasteranno con tizzoni,
ma i libri saranno tutto il loro pasto, [250]
e inchiostro sarà sulle loro mani.
“Non con l’umore dei cacciatori
o selvaggia perizia in guerra,
ma ordinando ogni cosa con parole morte,
faranno stringhe di bestie e di uccelli, [255]
e ruote di vento e di stella.
“Verranno miti come chierici di monastero,
con molte pergamene e penne;
e indietro vi volgerete a guardare,
bramando uno dei giorni di Alfredo, [260]
quando i pagani erano ancora uomini.
“Il caro sole impicciolito da soli tremendi,
come fiori più feroci sullo stelo,
la Terra perduta e piccola come un pisello
nell’alta selva torreggiante del cielo, [265]
—queste le piccole erbacce che vedrete
strisciare, coprendo il gesso.
“Ma benché gettino un ponte sul mare di Santa Maria,
o rubino l’ala di San Michele—
benché innalzino su di noi meraviglie, [270]
più grandi di quante il grande Virgilio
operò per il re romano,
“da questo segno li riconoscerete:
lo spezzarsi della spada,
e l’Uomo non più libero cavaliere, [275]
che ama o odia il suo signore.
“Sì, questo sarà il loro segno,
il segno del fuoco morente;
e l’Uomo fatto come un mentecatto,
che nulla sa di suo padre. [280]
“Che importa se vengono con pergamena e penna,
e gravi come un chierico rasato:
da questo segno li riconoscerete,
che rovinano e fanno buio;
“da tutti gli uomini asserviti al Nulla, [285]
schiavi senza un signore,
da un unico mondo cieco e idiota obbedito,
troppo cieco per essere aborrito;
“dal terrore e dai racconti crudeli
di maledizione nell’osso e nella stirpe, [290]
dal fato e dalla debolezza che vincono,
maledetti fin dal principio,
dal dettaglio del peccare
e dal diniego del peccato;
“dal pensiero rovina strisciante, [295]
dalla vita fango che balza,
da un cuore infranto nel petto del mondo,
e dalla fine del desiderio del mondo;
“da Dio e dall’uomo disonorati,
dalla morte e dalla vita rese vane, [300]
riconoscete il vecchio barbaro,
il barbaro tornato ancora—
“quando è gran parlare di tendenze e maree,
e di saggezza e destino,
salutate quell’immortale pagano [305]
che è più triste del mare.
“In qual modo gli uomini lo colpiranno,
o la Croce sorgerà di nuovo,
o carità o cavalleria,
la mia visione non dice; e io non vedo [310]
oltre; ma ora cavalco nel dubbio
verso la battaglia della pianura.”
E l’orlo d’erba del gran colle
fu rasato netto come un prato,
mentre le leve affluivano da presso e da lungi, [315]
dai boschi caldi della stella d’occidente,
e il Re uscì alla sua ultima guerra
su un alto cavallo grigio all’alba.
E notizie del suo lontano combattere
giungevano lente e spezzate [320]
dalla terra dei Sassoni dell’Est,
dal levar del sole e dal mare.
Dalle pianure della bianca aurora,
e dalla triste corona di Sant’Edmondo,
dove gli stagni dell’Essex pallidi rilucono [325]
là fuori, oltre la città di Londra—
in frammenti possenti e dubbiosi,
come guerre fioche o favolose,
salivano le vecchie colline della sua fama,
dove la fronte calva del colle del Bianco Cavallo [330]
è vicina alle fredde stelle.
Ma lontano, nei luoghi d’oriente,
il vento della morte camminava alto,
e una razzia fu spinta contro la razzia,
il cielo rosseggiò e il fumo ondeggiò, [335]
e l’alto cavallo grigio passò.
Le porte del gran fiume
furono sfondate come da una chiatta,
le mura caddero gremite, dicono gli scribi,
e alte torri popolose di tribù [340]
parevano piegarsi per la carica.
Fumo come cieli ribelli rotolava
arricciato su fiamme colorate,
specchiato in mostruosi sogni di porpora
nelle possenti pozze del Tamigi. [345]
Forte era la guerra sulle mura di Londra,
e forte alle porte di Londra,
e forte i re del mare nella nube
irruppero fra i loro dèi sognanti, e forte
invocarono i loro Fati tremendi. [350]
E intanto sul Colle del Bianco Cavallo
il cavallo giaceva lungo e smorto,
la zolla strisciava e il fungo serpeva,
e la piccola acetosella, mentre tutti dormivano,
disfaceva l’opera dell’uomo. [355]
Con dito di velluto, piede di velluto,
i soffici muschi feroci allora
strisciarono sul grande bianco bene comune
che ogni gente s’era sforzata di spogliare e mondare,
e l’erba, come una gran verde ruota di strega, [360]
disfece le fatiche degli uomini.
E trifoglio e cardo silenzioso prosperarono,
e gemme sbocciarono in silenzio,
con poca cura della valle del Tamigi
o di quel che vi potesse essere— [365]
che laggiù, sul fiume che s’allarga,
nelle pianure d’oriente, per corona
si levò nel pallido cielo purpureo
una torretta di fumo come avorio;
e il fumo mutò e il vento passò, [370]
e il Re prese la città di Londra.

La Ballata del Cavallo Bianco
Documentazione e abbreviazioni
Le note usano il sistema autore-data. I nomi degli autori e le date di pubblicazione dei loro libri compaiono nel testo, di solito tra parentesi. Per una documentazione più completa si consultino i riferimenti alle pagine 225-231.
Abbreviazioni
GK, GKC, Chesterton Gilbert Keith Chesterton
BWH La Ballata del Cavallo Bianco
ASC Cronaca anglosassone
P Nota preliminare
D Dedica
E III: 109 Nota finale Libro III: verso 109
IV:11 Libro IV: verso 11
Chesterton a Battersea nel 1905

Note: Nota preliminare
P:1. Questa ballata ha bisogno di note storiche, per la semplice ragione che è intrisa di storia. L’enfatica smentita di Chesterton è legata al suo bisogno di poeta di collocare l’importante battaglia di Ethandune nel Berkshire, presso la Collina del Cavallo Bianco. Egli la sapeva più lunga. Eppure non osò dire: «Sebbene io creda che la battaglia di Ethandune fu probabilmente combattuta a Edington nei pressi di Bratton Castle nel Wiltshire, intendo, per ragioni mie, collocarla nel Berkshire. L’antico Cavallo Bianco è una presenza significativa nella Ballata.» Si veda l’Introduzione iv.
P:22-25. vittoria finale di Alfredo: La battaglia di Ethandune.
P:25-31. tradizione: Chesterton evita la controversia dichiarando di scrivere per sentito dire. Ovunque sia avvenuta, re Alfredo sconfisse in modo decisivo i Danesi nell’878. Questa vittoria rese possibile «la graduale riconquista del Danelaw nel decimo secolo» e preservò l’Inghilterra dal perdere la propria lingua, la propria cultura e la propria religione.
P:31-35. Alfredo suonò l’arpa e cantò nel campo danese: Guglielmo di Malmesbury, scrivendo agli inizi del dodicesimo secolo, è il primo storico a menzionare questa leggenda (Keynes and Lapidge 1983,22,212).
P:36-59. Alfredo venne a contatto con una donna e delle focacce: La più antica versione superstite di questa leggenda si trova in un racconto anonimo della Vita di san Neot. Il manoscritto fu probabilmente scritto nel tardo decimo secolo, dopo la traslazione delle reliquie di san Neot dalla Cornovaglia a un priorato di Eyenesbury nello Huntingdonshire (Keynes and Lapidge 1983,197-202).
P:66. Eadwig: Un giovane re d’Inghilterra il cui breve regno compì poco di significativo (ASC 955-59).
P:72-86. Combatté per la civiltà cristiana contro il nichilismo pagano: Ecco il tema della Ballata: la vita è una lotta incessante tra le forze del bene e del male. Fino all’ultimo verso Chesterton dispiega questo tema su molteplici piani della vita.

Note: Dedica
Sinossi: Chesterton parla al lettore (1-46): Queste rime riguardano la guerra combattuta tra re Alfredo e i Danesi nell’ultima parte del nono secolo. Chesterton parla alla moglie (47-94): Dedico questo poema a te per amore e riconoscenza per la tua gioiosa compagnia, e per l’ispirazione spirituale che sei e sei stata nella mia vita.
Perciò a te porto queste rime,
a te che portasti a me la croce,
poiché su di te, fiammeggiante senza difetto,
vidi il segno che Guthrum vide
quando lasciò infrangersi le sue navi tremende,
e pose pace sul mare.
(D:53-58)
D: 1-16. Chesterton apre la sua epica di re Alfredo il Grande sottolineando che questo è il racconto della lotta primigenia tra cristiani e pagani per il controllo dell’Inghilterra. Alfredo è il grande volto rivolto verso le tenebre che avvolgono il suo regno dopo l’invasione danese a sorpresa del Wessex nel gennaio 878.
Garry Wills (1961,136) fece notare che i primi due versi provengono da un giovanile poema inedito di Chesterton su Mosè. La prima strofa è inclusa qui per gentile concessione di Wills e di A. P. Watt Ltd. per conto del Royal Literary Fund.
Di grandi membra andate in caos
di un gran volto girato alla notte
dal primo crepuscolo della vecchia terra grigia
l’anima di un uomo possente
l’uomo delle tavole infrante
l’uomo della verga vivente
l’uomo che diede alle nazioni
le Dieci Grandi Parole di Dio.
D:3-16. Perché un poeta volge lo sguardo mille anni indietro, all’Inghilterra dei giorni di Alfredo? Vuole ricordare ai lettori che fu Alfredo il Grande a salvare l’Inghilterra.
D:6-16. Chesterton definisce le ere precedenti «Inghilterre sommerse». Nel «telescopizzare la storia» dichiara: «La funzione primaria dell’immaginazione è vedere tutto il nostro ordinato sistema di vita come un cumulo di rivoluzioni stratificate» (1906,60).
D:9. thanes: Uomini che tenevano terre dal re o da altro superiore in epoca anglosassone. Prestavano servizio militare e avevano di solito rango ereditario.
D:17. gonfalone: Un pennone o bandiera fissato all’estremità di una lancia. Il gonfalone sotto cui i Normanni combatterono a Hastings nel 1066 era un vessillo bianco inviato dal Papa a Guglielmo di Normandia.
D:17-18. I Normanni conquistarono gli Anglosassoni.
D:18. La bandiera anglosassone era un drago d’oro montato su un campo rosso sangue.
D:19-28. Non toccheremo le gesta di re Artù né gli eventi posteriori alla conquista normanna. Il nostro interesse principale è per l’ultimo terzo del nono secolo, quando un grande Re cristiano tenne testa ai Danesi pagani.
D:21-22. re santi: Gli alleati di re Artù contro i Sassoni.
D:23-24. Bayeux: La cittadina di Francia che espone il ricamo noto come Arazzo di Bayeux. Di fattura sassone, raffigura per immagini gli eventi connessi alla conquista normanna.
D:25. alba: Il primo sesto secolo, quando Artù avrebbe combattuto dodici battaglie contro gli invasori pagani.
D:26-28. Le imprese di Alfredo sono così notevoli e varie che i moderni le trovano quasi incredibili.
D:41-44. La recente fioritura di studi anglosassoni consente ai lettori di entrare nella vita e nei tempi di Alfredo. James Campbell offre un breve resoconto interpretativo e illustrato della storia anglosassone con note e bibliografia. Simon Keynes e Michael Lapidge hanno ampi riferimenti elencati in Alfred the Great (1983,345-59). La loro nuova traduzione della Vita di re Alfredo di Asser fornisce un’eccellente lettura di sfondo per La Ballata del Cavallo Bianco. Gli scritti di Dorothy Whitelock sull’era anglosassone sono insieme autorevoli e illuminanti.
D:47-52. Alfredo comprese che solo affidandosi all’aiuto di Dio avrebbe potuto sconfiggere i pagani.
D:53-56. Gilbert Chesterton dedica La Ballata del Cavallo Bianco alla moglie, Frances.
D:56-58. Guthrum: Si veda E VII:325.
D:59-64. Gilbert e Frances visitarono la zona intorno a Chippenham dove i Danesi si arresero. Si confrontino la sua descrizione poetica e quella in prosa del campo di battaglia. [Ecco la prova che GKC sapeva già prima del 1911 che il Wiltshire aveva miglior titolo del Berkshire come sito di Ethandune.] «Ma l’altro giorno, sotto un tramonto selvaggio e un sorgere di luna, passai per il luogo che gode di miglior fama come Ethandune: un altopiano alto e torvo, in parte nudo e in parte ispido; simile a quel luogo selvaggio e sacro dei grandi versi immaginosi sull’amante demoniaco e la luna calante. Le tenebre, il rosso relitto del tramonto, la luna gialla e livida, le lunghe ombre fantastiche creavano davvero quel senso di accadimento mostruoso che è il lato drammatico del paesaggio. I nudi pendii grigi parevano precipitare a valle come schiere in rotta; le nuvole scure correvano come bandiere lacerate; e la luna era come un drago dorato, come il Drago d’Oro del Wessex» (1911,228-29).
D:65-94. Chesterton esprime qui il suo apprezzamento per l’amorevole compagnia di Frances, per i suoi doni e per le sue eccellenti qualità.
Padre John O’Connor, intimo amico personale dei Chesterton, conferma quanto ben fondati fossero l’amore e la stima di Chesterton per Frances. «È a lei che dobbiamo il più e parte del meglio di Gilbert Chesterton. In ogni cosa fu il suo angelo: una piccola cockney, imparentata col primo direttore di Punch. Lo convertì persino da quello che egli chiama l’Alto Unitarianismo al genere più leale e razionale di Anglicanesimo — trattariano più che ritualistico» (1938,28).
D:77-82. Un riferimento a certi scrittori e direttori di giornale contemporanei. Si vedano VIII: 248-302 e le note finali.
D:94. Frome. Un distretto urbano nel Somersetshire, Inghilterra.

Note: La visione del Re
Sinossi: Chesterton introduce il Cavallo Bianco, e presenta poi un quadro d’insieme della caotica migrazione delle nazioni dopo la caduta di Roma (1-80). I pagani Uomini del Nord, popolo di mare, causarono devastazioni diffuse e nell’878 avevano soggiogato tutta la Britannia tranne il Wessex. Dopo l’incursione danese a sorpresa a Chippenham nel gennaio 878, Alfredo, allo stremo, si nascose nell’isola paludosa di Athelney (81-161). In questo frangente Maria appare ad Alfredo (162-277).
La notte sarà tre volte notte su di voi,
e il cielo una cappa di ferro.
Avete voi gioia senza una causa,
sì, fede senza una speranza?
(I:258-61)
I:17. Il Cavallo Bianco della Valle del Cavallo Bianco: Ecco il Cavallo Bianco che Chesterton riconosce come presenza preistorica (1911,257). Thomas Hughes cita la descrizione di questo gigantesco Cavallo Bianco data dall’autore di A Tour through England: «Guardando a sud dalla Valle, vediamo una trincea scavata sul fianco di un’alta collina verde, nella forma di un cavallo, e nemmeno mal fatta; la trincea è profonda circa una iarda, e quasi colmata di gesso, sicché a distanza si vede la forma esatta di un Cavallo Bianco, ma così grande da occupare quasi un acro di terreno… . Da questa figura la collina è detta nelle nostre carte Collina del Cavallo Bianco, e il paese basso e piatto sottostante la Valle del Cavallo Bianco» (1859,216).
I:18-60. Fine del mondo: La caduta di Roma. Le tenebre calarono sul mondo civilizzato. Orde di barbari si riversarono da oriente e da settentrione nell’Impero romano. «Quel mondo esterno di anarchia universale che giaceva oltre la Cristianità» (Chesterton 1917,50).
I:32. cresset: Un recipiente di ferro per olio o pece ardenti. Può essere montato come torcia o appeso come lanterna.
I:38. fiori titanici: Fiori giganteschi.
I:41. Ind’s: dell’India.
I:42. inmost one: Il monte Everest.
I:61-80. La morte dell’imperatore Carlo Magno nell’814 indebolì le difese che la Cristianità aveva in Europa. Nell’ultima parte del nono secolo, Alfredo con l’aiuto di Dio arginò la marea pagana dell’invasione.
I:62. Il nono secolo fu un periodo oscuro per il Papato. L’investitura laica moltiplicò i mali nel disgregarsi dell’Impero carolingio. I Saraceni saccheggiarono l’Italia meridionale e minacciarono lo Stato Pontificio. Dentro la stessa città di Roma, i nobili italiani si combattevano di frequente per assicurarsi posizione e ricchezza. Da politici senza scrupoli, si adoperavano per mettere sul trono papale qualcuno del proprio partito. Con questo mezzo speravano di ottenere il controllo del governo temporale della città e di arricchirsi con la corruzione. In alcuni casi furono nominati Papi uomini deboli e indegni. Nel 1059, la revisione del sistema di elezione del Papa liberò queste elezioni dalle irregolarità e dal controllo imperiale (Mann 1925, vols.2,3,4).
I:63-76. Il regno di Alfredo era nelle mani dei Danesi dopo il loro attacco a sorpresa a Chippenham nel gennaio 878. Mentre radunava l’esercito per il contrattacco di primavera, Alfredo si nascose nell’isola di Athelney (ASC). Dopo la Pasqua [23 marzo] di quell’anno, Alfredo, con l’aiuto degli abitanti di Somerset, Wiltshire e Hampshire, combatté contro l’intero esercito danese a Ethandune e fu vittorioso (ASC 878).
I:77-80. Negli anni seguenti re Alfredo rafforzò le fortificazioni del suo regno. Ciò gli permise nell’886 di sconfiggere rapidamente l’esercito che attaccava Londra e di respingere i rinnovati attacchi dell’892-96. Nel frattempo avviò programmi per la rinascita della religione e del sapere. Il suo composito codice di leggi mostrava la sua giudiziosa cura nel mantenere l’ordine sociale e politico tra i sudditi (Keynes and Lapidge 1983,16370).
I:81-111. Chesterton definisce gli Uomini del Nord «un’orda di predoni pagani usciti dai mari e dalle foreste del settentrione» (1930,114).
Questi pirati si accontentarono dapprima di bottino, devastazione e tributi. Le loro incursioni portarono rovina e il deprimente impoverimento della civiltà. Dopo l’865 aspirarono a conquistare e a insediarsi. Nell’878 gran parte della Britannia era sotto il loro dominio, ed essi compivano sforzi concertati per impadronirsi del Wessex.
I:89. teste cornute: Gli Uomini del Nord sono spesso erroneamente raffigurati con elmi cornuti. Si veda E V:171.
I:102. La barbara cerimonia religiosa di versare il sangue di animali così come di uomini non fu del tutto abolita in Scandinavia fino a ben dentro il nono secolo, quando ricevettero la luce del Vangelo (Mallet 1882,111).
I:108. Un grande esercito pagano giunse nell’Anglia orientale nell’autunno dell’866 e vi prese i quartieri d’inverno (ASC). Da questo momento in poi leggiamo dell’esercito pagano presente in qualche parte della Britannia.
I:116-22. Gli avi di Alfredo si opposero con coraggio ai ricorrenti assalti dei guerrieri danesi.
Egbert (802-39), nonno paterno di Alfredo, realizzò intorno all’anno 829 una breve e fragile unione delle monarchie anglosassoni. Ethelwulf, padre di Alfredo, regnò dall’839 all’858. I fratelli di Alfredo, che regnarono a turno, furono Ethelbald, 85860; Ethelbert, 860-66; ed Ethelred, 866-71. Alfredo governò il regno dall’871 all’899.
I:125. Lyonesse: Nella leggenda arturiana, un paese favoleggiato come un tempo contiguo alla Cornovaglia, ma da lungo tempo sprofondato sotto il mare.
I:125-26. Artù è «il re che non torna più». Chesterton confronta la svanente memoria della famiglia di Alfredo con le leggende popolari ancora in circolazione su re Artù e i suoi «signori» che combatterono contro i Sassoni invasori.
I:127. Il Drago d’Oro: La bandiera dei Sassoni occidentali.
I:129. Re Alfredo.
I:138. Nell’878 Athelney era un’isola nel Somersetshire alla confluenza dei fiumi Parrett e Tone. Oggi è una collina su terreno agricolo visibile dalla piazzola di sosta sulla A361, circa mezzo miglio a nord-est di Lyng.
I:141. piegato in ginocchio: Dopo l’attacco a sorpresa del gennaio 878 Alfredo è stordito ma non vinto.
I:146-55. Alfredo ricorda l’episodio della sua infanzia in cui ottenne dalla madre un manoscritto miniato (Keynes and Lapidge 1983,75).
I:148. La madre di Alfredo era Osburh, «donna religiosa, nobile per nascita e per natura» (Giles 1891,44).
I:162-76. Non esistono tradizioni documentate circa l’apparizione della Madonna ad Alfredo. La parte cardinale che Chesterton fa avere a Maria nel radunare i soldati (Libro II), nel vincere la battaglia (Libro VII) e nel vegliare sull’Inghilterra come Protettrice (Libro VIII) è prova del sincero amore che egli nutriva per la Madre di Dio. Si veda E VII:189-204.
I:177-82. Il Gioiello di Alfredo: Questo gioiello di fattura anglosassone è una placca d’oro recante il ritratto di un uomo in smalto cloisonné. Lungo il bordo, in fattura anglosassone, corrono le parole «Alfredo ordinò di farmi» (Keynes and Lapidge 1983, 203-6). Il Gioiello, trovato nel 1693 a Newton Park, circa quattro miglia a nord di Athelney, è il possesso più prezioso dell’Ashmolean Museum dell’Università di Oxford.
I:183-202. Chesterton era vivamente consapevole della vicinanza di Maria alle genti di ogni luogo. Maisie Ward ci racconta che egli parlava spesso della «Madonna che ritorna alla sua terra, a tutte le terre, e salva il mondo» (Ward 1945,4). Anziché attribuire la vittoria di Alfredo al leggendario aiuto miracoloso di san Neot o di san Cutberto, Chesterton scelse di far chiedere da Alfredo alla Madonna se lui e i suoi guerrieri cristiani sarebbero infine risultati vittoriosi.
I:205. croft: Un piccolo campo recintato adiacente a una casa.
I:211. hind: Un contadino; un bracciante agricolo.
I:216. i Tre Re: Le tre Persone della Santissima Trinità.
I:209-61. A trent’anni, un Alfredo profondamente umiliato comprende che la visita di Maria significava che la vittoria sarebbe giunta dopo una lotta tremenda. «Avete voi… fede senza una speranza?» D’ora in poi egli va «gaio nel buio».

Note: L’adunata dei capi
Sinossi: «Alfredo dalla lancia solitaria» raduna i suoi combattenti cristiani della libertà dal Wessex occidentale e dal Galles per una battaglia campale contro i Danesi pagani. Il messaggio di Maria convince il Romano, il Gaelico e il Sassone a radunarsi alla Pietra di Egbert.
Dalla bocca della Madre di Dio
come una piccola parola io vengo;
ché vado radunando uomini cristiani
da lastrico sommerso e guado e palude,
per morire in una battaglia, Dio sa quando,
per Dio, ma io so perché.
E questa è la parola di Maria,
la parola del desiderio del mondo:
«Non avrete più alcun conforto,
se non che il cielo si fa ancor più scuro
e il mare sale più alto.»
(II:74-84)
II:2. shaw: Una striscia di bosco che orla un campo; un boschetto o piccolo bosco; una macchia [dial.].
Chesterton crea l’atmosfera dell’Inghilterra del nono secolo usando parole tratte dal vocabolario della gente di quel tempo.
II:1-8. In «A Romance of the Marshes» Chesterton descrive il terreno intorno ad Athelney: «Ogni cosa in quella strana campagna sembrava starsene bassa, come per evitare la pioggia incessante e crepitante delle frecce danesi. C’erano in verità colline di altezza non trascurabile a portata di voce; ma quelle pozze e distese del vecchio Parrett parevano separarsi come un mare centrale e segreto; e in mezzo ad esse si levava la rocca di Athelney, isolata come lo fu per Alfredo… . Ci si chinava ad accarezzare l’erba, come se la terra fosse tutta un’unica bestia mansueta capace di sentire» (1911,299-300).
II:9-24. Alfredo, rincuorato dopo l’incontro con Maria, canta mentre viaggia verso nord, verso l’estuario del fiume Severn, in cerca di Eldred il Sassone. Alfredo ha bisogno dell’aiuto di tutti i cristiani per scacciare i pagani Danesi.
II:21. Franklin: Un possidente terriero benestante ma non nobile.
II:23. Albero Sacro: Una quercia. Per i druidi la quercia era «emblema della Divinità» (Lingard [1849] 1912,1:16-17).
II:24. Usk: Un fiume del Galles che scorre attraverso l’Inghilterra sud-occidentale fino all’estuario del Severn.
II:25-62. Si confronti la descrizione chestertoniana di Eldred con le «virtù inglesi» che egli cita in Cobbett. «L’amore del bighellonare e dell’avventura solitaria; lo spirito del geniale eccentrico; la capacità di essere eremita senza essere misantropo; l’amore del paesaggio e delle strade fuori mano; e soprattutto quell’amore del grottesco che è coraggioso come un largo sorriso. Né… gli mancava quel lato più tenero, solo che in lui stava in genere all’interno. Voglio dire che è nel suo carattere privato e domestico che vediamo l’avversione inglese per ciò che è penoso e severo. Fu un padre gentilissimo» (1926,203-4).
II:46-57. Eldred ha perso interesse a combattere i Danesi a causa delle sconfitte senza fine. Di nove battaglie nell’871, solo Englefield e Ashdown furono chiare vittorie sassoni. Alfredo allora salvò vite e guadagnò tempo pagando i pagani perché lasciassero il Wessex. Cinque anni dopo Guthrum e il suo intero esercito tornarono con l’intenzione di prendere possesso del Wessex.
II:58. scalds: Bardi che cantavano o recitavano poemi eroici ed elogi.
II:94. butt: Probabilmente una botte di birra accanto a Eldred.
II:96. La Pietra di Egbert: Questo luogo di raduno non può essere identificato con certezza. Si trovava nel Wiltshire, a est della foresta di Selwood, e a una giornata di marcia dal successivo accampamento, Iley Oak. Secondo l’ASC, vi si radunarono uomini del Somersetshire, del Wiltshire e dello Hampshire.
II:103-12. I Danesi predoni devastarono i poderi dei nativi e le dimore degli eremiti. Alfredo vede distruzione da ogni parte.
II:105. steading: Una fattoria [dial.].
II:107. combe: Una valle stretta o una conca profonda, specialmente se chiusa su tutti i lati tranne uno.
II:117-41. Dopo aver camminato tutta la notte Alfredo arriva alla fattoria di Marco sul far del giorno. L’organizzazione evidente ovunque riflette il carattere del proprietario.
II:147-52. Alfredo si presenta umilmente al Romano come uno che ancora lotta per sconfiggere i pagani Danesi. Riconosce di aver comprato la pace pagandoli perché si ritirassero dal suo regno.
II:151. wold: Una pianura d’altopiano; una regione priva di boschi.
II:166. Wiltshire: Una contea dell’Inghilterra meridionale. White Horse wold: Questo altopiano prende il nome dal preistorico Cavallo Bianco situato in cima alla Collina del Cavallo Bianco.
II:165-68. Marco mostra la sua competenza militare formulando un giudizio sulla situazione nel Wessex.
II:167. Owsenfold: Località non identificata.
II:191. Or: Prima, innanzi [arcaico].
II:192. Caerleon: Una cittadina sul fiume Usk nel Galles meridionale.
II:194. uomini spezzati: Gli antenati di Colan fuggirono tra le rupi del Galles per sottrarsi ai Sassoni. I suoi avi preferirono la libertà in un territorio montuoso alla schiavitù altrove sotto i Sassoni.
II:199. alberi dei Druidi: I Druidi veneravano la quercia.
II:201. i re caduti: Artù e i leggendari re alleati della Britannia del sesto secolo. Furono i campioni celtici cristiani contro gli invasori sassoni pagani.
II:203. Ultimo di una stirpe in rovina: Colan è un fiero Celta i cui antenati si ritirarono nelle rocche montuose del Galles per preservare la vita e la libertà. Furono le forze cristiane della resistenza che nel sesto secolo si opposero all’assalto dei Sassoni pagani. Ora, tre secoli dopo, un Sassone cristianizzato cerca aiuto per vincere gli invasori pagani. La mitezza di Alfredo e il suo messaggio da parte di Maria gli guadagnano l’aiuto di Colan.
II:204-6. Gli Irlandesi invasero la Britannia sia durante l’occupazione romana sia dopo il ritiro delle legioni (Collingwood [1936] 1937,282). Colonizzarono il Galles a tal punto che il gaelico divenne la lingua del popolo (Oman [1904] 1925,158-59). Quando gli insediamenti irlandesi persero l’indipendenza a favore dei Gallesi, il gaelico si estinse gradualmente nel Galles.
II:208-9. L’Irlanda è «l’isola avvolta di pioggia». Brandan [Brendano] è in realtà il fondatore, nel sesto secolo, del monastero di Clonfert.
Nei libri di storie Brendano vive fantastiche avventure come navigatore che veleggia verso occidente dall’Irlanda.
II:231-41. Il passato pagano profondamente radicato di Colan lo influenza.
Catherine Mulroy, un’anziana donna dell’Irlanda nord-occidentale, scrisse questo resoconto delle antiche credenze religiose celtiche.
Prima che il Cristianesimo giungesse in Irlanda, la gente vi adorava divinità pagane, per esempio sole, luna, stelle, mari, fiumi, alberi, fuoco, pietra, ferro, eccetera. Gli Irlandesi sono sempre stati un popolo profondamente religioso — costantemente in cerca di un essere superiore cui rendere omaggio.
Questo culto era ispirato più dalla paura che dall’amore. Credevano che i loro dèi governassero gli uomini secondo un disegno di fato oscuro e irragionevole. Ciò li lasciava facile preda del caso, della fortuna, della tristezza e della disperazione. Facevano del loro meglio per placare gli dèi con il culto, ma vivevano nella paura e nel terrore di come il fato si sarebbe volto per loro.
Qua e là per il paese c’erano tumuli, fortezze e altari di pietra eretti per il culto, e nelle feste si accendevano fuochi sulle alte montagne come segno esteriore di adorazione. I grandi massi torreggianti lungo la costa atlantica, per esempio le alte scogliere di Moher nella contea di Clare, sono luoghi dove gli dèi venivano adorati. Quelle alte scogliere oggi si possono definire «gli dèi di insostenibile bellezza», mentre si cammina lungo le alte falesie di quella scabra costa occidentale.
Questi erano i tipi di dèi che i nostri antenati adoravano, e quando il Cristianesimo giunse con san Patrizio, il paese era immerso nel culto pagano. La conversione fu lunga e ardua ma molto reale, poiché i Gaeli cercavano l’Unico e vero Dio Vivente che Patrizio portava. La zolla era pronta per la conversione, e il seme attecchì e cominciò a crescere, diffondendosi per il lungo e per il largo di quella terra. Il culto degli dèi pagani dovette essere abbandonato, ma poiché era cosa radicata nel profondo, non fu facile per i nuovi cristiani rinunciare a tutto il loro antico e radicatissimo culto della natura.
Temevano di lasciar andare ogni cosa e si aggrapparono a ciò che ritenevano importante in fatto di piccole usanze e costumi — non si sa mai che vi fosse in essi qualcosa di importante. Queste superstizioni sono state tramandate di generazione in generazione e ancora se ne scorgono lievi tracce in certe zone dell’Ovest [dell’Irlanda], perfino nel ventesimo secolo.
Catherine Mulroy, R.S.M. 1988. Manoscritto all’editore. (Londra: Bellord House, 7 Gun St.)
II:235-36. Gli dèi potevano spezzare il cuore degli uomini perché il Celta pagano credeva che la morte potesse cogliere all’improvviso chi mancava alla parola data al Sole, alla Luna, eccetera. La gente viveva nel timore dell’azione vendicatrice degli elementi.
Il professor Eoin MacNeill ne diede una sintesi acuta: «Il Celta conduceva una guerra secolare contro le crude forze primordiali del mondo fisico, e si trovava ovunque faccia a faccia non con la misura, ma con l’immensità — con vaste regioni di foreste, i rigori del settentrionale… inverno, il mistero dell’oceano sconfinato. Questa esperienza ha plasmato e colorato tutto il suo pensiero e tutta la sua letteratura; la maggior parte delle sue leggende dell’antichità» (1910,4-5).
II:268-75. L’antica letteratura irlandese narra le gesta leggendarie di Cuchulainn, di Deirdre e Naoise, di Oisin e Fionn, e di molti altri.
II:277. Si veda E V:201-2, dove sono descritti colline e picche.

Note: L’Arpa di Alfredo
Sinossi: Mentre Alfredo attende i suoi alleati, visita il campo danese travestito da arpista. Questo interludio offre un’ottima occasione per confrontare gli ideali pagani e cristiani e fornisce il movente dell’intera campagna.
L’Arpa di Alfredo è un “torneo di canto, in cui il pagano sensuale [Harold], il pagano poetico [Elf], il pagano selvaggio [Ogier] e il pagano colto [Guthrum] dicono la loro con la musica, prima che Alfredo dica la parola del Fatto cristiano” (O’Connor 1938,65).
Poiché il nostro Dio ha benedetto il creato,
chiamandolo buono. Io so
quale spirito, a cui ciechi vi legate,
ha benedetto con la sua mano la distruzione;
ma per la morte di Dio le stelle staranno salde
e cresceranno le piccole mele.
(III:373-78)
III:3. mass-book: il messale, un libro che contiene le preghiere e i riti usati da chi assiste alla celebrazione dell’Eucaristia [la Messa]. Asser, il biografo di Alfredo, riferisce che re Alfredo assisteva ogni giorno alla Messa (Keynes e Lapidge 1983,91).
III:20-25. Il dott. John Lingard descrive la distruzione dei monasteri nell’870 d.C.: “Dalle ceneri di Medeshamstede procedettero verso Huntingdon, e dalla distruzione di quel luogo all’isola di Ely. Le monache di questo monastero, discendenti dalle più nobili famiglie sassoni, furono sacrificate alla loro lussuria e crudeltà; i tesori del paese, che erano stati depositati nell’isola, furono divisi fra i barbari, e l’edificio, con ogni altra costruzione… fu divorato dalle fiamme” ([1849] 1912,1:184-85).
III:24. Fires over Glastonbury Thorn [Fuochi sul Biancospino di Glastonbury]: i danesi, durante le loro scorrerie nel Somerset, devastarono e saccheggiarono il monastero fondato a Glastonbury.
III:24. Glastonbury Thorn: una varietà di biancospino che ha la peculiarità di fiorire due volte l’anno, la prima verso Natale e di nuovo a maggio. Secondo un’antica leggenda, l’albero originario nacque dal bastone di san Giuseppe d’Arimatea (E VIII:223-24), (Chesterton 1911,112-18).
III:2-39. Dal piede della collina del Bianco Cavallo si scorge la figura del Bianco Cavallo. Il candore del gigantesco Bianco Cavallo indica se a dominare siano i pagani o i cristiani. Mentre i pagani mettono a ferro e fuoco la contrada, il Cavallo è invaso dalle erbacce; ma quando il paese è in pace, i cristiani tengono il Cavallo ben pulito. Oggi il National Trust for Places of Historic Interest mantiene bianco il Cavallo.
III:52-74. Guthrum è un re danese che occupa un posto notevole nella storia anglosassone.
III:79-80. He sang of some old British raid: Asser riferisce che Alfredo ascoltava con attenzione i poemi sassoni che spesso udiva recitare, “ed egli [Alfredo] li riteneva prontamente nella sua memoria” (Keynes e Lapidge 1983,75).
III:80. wild west march: la selvaggia marca d’occidente, la terra di confine fra la Mercia e il Galles.
III:86-90. Offa, re di Mercia (757-96), costruì questo vallo per impedire la penetrazione gallese in Mercia. Il Vallo di Offa consisteva “di un fossato a ovest, profondo circa 6 piedi, e di un terrapieno che si levava fino a 25 piedi sopra di esso a est; l’intera struttura era larga 60 piedi” (Campbell 1982,120). Asser, scrivendo negli anni 890, ne menziona l’estensione. “Offa … fece costruire un grande vallo da mare a mare fra la Britannia [il Galles] e la Mercia” (Giles 1891,47). Ottanta delle centocinquanta miglia di questa struttura straordinaria sono tuttora esistenti.
III:99. I Norreni predoni terrorizzavano le genti fra Cipro nel Mediterraneo e l’isola di Skye nelle Ebridi, al largo della costa nordoccidentale della Scozia.
III:109. Tiro, famosa per le sue tinture di porpora, era una città marittima dell’antica Fenicia.
III:116. Nella mitologia norrena Loki è l’artefice della frode.
III:122,126. Chesterton introduce le kenningar, quelle metaforiche parole composte come “donatore di bracciali” (re) e “roteatore di spada” (guerriero). Esse danno “una lieve sensazione di antichità” e trasportano il lettore nell’atmosfera del nono secolo.
III:130. shaven men: uomini rasi, i chierici. Prima di divenire chierici, i laici ricevevano il sacro rito della tonsura.
III:151. Allemagne: Germania [fr.].
III:153. Per le feste del Calendimaggio in Renania, la gente adorna un albero di nastri, ghirlande, biscotti eccetera.
III:158-75. Balder beautiful: Balder, figlio di Odino e di Frigga, muore perché la madre trascurò di chiedere al vischio di non fare male a suo figlio.
III:164-75. Il sentimentale Elf è triste perché non c’è sicurezza. I suoi dèi sono esseri superiori, eppure mortali come lui e soggetti alle disgrazie. Perfino Balder, il più nobile e il più mite degli dèi, fu ucciso da un subdolo intrigo di Loki.
III:180. Stone and Sling: sebbene “l’arco e le frecce, l’ascia da battaglia e la spada” fossero comunemente usati dai Norreni, alcuni si armavano di “giavellotti, fionde, clave irte di punte, lance e una sorta di daghe” (Mallet 1882,165-66).
III:188. yew: il tasso è albero simbolo del lutto e della morte.
III:188-230. Il pessimista Ogier, inacidito dall’odio, che si diletta solo del proprio potere di distruggere, attende il cataclisma finale. Duro e spietato, condivide l’ira degli dèi che aspettano la dissoluzione finale dell’universo.
III:216-26. the last eclipse: il Ragnarok, o Crepuscolo degli Dèi, è la distruzione degli dèi e di tutte le cose in una battaglia finale contro le potenze del male (Mallet 1882,451-58).
III:221. the high ones in the happy town: tutti coloro che morivano di morte violenta erano accolti nel Valhalla, nella città felice di Asgard.
III:231-34. Re Guthrum era un danese istruito che sapeva leggere e scrivere.
III:235-95. Guthrum, riconoscendo la certezza della morte e l’incertezza di una vita a venire, è più felice in battaglia, dove può dimenticare la morte.
III:258-65. L’anima è come un uccello smarrito: può essere un riferimento al discorso [627 d.C.] di uno dei consiglieri di re Edwin, che paragonò la vita dell’uomo a quella di un passero che entra volando da una porta e scompare da un’altra. “Così questa vita dell’uomo appare per breve spazio, ma di ciò che venne prima o di ciò che seguirà siamo del tutto ignari” (Beda 1910,91).
III:303-318. Alfredo dichiara la sua visione della vita. Comincia dalla Caduta di Adamo nel giardino. L’uomo fece cattivo uso del libero arbitrio. Il male nel mondo è il risultato “dell’uso sbagliato della volontà, e… può infine essere raddrizzato dall’uso retto della volontà” (Chesterton 1930,226).
III:329-42. La fede di Alfredo in Dio è il fondamento della sua speranza. Benché “il cielo si faccia più scuro”, egli ha l’intima convinzione che sforzi perseveranti, aiutati da Dio, porteranno in qualche modo al successo.
III:357-66. Alfredo dice ai danesi che il loro modo di vivere finisce inevitabilmente nel fallimento. Creatori e custodi alla lunga saranno i sopravvissuti.
Poiché il nostro Dio ha benedetto il creato,
chiamandolo buono… .
(III:373-74), (Gen. 1:12)

Note: La Donna nella Foresta
Sinossi: Alfredo esplora i dintorni del campo danese a Ethandune prima di recarsi alla capanna sul fiume presso la Pietra di Egbert. Là una donna gli chiede di badare al fuoco. Mentre ha pietà della sua povertà, lascia bruciare le focacce. La donna assesta ad Alfredo un tale colpo in viso che gli lascia una cicatrice scarlatta. A questo punto arrivano Eldred, Colan e Mark. Si noti come Chesterton usi questo episodio per avvicinare la sua epica alla battaglia decisiva di Ethandune.
Questo colpo che ora non rendo
dieci volte lo renderò
su re e conti d’ogni grado,
ed eserciti vasti come imperi
scivoleranno come frane al mare
se arde la stella rossa.
(IV:274-79)
IV:10. paling of the pine: una palizzata fatta di tronchi di pino appuntiti.
IV:11. altar-lamp: la lampada del santuario di una chiesa.
IV:16. The old stones of a Roman way: i Romani lastricarono di pietre alcune delle principali strade della Britannia.
IV:22. Doom: destino, esito futuro.
IV:23-24. L’ASC spiega come nell’871 la rovina si alternasse alla vittoria. “E in quest’anno si combatterono contro l’Armata, nella terra a sud del Tamigi, nove campi di battaglia. E oltre a questi, il fratello del re Alfredo e più d’un Aldermanno, e più d’un Thane del re, fecero più volte, ciascuno per sé, incursioni contro di loro, che non sono contate. Ed entro l’anno furono uccisi nove Conti, e un re per giunta” (Conybeare 1900,123).
IV:25-30. Chesterton conosce e usa fonti autentiche. Asser gli fornisce ogni dettaglio sulla battaglia di Ashdown, fino all’albero di biancospino.
Ma Alfredo, con i suoi uomini, come abbiamo udito da veritieri testimoni oculari, giunse più rapido al campo e più pronto. Né meraviglia fu; poiché suo fratello, il re Ethelred, era ancora nella sua tenda, immerso nella preghiera, ad ascoltare la Messa. Doveva dunque o ritrarlo dalla battaglia, o caricare il nemico prima che il fratello entrasse nella mischia. E, alla fine, da uomo, caricò, con l’impeto di un cinghiale selvatico, guidando le sue forze cristiane contro le schiere dei pagani. Ma qui, a chi non conosce il luogo, va detto che non era un campo di battaglia alla pari, poiché i Pagani avevano occupato il terreno più alto, e la linea di battaglia cristiana caricava in salita. V’era inoltre in quello stesso luogo un biancospino solitario e basso, che noi stessi abbiamo veduto. Attorno a esso, dunque, si scontrarono le schiere, con grande clamore, in guisa di guerrieri, l’una parte intesa a ogni malefatta, l’altra a combattere per la vita, la terra e i propri cari. La maggior parte delle loro forze [i danesi] fu uccisa, e con somma vergogna si diedero alla fuga (Conybeare 1900,93-94).
IV:41-52. under-skies: Chesterton ci conduce in un viaggio immaginario nell’Ade. Scendendo verso la capanna sul fiume, Alfredo nota la maleodorante erba dell’ombra di notte [la belladonna], l’atmosfera torbida in cui svolazzano i “cherubini malvagi” [i gufi].
IV:59-60. Il tetto pericolante fa capire che la casa di questo contadino era stata danneggiata dai danesi. Era probabilmente una costruzione di legno col tetto di paglia, condivisa dalla famiglia e dal bestiame.
[Il leggendario incontro di Alfredo con la Donna e le Focacce avvenne mentre egli si nascondeva sull’isola di Athelney nel Somerset; Chesterton lo sposta alla Pietra di Egbert nel Wiltshire.]
IV:70-74. J. A. Giles incluse una versione della leggenda di Alfredo e delle Focacce nel suo Asser’s Life of Alfred:
Ma accadde un certo giorno che la contadina, moglie del vaccaro, stesse preparando alcune pagnotte da cuocere, e il re, seduto al focolare, preparava l’arco e le frecce e altri strumenti di guerra. La sventurata donna, scorgendo le focacce che bruciavano al fuoco, accorse per toglierle e, rimproverando il prode re, esclamò:
Ma nun ce badi a ’ste focacce, òmo, e nun le vedi che bruceno?
Eppoi sarai ben svelto a magnalle, appena vie’ er turno.
La donna maldestra mal s’immaginava che quello fosse re Alfredo, che aveva combattuto tante battaglie contro i pagani e riportato su di loro tante vittorie (1891,60). Si veda E P:36-59.
IV:84. And all the last are first: “Molti dei primi saranno ultimi, e gli ultimi primi” (Marco 10:31).
IV:85. “Io sto in mezzo a voi come colui che serve” (Luca 22:27).
IV:85-155. Alfredo spiega i modi in cui Dio lo serve ogni giorno.
IV:89-91. Dio è il giardiniere di Alfredo, che ha piantato querce sugli altipiani e posto folte macchie di arbusti nei cimiteri.
IV:124-25. Golgotha: “Gesù uscì dunque, portando egli stesso la sua croce, verso il luogo detto del cranio; in ebraico il suo nome è Golgota” (Giovanni 19:17).
IV:130-40. Forse la migliore interpretazione del significato della stella che “gira e turbina” è che essa si riferisce alla minuscola scintilla di speranza nel petto di Alfredo che la causa cristiana trionferà infine dopo prove tremende.
Chesterton usa la “stella errante”, la “stella danzante”, la “luce che balza e vola” come uno dei mezzi di unità del poema. Se ne osservino i richiami lungo i vari libri.
IV:142. Un tempo scoronato di destino e nascita: il valore di ciascuno non dipenderà da accidenti come la condizione personale o l’origine familiare. Chesterton difende la dignità dell’individuo e lascia intendere che verranno giorni migliori dopo la sconfitta dei “conti malvagi”.
IV:143-44. “Beati i poveri in spirito, perché di essi è il regno dei cieli” (Matteo 5:3).
IV:156-60. I pensieri di Alfredo sono lontani. Fu avventato da parte sua promettere di badare alle focacce.
IV:173. Marcus with all his slaves in arms: Dorothy Whitelock spiega che la classe servile nel Wessex era composta di persone di diversa origine. Alcuni erano discendenti dei Britanni, altri erano persone catturate in guerra. Il numero maggiore “erano gli schiavi penali, persone ridotte in schiavitù come punizione per determinati crimini, o per l’incapacità di pagare le ammende e i risarcimenti in cui erano incorsi” ([1952] 1968,112).
IV:174-75. Colan e i suoi seguaci mescolavano credenze pagane e cristiane. Le loro “strane lance ornate di antichi amuleti” indicano un affidamento superstizioso alla magia.
IV:179. jars of mead: l’idromele è una bevanda fermentata fatta di acqua e miele con malto, lievito e talvolta altri ingredienti.
IV:190-202. I seguaci impoveriti di Colan, vestiti dei resti di antichi splendori, erano ben lontani dai loro consanguinei che andavano in guerra “in camicie aggraziate e tuniche avvolgenti multicolori sopra comode vesti lunghe” (Green 1925,408).
IV:194. With Druid beards and Druid spears: Chesterton asseconda l’immaginazione popolare sull’aspetto dei druidi.
IV:206. L’esercito disciplinato di Mark, marciando al passo, risuonava come “un grande tuono”.
IV:207-8. living walls: gli scudi incastrati l’uno nell’altro, portati dai soldati in formazione di battaglia, formavano muri viventi. Roma recinse il genere umano con i suoi avamposti militari in tutto il mondo civilizzato.
IV:217. From red Arabia to the Tyne: l’Arabia, in Asia, segnava l’estremità sudorientale dell’Impero romano, e il fiume Tyne in Britannia era il confine nordoccidentale.
IV:219. Since the cry on the hill Capitoline: il grido sul colle Capitolino risale al 753 a.C. circa, quando Romolo cercava di procurare ai giovani romani mogli fra le Sabine.
Una leggenda racconta come i primi Romani ricorsero all’astuzia per procurarsi mogli dalle tribù vicine. Durante uno spettacolo speciale a cui erano invitate le tribù dei dintorni, si era convenuto che a un dato grido gli uomini romani avrebbero afferrato e rapito le giovani fanciulle in visita (Livio 1913,14-15).
IV:220. And the fall of the golden shield: Tito Livio narra la leggenda di come Tazio, un sabino, corrompa Tarpea, figlia del comandante della cittadella romana, perché dia loro accesso alla città in cambio degli anelli d’oro e dei bracciali che portavano al braccio sinistro. Invece di quegli ornamenti, le gettarono addosso gli scudi (che pure portavano al braccio sinistro) e la schiacciarono a morte (1913,17-18).
IV:227. lintel beams: gli architravi, le traverse orizzontali sopra porte o finestre che sostengono il peso sovrastante le aperture.
IV:236-41. La risata dei cristiani risuona nei racconti popolari in cui la gente si burla delle debolezze altrui.
IV:246-47. I mummers in Inghilterra sono gruppi di persone, vestite in modo grottesco, che vanno di casa in casa la mattina di Natale e recitano una sorta di dramma fondato sulla leggenda di san Giorgio. I versi ripetuti dai mummers delle diverse località hanno la stessa origine, ma poiché non sono messi per iscritto, variano in misura minima e presentano in alcuni casi interpolazioni considerevoli.
La versione seguente del dramma è riportata in The Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Magazine 1(1854): 80-81.
I personaggi sono:

1. IL VECCHIO PADRE NATALE
2. MINCE PIE
3. UN CAVALIERE TURCO (evidentemente un saraceno)
4. SAN GIORGIO
5. UN DOTTORE ITALIANO
6. Un personaggio chiamato PICCOLO JACK E i versi che essi ripetono, spogliati delle aggiunte estranee moderne, sono i seguenti:
   [Entra il VECCHIO PADRE NATALE, con una lunga barba.]
   Oh! ecco che vengo io, il vecchio Padre Natale, benvenuto o non benvenuto,
   io spero che il vecchio Padre Natale mai sia scordato.
   Fate largo! largo! dico io!
   Che io possa condurre qui Mince Pie.
   Avanti, Mince Pie, e recita la tua parte,
   E mostra ai gentili il tuo cuore valoroso.
   [Entra MINCE PIE.]
   Largo! largo! anime prodi, datemi spazio per rimare,
   Vi mostrerò che festa è questo tempo di Natale.
   [Entra un CAVALIERE TURCO, con una spada di legno.]
   Sono un prode Cavaliere Turco,
   E oso battermi con qualunque uomo;
   Portatemi l’uomo che m’intima l’alt,
   Che dice che m’abbatterà con mano audace,
   Lo taglierò e lo farò a pezzi minuti come una mosca,
   E lo manderò a Satana per farne mince pie.
   [Entra SAN GIORGIO con una spada di legno.]
   Oh! ecco che vengo io, San Giorgio, l’uomo dal coraggio ardito,
   Con la mia spada e il mio brocchiere ho vinto tre corone d’oro;
   Ho combattuto il drago di fuoco e l’ho condotto al macello;
   Ho conquistato una splendida regina—figlia d’un re d’Egitto;
   Se il tuo animo è alto, il mio animo è ardito,
   Se il tuo sangue è caldo, io lo farò freddo.
   [SAN GIORGIO e il CAVALIERE TURCO combattono—quest’ultimo cade.]
   Cavaliere Turco. Oh! San Giorgio, risparmiami la vita!
   Padre Natale. Non si trova un Dottore
   Che curi quest’uomo che sanguina
   a terra?
   [Entra il DOTTORE.]
   Sì! si trova un Dottore Italiano
   Che cura il Cavaliere che sanguina a terra:
   Io guarisco i malati d’ogni male,
   E risuscito i morti a nuova vita.
   Padre Natale. Dottore, qual è il tuo compenso?
   Il Dottore. Dieci sterline è il mio compenso,
   Ma quindici devo prenderne da te
   Prima di rimettere in libertà questo prode.
   Padre Natale. Fa’ il tuo volere, dottore.
   Il Dottore. Ho una boccetta qui al mio fianco
   La cui fama si spande in lungo e in largo,
   Ne verso una goccia sul naso di questo pover’uomo.
   [Il DOTTORE tocca il naso del CAVALIERE TURCO, e questi balza in piedi all’istante, del tutto guarito.]
   [Entra PICCOLO JACK, un nano, con parecchie bambole legate sulla schiena.]
   Oh! ecco che vengo io, il piccolo Jack impertinente,
   Con tutta la mia famiglia sulla schiena.
   Il Natale viene solo una volta l’anno,
   E quando viene porta buon umore;
   Manzo arrosto, plum pudding e mince pie,
   A chi piacciono più che a me?
   La birra di Natale ci fa danzare e cantare;
   Denaro in borsa è cosa assai fine.
   Signore e signori, dateci quel che vi piace.
   IV:256. L’orgoglio scaglia fragili palazzi verso il cielo: è il verso d’apertura dell’inno di Alfredo all’umiltà. Re Alfredo, memore dei suoi peccati, sa d’essere indegno di ricevere aiuto dal cielo. Crede che il successo dei danesi nell’invadere il suo regno sia una punizione per le sue trasgressioni.
   IV:274-79. Alfredo va contro le potenze del male usando la forza spirituale che riceve da un’umiliazione rettamente sopportata.
   IV:286. Alfredo guida i suoi uomini come fratelli al primo assalto.
   IV:287. Le strade romane si presentavano in molte forme. Le vie principali correvano su terrapieni rialzati fiancheggiati da fossati, che somigliavano a muri.

Note: Ethandune: il Primo Colpo
Sinossi: Con quasi tutta l’Inghilterra sotto il controllo danese, i guerrieri di Alfredo fanno il punto della loro situazione. Ciascuno ha il presentimento che la propria morte sia imminente. Dopo essersi pentiti dei loro peccati, ostentano audacia. Colan uccide il troppo sicuro Harold e riceve la spada di re Alfredo.
Fino al suo grande orecchino d’oro Harold
tese indietro la coda impennata,
e rapida sarebbe scattata la freccia,
ma più rapido scattò il Gaelico.
(V:243-46)
V:1-6. Re Guthrum era un re temuto: Guthrum collaborò con Healfdene nel saccheggiare, devastare, spopolare e soggiogare gran parte della Northumbria, dell’East Anglia e della parte orientale della Mercia. Healfdene andò a nord per dividere le terre dei northumbri fra i suoi seguaci, e tre re danesi (Guthrum, Oscetel e Anwend) andarono a sud, a Cambridge, dove cominciarono a concentrarsi sulla conquista del Wessex (Chesterton 1917,51).
V:5. Chester: una città sul fiume Dee nell’Inghilterra nordoccidentale.
V:5. Humber: la confluenza dei fiumi Trent e Ouse forma l’estuario dell’Humber nell’Inghilterra orientale.
V:5-6. “Da Chester all’Humber” implica che prima della battaglia di Ethandune i danesi dominavano gran parte del territorio fra la Mercia occidentale e il litorale orientale.
V:7. Roman villas: una villa romana nella Britannia romana era di solito il centro di una grande fattoria. Non una sola villa è sopravvissuta (Collingwood 1937,209-21).
V:16. He saw the southern sea: il Southampton Water.
V:17-19. Con l’eccezione dei territori a sud del Tamigi e a nord del Tyne, tutti i piccoli regni erano sotto il controllo danese nell’877. L’incursione a sorpresa di Guthrum nel gennaio 878 fu un segno che egli intendeva rendere a sé sottomessi re Alfredo e i sassoni occidentali. Si veda E I:63-76.
V:20-28. Gli esploratori di Guthrum lo avevano molto probabilmente informato che le truppe di Alfredo si stavano radunando alla Pietra di Egbert. Guthrum a sua volta raccolse tutti i suoi guerrieri e li dispose con cura sul terreno più elevato che dominava la biforcazione sinistra della strada.
V:35. Chesterton si affida qui ad Asser per l’ora in cui Alfredo affrontò il nemico: “Di primissimo mattino avanzò le sue insegne e giunse a un luogo chiamato Ethandune. E là, contro l’intera armata pagana, formò saldo il suo muro di scudi, e combatté una battaglia mortale” (Conybeare [1900] 1914,111-12).
V:46. Ancora fuori dalla vista del nemico, le truppe di Alfredo si fermano. Stanno perdendo il coraggio.
V:58-151. Questa sezione è tipica della poesia epica. Chesterton dà voce ai suoi personaggi. Si noti come ciascun capo si riveli “alla maniera del proprio sangue”.
V:62-63. Colan era triste perché non aveva le comodità delle condizioni di vita ordinarie.
V:68-81. Chesterton segue il giudizio di John Lingard sulla condotta giovanile di re Alfredo.
Si è detto che il carattere di Alfredo fosse senza macchia. Una lode così incondizionata è linguaggio da declamazione retorica più che da verità storica. Nei suoi primi anni, in effetti, le sue virtù nascenti lo resero caro alla nazione; e in età più avanzata fu il custode e il benefattore del suo paese. Ma all’inizio del suo regno vi era nella sua condotta molto da riprendere. Il giovane monarca sembra aver considerato la sua alta dignità un’emancipazione da ogni freno; e aver trovato agio, perfino in mezzo alle sue lotte con i danesi, di assecondare l’impetuosità delle sue passioni. Lo scandalo di Wallingford* può essere liquidato con il disprezzo che forse merita; e apprendiamo da autorità più antiche che la sua immoralità e il suo dispotismo provocarono la censura del suo virtuoso congiunto san Neot; e Asser, suo amico e panegirista, riconosce che era altezzoso verso i sudditi, trascurava l’amministrazione della giustizia e trattava con disprezzo le lagnanze degli indigenti e degli oppressi. Fu a questa ‘indiscrezione’ (per prendere in prestito il termine sotto il quale la parzialità del biografo volle velare la cattiva condotta del suo protettore) che Alfredo stesso attribuì la severa e inattesa calamità che lo travolse nell’ottavo anno del suo regno ([1849] 1912,19798).

• La Cronaca di John di Wallingford, scritta verso la metà del tredicesimo secolo, menziona a p. 535 che “all’inizio del suo regno Alfredo era dedito a ‘servire il vecchio uomo’, e viveva schiavo della lussuria” Cfr. Conybeare (1914,222). V:79. lost land: il Wessex.
  V:80. holy horn is blown: un riferimento al Giudizio Universale (Matteo 24:31).
  V:118-20. Alice Stopford Green attesta che in epoca preistorica le genti neolitiche dell’Età della Pietra mostrarono una straordinaria abilità nel costruire cairn, cerchi di pietre, tombe megalitiche e fortezze (1925,5-9).
  Newgrange, nella contea di Meath, in Irlanda, è un notevole sepolcro a corridoio neolitico costruito circa 5000 anni fa.
  La History from the Air di Richard Muir ci consente di vedere alcune di queste antiche tombe, templi e opere di pietra situate in Irlanda, Inghilterra e Galles. Egli osserva che questi resti offrono molte intuizioni sulla vita preistorica: “Frantumano il mito dell’aborigeno selvaggio e inetto, poiché i monumenti maggiori potevano essere solo opera di genti abbastanza numerose ed esperte… da poter mettere da parte la necessità di procurarsi il cibo e inviare consistenti forze di lavoro alla costruzione di tombe o templi” (1983,33). [Riprodotto per gentile concessione di Michael Joseph Ltd.]
  V:120. sun-god: Lug è il dio-sole la cui festa si celebrava un tempo in Irlanda il 1° agosto.
  V:122-27. Lingard attribuisce ai sacerdoti druidici il ryn, il linguaggio misterioso così spesso menzionato dai bardi: “A ogni albero e arbusto, alle loro foglie, ai fiori e ai rami, sembrano aver assegnato un significato fantasioso e simbolico: e questi sostituti allegorici dei veri nomi degli esseri e delle loro proprietà devono aver formato, nelle loro numerose combinazioni, una specie di gergo perfettamente inintelligibile a chiunque non fosse degli adepti… . Taliessin si vanta con compiacimento di conoscere ogni ramoscello nella grotta del divinatore: di conoscere l’intento degli alberi nel memoriale del patto: di conoscere il bene e il male” ([1849] 1912,1:19-20n).
  V:130-33. Lingard racconta che i druidi abitavano in capanne o caverne lontano dalla gente comune. “Là, alle ore del mezzogiorno o della mezzanotte, quando si credeva che la Divinità onorasse il luogo sacro con la sua presenza, il devoto tremante era ammesso entro un cerchio di alte querce per offrire la sua preghiera e ascoltare i responsi del ministro” ([1849] 1912,1:17).
  V:146. fell: una collina rocciosa o brulla, un poggio. (Britannico)
  V:147. Wantage: nell’848 re Alfredo nacque nel Berkshire, nella tenuta reale chiamata Wantage.
  V:164-90. I re sassoni combattevano realmente a piedi in prima linea nella battaglia.
  V:170. ten poles: il pole è un’unità di lunghezza pari a 16 piedi e mezzo.
  V:171. wide-winged helms: i danesi del nono secolo portavano elmi conici di ferro o di cuoio. Sebbene in Danimarca sia stato dissotterrato un elmo con corna ricurve risalente all’Età del Bronzo, è un’idea errata credere che anche i danesi che combatterono a Ethandune nel nono secolo portassero elmi cornuti.
  V:171. runic blades: Paul Mallet descrive le spade dei capi scandinavi: “I loro campioni o eroi si preoccupavano in particolare di procurarsi spade molto affilate, che incidevano con caratteri misteriosi e chiamavano con nomi tali da ispirare terrore” (1882,165-66).
  V:182. Con canti e incantesimi che mutano il sangue: quando essi [i danesi] andavano incontro ai nemici, ogni guerriero alzava lo scudo fino al livello del labbro superiore, sicché il tondo dello scudo “formava una sorta di cassa di risonanza per il loro canto”. Predicevano l’esito della battaglia dall’impressione che il canto faceva su di loro stessi. Si credeva che le rune della vittoria impedissero alle armi di ferire coloro che Odino amava (Rydberg 1907,1:160-65).
  V:197-204. poor: Lingard spiega perché i Britanni si impoverirono: “Per sfuggire alla spada sterminatrice dei loro nemici, gli indigeni, non appena la resistenza apparve vana, fuggirono con i loro beni più preziosi verso le colline e le foreste. Moltitudini trovarono un sicuro asilo fra le montagne che coprono l’ovest dell’isola: dove, lottando con la povertà e impegnati in guerra continua, persero rapidamente la debole patina della civiltà provinciale… . I prigionieri furono divisi, insieme con la terra, fra i conquistatori: divennero la proprietà, i beni mobili, del signore” ([1849] 1912,1:84-85).
  V:201-4. sling: una fionda di cuoio era usata per scagliare pietre, dardi, frecce incendiarie e proiettili di argilla rovente. Il bill era un’arma inastata con in cima una lama tagliente a uncino con un becco sul retro. La picca era un’arma inastata con la punta a spuntone.
  Chesterton mostra nel Libro V il suo grande amore per le armi: “Questo amore per le armi, la sua rivoltella, il suo prediletto bastone-spada, gli rimase per tutta la vita… . Ma esse rappresentavano anche, nella sua mente, la libertà, l’avventura, la responsabilità personale e molto altro” (Ward 1943,151-52).
  V:211-12. broke Himself for bread: è un riferimento all’istituzione della Santa Eucaristia da parte di Gesù Cristo nella notte del Giovedì Santo (Matteo 26: 26-28).
  V:241. Excalibur: la magica spada di re Artù.
  V:242. In the battle by the sea: probabilmente la battaglia di re Artù a Carrdan, dove usa Excalibur per l’ultima volta.
  V:243. great gold ear-ring: i Norreni, con l’aiuto di maestri artigiani stranieri, appresero i segreti della lavorazione dei metalli e divennero esperti nel fabbricare gioielli di bronzo e d’oro. Le donne portavano orecchini, e poiché Chesterton ne fa portare uno a Harold, è possibile che lo facessero anche alcuni uomini.
  V:247. Le enormi spade a doppia lama dei Gaeli si levavano sopra la testa per colpire.
  V:257. La piccola margherita bianca che cresce fra l’erba in Inghilterra è nota come “turfing daisy”. È una bassa erba perenne dell’Asia Minore dai fiori bianchi simili a margherite.
  V:265-69. La risposta istantanea di ciascuno dei conti cristiani è donare a Colan il proprio bene più prezioso e necessario.
  V:269. like a cup of chrysolite and pearls: il crisolito è una gemma trasparente verde oliva.
  V:274-75. L’unico modo per ottenere il desiderio del proprio cuore è togliersi questo desiderio dai pensieri. È un’intuizione mistica. Per salvarsi la vita Colan diede via—lasciò andare—l’unica cosa che poteva salvargli la vita (Giovanni 12:25).
  V:280-89. Il “Cuore Spezzato” ha un amore personale per ogni anima. Ogni individuo è il bersaglio del Suo amore. [In un olografo del BWH precedente la pubblicazione questi versi sono un’inserzione manoscritta. G. K. Chesterton Archives.]

Note: Ethandune: l’uccisione
dei capi
Sinossi: I guerrieri si dispiegano a sinistra e a destra ai lati dei loro capi. Prendere nota delle posizioni di battaglia indicate qui sotto prepara a seguire l’azione che ne consegue. [Nel testo l’ala sinistra di Alfredo fronteggia l’ala sinistra di Guthrum. Sebbene ciò gli fosse stato fatto notare, GKC mantenne la formulazione originale (O’Connor 1938,67).]
Guthrum a cavallo
Harold Ogier Elf
Colan Mark Eldred
Alfredo
Dopo che Elf uccide Eldred, Mark ha la meglio su Elf. Ogier uccide Mark. I danesi respingono gli uomini di Alfredo fino alla biforcazione della strada. Gli uomini del Re si ritirano lungo la strada a destra. Colan muore opponendosi al nemico lungo il ramo di sinistra.
E quando giunsero al bivio delle vie
cadde il martello più greve del destino,
ché il Re fu battuto, cieco, alle strette,
giù per la via destra con la sua schiera.
Ma Colan si slanciò dall’altra parte,
dove menò gran colpi e cadde.
(VI:282-87)
VI:4. Latian paladin: Mark. Un paladino è un eroe militare. Latian è la forma aggettivale di Latium, nome di una regione a sud-est di Roma nell’antica Italia.
VI:5-6. Alla sinistra di Alfredo: la stirpe di Harold contro Colan.
VI:7-8. Nel mezzo: Guthrum che osserva—Ogier contro Marcus.
VI:10-12. Alla destra di Alfredo: Elf contro Eldred.
VI:13. swat: sudare su un compito; sgobbare [Dial.].
VI:17-51. Eldred travolge tutti finché la sua spada non si spezza.
VI:49. brand: una spada [arcaico e poetico].
VI:56-62. faerie blades: nel dar conto della lancia stregata di Elf, Chesterton ci conduce sott’acqua, nei corsi fatati del Reno, dove le sirene donarono questa lancia magica al danese tre volte annegato.
VI:61-63. Lost waters of the Rhine: il fiume Reno nasce nella parte orientale della Svizzera, vicino al confine italiano, scorre lungo i margini dell’Austria e del minuscolo stato del Liechtenstein, piega verso ovest e poi verso nord tra Francia e Germania prima di attraversare i Paesi Bassi nel suo cammino verso il Mare del Nord. Geologi e oceanografi insegnano che il fiume Tamigi era un affluente del Reno prima che l’Inghilterra fosse separata dalla massa continentale eurasiatica.
VI:63-68. buried kingdoms: queste acque perdute hanno un bagliore infuocato e ultraterreno. Scivolando giù verso i regni sepolti, esse «mormorano e si ribellano», «ruggiscono e piangono / sui rossi cieli dell’inferno».
Duncan Norton-Taylor e i redattori dei libri Time-Life in The Emergence of Man: The Celts hanno identificato parte dell’Europa occidentale come il «cuore celtico, dove la più antica cultura celtica identificabile si sviluppò durante il settimo e il sesto secolo a.C.». Parti delle attuali Francia, Belgio, Paesi Bassi, Germania, Svizzera, Austria, Repubblica Ceca e Slovacchia approssimano l’area coperta (1974,13).
VI:95-99. Le descrizioni di Chesterton dischiudono un mondo fatato in cui Elf ottiene una lancia magica dalle fanciulle delle acque del fiume Reno. La «luce di morte sulla lancia stregata— / la stella della lancia malvagia» accresce le sensazioni sinistre e inquietanti che snervano le truppe del Wessex. Essi credono che la lancia di Elf sia letale a causa della sua lama fatata.
VI:100-118. Mark incoraggia i propri uomini e quelli di Eldred a rinsaldare la determinazione a combattere per le loro fattorie e le loro case.
VI:108. ash: arco. Il legno tenace ed elastico del frassino era usato per fabbricare gli archi degli arcieri.
VI:119-29. Paure superstiziose indeboliscono la loro fiducia in Dio.
VI:124-54. La credenza latente dei soldati nei poteri magici di tutti gli oggetti, animati e inanimati, quasi li paralizza finché Mark non sconfigge Elf e spezza la lancia malvagia.
VI:127. glamoury: magia.
VI:127-29. The wizard’s tower and glass: questi versi sottolineano la superstizione che sta distruggendo il morale dei soldati. Nella mia ricerca di una spiegazione di questo passo ho letto molti resoconti ultraterreni di magia. Merlino è noto come il mago del folclore britannico. «Glass» è associato a Glastonbury, poiché le genti di ceppo celtico usavano chiamare Glastonbury Ineswitrin, l’Isola di Vetro. Ma quali siano i riferimenti esatti agli «dèi dell’albero ardente» e alla «torre e al vetro del mago» mi sfuggono.
VI:133. fede: «Qualunque sia il significato della fede, essa deve sempre significare una certezza riguardo a qualcosa che non possiamo provare» (Chesterton 1905,162).
VI:138. La fede di Mark era al di sopra della ragione, ma non contraria ad essa.
VI:140-50. Sotto gli occhi dei suoi uomini impauriti, la spada di Mark pone fine a ogni ulteriore azione di Elf.
VI:155-72. Mark incoraggia gli uomini ricordando loro che Dio opera attraverso coloro che costruiscono, coltivano, tessono, copiano, compongono e creano opere d’arte.
VI:170-72. «Gorlias, Egli [Dio] ha spezzato la potenza degli archi, dello scudo, della spada e della battaglia» (Sal. 76:3,46:9).
VI:173-78. Gli allori di battaglia e i rami di palma sono simboli di vittoria. Gli uomini del Wessex sembrano aver preso l’offensiva dopo che Mark ha ridotto Elf al silenzio.
VI:198. shield of brass and hide: Paul Mallet descrive lo scudo usato dagli scandinavi: «Il più delle volte era di legno, di corteccia o di cuoio. Gli scudi appartenenti a guerrieri di rango erano di ferro o di ottone… ornati di pitture e sculture… La loro forma e dimensione variavano…: gli scandinavi li avevano generalmente di forma ovale allungata, alti esattamente quanto il portatore, per proteggerlo da frecce, dardi e pietre» (1882,166).
VI:216. weald: una contrada boscosa o aperta e selvaggia.
VI:216-64. Ogier inveisce e si vanta proprio come nel Libro III. Per trovare simile disprezzo e vanteria espressi da un vichingo, si legga «The Dying Ode of Regner Lodbrog» (Alfred the Great [1858] 1969,1:376-78).
VI:261. Egbert: vedi E I:116-22.
VI:290. furze: arbusto basso, spinoso e molto ramificato dai fiori gialli, comune nelle lande d’Europa.
VI:296. Haut Re: Carlo Magno (768-814). La leggenda ne ha fatto lo zio di Orlando.
VI:297. Roland: Orlando, l’eroe del poema epico francese, la Canzone di Orlando, morì a Roncisvalle nel 778 d.C. difendendo la causa cristiana contro i Mori.
VI:296-99. L’ultima volta che Orlando suonò il corno, il suono poté a stento essere udito da Carlo Magno. Chesterton paragona qui l’ultimo grido che Alfredo udì dal gaelico in ritirata alla debole nota che Carlo Magno riconobbe come proveniente da Orlando.

Note: Ethandune: l’ultima carica
Sinossi: Il Libro VII narra come il fanciullesco Alfredo, con l’aiuto di Maria, muti una rotta in vittoria decisiva. Le stanze d’apertura si riferiscono al modo di Alfredo di affrontare i rovesci. Il suo appello ai soldati in fuga ne ravvivò l’ardimento. Nella battaglia ripresa Alfredo abbatte Ogier. Mentre Maria, spada in mano, soccorre i guerrieri del Wessex, i seguaci di Colan rientrano nella mischia. Nella sconfitta Guthrum vive una conversione interiore e diviene cristiano.
La Madre di Dio passa sopra di loro,
camminando su vento e fiamma,
e la nube di tempesta si dirada da città e valle,
e il Bianco Cavallo scalpita nella Valle del Bianco Cavallo,
e voi tutti berrete ancora birra cristiana
nel villaggio del nostro nome.
(VII:247-52)
Ché tremendo fu Alfredo nella sua ora,
lo attesta il pallido scriba,
più possente fu egli nella sconfitta
che tutti gli altri uomini nella vittoria;
e dietro, i suoi uomini venivano micidiali,
riarsi in gola, bevendo morte.
(VII:265-70)
VII:1-65. Chesterton riconduce il lettore al Bianco Cavallo sul crinale della collina che domina la Valle del Bianco Cavallo. Questo preistorico Bianco Cavallo gode di una vista senza ostacoli. Egli «guarda» mentre la battaglia di Ethandune è in corso.
VII:14-15. Chesterton aggiunge gli effetti sonori «roarings». L’immagine «rent the sea / With roarings from the land» aiuta a raffigurarsi lo sconvolgimento cosmico in atto mentre le acque si raccolgono «insieme in un’unica massa» (Gen. 1:9-10).
VII:16-20. La descrizione di un bambino che gioca sul bordo della Collina del Bianco Cavallo offre un quieto interludio riflessivo che rivela il carattere di re Alfredo e il suo successivo modo d’agire. Si noti l’unicità d’intento e la calma paziente e senza fretta nell’ammucchiare e riammucchiare instancabilmente le pietre. Alfredo sapeva ciò che doveva compiere e non accettò mai un rovescio come definitivo. Si riorganizzava e ricominciava. Egli «cominciò a vincere perché non gli importava della sconfitta» (Chesterton 1911,9-10).
VII:25-55. Patrioti come Eldred, Colan e Mark «si precipitano», «si sforzano» e «aspirano», ma mancano della pazienza di Alfredo, della sua tenacia, della sua caparbia determinazione a scacciare i pirati pagani dal suo regno.
VII:54-55. Wantage, luogo di nascita di Alfredo, era una tenuta reale nel Berkshire, vicino al tradizionale campo di battaglia di Ethandune. Per celebrare il millenario della nascita di Alfredo, nel 1849 i cittadini eressero una statua alla sua memoria. [Vi è stata molta discussione sulle date di nascita e di morte di Alfredo.] Le note di Charles Plummer ([1899] 1965,2:79) fissarono la nascita di Alfredo all’848; Dorothy Whitelock verificò che la sua morte avvenne il 26 ottobre 899 (Plummer [1899] 1965,2:cxlii).
Chesterton ha il polso della nazione quando afferma che Alfredo «governa l’Inghilterra fino al giudizio». Il brano seguente registra i ricordi di GK delle celebrazioni millenarie della morte di re Alfredo nel settembre 1901: «Mille anni di ringraziamenti e di lodi hanno giustamente concentrato su Alfredo una luce di ammirazione unica e universale. Dalle prime parole della Cronaca anglosassone fino agli ultimi messaggi telegrafici ai circoli e ai banchetti anglosassoni di Boston o di Filadelfia, vi è stata una unanimità concorde, una catena di complimenti cortesi o popolari, in cui non v’è in effetti alcuna interruzione… Egli è uno dei due o tre uomini che sono stati quasi obliterati dalla lode» (Ward 1933,5758).
VII:56-69. He began his life once more: le cose vanno male come prima, ma ad Alfredo non importa. Benché egli e i suoi guerrieri siano separati da Colan e dai suoi seguaci, Alfredo esorta i suoi uomini a considerare le alternative. Poi li sprona a non risparmiare nulla nella lotta per la vittoria.
VII:70. doppia via: la scelta da parte di Guthrum di un campo di battaglia che fronteggia un’unica strada che si biforca ha importanza strategica. V:29-33, 159, VII:279-87,291, VII:70,83,175.
VII:70-87. Dopo aver disperso gli uomini di Alfredo, i danesi si rilassano esultanti.
VII:84-87. sudden stay: «stay» significa un cambio di direzione. I «pochi in rotta di Alfredo» si dispersero in tutte le direzioni (VII:78-86). Alcuni danesi, pensando che tutto sia finito perché hanno sconfitto gli uomini di Alfredo, sono «sgusciati su per la strada per fuggire». Quando Alfredo suona il corno, attira l’attenzione di parecchi nemici nonché quella dei suoi soldati.
VII:102-26. Brothers… . Are slavery and starvation flowers: Haakon Shetelig conferma ciò che Alfredo ha detto alle sue truppe: «In larga misura, naturalmente, i vichinghi ridussero gli abitanti originari allo stato di servi dipendenti, appropriandosi di tutta la terra» (1940,1:91). Vedi anche ASC 876.
VII:127-55. Il rispetto di Alfredo per ciascun individuo trasforma gli uomini: «salda stette quella debole linea». Insieme «scesero ruggendo a morire».
VII:137. bondsmen: servi o schiavi.
VII:158. empery: il territorio governato dal re Egbert (802-839).
VII:160. venery: l’attività della caccia.
VII:184-258.
E quando l’ultima freccia
fu incoccata e volò,
ci riporta alla Visione del Re, quando Alfredo chiede a Nostra Signora:
«Quando il nostro ultimo arco sarà spezzato, Regina,
e scagliato il nostro ultimo giavellotto,
… … … … … … … . .
torneremo infine a casa?»
(I:197-98,202)
In risposta, Nostra Signora lasciò intendere che Alfredo avrebbe sopportato difficoltà prima della vittoria, ma accenna al successo chiedendogli:
«Avete voi gioia senza una causa,
sì, fede senza una speranza?»
(I:260-61)
Ora «la regina degli uomini», spada in mano, mostra benevolenza ad Alfredo rovesciando le sorti della guerra.
VII:189-91. Invece di riferirsi alla leggendaria apparizione di san Neot a re Alfredo nella notte precedente la battaglia, Chesterton affida a Nostra Signora il ruolo di ottenere l’aiuto divino per re Alfredo.
Il seguente resoconto tratto dalla Cronaca di St. Neots era in stampa nel 1900 ed era probabilmente ben noto a Chesterton:
La notte precedente la battaglia di Ethandune, mentre Alfredo dormiva, “gli si mostrò un’apparizione nelle sembianze di san Neot, già suo caro amico e congiunto, che gli ingiunse: «Scaccia ogni paura e timore dei barbari, né perderti d’animo per la loro moltitudine. Ché domani il Signore visiterà te e il tuo popolo, poiché per l’arroganza della tua giovinezza hai patito tutte queste tribolazioni». «Sì, domani», aggiunse, «andrò tutto il giorno innanzi ai tuoi vessilli, affinché tu possa combattere con maggior sicurezza contro i tuoi nemici, senza temere nulla; e sappia che il Signore Onnipotente combatte per te e per il tuo popolo». Allora si destò il Re, rallegrato invero dalla visione celeste” (Conybeare 1900,226).
Secondo un’altra leggenda, san Cutberto apparve ad Alfredo ad Athelney e gli predisse il trionfo finale (Conybeare [1900] 1914,179).
VII:189-204. L’uso da parte di Chesterton di questa finzione sull’apparizione di Nostra Signora conferma il suo amore per Maria. Parlando di sé in Chaucer: «Non capisco bene perché Chaucer debba essere “passato attraverso” questo accesso di devozione; come se avesse avuto la mariolatria come il morbillo. Persino un dilettante che abbia incontrato la malattia può testimoniare che essa non visita di solito la sua vittima per un breve “periodo”; è generalmente cronica e (in alcuni tristi casi che ho conosciuto) del tutto incurabile» (1932,118).
VII:200-202. La Cronaca anglosassone per l’anno 994 racconta della compassione di Maria, nel giorno della sua natività (8 settembre), per i cittadini di Londra. Ella impedì che Anlaf, Sweyn e la loro schiera saccheggiassero e dessero fuoco alla città. Con l’aiuto di Maria la guarnigione inflisse gravi danni e perdite agli assalitori. Frustrati, si ritirarono da Londra e continuarono a depredare altrove. Più tardi, nello stesso anno, Anlaf ricevette il sacramento della Confermazione, e fece e mantenne la promessa di non attaccare mai più l’Inghilterra (ASC 994).
La scelta di Chesterton di Maria come soccorritrice celeste nell’878 fu forse ispirata dall’azione di Maria nel 994? Il cronista dell’ASC registra la ripulsa da parte di Maria dell’assalto a Londra nel 994; Chesterton ascrive all’assistenza di Maria la vittoria decisiva di Ethandune nell’878. Re Guthrum diviene re Athelstan dell’Anglia orientale; Anlaf diviene re Olaf Tryggvason di Norvegia. Le conversioni spirituali furono in entrambi i casi durature: «Ponemmo un segno su Guthrum / che arda per mille anni»; re Olaf Tryggvason si adoperò vigorosamente per stabilire il cristianesimo in Norvegia. Vedi la «Saga di Olaf Tryggvason» di Snorri Sturluson.
VII:202. withouten: senza [arcaico e dial.].
VII:203-4. Le sette spade simboleggiano i sette dolori di Nostra Signora. «E anche a te una spada trafiggerà l’anima—affinché siano svelati i pensieri segreti di molti» (Lc 2,35).
VII:241-42. Il Times di Londra usò questi versi durante la prima guerra mondiale, quando Winston Churchill parlò della «fine dell’inizio».
VII:250. Il Bianco Cavallo risponde alla svolta favorevole degli eventi scalpitando con gli zoccoli.
VII:252. village: Wantage. [Luogo di nascita di Alfredo]
VII:255. The psalm is roaring above the rune: i cristiani hanno vinto i pagani.
Le rune entrarono in uso presso i germani entro il terzo secolo d.C., principalmente per la magia (Campbell 1982,26). Johannes Brondsted in The Vikings dedica il capitolo undici alle iscrizioni runiche (1965). Egli sottolinea che le iscrizioni sono le più importanti fonti dirette attraverso cui i vichinghi ci parlano con le proprie voci e nella propria lingua. Charles Mills Gayley spiega perché l’alfabeto latino sostituì le lettere runiche: «L’associazione delle lettere runiche con i misteri e la superstizione pagani indusse i primi maestri cristiani a scoraggiarne e, anzi, per quanto possibile, a sopprimerne l’uso. Esse furono perciò soppiantate dall’alfabeto latino, che nel primo inglese fu integrato con la conservazione di due delle rune, dette “thorn” e “wen”, per rappresentare i suoni del “th” e della “w” per i quali l’alfabeto latino non aveva lettere» ([1893] 1911,539).
VII:265-66. Asser racconta quanto «tremendo fu Alfredo» a Ethandune:
E là, contro l’intera schiera pagana, egli formò saldo il suo muro di scudi, e combatté una battaglia mortale. Strenuamente e a lungo vi si tennero; e, con l’aiuto di Dio, alla fine egli ottenne la vittoria, e abbatté i pagani con grandissima strage, e li incalzò da presso nella fuga, colpo su colpo, fino alla loro roccaforte [Chippenham]. E tutto ciò che era fuori dalla roccaforte — uomini cioè, e cavalli, e greggi — prese e catturò, e gli uomini uccise all’istante; e davanti alle porte della roccaforte pagana egli e tutta la sua schiera posero il campo, da uomini. E quando vi ebbe indugiato quattordici giorni, i pagani, affamati, infreddoliti e atterriti, e infine senza speranza, furono presi da gran timore, e chiesero la pace, a patto che il Re nominasse e prendesse da loro quegli ostaggi che volesse, senza darne alcuno in cambio. Mai prima avevano fatto pace con qualcuno in tal modo (Conybeare 1900,100).
VII:276. Guelderland: Gelderland, una provincia dei Paesi Bassi orientali.
VII:281-82. Un assedio fallito di Parigi da parte degli uomini del Nord avvenne nell’885-86 (Hodgkin [1935] 1952,2:654).
VII:285. Durham: una città situata nell’Inghilterra nord-orientale, sul fiume Wear.
VII:285. melted Durham bell: ecco un altro riferimento alla distruzione danese.
VII:299. woad: guado, una sostanza tintoria blu ricavata dalle foglie della pianta Isatis.
VII:299. bright with blood for woad: «woad» è qui usato in senso figurato. Il rosso sangue macchiava i corpi nudi dei celti come il succo blu del guado aveva in precedenza colorato le pelli dei loro consanguinei britanni.
VII:324. Il Corvo di Odino,
torn: la bandiera danese era «un corvo nero su un campo rosso sangue» (Gordon 1924,3). «Si dice che le tre figlie di Lodbrok [il padre di Hubba] la tessessero, e in un solo giorno. Si dice inoltre che in ogni battaglia, ogniqualvolta quella bandiera andava innanzi a loro, con il Corvo nel mezzo, se erano destinati a vincere quel giorno, esso sembrava svolazzare come vivo; ma se il loro destino era di essere sconfitti, allora pendeva, immobile e senza vita. E spesso ciò fu ben provato» (Conybeare 1914,37).
VII:324. Odin: il dio supremo degli uomini del Nord.
VII:325. And the eyes of Guthrum altered: Walter Besant dà conto del notevole cambiamento nel condottiero danese: «Egli percepì—questo pagano logico—che gli dèi di re Alfredo avevano mostrato la loro superiorità sui suoi in maniera così inattesa, così sbalorditiva e così decisiva, che non esitò oltre. Riconobbe quella superiorità; fu battezzato, e in seguito non ricadde mai» (Bowker 1899,17).
VII:359-60. Parlando del battesimo di Guthrum e del Trattato di Wedmore, Chesterton sottolinea l’importanza della conversione del Re danese: «In tutti i fatti che seguirono, il battesimo di Guthrum è in realtà molto più importante del Trattato di Wedmore. Il trattato in sé fu un compromesso, e come tale nemmeno durò; un secolo dopo un re danese come Canuto regnava davvero in Inghilterra. Ma benché il danese ottenesse la corona, non si liberò della croce» (1917,53).
VII:366. Asser e l’ASC affermano che Guthrum fu battezzato tre settimane dopo la battaglia di Ethandune: «Allora la Schiera gli diede ostaggi, con molti giuramenti, che avrebbero lasciato il suo regno. E gli giurarono fedeltà che il loro Re avrebbe ricevuto il Battesimo, e ciò adempirono. E, circa tre settimane dopo, venne a lui re Guthrum, con una trentina d’altri, gli uomini più degni della Schiera, ad Aller, presso Athelney. E nel Battesimo il Re ebbe lui per padrino. E lo scioglimento del crisma avvenne a Wedmore. E dodici notti dimorò presso il Re; e molti degni doni diede egli [Alfredo] a lui e ai suoi» (Conybeare 1900,124-25).
VII:367. Far out to the winding river: il fiume Ock scorre attraverso la Valle del Bianco Cavallo e si getta nel Tamigi, il fiume sinuoso, ad Abingdon.

Note: La Ripulitura del Cavallo
Sinossi: Mentre il Wessex giace in «una chiazza di pace» (879-892), Alfredo non solo rafforza la vita e la cultura inglese a ogni livello, ma mantiene ed espande anche la preparazione militare. L’ospitalità e la generosità di Alfredo incoraggiano i visitatori stranieri, e i suoi ambasciatori rappresentano gli interessi del Wessex nel mondo. Informato che gli eserciti danesi stavano di nuovo razziando l’Inghilterra sud-orientale, Alfredo rivela la sua visione, che prevede in qualche secolo lontano l’arrivo di un diverso tipo di invasore. Saranno scrittori e maestri che avvelenano le menti diffondendo falsità. Dopo quattro duri anni di combattimenti, il nemico si ritira sul continente. Alfredo non ha sconfitto definitivamente i danesi, ma ha impedito loro di occupare il suo regno.
E benché i cieli mutino e gli imperi si dissolvano,
questa parola resterà ancora vera:
se vogliamo il cavallo antico,
ripulite voi il cavallo di nuovo.
(VII:204-7)
VIII:1. Gli anni tra la vittoria di Ethandune nell’878 e il ritorno dei danesi nell’892 sono gli «anni della pace del Wessex». In questo intervallo Alfredo ebbe molte schermaglie con i danesi per mare e per terra, ma nessuna minaccia seria al regno. Nell’892 Haesten, con una flotta di ottanta navi, e il Grande Esercito su 250 vascelli si stabilirono nella sezione sud-orientale dell’Inghilterra. Il Libro VIII narra come Alfredo affrontò con successo questa crisi.
VIII:3. bloody boon: l’aiuto di Maria durante la battaglia di Ethandune (VII:189-258).
VIII:4. Un’allusione a Maria (Ap 12,1).
VIII:12. Guthrum si ritirò nell’Anglia orientale, dove distribuì terre tra i suoi seguaci.
VIII:19-20. Il cronista Aethelweard menziona la presenza dell’ealdorman Aethelnoth del Somerset allo «scioglimento del crisma» di Guthrum (Conybeare 1900,139). Lingard descrive il battesimo e lo scioglimento del crisma: «Dopo poche settimane, Guthrum con trenta dei suoi ufficiali fu battezzato ad Aller, presso Athelney. Prese il soprannome di Athelstan, e Alfredo fu il suo padrino. Dopo la cerimonia entrambi i principi si trasferirono a Wedmore, dove l’ottavo giorno Guthrum depose la veste bianca e la benda crismale, e il dodicesimo disse addio al suo padre adottivo, la cui generosità aveva imparato ad ammirare quanto prima ne aveva rispettato il valore» ([1849] 1912,1:204). Nella sua History and Antiquities of the Anglo-Saxon Church John Lingard fornisce maggiori dettagli: «Il sacerdote gli immerse tre volte il capo sotto la superficie, dicendo: Io ti battezzo nel nome del Padre, e del Figlio, e dello Spirito Santo. Fu poi unto sul sommo del capo con il crisma in forma di croce, e una cuffia di lino bianco detta crismale gli fu fissata sul capo… . Ci si aspettava inoltre che tornasse in chiesa in ciascuno dei sette giorni successivi, per attendere all’istruzione quotidiana e ricevere quotidianamente la comunione. Nell’ultimo il crismale veniva rimosso, e la cerimonia era conclusa» (1845,1:318-319).
VIII:21-24. Dopo il ritiro dal Wessex, i danesi conservarono le terre a nord e a est dei seguenti confini: «Lungo il Tamigi, poi su per il Lea fino alla sua sorgente; poi diritto fino a Bedford; poi su per l’Ouse fino a Watling Street» (Alfred the Great [1858] 1969,2:139). [Questo territorio divenne noto come Danelaw.] Il testo dei due trattati contenenti i termini di pace tra Alfredo e Guthrum esiste ancora. La traduzione di Dorothy Whitelock della versione più lunga è in English Historical Documents ([1955] 1979,416-17). J. A. Giles incluse entrambi i trattati nel secondo volume di The Whole Works of King Alfred the Great ([1858] 1969). Si veda R. H. Hodgkin per una spiegazione delle clausole del trattato ([1935] 1952,2:578-81).
VIII:33-34. John Earle sottolinea il fatto che la rinascita educativa di re Alfredo insediò la lingua madre come mezzo dell’insegnamento elementare (Bowker 1899,205). Nella stessa raccolta di saggi, Sir Walter Besant spiega come re Alfredo pose le fondamenta della poesia e della prosa inglese: «Raccolse e conservò la poesia fondata sulle tradizioni e sulle leggende portate dalle foreste germaniche. Egli stesso si dilettava a udire e a ripetere queste leggende e tradizioni: le gesta dei possenti guerrieri che combattevano con mostri, draghi, cinghiali selvaggi ed enormi serpenti. Fece imparare ai suoi figli i loro canti; li faceva cantare alla sua corte. Vuole la tradizione che sapesse egli stesso cantarli al suono della propria arpa» (Bowker 1899,29). Asser parla dell’applicazione dei figli di Alfredo allo studio: «Poiché hanno imparato i salmi, e i libri sassoni, e soprattutto i canti sassoni, e leggono di continuo» (Conybeare 1900,104).
VIII:35. the alms he gave as a Christian: l’ASC 883 annota: «Sigehelm e Athelstan portarono a Roma le elemosine che il re aveva fatto voto di mandarvi, e anche in India, a san Tommaso e san Bartolomeo, quando si posero contro [si opposero a] l’Oste che era in Londra» (Conybeare 1900,125). Questa aggiunta appartiene alla Cronaca anglosassone per l’886. Fu nell’886 che Alfredo fece voto di mandare elemosine se avesse sconfitto l’esercito danese che occupava Londra. L’ASC afferma inoltre che Alfredo mandò elemosine a Roma nell’887, 888 e 890. Simeone di Durham descrive la generosità di Alfredo verso quelli del suo stesso regno: «Nelle sante solennità delle feste, quali doni elargisse ai suoi vescovi e capi e cavalieri, nessuno può dirlo. Allora i poveri saltavano di gioia, allora vedove e orfani erano pieni di letizia; e lodi sentite gli rendevano. Ben conosceva quel detto del Maestro: “Allora il denaro ha vero valore, quando è stato consegnato ad altri. L’elemosina è il fine del possesso”» (Conybeare 1900,158).
VIII:37-38. Un esame del resoconto dato da Asser, il biografo di Alfredo, mostra che il re si considerava soltanto un amministratore delle ricchezze affidategli:
Ordinò ai suoi ufficiali di dividere anzitutto la sua rendita annuale sempre in due parti uguali. Fatto ciò, assegnò la prima parte agli affari secolari; e ordinò che fosse divisa di nuovo in tre parti… . [Queste andarono ai suoi guerrieri, artigiani e stranieri di molte terre.] Ma la seconda metà di tutta la ricchezza che ogni anno gli giungeva, da qualunque fonte, la votò liberamente e pienamente a Dio. E ordinò ai suoi ufficiali di dividerla con cura in quattro parti, in modo tale che la prima di queste parti fosse versata ai poveri di ogni stirpe che veniva a lui. E la seconda parte la diede alle due abbazie di sua fondazione. E la terza alla Scuola, nella quale aveva con tanta cura raccolto molti nobili della sua stirpe. E la quarta alle abbazie dei dintorni (Conybeare 1900,115-16).
VIII:39. Keynes e Lapidge citano la testimonianza dello stesso re Alfredo secondo cui egli usò come fonti le leggi anteriori dei re Ine, Offa ed Ethelberht (1983,164).
VIII:45-46. Asser, quale compagno e confidente vivente a corte, è attendibile quando dice che Alfredo destinò agli stranieri un terzo della rendita che aveva designato per uso secolare: «E la terza parte la diede agli stranieri di ogni stirpe che accorrevano a lui da vicino e da lontano e gli chiedevano denaro. Anzi, anche se non chiedevano, egli dava a ciascuno secondo il suo merito, ben volentieri, e con mano mirabilmente aperta, oltre ogni lode» (Conybeare 1900,116). Asser precisa «i confini della terra» dai quali venivano i visitatori: «Ché il tempo mi mancherebbe a raccontare… come giorno per giorno ricevesse ambascerie dai popoli che abitano presso il mare Tirreno [Mediterraneo], e fino alle estreme parti d’Irlanda» (Conybeare 1900,112).
Tra i visitatori famosi della corte vi furono Ohthere e Wulfstan, che diedero a re Alfredo resoconti dettagliati dei loro viaggi di scoperta ed esplorazione. Il re inserì un resoconto di queste spedizioni nella sua traduzione anglosassone di Orosio. Da questa fonte si apprende che Ohthere doppiò Capo Nord ed entrò nel mar Bianco nel primo viaggio verso settentrione. Wulfstan riferì le sue scoperte nelle terre baltiche. A giudicare dallo spazio dedicato all’esposizione di Wulfstan sui curiosi costumi degli Esti, re Alfredo dovette restare affascinato dagli strani resoconti che udì (Alfred the Great [1858] 1969,2:39-56).
Con la sua generosità nel pagarne i servigi, re Alfredo attirò numerosi artigiani nel suo regno. Gli artefici vennero «insieme da molte stirpi, e in numero quasi incalcolabile, ben esperti in ogni genere di costruzione nota sulla terra». La loro opera esperta favorì i piani di Alfredo per l’edificazione del Wessex.
VIII:45-48. Asser, scrivendo della munificenza di Alfredo, afferma che egli diede elemosine ad abbazie fuori del proprio regno: «E in alcuni anni, inoltre, diede, come poteva, a turno alle chiese del Galles e della Cornovaglia, in Gallia, Bretagna, Northumbria e persino, di quando in quando, in Irlanda, e ai servi di Dio che vi dimoravano» (Conybeare 1900,116).
VIII:47-48. Si veda E VIII:35.
VIII:52. crakens: mitici mostri marini di enormi dimensioni, che si diceva fossero stati avvistati talvolta al largo delle coste della Norvegia.
VIII:55-60. Chesterton sembra riferirsi a Ohthere, il navigatore. Il dott. Joseph Bosworth dice in una nota esplicativa apposta alla sua traduzione dell’«Orosius» di re Alfredo:
Ohthere era un nobile norvegese di grande ricchezza e influenza, ansioso di non affermare nulla se non ciò di cui potesse rendere personale testimonianza. Pare impossibile che qualcuno legga questa semplice narrazione senza convincersi che questo audace uomo del Nord sta dando il dettaglio del suo viaggio, lungo la costa settentrionale della Norvegia fino al mar Bianco… . Ohthere aveva fatto scoperte, che comunicò al re, e Alfredo le ritenne di tale importanza che scrisse e inserì questo loro dettaglio nella sua visione geografica e storica dell’Europa (Alfred the Great [1858] 1969, 2:39).
VIII:61-66. Chesterton potrebbe alludere a Sigehelm e Athelstan quali i «grandi signori portatori di doni» che nell’883 [886] giunsero fino in India. Guglielmo di Malmesbury menziona che Sigehelm, vescovo di Sherborne, riportò «più d’un gioiello strano e splendente» (Conybeare 1900,165).
VIII:70. Prester John: questo mitico prete-re avrebbe governato un regno misterioso in India. Davanti al suo palazzo stava uno specchio di cristallo nel quale poteva osservare l’intero suo regno. Chesterton tratta questo mito in “The Modern Magic” (1944,19).
VIII:72. Terre Majeure: l’Impero carolingio. Prima dell’814, Carlo Magno aveva sotto il suo controllo gran parte dell’Europa occidentale.
VIII:72-77. Alfredo riconobbe l’influenza civilizzatrice dell’impero fondato da Carlo Magno.
VIII:87. Chesterton identifica i Pitti come il popolo «che stava oltre il confine di Agricola in quelle che oggi sono le Lowlands scozzesi» (1917,27).
VIII:88-89. Nel nono secolo, Strathclyde era il nome dato al territorio governato dai gallesi del Nord. Comprendeva la valle del fiume Clyde.
VIII:94-114. Alfredo risponde con un proverbio ai suoi consiglieri che lo incalzano a scacciare i danesi e a conquistare il paese oltre il vallo di Adriano. «Un veggente si sente troppo piccolo per la vita, / e uno stolto troppo grande».
(VIII:96-97). Questo passo è un rimprovero agli ambiziosi costruttori d’imperi dei giorni di Chesterton. In What’s Wrong with the World egli scrive: «Ho così spiegato… perché non credo nell’Imperialismo come comunemente inteso. Lo ritengo non soltanto un torto occasionale verso altri popoli, ma una debolezza continua, una piaga aperta, nel mio» (1910,106). Re Alfredo, a differenza del nonno Egbert, si era impegnato solo in guerre difensive.
VIII:96-97. Le azioni e gli scritti di re Alfredo confermano la sua umiltà e la sua saggezza.
VIII:129-30. From Wantage Town to Plymouth Bluff: in punti strategici Alfredo «rese salde le sue difese» ordinando la costruzione di burhs [fortezze]. Hodgkin spiega il sistema di difesa ben pianificato di Alfredo ([1935] 1967,2:585-90).
VIII:135-42. Thomas Hughes scrisse un vivace resoconto della festa del 1857 che seguì la ripulitura del Cavallo Bianco. Migliaia di spettatori si radunarono il 17 e il 18 settembre per godersi i festeggiamenti, come pure per ammirare il Cavallo. Premi in denaro furono assegnati ai vincitori nel gioco del backsword, nella lotta, in una gara di campanelli, nell’arrampicata su un palo unto; e nelle corse a piedi, a ostacoli, di cavalli da tiro e di asini. Chi catturava il maiale liberato poteva reclamarlo come premio (1859,92-93).
VIII:149-53. All’aprirsi della sua ultima guerra, Alfredo aveva quarantaquattro anni. Era invecchiato prematuramente per le sue strenue fatiche di re.
VIII:160-63. I danesi da Boulogne invasero il Kent in due grandi compagnie nell’892. Numerose schermaglie avvennero nei primi mesi della guerra. All’inizio Alfredo tentò la diplomazia, ma alla fine distaccamenti del suo esercito combatterono con successo in vari scontri con i danesi. Pare che Alfredo agisse da comandante in capo mentre il figlio Edoardo, il genero Ethelred e altri guidavano le truppe. Per maggiori dettagli sulla guerra dell’892-96 si vedano: ASC 892-96; Hodgkin ([1935] 1952,2:655-69); «Aethelweard’s Chronicle, A.D. 893-95», Keynes e Lapidge (1983,114-19; 189-91).
VIII:170. dykes: si tratta di terrapieni continui in certi distretti. Alcuni dykes fornivano protezione; altri stabilivano confini.
VIII:184-213. In Orthodoxy, Chesterton si sofferma sul fatto che le cose tendono naturalmente a peggiorare. Il capitolo «The Eternal Revolution» spiega: «se lasci un palo bianco da solo diventerà presto un palo nero; se lo vuoi particolarmente bianco devi sempre ridipingerlo; cioè, devi sempre avere una rivoluzione. In breve, se vuoi il vecchio palo bianco devi avere un nuovo palo bianco» (1908,212).
VIII:211. wot: prima e terza persona singolare del presente di wit, sapere. (Arcaico salvo che in scozzese e nell’inglese dialettale.)
VIII:214-30. La Cronaca di Aethelweard (Keynes e Lapidge 1983,189-91) e l’ASC sono fonti primarie per l’ultima guerra di Alfredo. Entro l’893 uomini d’arme da tutta l’Inghilterra fuori del Danelaw accorrevano in aiuto di Alfredo. Le «tribù lontane» comprendevano quelle del Galles, della Cornovaglia e della Mercia inglese. Gli alleati di Alfredo compresero che la loro sopravvivenza era legata a quella del Wessex. Hodgkin ([1935] 1952,2:653-69) ha un capitolo eccellente sull’ultima guerra di Alfredo. La precedente attenzione di Alfredo alla costruzione navale, al miglioramento delle fortificazioni e alla riorganizzazione militare degli uomini contribuì al suo successo.
VIII:216-18. Legioni di coscritti marciavano «in fretta e amarezza / per amore di Cristo e della corona».
VIII:223-24. Secondo la «Legend of Glastonbury, A.D. 62», il bastone da pellegrino di Giuseppe d’Arimatea «venne da un roveto che aveva fornito spine per una corona [di Cristo]» Catholic World 7 (luglio 1868):522. Questo bastone da pellegrino avrebbe miracolosamente messo radici nel suolo di Glastonbury.
Chesterton si riferisce a san Giuseppe d’Arimatea come a un ricco missionario che depose il corpo di nostro Signore dalla croce e lo pose nel proprio sepolcro… (Mt 26,26-28). Qui Chesterton collega la parte avuta da san Giuseppe d’Arimatea nella sepoltura di Gesù con un ruolo leggendario attribuitogli, quello di aver introdotto il cristianesimo in Britannia (1917,35-36).
VIII:233-35,245-47. Mentre i soldati gli sfilano accanto in massa per andare a scacciare i danesi pagani, Alfredo ha una visione, un’intima certezza, che in qualche secolo lontano «i pagani torneranno». Per Maurice Evans, la visione di Alfredo è la parte più significativa della Ballata (1939,114-15).
VIII:236-37. Re Alfredo dona il suo regno a Nostra Signora. La riverenza del re per Maria si può presumere dal fatto che il nome di lei è menzionato dopo Dio in una delle sue carte: «Io Alfredo re, in onore di Dio e della beata vergine Maria e di tutti i santi, do e concedo, vivo e ancora in prosperità, alla chiesa di Scepton cento hide di terra» (Alfred the Great [1858] 1969,1:388). Per dettagli sulle antiche devozioni, sui santuari e sui pellegrinaggi in Inghilterra, si consulti H. W. R. Lillie, S.J., England, the Dowry of Mary.
VIII:248-56. I barbari moderni non saranno guerrieri ma scrittori e oratori che useranno «parole morte» per eliminare Dio quale Creatore e Ordinatore dell’universo. In Orthodoxy Chesterton denuncia l’influenza malefica di Herbert Spencer su H. G. Wells (1908,111). Il signor Wells presentò la teoria della selezione naturale come un fatto della scienza moderna. L’adesione a questo insegnamento era un tentativo di sbarazzarsi di Dio. Altrove in Orthodoxy Chesterton dà il punto di vista cristiano: «E la frase radicale di tutto il teismo cristiano era questa, che Dio era un creatore… . Era il primo principio filosofico del cristianesimo che questo divorzio nell’atto divino del fare (quale separa il poeta dal poema o la madre dal bambino appena nato) fosse la vera descrizione dell’atto con cui l’energia assoluta fece il mondo. Secondo la maggior parte dei filosofi, Dio nel fare il mondo lo rese schiavo. Secondo il cristianesimo, nel farlo, lo rese libero. Dio aveva scritto non tanto un poema, quanto piuttosto un dramma; un dramma che aveva progettato perfetto, ma che era stato necessariamente lasciato ad attori e capocomici umani, i quali ne avevano poi fatto un gran pasticcio» (1908,142-43).
VIII:249. brands: probabilmente, in questo contesto: torce.
VIII:262-65. Herbert Spencer «rese popolare questa spregevole nozione che le dimensioni del sistema solare debbano intimidire il dogma spirituale dell’uomo. Perché mai un uomo dovrebbe cedere la propria dignità al sistema solare più che a una balena?» (Chesterton 1908,110)
VIII:268-69. Sono riferimenti al compimento di imprese impossibili.
VIII:270-72. Virgilio compose l’Eneide, si dice, su richiesta di Augusto. Nella forma seguì da vicino i grandi poemi omerici, mentre nella sostanza esaltava Roma e il signore di Roma.
VIII:273-306. Chesterton combatte per «la civiltà cristiana contro il nichilismo pagano». I barbari moderni vengono come dotti che sanno troppo per credere in Dio, e con i loro insegnamenti minano e distruggono la fede altrui. VIII:293-94 Chesterton indica la realtà del peccato:
I maestri moderni della scienza sono assai colpiti dalla necessità di cominciare ogni indagine da un fatto. Gli antichi maestri della religione erano del tutto ugualmente colpiti da quella necessità. Cominciavano dal fatto del peccato — un fatto pratico quanto le patate. Che l’uomo potesse o no essere lavato in acque miracolose, non v’era comunque alcun dubbio che avesse bisogno d’esser lavato. Ma certi capi religiosi di Londra, non meri materialisti, hanno cominciato ai nostri giorni non a negare l’acqua assai discutibile, ma a negare l’indiscutibile sporcizia. Certi nuovi teologi contestano il peccato originale, che è la sola parte della teologia cristiana che possa davvero essere provata. Alcuni seguaci del reverendo R. J. Campbell, nella loro spiritualità fin troppo schizzinosa, ammettono l’impeccabilità divina, che non riescono a vedere nemmeno nei loro sogni. Ma negano in sostanza il peccato umano, che possono vedere per strada (1908,24).
VIII:295-96. Ibsen e Nietzsche sono due scrittori che Chesterton prende particolarmente di mira. «Intendo dire che Ibsen ha in tutta la sua opera,… una certa vaghezza e un atteggiamento mutevole come pure dubbioso verso ciò che è davvero saggezza e virtù in questa vita… . Tutte le età precedenti hanno sudato e sono state crocifisse nel tentativo di comprendere quale sia davvero la vita giusta, quale fosse davvero l’uomo buono. Una parte precisa del mondo moderno è giunta fuor di dubbio alla conclusione che non c’è risposta a queste domande» (1905a,31-32). Alcuni dei filosofi che sono «per pensiero una rovina strisciante» vengono attaccati in Orthodoxy:
Nietzsche starà assai bene come tipo di tutto questo fallimento della violenza astratta. Il rammollimento del cervello che infine lo colse non fu un incidente fisico. Se Nietzsche non fosse finito nell’imbecillità, il nietzscheismo finirebbe nell’imbecillità. Pensare in isolamento e con orgoglio finisce nell’essere un idiota… . Per l’accidente del mio presente distacco, posso vedere l’inevitabile schianto delle filosofie di Schopenhauer e Tolstoj, di Nietzsche e di Shaw, così chiaramente come da un pallone si vedrebbe un inevitabile scontro ferroviario (1908,75-77).
VIII:296. By life a leaping mire: poiché Oscar Wilde era un decadente notorio, questa espressione potrebbe riferirsi a lui. Chesterton commenta: «Oscar Wilde disse che i tramonti non erano apprezzati perché non possiamo pagare per i tramonti. Ma Oscar Wilde si sbagliava; noi possiamo pagare per i tramonti. Possiamo pagarli non essendo Oscar Wilde» (1908,104).
VIII:324. Sant’Edmondo, re dell’Anglia orientale, ottenne la sua corona di martire quando si oppose agli invasori danesi nell’870.
VIII:332-50. Dopo la violazione della pace con Alfredo da parte degli angli orientali, il re usò la forza per recuperare Londra nell’886 (ASC 886).
VIII:351-71. I rigogliosi «trifoglio e cardo silenzioso» hanno «disfatto le fatiche degli uomini». La contesa continua. La natura incontrollata deturpa il Cavallo Bianco.
VIII:366-71. «Brusco e assoluto come finisce un’epica, …» (Chesterton 1926a,29). Sullo sfondo di un «pallido cielo purpureo» e del fumo eburneo della battaglia, il grande Alfredo prosegue la difesa senza fine del suo regno.

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Composto presso il Marygrove College
Dipartimento Pubblicazioni
Carattere: Bernhard

DEDICATION
F great limbs gone to chaos,
A great face turned to night—
Why bend above a shapeless shroud
Seeking in such archaic cloud
Sight of strong lords and light? [5]
Where seven sunken Englands
Lie buried one by one,
Why should one idle spade, I wonder,
Shake up the dust of thanes like thunder
To smoke and choke the sun? [10]
In cloud of clay so cast to heaven
What shape shall man discern?
These lords may light the mystery
Of mastery or victory,
And these ride high in history, [15]
But these shall not return.
Gored on the Norman gonfalon
The Golden Dragon died;
We shall not wake with ballad strings
The good time of the smaller things, [20]
We shall not see the holy kings
Ride down by Severn side.
Stiff, strange, and quaintly coloured
As the broidery of Bayeux
The England of that dawn remains, [25]
And this of Alfred and the Danes
Seems like the tales a whole tribe feigns
Too English to be true.
Of a good king on an island
That ruled once on a time; [30]
And as he walked by an apple tree
There came green devils out of the sea
With sea-plants trailing heavily
And tracks of opal slime.
Yet Alfred is no fairy tale; [35]
His days as our days ran,
He also looked forth for an hour
On peopled plains and skies that lower,
From those few windows in the tower
That is the head of a man. [40]
But who shall look from Alfred’s hood
Or breathe his breath alive?
His century like a small dark cloud
Drifts far; it is an eyeless crowd,
Where the tortured trumpets scream aloud [45]
And the dense arrows drive.
Lady, by one light only
We look from Alfred’s eyes,
We know he saw athwart the wreck
The sign that hangs about your neck, [50]
Where One more than Melchizedek
Is dead and never dies.
Therefore I bring these rhymes to you,
Who brought the cross to me,
Since on you flaming without flaw [55]
I saw the sign that Guthrum saw
When he let break his ships of awe,
And laid peace on the sea.
Do you remember when we went
Under a dragon moon, [60]
And ‘mid volcanic tints of night
Walked where they fought the unknown fight
And saw black trees on the battle-height,
Black thorn on Ethandune?
And I thought, “I will go with you, [65]
As man with God has gone,
And wander with a wandering star,
The wandering heart of things that are,
The fiery cross of love and war
That like yourself, goes on.” [70]
O go you onward; where you are
Shall honour and laughter be,
Past purple forest and pearled foam,
God’s winged pavilion free to roam,
Your face, that is a wandering home, [75]
A flying home for me.
Ride through the silent earthquake lands,
Wide as a waste is wide,
Across these days like deserts, when
Pride and a little scratching pen [80]
Have dried and split the hearts of men,
Heart of the heroes, ride.
Up through an empty house of stars,
Being what heart you are,
Up the inhuman steeps of space [85]
As on a staircase go in grace,
Carrying the firelight on your face
Beyond the loneliest star.
Take these; in memory of the hour [90]
We strayed a space from home
And saw the smoke-hued hamlets, quaint
With Westland king and Westland saint,
And watched the western glory faint
Along the road to Frome.
G. K. C.

DEDICA
Di grandi membra date al caos,
di un gran volto fatto notte—
perché chinarsi su informe sudario
cercando in nube così arcaica
vista di forti signori e di luce? [5]
Dove sette Inghilterre sommerse
giacciono sepolte una ad una,
perché mai un’oziosa vanga, io mi chiedo,
dovrebbe levare come tuono la polvere dei thane
a far fumo e soffocare il sole? [10]
In nube d’argilla così scagliata al cielo
quale forma discernerà l’uomo?
Questi signori forse rischiarano il mistero
del dominio o della vittoria,
e alti cavalcano nella storia, [15]
ma questi non torneranno.
Trafitto sul gonfalone normanno
morì il Drago d’Oro;
non desteremo con corde di ballata
il buon tempo delle cose più piccole, [20]
non vedremo i santi re
scendere a cavallo lungo il Severn.
Rigida, strana, di curiosi colori
come il ricamo di Bayeux
resta l’Inghilterra di quell’alba, [25]
e questa di Alfredo e dei Danesi
pare fiaba che un’intera tribù finge,
troppo inglese per esser vera.
Di un buon re sopra un’isola
che vi regnò, c’era una volta, un tempo; [30]
e mentre camminava presso un melo
vennero diavoli verdi dal mare
con alghe marine a strascico greve
e scie di bava d’opale.
Eppure Alfredo non è fiaba; [35]
i suoi giorni corsero come i nostri,
anch’egli guardò fuori per un’ora
su piane popolose e cieli incombenti,
da quelle poche finestre della torre
che è la testa di un uomo. [40]
Ma chi guarderà dal cappuccio di Alfredo
o respirerà vivo il suo respiro?
Il suo secolo come piccola nube scura
va lontano alla deriva; è folla senza occhi,
dove urlano alte le trombe torturate [45]
e piombano fitte le frecce.
Signora, per una sola luce
guardiamo dagli occhi di Alfredo,
sappiamo che vide, attraverso il naufragio,
il segno che pende dal tuo collo, [50]
dove Uno più grande di Melchisedec
è morto e mai non muore.
Perciò ti porto queste rime,
tu che mi portasti la croce,
poiché su te, fiammante senza pecca, [55]
vidi il segno che Guthrum vide
quando lasciò infrangersi le sue navi tremende,
e pose pace sul mare.
Ricordi quando andammo
sotto una luna di drago, [60]
e fra tinte vulcaniche di notte
camminammo dove fu combattuta l’ignota battaglia
e vedemmo alberi neri sull’altura della pugna,
nero pruno su Ethandune?
E pensai: «Andrò con te, [65]
come l’uomo è andato con Dio,
e vagherò con una stella errante,
il cuore errante delle cose che sono,
la croce di fuoco d’amore e di guerra
che, come te, va avanti». [70]
O va’ tu avanti; dove sei
saranno onore e riso,
oltre foresta purpurea e spuma imperlata,
padiglione alato di Dio libero al vagare,
il tuo volto, che è errante casa, [75]
una casa in volo per me.
Cavalca per le terre del muto terremoto,
vaste come è vasta una landa,
attraverso questi giorni come deserti, quando
l’orgoglio e una piccola penna che gratta [80]
hanno seccato e spaccato i cuori degli uomini:
cuore degli eroi, cavalca.
Su per una vuota casa di stelle,
essendo il cuore che sei,
su per le inumane erte dello spazio [85]
come su una scala sali in grazia,
portando la luce del focolare sul volto
oltre la stella più sola.
Prendi queste; in memoria dell’ora [90]
che vagammo un poco da casa
e vedemmo i borghi color fumo, pittoreschi
di re dell’Ovest e di santo dell’Ovest,
e guardammo svanire la gloria d’occidente
lungo la strada per Frome.
G. K. C.

BOOK I
THE VISION OF THE KING

THE BALLAD OF THE
WHITE HORSE
EFORE the gods that made the gods
Had seen their sunrise pass,
The White Horse of the White Horse Vale
Was cut out of the grass.
Before the gods that made the gods [5]
Had drunk at dawn their fill,
The White Horse of the White Horse Vale
Was hoary on the hill.
Age beyond age on British land,
Aeons on aeons gone, [10]
Was peace and war in western hills,
And the White Horse looked on.
For the White Horse knew England
When there was none to know;
He saw the first oar break or bend, is
He saw heaven fall and the world end,
O God, how long ago.
For the end of the world was long ago—
And all we dwell to-day
As children of some second birth, [20]
Like a strange people left on earth
After a judgment day.
For the end of the world was long ago,
When the ends of the world waxed free,
When Rome was sunk in a waste of slaves, [25]
And the sun drowned in the sea.
When Caesar’s sun fell out of the sky
And whoso hearkened right
Could only hear the plunging
Of the nations in the night. [30]
When the ends of the earth came marching in
To torch and cresset gleam,
And the roads of the world that lead to Rome
Were filled with faces that moved like foam,
Like faces in a dream. [35]
And men rode out of the eastern lands,
Broad river and burning plain;
Trees that are Titan flowers to see,
And tiger skies, striped horribly,
With tints of tropic rain. [40]
Where Ind’s enamelled peaks arise
Around that inmost one,
Where ancient eagles on its brink,
Vast as archangels, gather and drink
The sacrament of the sun. [45]
And men brake out of the northern lands,
Enormous lands alone,
Where a spell is laid upon life and lust
And the rain is changed to a silver dust
And the sea to a great green stone. [50]
And a Shape that moveth murkily
In mirrors of ice and night,
Hath blanched with fear all beasts and birds,
As death and a shock of evil words
Blast a man’s hair with white. [55]
And the cry of the palms and the purple moons,
Or the cry of the frost and foam,
Swept ever around an inmost place,
And the din of distant race on race
Cried and replied round Rome. [60]
And there was death on the Emperor
And night upon the Pope;
And Alfred, hiding in deep grass,
Hardened his heart with hope.
A sea-folk blinder than the sea [65]
Broke all about his land,
But Alfred up against them bare
And gripped the ground and grasped the air,
Staggered, and strove to stand.
He bent them back with spear and spade, [70]
With desperate dyke and wall,
With foemen leaning on his shield
And roaring on him when he reeled
And no help came at all.
He broke them with a broken sword [75]
A little towards the sea,
And for one hour of panting peace,
Ringed with a roar that would not cease,
With golden crown and girded fleece
Made laws under a tree. [80]
• • • • • • •
The Northmen came about our land
A Christless chivalry:
Who knew not of the arch or pen,
Great, beautiful half-witted men
From the sunrise and the sea. [85]
Misshapen ships stood on the deep
Full of strange gold and fire,
And hairy men, as huge as sin,
With horned heads, came wading in
Through the long, low sea-mire. [90]
Our towns were shaken of tall kings
With scarlet beards like blood;
The world turned empty where they trod,
They took the kindly cross of God
And cut it up for wood. [95]
Their souls were drifting as the sea,
And all good towns and lands
They only saw with heavy eyes,
And broke with heavy hands.
Their gods were sadder than the sea, [100]
Gods of a wandering will,
Who cried for blood like beasts at night,
Sadly, from hill to hill.
They seemed as trees walking the earth,
As witless and as tall, [105]
Yet they took hold upon the heavens
And no help came at all.
They bred like birds in English woods,
They rooted like the rose,
When Alfred came to Athelney [110]
To hide him from their bows.
There was not English armour left,
Nor any English thing,
When Alfred came to Athelney
To be an English king. [115]
For earthquake swallowing earthquake
Uprent the Wessex tree;
The whirlpool of the pagan sway
Had swirled his sires as sticks away
When a flood smites the sea. [120]
And the great kings of Wessex
Wearied and sank in gore,
And even their ghosts in that great stress
Grew greyer and greyer, less and less,
With the lords that died in Lyonesse [125]
And the king that comes no more.
And the God of the Golden Dragon
Was dumb upon his throne,
And the lord of the Golden Dragon
Ran in the woods alone. [130]
And if ever he climbed the crest of luck
And set the flag before,
Returning as a wheel returns,
Came ruin and the rain that burns,
And all began once more. [135]
And naught was left King Alfred
But shameful tears of rage,
In the island in the river
In the end of all his age.
In the island in the river [140]
He was broken to his knee;
And he read, writ with an iron pen,
That God had wearied of Wessex men
And given their country, field and fen,
To the devils of the sea. [145]
And he saw in a little picture,
Tiny and far away,
His mother sitting in Egbert’s hall,
And a book she showed him, very small,
Where a sapphire Mary sat in stall [150]
With a golden Christ at play.
It was wrought in the monk’s slow manner,
From silver and sanguine shell,
Where the scenes are little and terrible,
Keyholes of heaven and hell. [155]
In the river island of Athelney,
With the river running past,
In colours of such simple creed
All things sprang at him, sun and weed,
Till the grass grew to be grass indeed [160]
And the tree was a tree at last.
Fearfully plain the flowers grew,
Like the child’s book to read,
Or like a friend’s face seen in a glass;
He looked; and there Our Lady was, [165]
She stood and stroked the tall live grass
As a man strokes his steed.
Her face was like an open word
When brave men speak and choose,
The very colours of her coat
Were better than good news. [170]
She spoke not, nor, turned not,
Nor any sign she cast,
Only she stood up straight and free,
Between the flowers in Athelney, [175]
And the river running past.
One dim ancestral jewel hung
On his ruined armour grey,
He rent and cast it at her feet:
Where, after centuries, with slow feet, [180]
Men came from hall and school and street
And found it where it lay.
“Mother of God,” the wanderer said,
“I am but a common king,
Nor will I ask what saints may ask, [185]
To see a secret thing.
“The gates of heaven are fearful gates,
Worse than the gates of hell;
Not I would break the splendours barred
Or seek to know the thing they guard, [190]
Which is too good to tell.
“But for this earth most pitiful,
This little land I know,
If that which is for ever is,
Or if our hearts shall break with bliss, [195]
Seeing the stranger go?
“When our last bow is broken, Queen,
And our last javelin cast,
Under some sad, green evening sky,
Holding a ruined cross on high, [200]
Under warm westland grass to lie,
Shall we come home at last?”
And a voice came human but high up,
Like a cottage climbed among
The clouds; or a serf of hut and croft [205]
That sits by his hovel fire as oft,
But hears on his old bare roof aloft
A belfry burst in song.
“The gates of heaven are lightly locked,
We do not guard our gain, [210]
The heaviest hind may easily
Come silently and suddenly
Upon me in a lane,
“And any little maid that walks
In good thoughts apart, [215]
May break the guard of the Three Kings
And see the dear and dreadful things
I hid within my heart.
“The meanest man in grey fields gone
Behind the set of sun, [220]
Heareth between star and other star,
Through the door of the darkness fallen ajar,
The council, eldest of things that are,
The talk of the Three in One.
“The gates of heaven are lightly locked, [225]
We do not guard our gold,
Men may uproot where worlds begin,
Or read the name of the nameless sin;
But if he fail or if he win
To no good man is told. [230]
“The men of the East may spell the stars,
And times and triumphs mark,
But the men signed of the cross of Christ
Go gaily in the dark.
“The men of the East may search the scrolls, [235]
For sure fates and fame,
But the men that drink the blood of God
Go singing to their shame.
“The wise men know what wicked things
Are written on the sky, [240]
They trim sad Lamps, they touch sad strings,
Hearing the heavy purple wings,
Where the forgotten seraph kings
Still plot how God shall die.
“The wise men know all evil things [245]
Under the twisted trees,
Where the perverse in pleasure pine
And men are weary of green wine
And sick of crimson seas.
“But you and all the kind of Christ [250]
Are ignorant and brave,
And you have wars you hardly win
And souls you hardly save.
“I tell you naught for your comfort,
Yea, naught for your desire, [255]
Save that the sky grows darker yet
And the sea rises higher.
“Night shall be thrice night over you,
And heaven an iron cope.
Do you have joy without a cause, [260]
Yea, faith without a hope?”
Even as she spoke she was not,
Nor any word said he,
He only heard, still as he stood
Under the old night’s nodding hood, [265]
The sea-folk breaking down the wood
Like a high tide from sea.
He only heard the heathen men,
Whose eyes are blue and bleak,
Singing about some cruel thing [270]
Done by a great and smiling king
In daylight on a deck.
He only heard the heathen men,
Whose eyes are blue and blind,
Singing what shameful things are done [275]
Between the sunlit sea and the sun
When the land is left behind.

LIBRO I
LA VISIONE DEL RE

LA BALLATA DEL
CAVALLO BIANCO
Prima che gli dèi che fecero gli dèi
Vedessero passare la loro aurora,
Il Cavallo Bianco della Valle del Cavallo Bianco
Era intagliato nell’erba.
Prima che gli dèi che fecero gli dèi [5]
Bevessero all’alba a sazietà,
Il Cavallo Bianco della Valle del Cavallo Bianco
Biancheggiava canuto sul colle.
Età dopo età sulla terra britanna,
Eoni su eoni trascorsi, [10]
Fu pace e guerra sui colli d’occidente,
E il Cavallo Bianco stava a guardare.
Ché il Cavallo Bianco conobbe l’Inghilterra
Quando nessuno era a conoscerla;
Vide il primo remo spezzarsi o piegarsi,
Vide cadere il cielo e finire il mondo,
O Dio, quanto tempo fa.
Ché la fine del mondo fu molto tempo fa—
E noi tutti oggi dimoriamo
Come figli di una seconda nascita, [20]
Come un popolo strano lasciato sulla terra
Dopo un giorno del giudizio.
Ché la fine del mondo fu molto tempo fa,
Quando i confini del mondo si fecero liberi,
Quando Roma affondò in una landa di schiavi, [25]
E il sole annegò nel mare.
Quando il sole di Cesare cadde dal cielo
E chi tendeva bene l’orecchio
Poteva udire soltanto il precipitare
Delle nazioni nella notte. [30]
Quando i confini della terra vennero marciando
Al bagliore di torcia e di lanterna,
E le strade del mondo che portano a Roma
Si colmarono di volti mossi come schiuma,
Come volti in un sogno. [35]
E uomini cavalcarono dalle terre d’oriente,
Largo fiume e pianura ardente;
Alberi che a vederli sono fiori di Titani,
E cieli di tigre, orridamente striati,
Con tinte di pioggia tropicale. [40]
Dove sorgono le vette smaltate dell’India
Intorno a quella più interna,
Dove antiche aquile sul suo orlo,
Vaste come arcangeli, si adunano e bevono
Il sacramento del sole. [45]
E uomini irruppero dalle terre del nord,
Terre enormi e solitarie,
Dove un incanto grava sulla vita e sulla brama
E la pioggia è mutata in polvere d’argento
E il mare in una grande pietra verde. [50]
E una Forma che si muove torbida
In specchi di ghiaccio e di notte,
Ha sbiancato di paura ogni bestia e ogni uccello,
Come la morte e un urto di parole malvagie
Sbiancano d’un tratto i capelli d’un uomo. [55]
E il grido delle palme e delle lune purpuree,
O il grido del gelo e della schiuma,
Turbinava senza posa attorno a un luogo più interno,
E il frastuono di stirpe lontana su stirpe
Gridava e rispondeva intorno a Roma. [60]
E ci fu morte sull’Imperatore
E notte sopra il Papa;
E Alfredo, nascosto nell’erba alta,
Si temprò il cuore di speranza.
Un popolo di mare più cieco del mare [65]
Si frangeva tutt’intorno alla sua terra,
Ma Alfredo contro di loro si levò
E strinse il suolo e afferrò l’aria,
Barcollò, e lottò per stare in piedi.
Li ricacciò con lancia e vanga, [70]
Con argine e muro disperati,
Coi nemici addossati al suo scudo
A ruggirgli addosso quando vacillava
E nessun aiuto giungeva.
Li spezzò con una spada spezzata [75]
Un poco verso il mare,
E per un’ora di pace ansimante,
Cinto da un ruggito che non cessava,
Con corona d’oro e vello ai fianchi
Fece leggi sotto un albero. [80]
• • • • • • •
Gli Uomini del Nord calarono sulla nostra terra,
Una cavalleria senza Cristo:
Che nulla sapevano dell’arco o della penna,
Uomini grandi, belli e mezzo dementi
Venuti dall’aurora e dal mare. [85]
Navi deformi stavano sull’abisso
Piene di strano oro e di fuoco,
E uomini irsuti, enormi come il peccato,
Con teste cornute, vennero guadando
Per il lungo, basso fango marino. [90]
Le nostre città furono scosse da re altissimi
Con barbe scarlatte come sangue;
Il mondo si faceva vuoto dove passavano,
Presero la benigna croce di Dio
E la fecero a pezzi per legna. [95]
Le loro anime andavano alla deriva come il mare,
E ogni buona città e terra
La vedevano solo con occhi grevi,
E la spezzavano con grevi mani.
I loro dèi erano più tristi del mare, [100]
Dèi di volontà errante,
Che gridavano per sangue come bestie nella notte,
Tristemente, di colle in colle.
Parevano alberi che camminano la terra,
Altrettanto insensati e alti, [105]
Eppure fecero presa sui cieli
E nessun aiuto giungeva.
Si moltiplicarono come uccelli nei boschi inglesi,
Attecchirono come la rosa,
Quando Alfredo venne ad Athelney [110]
Per celarsi ai loro archi.
Non restava armatura inglese,
Né alcuna cosa inglese,
Quando Alfredo venne ad Athelney
Per essere un re inglese. [115]
Ché terremoto inghiottendo terremoto
Sradicò l’albero del Wessex;
Il vortice del dominio pagano
Aveva travolto i suoi padri come fuscelli
Quando una piena percuote il mare. [120]
E i grandi re del Wessex
Si stancarono e affondarono nel sangue,
E persino i loro spettri in quel gran travaglio
Si fecero sempre più grigi, sempre più scarsi,
Coi signori che morirono in Lyonesse [125]
E il re che non torna più.
E il Dio del Drago d’Oro
Era muto sul suo trono,
E il signore del Drago d’Oro
Correva nei boschi solo. [130]
E se mai saliva la cresta della fortuna
E piantava innanzi il vessillo,
Tornando come torna una ruota,
Venivano la rovina e la pioggia che brucia,
E tutto ricominciava. [135]
E nulla restò a re Alfredo
Se non vergognose lacrime di rabbia,
Nell’isola in mezzo al fiume
Alla fine di tutta la sua età.
Nell’isola in mezzo al fiume [140]
Fu piegato in ginocchio;
E lesse, scritto con penna di ferro,
Che Dio si era stancato degli uomini del Wessex
E aveva dato il loro paese, campo e palude,
Ai demoni del mare. [145]
E vide in una piccola immagine,
Minuscola e lontana,
Sua madre seduta nella sala di Egberto,
E un libro che ella gli mostrava, piccolissimo,
Dove una Maria di zaffiro sedeva in trono [150]
Con un Cristo d’oro che giocava.
Era lavorato alla lenta maniera del monaco,
D’argento e di conchiglia sanguigna,
Dove le scene sono piccole e terribili,
Buchi di serratura sul cielo e sull’inferno. [155]
Nell’isola del fiume di Athelney,
Col fiume che scorreva accanto,
In colori di così semplice credo
Ogni cosa gli balzò incontro, sole ed erbaccia,
Finché l’erba divenne erba davvero [160]
E l’albero fu albero alfine.
Paurosamente nitidi crescevano i fiori,
Come il libro del bambino da leggere,
O come il volto d’un amico visto in uno specchio;
Guardò; e là era Nostra Signora, [165]
Stava e carezzava l’alta erba viva
Come un uomo carezza il suo destriero.
Il suo volto era come una parola aperta
Quando uomini coraggiosi parlano e scelgono,
I colori stessi della sua veste
Erano meglio d’una buona novella. [170]
Non parlò, né si volse,
Né alcun segno diede,
Solo stette dritta e libera,
Tra i fiori di Athelney, [175]
E il fiume che scorreva accanto.
Un fioco gioiello avito pendeva
Dalla sua grigia armatura in rovina,
Lo strappò e lo gettò ai piedi di lei:
Dove, dopo secoli, con lenti piedi, [180]
Uomini vennero da sala e scuola e strada
E lo trovarono dov’era caduto.
«Madre di Dio», disse l’errante,
«Non sono che un re qualunque,
Né chiederò ciò che i santi possono chiedere, [185]
Di vedere una cosa segreta.
«Le porte del cielo sono porte tremende,
Peggiori delle porte dell’inferno;
Non io vorrei violare gli splendori sbarrati
O cercar di sapere la cosa che custodiscono, [190]
Che è troppo buona a dirsi.
«Ma per questa terra pietosissima,
Questa piccola terra che conosco,
Se ciò che è per sempre è,
O se i nostri cuori si spezzeranno di beatitudine, [195]
Vedendo lo straniero andarsene?
«Quando l’ultimo nostro arco sarà spezzato, Regina,
E scagliato l’ultimo giavellotto,
Sotto un qualche triste, verde cielo di sera,
Levando alta una croce in rovina, [200]
Per giacere sotto la calda erba di ponente,
Torneremo a casa, infine?»
E venne una voce umana ma dall’alto,
Come una casupola arrampicata fra
Le nuvole; o un servo di capanna e campo [205]
Che siede come sempre al fuoco del suo tugurio,
Ma ode sul suo vecchio nudo tetto, lassù,
Un campanile prorompere in canto.
«Le porte del cielo son chiuse appena,
Non custodiamo il nostro guadagno, [210]
Il più tardo dei villani può facilmente
Venire silenzioso e improvviso
Su di me per un sentiero,
«E ogni piccola fanciulla che cammina
In disparte, in buoni pensieri, [215]
Può rompere la guardia dei Tre Re
E vedere le cose care e tremende
Che nascosi dentro il mio cuore.
«L’uomo più umile, andato per campi grigi
Dietro il calare del sole, [220]
Ode fra stella e altra stella,
Per la porta della tenebra rimasta socchiusa,
Il concilio, la più antica delle cose che sono,
Il colloquio dei Tre in Uno.
«Le porte del cielo son chiuse appena, [225]
Non custodiamo il nostro oro,
Gli uomini possono sradicare dove i mondi cominciano,
O leggere il nome del peccato senza nome;
Ma che fallisca o che vinca
A nessun uomo buono è detto. [230]
«Gli uomini d’Oriente sanno compitare le stelle,
E segnare tempi e trionfi,
Ma gli uomini segnati della croce di Cristo
Vanno lieti nel buio.
«Gli uomini d’Oriente possono scrutare i rotoli, [235]
Per fati certi e per fama,
Ma gli uomini che bevono il sangue di Dio
Vanno cantando verso la loro vergogna.
«I sapienti sanno quali cose malvagie
Sono scritte sul cielo, [240]
Regolano tristi lampade, toccano tristi corde,
Udendo le grevi ali purpuree,
Dove i dimenticati re serafini
Ancora tramano come Dio morrà.
«I sapienti sanno tutte le cose malvagie [245]
Sotto gli alberi contorti,
Dove i perversi languono nel piacere
E gli uomini sono stanchi del vino verde
E nauseati dei mari cremisi.
«Ma tu e tutta la stirpe di Cristo [250]
Siete ignoranti e coraggiosi,
E avete guerre che a stento vincete
E anime che a stento salvate.
«Nulla ti dico per tuo conforto,
Sì, nulla per tuo desiderio, [255]
Se non che il cielo si fa ancora più scuro
E il mare sale più alto.
«Notte sarà tre volte notte su di te,
E il cielo una cappa di ferro.
Hai tu gioia senza una causa, [260]
Sì, fede senza una speranza?»
Mentre ancora parlava, ella non fu più,
Né parola egli disse,
Solo udì, immobile là dove stava
Sotto il chino cappuccio della vecchia notte, [265]
Il popolo del mare abbattere il bosco
Come un’alta marea venuta dal mare.
Solo udì gli uomini pagani,
Dagli occhi azzurri e desolati,
Cantare di qualche cosa crudele [270]
Compiuta da un grande e sorridente re
In pieno giorno sul ponte d’una nave.
Solo udì gli uomini pagani,
Dagli occhi azzurri e ciechi,
Cantare quali cose vergognose si compiono [275]
Tra il mare assolato e il sole
Quando la terra è lasciata alle spalle.

BOOK II
THE GATHERING OF THE CHIEFS

P across windy wastes and up
Went Alfred over the shaws,
Shaken of the joy of giants,
The joy without a cause.
In the slopes away to the western bays, [5]
Where blows not ever a tree,
He washed his soul in the west wind
And his body in the sea.
And he set to rhyme his ale-measures,
And he sang aloud his laws, [10]
Because of the joy of the giants,
The joy without a cause.
For the King went gathering Wessex men,
As grain out of the chaff,
The few that were alive to die, [15]
Laughing, as littered skulls that lie
After lost battles turn to the sky
An everlasting laugh.
The King went gathering Christian men,
As wheat out of the husk; [20]
Eldred, the Franklin by the sea,
And Mark, the man from Italy,
And Colan of the Sacred Tree,
From the old tribe on Usk.
The rook croaked homeward heavily, [25]
The west was clear and warm,
The smoke of evening food and ease
Rose like a blue tree in the trees
When he came to Eldred’s farm.
But Eldred’s farm was fallen awry, [30]
Like an old cripple’s bones,
And Eldred’s tools were red with rust,
And on his well was a green crust,
And purple thistles upward thrust,
Between the kitchen stones. [35]
But smoke of some good feasting
Went upwards evermore,
And Eldred’s doors stood wide apart
For loitering foot or labouring cart,
And Eldred’s great and foolish heart [40]
Stood open like his door.
A mighty man was Eldred,
A bulk for casks to fill,
His face a dreaming furnace,
His body a walking hill. [45]
In the old wars of Wessex
His sword had sunken deep,
But all his friends, he sighed and said,
Were broken about Ethelred;
And between the deep drink and the dead [50]
He had fallen upon sleep.
“Come not to me, King Alfred,
Save always for the ale;
Why should my harmless hinds be slain
Because the chiefs cry once again, [55]
As in all fights, that we shall gain,
And in all fights we fail?
“Your scalds still thunder and prophesy
That crown that never comes;
Friend, I will watch the certain things, [60]
Swine, and slow moons like silver rings,
And the ripening of the plums.”
And Alfred answered, drinking,
And gravely, without blame,
“Nor bear I boast of scald or king, [65]
The thing I bear is a lesser thing,
But comes in a better name.
“Out of the mouth of the Mother of God,
More than the doors of doom,
I call the muster of Wessex men [70]
From grassy hamlet or ditch or den,
To break and be broken, God knows when,
But I have seen for whom.
“Out of the mouth of the Mother of God
Like a little word come I; [75]
For I go gathering Christian men
From sunken paving and ford and fen,
To die in a battle, God knows when,
By God, but I know why.
“And this is the word of Mary, [80]
The word of the world’s desire:
‘No more of comfort shall ye get,
Save that the sky grows darker yet
And the sea rises higher.’ ”
Then silence sank. And slowly [85]
Arose the sea-land lord,
Like some vast beast for mystery,
He filled the room and porch and sky,
And from a cobwebbed nail on high
Unhooked his heavy sword. [90]
Up on the shrill sea-downs and up
Went Alfred all alone,
Turning but once e’er the door was shut,
Shouting to Eldred over his butt,
That he bring all spears to the woodman’s hut [95]
Hewn under Egbert’s Stone.
And he turned his back and broke the fern,
And fought the moths of dusk,
And went on his way for other friends,
Friends fallen of all the wide world’s ends, [100]
From Rome that wrath and pardon sends
And the grey tribes on Usk.
He saw gigantic tracks of death
And many a shape of doom,
Good steadings to grey ashes gone [105]
And a monk’s house white like a skeleton
In the green crypt of the combe.
And in many a Roman villa
Earth and her ivies eat,
Saw coloured pavements sink and fade [110]
In flowers, and the windy colonnade
Like the spectre of a street.
But the cold stars clustered
Among the cold pines
Ere he was half on his pilgrimage [115]
Over the western lines.
And the white dawn widened
Ere he came to the last pine,
Where Mark, the man from Italy,
Still made the Christian sign. [120]
The long farm lay on the large hill-side,
Flat like a painted plan,
And by the side the low white house,
Where dwelt the southland man.
A bronzed man, with a bird’s bright eye, [125]
And a strong bird’s beak and brow,
His skin was brown like buried gold,
And of certain of his sires was told
That they came in the shining ship of old,
With Caesar in the prow. [130]
His fruit trees stood like soldiers
Drilled in a straight line,
His strange, stiff olives did not fail,
And all the kings of the earth drank ale,
But he drank wine. [135]
Wide over wasted British plains
Stood never an arch or dome,
Only the trees to toss and reel,
The tribes to bicker, the beasts to squeal;
But the eyes in his head were strong like steel, [140]
And his soul remembered Rome.
Then Alfred of the lonely spear
Lifted his lion head;
And fronted with the Italian’s eye,
Asking him of his whence and why, [145]
King Alfred stood and said:
“I am that oft-defeated King
Whose failure fills the land,
Who fled before the Danes of old,
Who chaffered with the Danes with gold, [150]
Who now upon the Wessex wold
Hardly has feet to stand.
“But out of the mouth of the Mother of God
I have seen the truth like fire,
This—that the sky grows darker yet [155]
And the sea rises higher.”
Long looked the Roman on the land;
The trees as golden crowns
Blazed, drenched with dawn and dew-empearled,
While faintlier coloured, freshlier curled, [160]
The clouds from underneath the world
Stood up over the downs.
“These vines be ropes that drag me hard,”
He said. “I go not far;
Where would you meet? For you must hold [165]
Half Wiltshire and the White Horse wold,
And the Thames bank to Owsenfold,
If Wessex goes to war.
“Guthrum sits strong on either bank
And you must press his lines [170]
Inwards, and eastward drive him down;
I doubt if you shall take the crown
Till you have taken London town.
For me, I have the vines.”
“If each man on the Judgment Day [175]
Meet God on a plain alone,”
Said Alfred, “I will speak for you
As for myself and call it true
That you brought all fighting folk you knew
Lined under Egbert’s Stone. [180]
“Though I be in the dust ere then,
I know where you will be.”
And shouldering suddenly his spear
He faded like some elfin fear,
Where the tall pines ran up, tier on tier, [185]
Tree overtoppling tree.
He shouldered his spear at morning
And laughed to lay it on,
But he leaned on his spear as on a staff,
With might and little mood to laugh, [190]
Or ever he sighted chick or calf
Of Colan of Caerleon.
For the man dwelt in a lost land
Of boulders and broken men,
In a great grey cave far off to south [195]
Where a thick green forest stopped the mouth,
Giving darkness in his den.
And the man was come like a shadow,
From the shadow of Druid trees,
Where Usk, with mighty murmurings, [200]
Past Caerleon of the fallen kings,
Goes out to ghostly seas.
Last of a race in ruin—
He spoke the speech of the Gaels;
His kin were in holy Ireland, [205]
Or up in the crags of Wales.
But his soul stood with his mother’s folk,
That were of the rain-wrapped isle,
Where Patrick and Brandan westerly
Looked out at last on a landless sea [210]
And the sun’s last smile.
His harp was carved and cunning,
As the Celtic craftsman makes,
Graven all over with twisting shapes
Like many headless snakes. [215]
His harp was carved and cunning,
His sword prompt and sharp,
And he was gay when he held the sword,
Sad when he held the harp.
For the great Gaels of Ireland [220]
Are the men that God made mad,
For all their wars are merry,
And all their songs are sad.
He kept the Roman order,
He made the Christian sign; [225]
But his eyes grew often blind and bright,
And the sea that rose in the rocks at night
Rose to his head like wine.
He made the sign of the cross of God,
He knew the Roman prayer, [230]
But he had unreason in his heart
Because of the gods that were.
Even they that walked on the high cliffs,
High as the clouds were then,
Gods of unbearable beauty [235]
That broke the hearts of men.
And whether in seat or saddle,
Whether with frown or smile,
Whether at feast or fight was he,
He heard the noise of a nameless sea [240]
On an undiscovered isle.
Lifting the great green ivy
And the great spear lowering,
One said, “I am Alfred of Wessex,
And I am a conquered king.” [245]
And the man of the cave made answer,
And his eyes were stars of scorn,
“And better kings were conquered
Or ever your sires were born.
“What goddess was your mother, [250]
What fay your breed begot,
That you should not die with Uther
And Arthur and Lancelot?
“But when you win you brag and blow,
And when you lose you rail, [255]
Army of eastland yokels
Not strong enough to fail.”
“I bring not boast or railing,”
Spake Alfred not in ire,
“I bring of Our Lady a lesson set, [260]
This—that the sky grows darker yet
And the sea rises higher.”
Then Colan of the Sacred Tree
Tossed his black mane on high,
And cried, as rigidly he rose, [265]
“And if the sea and sky be foes,
We will tame the sea and sky.”
Smiled Alfred, “Seek ye a fable
More dizzy and more dread
Than all your mad barbarian tales [270]
Where the sky stands on its head?
“A tale where a man looks down on the sky
That has long looked down on him;
A tale where a man can swallow a sea
That might swallow the seraphim. [275]
“Bring to the hut by Egbert’s Stone
All bills and bows ye have.”
And Alfred strode off rapidly,
And Colan of the Sacred Tree
Went slowly to his cave. [280]

LIBRO II
L’ADUNATA DEI CAPI

Su per ventose lande, e ancora su
Andò Alfredo oltre i boschetti,
Scosso dalla gioia dei giganti,
La gioia senza causa.
Sui pendii lontani verso le baie d’occidente, [5]
Dove non stormisce mai un albero,
Lavò la sua anima nel vento dell’ovest
E il suo corpo nel mare.
E si mise a rimare le sue misure di birra,
E cantò ad alta voce le sue leggi, [10]
Per la gioia dei giganti,
La gioia senza causa.
Ché il Re andava radunando gli uomini del Wessex,
Come grano fuor dalla pula,
I pochi rimasti vivi per morire, [15]
Ridendo, come i teschi sparsi che giacciono
Dopo battaglie perdute e volgono al cielo
Una risata eterna.
Il Re andava radunando uomini cristiani,
Come frumento fuor dal guscio; [20]
Eldred, il possidente in riva al mare,
E Marco, l’uomo venuto d’Italia,
E Colan dell’Albero Sacro,
Dell’antica tribù dell’Usk.
Il corvo gracchiò grave verso casa, [25]
L’ovest era chiaro e caldo,
Il fumo del cibo serale e del riposo
Saliva come un albero azzurro fra gli alberi
Quando giunse alla fattoria di Eldred.
Ma la fattoria di Eldred era tutta sbilenca, [30]
Come ossa di vecchio storpio,
E gli attrezzi di Eldred rossi di ruggine,
E sul suo pozzo una crosta verde,
E cardi purpurei spuntavano dritti,
Fra le pietre della cucina. [35]
Ma il fumo di qualche buon banchetto
Saliva senza posa verso l’alto,
E le porte di Eldred erano spalancate
Al piede ozioso e al carro affaticato,
E il grande e folle cuore di Eldred [40]
Stava aperto come la sua porta.
Un uomo possente era Eldred,
Una mole da colmare di botti,
Il volto una fornace sognante,
Il corpo una collina che cammina. [45]
Nelle antiche guerre del Wessex
La sua spada era affondata a fondo,
Ma tutti i suoi amici, sospirava e diceva,
Erano stati spezzati intorno a Ethelred;
E fra il bere profondo e i morti [50]
Era caduto nel sonno.
«Non venire da me, Re Alfredo,
Se non sempre per la birra;
Perché dovrebbero morire i miei miti contadini
Perché i capi gridano ancora una volta, [55]
Come in ogni battaglia, che vinceremo,
E in ogni battaglia falliamo?
«I tuoi scaldi ancora tuonano e profetizzano
Quella corona che mai non viene;
Amico, io veglierò sulle cose certe, [60]
I porci, e le lune lente come anelli d’argento,
E il maturare delle prugne.»
E Alfredo rispose, bevendo,
E gravemente, senza biasimo,
«Non porto vanto di scaldo né di re, [65]
Ciò che porto è cosa minore,
Ma viene in un nome migliore.
«Dalla bocca della Madre di Dio,
Più che dalle porte del destino,
Chiamo a raccolta gli uomini del Wessex [70]
Da erboso borgo o fosso o tana,
A spezzare ed essere spezzati, Dio sa quando,
Ma io ho visto per chi.
«Dalla bocca della Madre di Dio
Come una piccola parola io vengo; [75]
Ché vado radunando uomini cristiani
Da lastrico sommerso e guado e palude,
A morire in una battaglia, Dio sa quando,
Ma per Dio, io so perché.
«E questa è la parola di Maria, [80]
La parola del desiderio del mondo:
“Nessun altro conforto avrete,
Se non che il cielo si fa ancora più scuro
E il mare sale più alto.”»
Poi calò il silenzio. E lento [85]
Si levò il signore delle terre di mare,
Come una vasta bestia di mistero,
Riempì la stanza e il portico e il cielo,
E da un alto chiodo coperto di ragnatele
Staccò la sua pesante spada. [90]
Su per le stridule dune marine e su
Andò Alfredo tutto solo,
Voltandosi una sola volta prima che la porta si chiudesse,
Gridando a Eldred sopra la sua botte,
Che portasse ogni lancia alla capanna del boscaiolo [95]
Tagliata sotto la Pietra di Egbert.
E voltò le spalle e spezzò le felci,
E combatté le falene del crepuscolo,
E proseguì il cammino per altri amici,
Amici caduti da ogni estremo del vasto mondo, [100]
Da Roma che manda ira e perdono
E dalle grigie tribù dell’Usk.
Vide orme gigantesche di morte
E molte forme di sventura,
Buone fattorie ridotte in grigia cenere [105]
E la casa d’un monaco bianca come uno scheletro
Nella verde cripta della valle.
E in molte ville romane
Che la terra e le sue edere divorano,
Vide pavimenti colorati affondare e svanire [110]
Tra i fiori, e il colonnato ventoso
Come lo spettro d’una strada.
Ma le fredde stelle s’addensarono
Fra i freddi pini
Prima che fosse a metà del suo pellegrinaggio [115]
Oltre le linee d’occidente.
E la bianca alba si allargò
Prima che giungesse all’ultimo pino,
Dove Marco, l’uomo venuto d’Italia,
Ancora faceva il segno cristiano. [120]
La lunga fattoria giaceva sul largo fianco della collina,
Piatta come una pianta dipinta,
E accanto la bassa casa bianca,
Dove abitava l’uomo del meridione.
Un uomo abbronzato, con l’occhio vivo d’uccello, [125]
E becco e fronte di forte uccello,
La pelle bruna come oro sepolto,
E di certi suoi avi si narrava
Che vennero anticamente sulla splendente nave,
Con Cesare alla prua. [130]
I suoi alberi da frutto stavano come soldati
Schierati in linea retta,
I suoi strani, rigidi ulivi non venivano meno,
E tutti i re della terra bevevano birra,
Ma lui beveva vino. [135]
Per le vaste piane britanniche devastate
Non sorgeva arco né cupola,
Solo gli alberi ad agitarsi e vacillare,
Le tribù a litigare, le bestie a stridere;
Ma gli occhi nel suo capo erano forti come acciaio, [140]
E la sua anima ricordava Roma.
Allora Alfredo dalla lancia solitaria
Alzò la sua testa di leone;
E affrontato dall’occhio dell’italiano,
Che gli chiedeva donde venisse e perché, [145]
Re Alfredo stette e disse:
«Io sono quel Re tante volte sconfitto
Il cui fallimento riempie la terra,
Che un tempo fuggì davanti ai Danesi,
Che coi Danesi mercanteggiò con l’oro, [150]
Che ora sulla brughiera del Wessex
A stento ha piedi per stare ritto.
«Ma dalla bocca della Madre di Dio
Ho visto la verità come fuoco,
Questa — che il cielo si fa ancora più scuro [155]
E il mare sale più alto.»
A lungo guardò il romano la terra;
Gli alberi come corone d’oro
Fiammeggiavano, intrisi d’alba e imperlati di rugiada,
Mentre di colore più tenue, di riccio più fresco, [160]
Le nubi da sotto il mondo
Si levavano sopra le colline.
«Queste viti sono funi che mi trattengono forte»,
Disse. «Io non vado lontano;
Dove vi radunerete? Ché dovete tenere [165]
Mezzo Wiltshire e la brughiera del Cavallo Bianco,
E la riva del Tamigi fino a Owsenfold,
Se il Wessex va in guerra.
«Guthrum siede forte su entrambe le rive
E voi dovete premere le sue linee [170]
Verso l’interno, e ricacciarlo giù a oriente;
Dubito che prenderete la corona
Finché non avrete preso la città di Londra.
Quanto a me, io ho le viti.»
«Se ogni uomo nel Giorno del Giudizio [175]
Incontrerà Dio su una piana, solo»,
Disse Alfredo, «io parlerò per te
Come per me stesso e dirò per vero
Che portasti tutta la gente d’armi che conoscevi
Schierata sotto la Pietra di Egbert. [180]
«E sia pur io nella polvere prima d’allora,
So dove tu sarai.»
E mettendosi d’un tratto la lancia in spalla
Svanì come un elfico timore,
Dove gli alti pini salivano, fila su fila, [185]
Albero sovrastante albero.
Portava la lancia in spalla al mattino
E rideva nel caricarsela,
Ma si appoggiava alla lancia come a un bastone,
Con vigore e poca voglia di ridere, [190]
Prima ancora di scorgere pulcino o vitello
Di Colan di Caerleon.
Ché l’uomo dimorava in una terra perduta
Di macigni e di uomini spezzati,
In una grande grigia caverna lontano a sud [195]
Dove una fitta foresta verde ne chiudeva la bocca,
Dando tenebra alla sua tana.
E l’uomo era venuto come un’ombra,
Dall’ombra degli alberi druidici,
Dove l’Usk, con possenti mormorii, [200]
Oltre Caerleon dei re caduti,
Esce verso mari spettrali.
Ultimo d’una stirpe in rovina —
Parlava la lingua dei Gaeli;
I suoi parenti erano nella santa Irlanda, [205]
O su fra le rupi del Galles.
Ma la sua anima stava con la gente di sua madre,
Ch’era dell’isola avvolta di pioggia,
Dove Patrizio e Brandano a occidente
Guardarono infine un mare senza terra [210]
E l’ultimo sorriso del sole.
La sua arpa era intagliata e ingegnosa,
Come la fa l’artigiano celtico,
Tutta incisa di forme attorte
Come tanti serpenti senza testa. [215]
La sua arpa era intagliata e ingegnosa,
La sua spada pronta e affilata,
Ed era lieto quando impugnava la spada,
Triste quando teneva l’arpa.
Ché i grandi Gaeli d’Irlanda [220]
Sono gli uomini che Dio fece folli,
Ché tutte le loro guerre sono allegre,
E tutti i loro canti sono tristi.
Osservava l’ordine romano,
Faceva il segno cristiano; [225]
Ma i suoi occhi si facevano spesso ciechi e lucenti,
E il mare che saliva fra le rocce di notte
Gli saliva alla testa come vino.
Faceva il segno della croce di Dio,
Conosceva la preghiera romana, [230]
Ma aveva la dissennatezza nel cuore
Per via degli dèi che furono.
Proprio quelli che camminavano sulle alte scogliere,
Alte allora quanto le nuvole,
Dèi di bellezza insostenibile [235]
Che spezzavano i cuori degli uomini.
E fosse su scranno o in sella,
Fosse accigliato o sorridente,
Fosse a banchetto o in battaglia,
Udiva il rumore d’un mare senza nome [240]
Su un’isola mai scoperta.
Sollevando la grande edera verde
E abbassando la grande lancia,
Uno disse: «Io sono Alfredo del Wessex,
E sono un re vinto.» [245]
E l’uomo della caverna rispose,
E i suoi occhi erano stelle di scherno,
«E re migliori furono vinti
Prima ancora che nascessero i tuoi avi.
«Quale dea fu tua madre, [250]
Quale fata generò la tua stirpe,
Perché tu non morissi con Uther
E Artù e Lancillotto?
«Ma quando vincete vi vantate e vi gonfiate,
E quando perdete inveite, [255]
Esercito di bifolchi d’oriente
Non abbastanza forti per fallire.»
«Non porto vanto né invettiva»,
Parlò Alfredo senz’ira,
«Porto da Nostra Signora una lezione assegnata, [260]
Questa — che il cielo si fa ancora più scuro
E il mare sale più alto.»
Allora Colan dell’Albero Sacro
Scosse in alto la nera criniera,
E gridò, mentre rigido si levava, [265]
«E se il mare e il cielo son nemici,
Noi domeremo il mare e il cielo.»
Sorrise Alfredo: «Cercate una favola
Più vertiginosa e più tremenda
Di tutti i vostri folli racconti barbari [270]
Dove il cielo sta a testa in giù?
«Un racconto dove un uomo guarda dall’alto il cielo
Che a lungo dall’alto lo ha guardato;
Un racconto dove un uomo può inghiottire un mare
Che potrebbe inghiottire i serafini. [275]
«Portate alla capanna presso la Pietra di Egbert
Tutte le ronche e gli archi che avete.»
E Alfredo si allontanò a gran passi,
E Colan dell’Albero Sacro
Andò lentamente alla sua caverna. [280]

BOOK III
THE HARP OF ALFRED

N a tree that yawned and twisted
The King’s few goods were flung,
A mass-book mildewed, line by line,
And weapons and a skin of wine,
And an old harp unstrung. [5]
By the yawning tree in the twilight
The King unbound his sword,
Severed the harp of all his goods,
And there in the cool and soundless woods
Sounded a single chord. [10]
Then laughed; and watched the finches flash,
The sullen flies in swarm,
And went unarmed over the hills,
With the harp upon his arm.
Until he came to the White Horse Vale [15]
And saw across the plains,
In the twilight high and far and fell,
Like the fiery terraces of hell,
The camp fires of the Danes—
The fires of the Great Army [20]
That was made of iron men,
Whose lights of sacrilege and scorn
Ran around England red as morn,
Fires over Glastonbury Thorn—
Fires out on Ely Fen. [25]
And as he went by White Horse Vale
He saw lie wan and wide
The old horse graven, God knows when,
By gods or beasts or what things then
Walked a new world instead of men [30]
And scrawled on the hill-side.
And when he came to White Horse Down
The great White Horse was grey,
For it was ill scoured of the weed,
And lichen and thorn could crawl and feed, [35]
Since the foes of settled house and creed
Had swept old works away.
King Alfred gazed all sorrowful
At thistle and mosses grey,
Till a rally of Danes with shield and bill [40]
Rolled drunk over the dome of the hill,
And, hearing of his harp and skill,
They dragged him to their play.
And as they went through the high green grass
They roared like the great green sea; [45]
But when they came to the red camp fire
They were silent suddenly.
And as they went up the wastes away
They went reeling to and fro;
But when they came to the red camp fire [50]
They stood all in a row.
For golden in the firelight,
With a smile carved on his lips,
And a beard curled right cunningly,
Was Guthrum of the Northern Sea, [55]
The emperor of the ships—
With three great earls King Guthrum
Went the rounds from fire to fire,
With Harold, nephew of the King,
And Ogier of the Stone and Sling, [60]
And Elf, whose gold lute had a string
That sighed like all desire.
The Earls of the Great Army
That no men born could tire,
Whose flames anear him or aloof [65]
Took hold of towers or walls of proof,
Fire over Glastonbury roof
And out on Ely, fire.
And Guthrum heard the soldiers’ tale
And bade the stranger play; [70]
Not harshly, but as one on high,
On a marble pillar in the sky,
Who sees all folk that live and die—
Pigmy and far away.
And Alfred, King of Wessex, [75]
Looked on his conqueror—
And his hands hardened; but he played,
And leaving all later hates unsaid,
He sang of some old British raid
On the wild west march of yore. [80]
He sang of war in the warm wet shires,
Where rain nor fruitage fails,
Where England of the motley states
Deepens like a garden to the gates
In the purple walls of Wales. [85]
He sang of the seas of savage heads
And the seas and seas of spears,
Boiling all over Offa’s Dyke,
What time a Wessex club could strike
The kings of the mountaineers. [90]
Till Harold laughed and snatched the harp,
The kinsman of the King,
A big youth, beardless like a child,
Whom the new wine of war sent wild,
Smote, and began to sing— [95]
And he cried of the ships as eagles
That circle fiercely and fly,
And sweep the seas and strike the towns
From Cyprus round to Skye.
How swiftly and with peril [100]
They gather all good things,
The high horns of the forest beasts,
Or the secret stones of kings.
“For Rome was given to rule the world,
And gat of it little joy— [105]
But we, but we shall enjoy the world,
The whole huge world a toy.
“Great wine like blood from Burgundy,
Cloaks like the clouds from Tyre,
And marble like solid moonlight, [110]
And gold like frozen fire.
“Smells that a man might swill in a cup,
Stones that a man might eat,
And the great smooth women like ivory
That the Turks sell in the street.” [115]
He sang the throne of the thief of the world,
And the gods that love the thief;
And he yelled aloud at the cloister-yards,
Where men go gathering grief.
“Well have you sung, O stranger, [120]
Of death on the dyke in Wales,
Your chief was a bracelet-giver;
But the red unbroken river
Of a race runs not for ever,
But suddenly it fails. [125]
“Doubtless your sires were sword-swingers
When they waded fresh from foam,
Before they were turned to women
By the god of the nails from Rome;
“But since you bent to the shaven men, [130]
Who neither lust nor smite,
Thunder of Thor, we hunt you,
A hare on the mountain height.”
King Guthrum smiled a little,
And said, “It is enough, [135]
Nephew, let Elf retune the string;
A boy must needs like bellowing,
But the old ears of a careful king
Are glad of songs less rough.”
Blue-eyed was Elf the minstrel, [140]
With womanish hair and ring,
Yet heavy was his hand on sword,
Though light upon the string.
And as he stirred the strings of the harp
To notes but four or five, [145]
The heart of each man moved in him
Like a babe buried alive.
And they felt the land of the folk-songs
Spread southward of the Dane,
And they heard the good Rhine flowing [150]
In the heart of all Allemagne.
They felt the land of the folk-songs,
Where the gifts hang on the tree,
Where the girls give ale at morning
And the tears come easily. [155]
The mighty people, womanlike,
That have pleasure in their pain
As he sang of Balder beautiful,
Whom the heavens loved in vain.
As he sang of Balder beautiful, [160]
Whom the heavens could not save,
Till the world was like a sea of tears
And every soul a wave.
“There is always a thing forgotten
When all the world goes well; [165]
A thing forgotten, as long ago
When the gods forgot the mistletoe,
And soundless as an arrow of snow
The arrow of anguish fell.
“The thing on the blind side of the heart, [170]
On the wrong side of the door,
The green plant groweth, menacing
Almighty lovers in the spring;
There is always a forgotten thing,
And love is not secure.” [175]
And all that sat by the fire were sad,
Save Ogier, who was stern,
And his eyes hardened, even to stones,
As he took the harp in turn;
Earl Ogier of the Stone and Sling [180]
Was odd to ear and sight,
Old he was, but his locks were red,
And jests were all the words he said,
Yet he was sad at board and bed
And savage in the fight. [185]
“You sing of the young gods easily
In the days when you are young;
But I go smelling yew and sods,
And I know there are gods behind the gods,
Gods that are best unsung. [190]
“And a man grows ugly for women,
And a man grows dull with ale,
Well if he find in his soul at last
Fury, that does not fail.
“The wrath of the gods behind the gods [195]
Who would rend all gods and men,
Well if the old man’s heart hath still
Wheels sped of rage and roaring will,
Like cataracts to break down and kill,
Well for the old man then— [200]
“While there is one tall shrine to shake,
Or one live man to rend;
For the wrath of the gods behind the gods
Who are weary to make an end.
“There lives one moment for a man [205]
When the door at his shoulder shakes,
When the taut rope parts under the pull,
And the barest branch is beautiful
One moment, while it breaks.
“So rides my soul upon the sea [210]
That drinks the howling ships,
Though in black jest it bows and nods
Under the moons with silver rods,
I know it is roaring at the gods,
Waiting the last eclipse. [215]
“And in the last eclipse the sea
Shall stand up like a tower,
Above all moons made dark and riven,
Hold up its foaming head in heaven,
And laugh, knowing its hour. [220]
“And the high ones in the happy town
Propped of the planets seven,
Shall know a new light in the mind,
A noise about them and behind,
Shall hear an awful voice, and find
Foam in the courts of heaven. [225]
“And you that sit by the fire are young,
And true loves wait for you;
But the King and I grow old, grow old,
And hate alone is true.” [230]
And Guthrum shook his head but smiled,
For he was a mighty clerk,
And had read lines in the Latin books,
When all the north was dark.
He said, “I am older than you, Ogier; [235]
Not all things would I rend,
For whether life be bad or good
It is best to abide the end.”
He took the great harp wearily,
Even Guthrum of the Danes, [240]
With wide eyes bright as the one long day
On the long polar plains.
For he sang of a wheel returning,
And the mire trod back to mire,
And how red hells and golden heavens [245]
Are castles in the fire.
“It is good to sit where the good tales go,
To sit as our fathers sat;
But the hour shall come after his youth,
When a man shall know not tales but truth, [250]
And his heart fail thereat.
“When he shall read what is written
So plain in clouds and clods,
When he shall hunger without hope
Even for evil gods. [255]
“For this is a heavy matter,
And the truth is cold to tell;
Do we not know, have we not heard,
The soul is like a lost bird,
The body a broken shell. [260]
“And a man hopes, being ignorant
Till in white woods apart
He finds at last the lost bird dead:
And a man may still lift up his head
But never more his heart. [265]
“There comes no noise but weeping
Out of the ancient sky,
And a tear is in the tiniest flower
Because the gods must die.
“The little brooks are very sweet, [270]
Like a girl’s ribbons curled,
But the great sea is bitter
That washes all the world.
“Strong are the Roman roses,
Or the free flowers of the heath, [275]
But every flower, like a flower of the sea,
Smelleth with the salt of death.
“And the heart of the locked battle
Is the happiest place for men;
When shrieking souls as shafts go by [280]
And many have died and all may die;
Though this word be a mystery,
Death is most distant then.
“Death blazes bright above the cup,
And clear above the crown; [285]
But in that dream of battle
We seem to tread it down.
“Wherefore I am a great king,
And waste the world in vain,
Because man hath not other power, [290]
Save that in dealing death for dower,
He may forget it for an hour
To remember it again.”
And slowly his hands and thoughtfully
Fell from the lifted lyre, [295]
And the owls moaned from the mighty trees
Till Alfred caught it to his knees
And smote it as in ire.
He heaved the head of the harp on high
And swept the framework barred, [300]
And his stroke had all the rattle and spark
Of horses flying hard.
“When God put man in a garden
He girt him with a sword,
And sent him forth a free knight [305]
That might betray his lord;
“He brake Him and betrayed Him,
And fast and far he fell,
Till you and I may stretch our necks
And burn our beards in hell. [310]
“But though I lie on the floor of the world,
With the seven sins for rods,
I would rather fall with Adam
Than rise with all your gods.
“What have the strong gods given? [315]
Where have the glad gods led?
When Guthrum sits on a hero’s throne
And asks if he is dead?
“Sirs, I am but a nameless man,
A rhymester without home, [320]
Yet since I come of the Wessex clay
And carry the cross of Rome,
“I will even answer the mighty earl
That asked of Wessex men
Why they be meek and monkish folk, [325]
And bow to the White Lord’s broken yoke;
What sign have we save blood and smoke?
Here is my answer then.
“That on you is fallen the shadow,
And not upon the Name; [330]
That though we scatter and though we fly,
And you hang over us like the sky,
You are more tired of victory,
Than we are tired of shame.
“That though you hunt the Christian man [335]
Like a hare on the hill-side,
The hare has still more heart to run
Than you have heart to ride.
“That though all lances split on you,
All swords be heaved in vain, [340]
We have more lust again to lose
Than you to win again.
“Your lord sits high in the saddle,
A broken-hearted king,
But our King Alfred, lost from fame, [345]
Fallen among foes or bonds of shame,
In I know not what mean trade or name,
Has still some song to sing;
“Our monks go robed in rain and snow,
But the heart of flame therein, [350]
But you go clothed in feasts and flames,
When all is ice within;
“Nor shall all iron dooms make dumb
Men wondering ceaselessly,
If it be not better to fast for joy [355]
Than feast for misery.
“Nor monkish order only
Slides down, as field to fen,
All things achieved and chosen pass,
As the “White Horse fades in the grass, [360]
No work of Christian men.
“Ere the sad gods that made your gods
Saw their sad sunrise pass,
The White Horse of the White Horse Vale,
That you have left to darken and fail, [365]
Was cut out of the grass.
“Therefore your end is on you,
Is on you and your kings,
Not for a fire in Ely fen,
Not that your gods are nine or ten, [370]
But because it is only Christian men
Guard even heathen things.
“For our God hath blessed creation,
Calling it good. I know
What spirit with whom you blindly band [375]
Hath blessed destruction with his hand;
Yet by God’s death the stars shall stand
And the small apples grow.”
And the King, with harp on shoulder,
Stood up and ceased his song; [380]
And the owls moaned from the mighty trees,
And the Danes laughed loud and long.

LIBRO III
L’ARPA DI ALFREDO

N un albero sbadigliante e contorto
Stavano gettati i pochi beni del Re,
Un messale ammuffito, riga per riga,
E armi e un otre di vino,
E una vecchia arpa scordata. [5]
Presso l’albero sbadigliante, nel crepuscolo,
Il Re slacciò la sua spada,
Divise l’arpa da ogni altro suo bene,
E là, nei boschi freschi e senza suono,
Fece risuonare un solo accordo. [10]
Poi rise; e guardò i fringuelli guizzare,
Le mosche cupe in sciame,
E andò disarmato oltre i colli,
Con l’arpa sul braccio.
Finché giunse alla Valle del Bianco Cavallo [15]
E vide oltre le piane,
Nel crepuscolo alto, remoto e crudele,
Come le terrazze infuocate dell’inferno,
I fuochi del campo dei Danesi—
I fuochi della Grande Armata [20]
Ch’era fatta di uomini di ferro,
I cui lumi di sacrilegio e di scherno
Correvano intorno all’Inghilterra rossi come l’alba,
Fuochi sul Biancospino di Glastonbury—
Fuochi laggiù sulla palude di Ely. [25]
E passando per la Valle del Bianco Cavallo
Vide giacere pallido e vasto
Il vecchio cavallo inciso, Dio sa quando,
Da dèi o da bestie o da ciò che allora
Percorreva un mondo nuovo in vece d’uomini [30]
E lo tracciò sul fianco del colle.
E quando giunse al Poggio del Bianco Cavallo
Il gran Bianco Cavallo era grigio,
Ché mal ripulito era dall’erbaccia,
E lichene e spina potevano strisciare e pascersi, [35]
Da che i nemici di casa e fede stabili
Avevano spazzato via le opere antiche.
King Alfred guardava tutto dolente
Cardi e muschi grigi,
Finché una masnada di Danesi con scudo e roncola [40]
Rotolò ubriaca sulla cupola del colle,
E, udito dell’arpa sua e dell’arte,
Lo trascinarono al loro sollazzo.
E mentre andavano per l’alta erba verde
Ruggivano come il gran mare verde; [45]
Ma quando giunsero al rosso fuoco del campo
Tacquero d’improvviso.
E mentre salivano per le lande deserte
Andavano barcollando qua e là;
Ma quando giunsero al rosso fuoco del campo [50]
Stettero tutti in fila.
Ché dorato nella luce del fuoco,
Con un sorriso scolpito sulle labbra,
E una barba arricciata con arte fina,
Stava Guthrum del Mare del Nord, [55]
L’imperatore delle navi—
Con tre grandi conti re Guthrum
Faceva il giro di fuoco in fuoco,
Con Harold, nipote del Re,
E Ogier della Pietra e della Fionda, [60]
Ed Elf, il cui liuto d’oro aveva una corda
Che sospirava come ogni desiderio.
I Conti della Grande Armata
Che nessun nato d’uomo poteva stancare,
Le cui fiamme, vicine o lontane, [65]
S’impadronivano di torri o di mura ben salde,
Fuoco sul tetto di Glastonbury
E laggiù su Ely, fuoco.
E Guthrum udì il racconto dei soldati
E ordinò allo straniero di suonare; [70]
Non con durezza, ma come uno dall’alto,
Su una colonna di marmo nel cielo,
Che vede tutte le genti che vivono e muoiono—
Pigmee e lontane.
E Alfredo, Re del Wessex, [75]
Guardò il suo conquistatore—
E le sue mani s’indurirono; ma suonò,
E tacendo ogni odio a venire,
Cantò di un’antica scorreria britanna
Sulla selvaggia marca d’occidente d’un tempo. [80]
Cantò di guerra nelle contee calde e piovose,
Dove non mancano pioggia né frutti,
Dove l’Inghilterra dagli stati screziati
Si fa folta come un giardino fino alle porte
Nelle mura purpuree del Galles. [85]
Cantò dei mari di teste selvagge
E dei mari e mari di lance,
Ribollenti su tutto il Vallo di Offa,
Al tempo in cui una mazza del Wessex sapeva colpire
I re dei montanari. [90]
Finché Harold rise e strappò l’arpa,
Il congiunto del Re,
Un giovane grosso, imberbe come un bimbo,
Che il vino nuovo della guerra rendeva folle,
Percosse le corde, e prese a cantare— [95]
E gridò delle navi come aquile
Che volteggiano feroci e volano,
E spazzano i mari e colpiscono le città
Da Cipro fino a Skye.
Con che rapidità e con che rischio [100]
Radunano ogni bene,
Le alte corna delle bestie della foresta,
O le pietre segrete dei re.
“Ché a Roma fu dato governare il mondo,
E poca gioia ne trasse— [105]
Ma noi, noi il mondo lo godremo,
L’intero immenso mondo un balocco.
“Gran vino come sangue di Borgogna,
Mantelli come le nubi di Tiro,
E marmo come solido chiaro di luna, [110]
E oro come fuoco gelato.
“Profumi che un uomo potrebbe tracannare in coppa,
Pietre che un uomo potrebbe mangiare,
E le grandi donne lisce come avorio
Che i Turchi vendono per strada.” [115]
Cantò il trono del ladro del mondo,
E gli dèi che amano il ladro;
E urlò forte contro i chiostri,
Dove gli uomini vanno a mietere dolore.
“Bene hai cantato, o straniero, [120]
Della morte sul vallo in Galles,
Il tuo capo era un donatore di anelli;
Ma il rosso fiume ininterrotto
D’una stirpe non scorre in eterno,
D’un tratto viene meno. [125]
“Certo i tuoi padri roteavano la spada
Quando guadavano freschi di schiuma,
Prima d’esser mutati in femmine
Dal dio dei chiodi venuto da Roma;
“Ma da che vi piegaste agli uomini rasati, [130]
Che non bramano né colpiscono,
Tuono di Thor, vi diamo la caccia,
Lepre sull’altura del monte.”
Re Guthrum sorrise appena,
E disse: “Basta così, [135]
Nipote, che Elf riaccordi la corda;
A un ragazzo piace per forza il muggito,
Ma le vecchie orecchie di un re accorto
Godono di canti meno rudi.”
Occhi azzurri aveva Elf il menestrello, [140]
Con chioma e anello da donna,
Ma greve era la sua mano sulla spada,
Benché lieve sulla corda.
E come mosse le corde dell’arpa
Su note quattro o cinque appena, [145]
Il cuore d’ogni uomo si mosse in lui
Come un bimbo sepolto vivo.
E sentirono la terra dei canti del popolo
Stendersi a sud del Danese,
E udirono scorrere il buon Reno [150]
Nel cuore di tutta l’Alemagna.
Sentirono la terra dei canti del popolo,
Dove i doni pendono dall’albero,
Dove le fanciulle versano birra al mattino
E le lacrime vengono facili. [155]
Il popolo possente, come donna,
Che prova piacere nella sua pena
Mentre cantava di Balder il bello,
Che i cieli amarono invano.
Mentre cantava di Balder il bello, [160]
Che i cieli non poterono salvare,
Finché il mondo fu come un mare di lacrime
E ogni anima un’onda.
“C’è sempre una cosa dimenticata
Quando tutto il mondo va bene; [165]
Una cosa dimenticata, come un tempo
Quando gli dèi dimenticarono il vischio,
E silenziosa come freccia di neve
Cadde la freccia dell’angoscia.
“La cosa sul lato cieco del cuore, [170]
Sul lato sbagliato della porta,
La verde pianta cresce, minacciando
Gli onnipotenti amanti in primavera;
C’è sempre una cosa dimenticata,
E l’amore non è al sicuro.” [175]
E tutti quelli seduti al fuoco erano tristi,
Tranne Ogier, che era duro,
E i suoi occhi s’indurirono, fino a farsi pietre,
Quando prese l’arpa a sua volta;
Il conte Ogier della Pietra e della Fionda [180]
Era strano a udirsi e a vedersi,
Vecchio era, ma rosse le sue chiome,
E motti eran tutte le parole che diceva,
Eppure era triste a mensa e a letto
E selvaggio nella battaglia. [185]
“Cantate con leggerezza i giovani dèi
Nei giorni in cui siete giovani;
Ma io vado fiutando tasso e zolle,
E so che vi sono dèi dietro gli dèi,
Dèi che è meglio non cantare. [190]
“E un uomo si fa brutto per le donne,
E un uomo si fa ottuso di birra,
Bene se trova nella sua anima infine
Furia, che non viene meno.
“L’ira degli dèi dietro gli dèi [195]
Che squarcerebbero ogni dio e ogni uomo,
Bene se il cuore del vecchio ha ancora
Ruote lanciate di rabbia e volontà ruggente,
Come cateratte per abbattere e uccidere,
Bene per il vecchio allora— [200]
“Finché resta un alto tempio da scuotere,
O un uomo vivo da squarciare;
Per l’ira degli dèi dietro gli dèi
Che sono stanchi, e vogliono farla finita.
“Vive un solo istante per un uomo [205]
Quando la porta alla sua spalla trema,
Quando la fune tesa si spezza sotto lo strappo,
E il ramo più spoglio è bello
Un istante, mentre si schianta.
“Così cavalca la mia anima sul mare [210]
Che beve le navi urlanti,
E benché per nero scherzo s’inchini e annuisca
Sotto le lune dalle verghe d’argento,
Io so che ruggisce contro gli dèi,
Aspettando l’ultima eclissi. [215]
“E nell’ultima eclissi il mare
Si leverà come una torre,
Sopra tutte le lune oscurate e squarciate,
Alzerà in cielo la testa schiumante,
E riderà, conoscendo la sua ora. [220]
“E gli alti nella città felice
Sorretta dai sette pianeti,
Conosceranno una nuova luce nella mente,
Un rumore intorno a loro e alle spalle,
Udranno una voce tremenda, e troveranno
Schiuma nelle corti del cielo. [225]
“E voi che sedete al fuoco siete giovani,
E veri amori vi attendono;
Ma il Re e io invecchiamo, invecchiamo,
E l’odio soltanto è vero.” [230]
E Guthrum scosse il capo ma sorrise,
Ché era un chierico possente,
E aveva letto righe nei libri latini,
Quando tutto il nord era buio.
Disse: “Sono più vecchio di te, Ogier; [235]
Non ogni cosa vorrei squarciare,
Ché sia la vita mala o buona
È meglio attenderne la fine.”
Prese la grande arpa stancamente,
Persino Guthrum dei Danesi, [240]
Con grandi occhi lucenti come l’unico lungo giorno
Sulle lunghe piane polari.
Ché cantò di una ruota che ritorna,
E del fango ricalpestato in fango,
E di come rossi inferni e cieli d’oro [245]
Siano castelli nel fuoco.
“È bello sedere dove corrono le belle storie,
Sedere come sedettero i nostri padri;
Ma l’ora verrà, dopo la giovinezza,
In cui un uomo conoscerà non storie ma verità, [250]
E il cuore gli verrà meno.
“Quando leggerà ciò che sta scritto
Così chiaro in nuvole e zolle,
Quando avrà fame, senza speranza,
Persino di dèi malvagi. [255]
“Ché questa è materia grave,
E la verità è fredda a dirsi;
Non lo sappiamo, non l’abbiamo udito?
L’anima è come un uccello smarrito,
Il corpo un guscio infranto. [260]
“E un uomo spera, essendo ignaro,
Finché in bianchi boschi in disparte
Trova infine morto l’uccello smarrito:
E un uomo può ancora alzare il capo
Ma mai più il suo cuore. [265]
“Non viene rumore che di pianto
Dal cielo antico,
E c’è una lacrima nel più piccolo dei fiori
Perché gli dèi devono morire.
“I piccoli ruscelli sono assai dolci, [270]
Come nastri arricciati di fanciulla,
Ma il gran mare è amaro
Che lava tutto il mondo.
“Forti sono le rose romane,
O i liberi fiori della brughiera, [275]
Ma ogni fiore, come fiore del mare,
Odora del sale della morte.
“E il cuore della mischia serrata
È il luogo più felice per gli uomini;
Quando anime urlanti passano come dardi [280]
E molti sono morti e tutti possono morire;
Benché questa parola sia un mistero,
La Morte è allora più lontana.
“La Morte arde chiara sopra la coppa,
E nitida sopra la corona; [285]
Ma in quel sogno di battaglia
Ci pare di calpestarla.
“Perciò io sono un grande re,
E devasto il mondo invano,
Perché l’uomo non ha altro potere, [290]
Se non che, dando morte in dote,
Può dimenticarla per un’ora
Per ricordarla di nuovo.”
E lente le sue mani e pensose
Caddero dalla lira levata, [295]
E i gufi gemettero dai grandi alberi
Finché Alfredo se la strinse alle ginocchia
E la percosse come in ira.
Sollevò alta la testa dell’arpa
E spazzò l’intelaiatura di sbarre, [300]
E il suo colpo ebbe tutto lo strepito e la scintilla
Di cavalli in fuga sfrenata.
“Quando Dio pose l’uomo in un giardino
Lo cinse di una spada,
E lo mandò innanzi, cavaliere libero [305]
Che poteva tradire il suo signore;
“Lo infranse e Lo tradì,
E rapido e lontano cadde,
Tanto che tu e io possiamo tendere il collo
E bruciarci le barbe all’inferno. [310]
“Ma benché io giaccia sul fondo del mondo,
Coi sette peccati per verghe,
Preferirei cadere con Adamo
Che sorgere con tutti i vostri dèi.
“Che cosa hanno dato gli dèi forti? [315]
Dove hanno condotto gli dèi lieti?
Se Guthrum siede sul trono di un eroe
E chiede se è morto?
“Signori, io non sono che un uomo senza nome,
Un rimatore senza casa, [320]
Ma poiché vengo dall’argilla del Wessex
E porto la croce di Roma,
“Risponderò pure al conte possente
Che chiese degli uomini del Wessex
Perché siano gente mite e monacale, [325]
E si pieghino al giogo infranto del Bianco Signore;
Che segno abbiamo se non sangue e fumo?
Ecco allora la mia risposta.
“Che su di voi è caduta l’ombra,
E non sul Nome; [330]
Che benché ci disperdiamo e fuggiamo,
E voi pendiate su di noi come il cielo,
Voi siete più stanchi della vittoria
Che noi della vergogna.
“Che benché cacciate il cristiano [335]
Come lepre sul fianco del colle,
La lepre ha ancora più cuore per correre
Di quanto voi ne abbiate per cavalcare.
“Che benché ogni lancia si spezzi su di voi,
Ogni spada si levi invano, [340]
Noi abbiamo più brama di perdere ancora
Che voi di vincere ancora.
“Il vostro signore siede alto in sella,
Un re dal cuore infranto,
Ma il nostro King Alfred, perduto alla fama, [345]
Caduto fra nemici o ceppi di vergogna,
In non so quale umile mestiere o nome,
Ha ancora qualche canto da cantare;
“I nostri monaci vanno vestiti di pioggia e neve,
Ma dentro hanno il cuore di fiamma, [350]
Voi invece andate vestiti di feste e fiamme,
Quando dentro tutto è ghiaccio;
“Né tutte le condanne di ferro faranno muti
Gli uomini che si chiedono senza posa
Se non sia meglio digiunare per gioia [355]
Che banchettare per miseria.
“Né soltanto l’ordine monacale
Scivola giù, come campo in palude,
Ogni cosa compiuta e scelta passa,
Come il “Bianco Cavallo svanisce nell’erba, [360]
Nessuna opera di uomini cristiani.
“Prima che i tristi dèi che fecero i vostri dèi
Vedessero passare la loro triste aurora,
Il Bianco Cavallo della Valle del Bianco Cavallo,
Che avete lasciato oscurarsi e perire, [365]
Fu intagliato nell’erba.
“Perciò la vostra fine vi è addosso,
È su di voi e sui vostri re,
Non per un fuoco nella palude di Ely,
Non perché i vostri dèi siano nove o dieci, [370]
Ma perché soltanto uomini cristiani
Custodiscono persino le cose pagane.
“Ché il nostro Dio ha benedetto la creazione,
Chiamandola buona. Io so
Quale spirito, a cui ciechi vi legate, [375]
Ha benedetto con la sua mano la distruzione;
Ma per la morte di Dio le stelle staranno salde
E le piccole mele cresceranno.”
E il Re, con l’arpa in spalla,
Si levò e cessò il suo canto; [380]
E i gufi gemettero dai grandi alberi,
E i Danesi risero forte e a lungo.

BOOK IV
THE WOMAN IN THE FOREST

HICK thunder of the snorting swine,
Enormous in the gloam,
Rending among all roots that cling,
And the wild horses whinnying,
Were the night’s noises when the King, [5]
Shouldering his harp, went home.
With eyes of owl and feet of fox,
Full of all thoughts he went;
He marked the tilt of the pagan camp,
The paling of pine, the sentries’ tramp, [10]
And the one great stolen altar-lamp
Over Guthrum in his tent.
By scrub and thorn in Ethandune
That night the foe had lain;
Whence ran across the heather grey [15]
The old stones of a Roman way;
And in a wood not far away
The pale road split in twain.
He marked the wood and the cloven ways
With an old captain’s eyes, [20]
And he thought how many a time had he
Sought to see Doom he could not see;
How ruin had come and victory,
And both were a surprise.
Even so he had watched and wondered [25]
Under Ashdown from the plains;
With Ethelred praying in his tent,
Till the white hawthorn swung and bent,
As Alfred rushed his spears and rent
The shield-wall of the Danes. [30]
Even so he had watched and wondered,
Knowing neither less nor more,
Till all his lords lay dying,
And axes on axes plying,
Flung him, and drove him flying [35]
Like a pirate to the shore.
Wise he had been before defeat,
And wise before success;
Wise in both hours, and ignorant,
Knowing neither more nor less. [40]
As he went down to the river-hut
He knew a night-shade scent,
Owls did as evil cherubs rise,
With little wings and lantern eyes,
As though he sank through the under-skies; [45]
But down and down he went.
As he went down to the river-hut
He went as one that fell;
Seeing the high forest domes and spars.
Dim green or torn with golden scars, [50]
As the proud look up at the evil stars,
In the red heavens of hell.
For he must meet by the river-hut
Them he had bidden to arm,
Mark from the towers of Italy, [55]
And Colan of the Sacred Tree,
And Eldred who beside the sea
Held heavily his farm.
The roof leaned gaping to the grass,
As a monstrous mushroom lies; [60]
Echoing and empty seemed the place;
But opened in a little space
A great grey woman with scarred face
And strong and humbled eyes.
King Alfred was but a meagre man, [65]
Bright eyed, but lean and pale,
And swordless, with his harp and rags,
He seemed a beggar, such as lags
Looking for crusts and ale.
And the woman, with a woman’s eyes [70]
Of pity at once and ire,
Said, when that she had glared a span,
“There is a cake for any man
If he will watch the fire.”
And Alfred, bowing heavily, [75]
Sat down the fire to stir,
And even as the woman pitied him
So did he pity her.
Saying, “O great heart in the night,
O best cast forth for worst, [80]
Twilight shall melt and morning stir,
And no kind thing shall come to her,
Till God shall turn the world over
And all the last are first.
“And well may God with the serving-folk [85]
Cast in His dreadful lot;
Is not He too a servant,
And is not He forgot?
“For was not God my gardener
And silent like a slave; [90]
That opened oaks on the uplands
Or thicket in graveyard gave?
“And was not God my armourer,
All patient and unpaid,
That sealed my skull as a helmet, [95]
And ribs for hauberk made?
“Did not a great grey servant
Of all my sires and me,
Build this pavilion of the pines,
And herd the fowls and fill the vines, [100]
And labour and pass and leave no signs
Save mercy and mystery?
“For God is a great servant,
And rose before the day,
From some primordial slumber torn; [105]
But all we living later born
Sleep on, and rise after the morn,
And the Lord has gone away.
“On things half sprung from sleeping,
All sleepy suns have shone, [110]
They stretch stiff arms, the yawning trees,
The beasts blink upon hands and knees,
Man is awake and does and sees—
But Heaven has done and gone.
“For who shall guess the good riddle [115]
Or speak of the Holiest,
Save in faint figures and failing words,
Who loves, yet laughs among the swords,
Labours, and is at rest?
“But some see God like Guthrum, [120]
Crowned, with a great beard curled,
But I see God like a good giant,
That, labouring, lifts the world.
“Wherefore was God in Golgotha,
Slain as a serf is slain; [125]
And hate He had of prince and peer,
And love He had and made good cheer
Of them that, like this woman here,
Go powerfully in pain.
“But in this grey morn of man’s life [130]
Cometh sometime to the mind
A little light that leaps and flies,
Like a star blown on the wind.
“A star of nowhere, a nameless star,
A light that spins and swirls, [135]
And cries that even in hedge and hill,
Even on earth, it may go ill
At last with the evil earls.
“A dancing sparkle, a doubtful star,
On the waste wind whirled and driven, [140]
But it seems to sing of a wilder worth,
A time discrowned of doom and birth,
And the kingdom of the poor on earth
Come, as it is in heaven.
“But even though such days endure, [145]
How shall it profit her?
Who shall go groaning to the grave,
With many a meek and mighty slave,
Field-breaker and fisher on the wave,
And woodman and waggoner. [150]
“Bake ye the big world all again
A cake with kinder leaven;
Yet these are sorry evermore—
Unless there be a little door,
A little door in heaven.” [155]
And as he wept for the woman
He let her business be,
And like his royal oath and rash
The good food fell upon the ash
And blackened instantly. [160]
Screaming, the woman caught a cake
Yet burning from the bar,
And struck him suddenly on the face,
Leaving a scarlet scar.
King Alfred stood up wordless, [165]
A man dead with surprise,
And torture stood and the evil things
That are in the childish hearts of kings
An instant in his eyes.
And even as he stood and stared [170]
Drew round him in the dusk
Those friends creeping from far-off farms,
Marcus with all his slaves in arms,
And the strange spears hung with ancient charms
Of Colan of the Usk. [175]
With one whole farm marching afoot
The trampled road resounds,
Farm-hands and farm-beasts blundering by
And jars of mead and stores of rye,
Where Eldred strode above his high [180]
And thunder-throated hounds.
And grey cattle and silver lowed
Against the unlifted morn,
And straw clung to the spear-shafts tall.
And a boy went before them all [185]
Blowing a ram’s horn.
As mocking such rude revelry,
The dim clan of the Gael
Came like a bad king’s burial-end,
With dismal robes that drop and rend [190]
And demon pipes that wail—
In long, outlandish garments,
Torn, though of antique worth,
With Druid beards and Druid spears,
As a resurrected race appears [195]
Out of an elder earth.
And though the King had called them forth
And knew them for his own,
So still each eye stood like a gem,
So spectral hung each broidered hem, [200]
Grey carven men he fancied them,
Hewn in an age of stone.
And the two wild peoples of the north
Stood fronting in the gloam,
And heard and knew each in its mind [205]
The third great thunder on the wind,
The living walls that hedge mankind,
The walking walls of Rome.
Mark’s were the mixed tribes of the west,
Of many a hue and strain, [210]
Gurth, with rank hair like yellow grass,
And the Cornish fisher, Gorlias,
And Halmer, come from his first mass,
Lately baptized, a Dane.
But like one man in armour [215]
Those hundreds trod the field,
From red Arabia to the Tyne
The earth had heard that marching-line,
Since the cry on the hill Capitoline,
And the fall of the golden shield. [220]
And the earth shook and the King stood still
Under the greenwood bough,
And the smoking cake lay at his feet
And the blow was on his brow.
Then Alfred laughed out suddenly, [225]
Like thunder in the spring,
Till shook aloud the lintel-beams,
And the squirrels stirred in dusty dreams,
And the startled birds went up in streams,
For the laughter of the King. [230]
And the beasts of the earth and the birds looked down,
In a wild solemnity,
On a stranger sight than a sylph or elf,
On one man laughing at himself
Under the greenwood tree— [235]
The giant laughter of Christian men
That roars through a thousand tales,
Where greed is an ape and pride is an ass,
And Jack’s away with his master’s lass,
And the miser is banged with all his brass, [240]
The farmer with all his flails;
Tales that tumble and tales that trick,
Yet end not all in scorning—
Of kings and clowns in a merry plight,
And the clock gone wrong and the world gone right, [245]
That the mummers sing upon Christmas night
And Christmas Day in the morning.
“Now here is a good warrant,”
Cried Alfred, “by my sword;
For he that is struck for an ill servant [250]
Should be a kind lord.
“He that has been a servant
Knows more than priests and kings,
But he that has been an ill servant,
He knows all earthly things. [255]
“Pride flings frail palaces at the sky,
As a man flings up sand,
But the firm feet of humility
Take hold of heavy land.
“Pride juggles with her toppling towers, [260]
They strike the sun and cease,
But the firm feet of humility
They grip the ground like trees.
“He that hath failed in a little thing
Hath a sign upon the brow; [265]
And the Earls of the Great Army
Have no such seal to show.
“The red print on my forehead,
Small flame for a red star,
In the van of the violent marching, then [270]
When the sky is torn of the trumpets ten,
And the hands of the happy howling men
Fling wide the gates of war.
“This blow that I return not
Ten times will I return [275]
On kings and earls of all degree,
And armies wide as empires be
Shall slide like landslips to the sea
If the red star burn.
“One man shall drive a hundred, [280]
As the dead kings drave;
Before me rocking hosts be riven,
And battering cohorts backwards driven,
For I am the first king known of heaven
That has been struck like a slave. [285]
“Up on the old white road, brothers,
Up on the Roman walls!
For this is the night of the drawing of swords,
And the painted tower of the heathen hordes
Leans to our hammers, fires and cords, [290]
Leans a little and falls.
“Follow the star that lives and leaps,
Follow the sword that sings,
For we go gathering heathen men,
A terrible harvest, ten by ten, [295]
As the wrath of the last red autumn—then
When Christ reaps down the kings.
“Follow a light that leaps and spins,
Follow the fire unfurled!
For riseth up against realm and rod, [300]
A thing forgotten, a thing downtrod,
The last lost giant, even God,
Is risen against the world.”
Roaring they went o’er the Roman wall,
And roaring up the lane, [305]
Their torches tossed, a ladder of fire,
Higher their hymn was heard and higher,
More sweet for hate and for heart’s desire,
And up in the northern scrub and brier
They fell upon the Dane. [310]

LIBRO IV
LA DONNA NELLA FORESTA

Fitto tuono dei porci sbuffanti,
Enormi nel crepuscolo,
Che frugano fra radici avvinghiate,
E il nitrire dei cavalli selvaggi,
Erano i rumori della notte quando il Re, [5]
L’arpa in spalla, tornò a casa.
Con occhi di gufo e piedi di volpe,
Colmo d’ogni pensiero andava;
Notò l’inclinarsi del campo pagano,
Il pallore dei pini, il passo delle sentinelle, [10]
E la grande lampada d’altare rubata
Sopra Guthrum nella sua tenda.
Fra sterpi e spini a Ethandune
Quella notte il nemico giaceva;
Di là correvano per la grigia brughiera [15]
Le vecchie pietre d’una via romana;
E in un bosco poco lontano
La pallida strada si spartiva in due.
Notò il bosco e le vie divise
Con occhi di vecchio capitano, [20]
E pensò quante volte aveva
Cercato di vedere il Fato che non vedeva;
Come erano giunte rovina e vittoria,
E l’una e l’altra una sorpresa.
Così aveva vegliato e atteso stupito [25]
Sotto Ashdown, dalle pianure;
Con Ethelred in preghiera nella tenda,
Finché il biancospino ondeggiò e si piegò,
Quando Alfredo scagliò le sue lance e squarciò
Il muro di scudi dei Danesi. [30]
Così aveva vegliato e atteso stupito,
Non sapendo né meno né più,
Finché tutti i suoi signori giacquero morenti,
E asce su asce menando colpi
Lo scagliarono, lo cacciarono in fuga [35]
Come un pirata verso la riva.
Saggio era stato prima della sconfitta,
E saggio prima del successo;
Saggio in entrambe le ore, e ignaro,
Non sapendo né più né meno. [40]
Scendendo verso la capanna sul fiume
Sentì un profumo d’ombra notturna,
I gufi si levavano come cherubini maligni,
Con piccole ali e occhi di lanterna,
Come se affondasse sotto i cieli inferi; [45]
Ma giù e più giù andava.
Scendendo verso la capanna sul fiume
Andava come uno che cade;
Vedendo le alte cupole e le antenne della foresta,
Verde cupo o lacerate da cicatrici d’oro, [50]
Come i superbi alzano gli occhi alle stelle maligne,
Nei cieli rossi dell’inferno.
Ché doveva incontrare alla capanna sul fiume
Quelli che aveva chiamato alle armi,
Marco dalle torri d’Italia, [55]
E Colan dell’Albero Sacro,
Ed Eldred che presso il mare
Reggeva a fatica la sua fattoria.
Il tetto pendeva spalancato sull’erba,
Come giace un fungo mostruoso; [60]
Echeggiante e vuoto pareva il luogo;
Ma di lì a poco aprì l’uscio
Una grande donna grigia dal volto segnato
E dagli occhi forti e umiliati.
Re Alfredo non era che un uomo scarno, [65]
Occhi vivi, ma magro e pallido,
E senza spada, con l’arpa e gli stracci,
Pareva un mendicante, di quelli che s’attardano
In cerca di croste di pane e di birra.
E la donna, con occhi di donna [70]
Di pietà insieme e d’ira,
Disse, dopo averlo fissato un poco:
«C’è una focaccia per chiunque
Voglia badare al fuoco».
E Alfredo, con grave inchino, [75]
Sedette ad attizzare il fuoco,
E come la donna ebbe pietà di lui
Così egli ebbe pietà di lei.
Dicendo: «O gran cuore nella notte,
O migliore gettata fra i peggiori, [80]
Il crepuscolo si scioglierà, si desterà il mattino,
E nulla di buono verrà a lei,
Finché Dio non capovolga il mondo
E tutti gli ultimi siano primi.
«E ben può Dio con la gente che serve [85]
Gettare la Sua sorte tremenda;
Non è anch’Egli un servo,
E non è anch’Egli dimenticato?
«Non fu Dio il mio giardiniere,
Silenzioso come uno schiavo, [90]
Che schiuse querce sugli altipiani
O diede macchia al camposanto?
«E non fu Dio il mio armaiolo,
Tutto paziente e senza paga,
Che saldò il mio cranio a elmo, [95]
E delle costole fece un usbergo?
«Non fu un grande servo grigio
Di tutti i miei padri e mio
A costruire questo padiglione di pini,
A radunare gli uccelli, a colmare le viti, [100]
A faticare e passare senza lasciar segni
Fuorché misericordia e mistero?
«Ché Dio è un grande servo,
E si levò prima del giorno,
Strappato a un sonno primordiale; [105]
Ma noi tutti, vivi e nati dopo,
Dormiamo ancora, e ci alziamo dopo il mattino,
E il Signore se n’è andato.
«Su cose a metà sorte dal sonno
Hanno brillato tutti i soli assonnati, [110]
Stirano braccia rigide gli alberi che sbadigliano,
Le bestie sbattono le palpebre carponi,
L’uomo è desto e fa e vede—
Ma il Cielo ha fatto, e se n’è andato.
«Ché chi indovinerà il buon enigma [115]
O parlerà del Santissimo,
Se non per pallide figure e parole che vengono meno,
Di Colui che ama, eppure ride fra le spade,
Fatica, ed è in riposo?
«Ma alcuni vedono Dio come Guthrum, [120]
Coronato, con gran barba ricciuta,
Io invece vedo Dio come un buon gigante,
Che, faticando, solleva il mondo.
«Perciò Dio fu sul Golgota,
Ucciso come si uccide un servo; [125]
E odio ebbe per principe e pari,
E amore ebbe, e fece festa
Di quelli che, come questa donna qui,
Vanno possenti nel dolore.
«Ma in questo grigio mattino della vita dell’uomo [130]
Viene talvolta alla mente
Una piccola luce che balza e vola,
Come stella soffiata sul vento.
«Una stella di nessun luogo, una stella senza nome,
Una luce che gira e turbina, [135]
E grida che perfino fra siepe e colle,
Perfino in terra, può andar male
Alla fine per i conti malvagi.
«Scintilla danzante, stella dubbiosa,
Sul vento deserto travolta e sospinta, [140]
Ma pare cantare d’un valore più selvaggio,
Un tempo scoronato di fato e di nascita,
E il regno dei poveri in terra
Venuto, come è nei cieli.
«Ma pur se tali giorni durassero, [145]
Che gioverà a lei?
Che andrà gemendo alla tomba,
Con tanti schiavi miti e possenti,
Dissodatori di campi e pescatori sull’onda,
E boscaioli e carrettieri. [150]
«Cuocete pure il gran mondo tutto di nuovo,
Focaccia con più benigno lievito;
Questi restano tristi per sempre—
A meno che non vi sia una piccola porta,
Una piccola porta in cielo». [155]
E mentre piangeva per la donna
Trascurò la faccenda di lei,
E come il suo giuramento regale e avventato
Il buon cibo cadde sulla cenere
E annerì in un istante. [160]
Urlando, la donna afferrò una focaccia
Ancora ardente dalla griglia,
E lo colpì d’improvviso sul volto,
Lasciando una cicatrice scarlatta.
Re Alfredo si alzò senza parola, [165]
Uomo morto di stupore,
E la tortura stette, e le cose malvagie
Che sono nei cuori infantili dei re,
Un istante nei suoi occhi.
E mentre stava e fissava [170]
Gli si strinsero intorno nel crepuscolo
Quegli amici strisciando da fattorie lontane,
Marco con tutti i suoi schiavi in armi,
E le strane lance cariche d’antichi amuleti
Di Colan dell’Usk. [175]
D’un’intera fattoria in marcia a piedi
Risuona la strada calpestata,
Braccianti e bestie che passano goffi
E giare d’idromele e scorte di segale,
Dove Eldred incedeva sopra i suoi alti [180]
Cani dalla gola di tuono.
E armenti grigi e argentei muggivano
Contro il mattino non ancora sorto,
E la paglia s’attaccava alle alte aste delle lance.
E un ragazzo andava davanti a tutti [185]
Suonando un corno d’ariete.
Come a beffare tale rozza baldoria,
L’oscuro clan dei Gaeli
Venne come la fine del funerale d’un cattivo re,
Con vesti lugubri che cadono e si strappano [190]
E cornamuse demoniache che gemono—
In lunghe vesti forestiere,
Lacere, benché d’antico pregio,
Con barbe di Druidi e lance di Druidi,
Come appare una razza risorta [195]
Da una terra più antica.
E benché il Re li avesse chiamati
E li sapesse suoi,
Così fermo stava ogni occhio, come gemma,
Così spettrale pendeva ogni orlo ricamato, [200]
Che li immaginò uomini grigi scolpiti,
Tagliati in un’età di pietra.
E i due popoli selvaggi del nord
Stavano a fronte nel crepuscolo,
E udì e riconobbe ciascuno in cuor suo [205]
Il terzo grande tuono sul vento,
Le mura vive che recingono il genere umano,
Le mura in cammino di Roma.
Di Marco erano le tribù miste dell’ovest,
Di molti colori e stirpi, [210]
Gurth, dai capelli folti come erba gialla,
E il pescatore di Cornovaglia, Gorlias,
E Halmer, venuto dalla sua prima messa,
Da poco battezzato, un Danese.
Ma come un sol uomo in armatura [215]
Quelle centinaia calcavano il campo,
Dalla rossa Arabia fino al Tyne
La terra aveva udito quella linea in marcia,
Fin dal grido sul colle Capitolino,
E dalla caduta dello scudo d’oro. [220]
E la terra tremò e il Re stette immobile
Sotto il ramo del verde bosco,
E la focaccia fumante giaceva ai suoi piedi
E il colpo era sulla sua fronte.
Allora Alfredo rise d’improvviso, [225]
Come tuono in primavera,
Finché tremarono forte le travi dell’architrave,
E gli scoiattoli si mossero in sogni polverosi,
E gli uccelli atterriti si levarono a stormi,
Per la risata del Re. [230]
E le bestie della terra e gli uccelli guardarono in giù,
In selvaggia solennità,
Su vista più strana d’una silfide o d’un elfo,
Su un uomo che rideva di se stesso
Sotto l’albero del verde bosco— [235]
La risata gigante degli uomini cristiani
Che rugge per mille racconti,
Dove l’avidità è una scimmia e l’orgoglio un asino,
E Gianni scappa con la ragazza del padrone,
E l’avaro è bastonato con tutto il suo rame, [240]
Il fattore con tutti i suoi correggiati;
Racconti che ruzzolano e racconti che ingannano,
Ma non finiscono tutti in scherno—
Di re e buffoni in lieto imbroglio,
E l’orologio guastato e il mondo raddrizzato, [245]
Che i mimi cantano nella notte di Natale
E il giorno di Natale al mattino.
«Ecco una buona garanzia»,
Gridò Alfredo, «per la mia spada;
Ché chi è battuto da cattivo servo [250]
Dev’essere un signore benigno.
«Chi è stato servo
Sa più di preti e di re,
Ma chi è stato un cattivo servo,
Sa tutte le cose terrene. [255]
«L’Orgoglio scaglia fragili palazzi al cielo,
Come un uomo getta in aria sabbia,
Ma i fermi piedi dell’umiltà
Fanno presa sulla terra greve.
«L’Orgoglio gioca con le sue torri vacillanti, [260]
Toccano il sole e cessano,
Ma i fermi piedi dell’umiltà
Afferrano il suolo come alberi.
«Chi ha fallito in una piccola cosa
Porta un segno sulla fronte; [265]
E i Conti della Grande Armata
Non hanno un tale sigillo da mostrare.
«L’impronta rossa sulla mia fronte,
Piccola fiamma per una stella rossa,
All’avanguardia della marcia violenta, allora [270]
Quando il cielo è squarciato dalle dieci trombe,
E le mani degli uomini felici e urlanti
Spalancano le porte della guerra.
«Questo colpo che non rendo
Dieci volte lo renderò [275]
Su re e conti d’ogni grado,
E armate vaste come imperi
Scivoleranno come frane verso il mare
Se la stella rossa arde.
«Un uomo ne scaccerà cento, [280]
Come scacciavano i re morti;
Davanti a me schiere vacillanti saranno squarciate,
E coorti d’assalto respinte all’indietro,
Ché io sono il primo re noto al cielo
Che sia stato colpito come uno schiavo. [285]
«Su per la vecchia strada bianca, fratelli,
Su per le mura romane!
Ché questa è la notte in cui si sguainano le spade,
E la torre dipinta delle orde pagane
Pende verso i nostri martelli, fuochi e corde, [290]
Pende un poco, e cade.
«Seguite la stella che vive e balza,
Seguite la spada che canta,
Ché andiamo a mietere uomini pagani,
Un raccolto terribile, dieci a dieci, [295]
Come l’ira dell’ultimo rosso autunno—allora
Quando Cristo falcerà i re.
«Seguite una luce che balza e gira,
Seguite il fuoco spiegato!
Ché si leva contro regno e scettro, [300]
Una cosa dimenticata, una cosa calpestata,
L’ultimo gigante perduto, Dio stesso,
È risorto contro il mondo».
Ruggendo passarono il muro romano,
E ruggendo su per il sentiero, [305]
Le torce agitate, una scala di fuoco,
Più alto s’udiva il loro inno, e più alto,
Più dolce per l’odio e per il desiderio del cuore,
E su fra gli sterpi e i rovi del nord
Piombarono sul Danese. [310]

BOOK V
ETHANDUNE: THE FIRST
STROKE

ING GUTHRUM was a dread king,
Like death out of the north;
Shrines without name or number
He rent and rolled as lumber,
From Chester to the Humber [5]
He drove his foemen forth.
The Roman villas heard him
In the valley of the Thames,
Come over the hills roaring
Above their roofs, and pouring [10]
On spire and stair and flooring
Brimstone and pitch and flames.
Sheer o’er the great chalk uplands
And the hill of the Horse went he,
Till high on Hampshire beacons [15]
He saw the southern sea.
High on the heights of Wessex
He saw the southern brine,
And turned him to a conquered land,
And where the northern thornwoods stand, [20]
And the road parts on either hand,
There came to him a sign.
King Guthrum was a war-chief,
A wise man in the field,
And though he prospered well, and knew [25]
How Alfred’s folk were sad and few.
Not less with weighty care he drew
Long lines for pike and shield.
King Guthrum lay on the upper land,
On a single road at gaze, [30]
And his foe must come with lean array,
Up the left arm of the cloven way,
To the meeting of the ways.
And long ere the noise of armour,
An hour ere the break of light, [35]
The woods awoke with crash and cry,
And the birds sprang clamouring harsh and high,
And the rabbits ran like an elves’ army
Ere Alfred came in sight.
The live wood came at Guthrum, [40]
On foot and claw and wing,
The nests were noisy overhead,
For Alfred and the star of red,
All life went forth, and the forest fled
Before the face of the King. [45]
But halted in the woodways
Christ’s few were grim and grey,
And each with a small, far, bird-like sight
Saw the high folly of the fight;
And though strange joys had grown in the night, [50]
Despair grew with the day.
And when white dawn crawled through the wood,
Like cold foam of a flood,
Then weakened every warrior’s mood,
In hope, though not in hardihood; [55]
And each man sorrowed as he stood
In the fashion of his blood.
For the Saxon Franklin sorrowed
For the things that had been fair,
For the dear dead women, crimson-clad, [60]
And the great feasts and the friends he had;
But the Celtic prince’s soul was sad
For the things that never were.
In the eyes Italian all things
But a black laughter died; [65]
And Alfred flung his shield to earth
And smote his breast and cried—
“I wronged a man to his slaying,
And a woman to her shame,
And once I looked on a sworn maid [70]
That was wed to the Holy Name.
“And once I took my neighbour’s wife,
That was bound to an eastland man,
In the starkness of my evil youth,
Before my griefs began. [75]
“People, if you have any prayers,
Say prayers for me:
And lay me under a Christian stone
In that lost land I thought my own,
To wait till the holy horn is blown, [80]
And all poor men are free.”
Then Eldred of the idle farm
Leaned on his ancient sword,
As fell his heavy words and few;
And his eyes were of such alien blue [85]
As gleams where the Northman saileth new
Into an unknown fiord.
“I was a fool and wasted ale—
My slaves found it sweet;
I was a fool and wasted bread, [90]
And the birds had bread to eat.
“The kings go up and the kings go down,
And who knows who shall rule;
Next night a king may starve or sleep,
But men and birds and beasts shall weep [95]
At the burial of a fool.
“O, drunkards in my cellar,
Boys in my apple tree,
The world grows stern and strange and new,
And wise men shall govern you, [100]
And you shall weep for me.
“But yoke me my own oxen,
Down to my own farm;
My own dog will whine for me,
My own friends will bend the knee, [105]
And the foes I slew openly
Have never wished me harm.”
And all were moved a little,
But Colan stood apart,
Having first pity, and after [110]
Hearing, like rat in rafter,
That little worm of laughter
That eats the Irish heart.
And his grey-green eyes were cruel,
And the smile of his mouth waxed hard, [115]
And he said, “And when did Britain
Become your burying-yard?
“Before the Roman lit the land,
When schools and monks were none,
We reared such stones to the sun-god [120]
As might put out the sun.
“The tall trees of Britain
We worshipped and were wise,
But you shall raid the whole land through
And never a tree shall talk to you, [125]
Though every leaf is a tongue taught true
And the forest is full of eyes.
“On one round hill to the seaward
The trees grow tall and grey
And the trees talk together [130]
When all men are away.
“O’er a few round hills forgotten
The trees grow tall in rings,
And the trees talk together
Of many pagan things. [135]
“Yet I could lie and listen
With a cross upon my clay,
And hear unhurt for ever
What the trees of Britain say.”
A proud man was the Roman, [140]
His speech a single one,
But his eyes were like an eagle’s eyes
That is staring at the sun.
“Dig for me where I die,” he said,
“If first or last I fall— [145]
Dead on the fell at the first charge,
Or dead by Wantage wall;
“Lift not my head from bloody ground,
Bear not my body home,
For all the earth is Roman earth [150]
And I shall die in Rome.”
Then Alfred, King of England,
Bade blow the horns of war,
And fling the Golden Dragon out,
With crackle and acclaim and shout, [155]
Scrolled and aflame and far.
And under the Golden Dragon
Went Wessex all along,
Past the sharp point of the cloven ways,
Out from the black wood into the blaze [160]
Of sun and steel and song.
And when they came to the open land
They wheeled, deployed, and stood;
Midmost were Marcus and the King,
And Eldred on the right-hand wing, [165]
And leftwards Colan darkling,
In the last shade of the wood.
But the Earls of the Great Army
Lay like a long half moon,
Ten poles before their palisades, [170]
With wide-winged helms and runic blades
Red giants of an age of raids,
In the thornland of Ethandune.
Midmost the saddles rose and swayed,
And a stir of horses’ manes, [175]
Where Guthrum and a few rode high
On horses seized in victory;
But Ogier went on foot to die,
In the old way of the Danes.
Far to the King’s right Elf the bard [180]
Led on the western wing
With songs and spells that change the blood;
And on the King’s left Harold stood,
The kinsman of the King.
Young Harold, coarse, with colours gay, [185]
Smoking with oil and musk,
And the pleasant violence of the young,
Pushed through his people, giving tongue
Foewards, where, grey as cobwebs hung,
The banners of the Usk. [190]
But as he came before his line
A little space along,
His beardless face broke into mirth,
And he cried: “What broken bits of earth
Are here? For what their clothes are worth [195]
I would sell them for a song.”
For Colan was hung with raiment
Tattered like autumn leaves,
And his men were all as thin as saints,
And all as poor as thieves. [200]
No bows nor slings nor bolts they bore,
But bills and pikes ill-made;
And none but Colan bore a sword,
And rusty was its blade.
And Colan’s eyes with mystery [205]
And iron laughter stirred,
And he spoke aloud, but lightly,
Not labouring to be heard.
“Oh, truly we be broken hearts,
For that cause, it is said, [210]
We light our candles to that Lord
That broke Himself for bread.
“But though we hold but bitterly
What land the Saxon leaves,
Though Ireland be but a land of saints, [215]
And Wales a land of thieves,
“I say you yet shall weary
Of the working of your word,
That stricken spirits never strike,
Nor lean hands hold a sword. [220]
“And if ever ye ride in Ireland,
The jest may yet be said,
There is the land of broken hearts,
And the land of broken heads.”
Not less barbarian laughter [225]
Choked Harold like a flood,
“And shall I fight with scarecrows
That am of Guthrum’s blood?
“Meeting may be of war-men,
Where the best war-man wins; [230]
But all this carrion a man shoots
Before the fight begins.”
And stopping in his onward strides,
He snatched a bow in scorn
From some mean slave, and bent it on [235]
Colan, whose doom grew dark; and shone
Stars evil over Caerleon,
In the place where he was born.
For Colan had not bow nor sling,
On a lonely sword leaned he, [240]
Like Arthur on Excalibur
In the battle by the sea.
To his great gold ear-ring Harold
Tugged back the feathered tail,
And swift had sprung the arrow, [245]
But swifter sprang the Gael.
Whirling the one sword round his head,
A great wheel in the sun,
He sent it splendid through the sky,
Flying before the shaft could fly— [250]
It smote Earl Harold over the eye,
And blood began to run.
Colan stood bare and weaponless,
Earl Harold, as in pain,
Strove for a smile, put hand to head, [255]
Stumbled and suddenly fell dead;
And the small white daisies all waxed red
With blood out of his brain.
And all at that marvel of the sword,
Cast like a stone to slay, [260]
Cried out. Said Alfred: “Who would see
Signs, must give all things. Verily
Man shall not taste of victory
Till he throws his sword away.”
Then Alfred, prince of England, [265]
And all the Christian earls,
Unhooked their swords and held them up,
Each offered to Colan, like a cup
Of chrysolite and pearls.
And the King said, “Do thou take my sword [270]
Who have done this deed of fire,
For this is the manner of Christian men,
Whether of steel or priestly pen,
That they cast their hearts out of their ken
To get their hearts’ desire. [275]
“And whether ye swear a hive of monks,
Or one fair wife to friend,
This is the manner of Christian men,
That their oath endures the end.
“For Love, our Lord, at the end of the world, [280]
Sits a red horse like a throne,
With a brazen helm and an iron bow,
But one arrow alone.
“Love with the shield of the Broken Heart
Ever his bow doth bend, [285]
With a single shaft for a single prize,
And the ultimate bolt that parts and flies
Comes with a thunder of split skies,
And a sound of souls that rend.
“So shall you earn a king’s sword, [290]
Who cast your sword away.”
And the King took, with a random eye,
A rude axe from a hind hard by
And turned him to the fray.
For the swords of the Earls of Daneland [295]
Flamed round the fallen lord.
The first blood woke the trumpet-tune,
As in monk’s rhyme or wizard’s rune
Beginneth the Battle of Ethandune
With the throwing of the sword. [300]

LIBRO V
ETHANDUNE: IL PRIMO
COLPO

RE GUTHRUM era un re tremendo,
come morte venuta dal nord;
santuari senza nome né numero
squarciò e rotolò come legname,
da Chester fino allo Humber [5]
cacciò innanzi a sé i nemici.
Le ville romane l’udirono
nella valle del Tamigi,
venire oltre i colli ruggendo
sopra i loro tetti, e versando [10]
su guglia e scala e impiantito
zolfo e pece e fiamme.
Dritto sui grandi altipiani di gesso
e sul colle del Cavallo passò,
finché alto sui fari dello Hampshire [15]
vide il mare del sud.
Alto sulle alture del Wessex
vide la salsedine del sud,
e si volse a una terra conquistata,
e dove stanno i roveti del nord, [20]
e la strada si parte da due lati,
là gli venne un segno.
Re Guthrum era un capo di guerra,
un uomo saggio sul campo,
e benché prosperasse bene, e sapesse [25]
quanto tristi e pochi fossero gli uomini di Alfredo,
non di meno con grave cura tracciò
lunghe linee per picca e scudo.
Re Guthrum stava sull’alta terra,
in guardia su un’unica strada, [30]
e il nemico doveva salire in magre file,
su per il braccio sinistro della via biforcata,
fino all’incontro delle vie.
E assai prima del fragore delle armi,
un’ora prima che spuntasse la luce, [35]
i boschi si destarono in schianto e grido,
e gli uccelli balzarono stridendo aspri e alti,
e i conigli corsero come un esercito di elfi
prima che Alfredo apparisse.
Il bosco vivo venne su Guthrum, [40]
con piede e artiglio e ala,
i nidi rumoreggiavano in alto,
per Alfredo e la stella rossa
ogni vita uscì, e la foresta fuggì
davanti al volto del Re. [45]
Ma fermi nei sentieri del bosco
i pochi di Cristo erano torvi e grigi,
e ognuno con vista piccola, lontana, d’uccello
vide l’alta follia della battaglia;
e benché strane gioie fossero cresciute nella notte, [50]
la disperazione crebbe col giorno.
E quando la bianca alba strisciò per il bosco,
come fredda schiuma di piena,
allora s’indebolì l’animo d’ogni guerriero,
nella speranza, non però nell’ardire; [55]
e ogni uomo si dolse, così come stava,
secondo il modo del suo sangue.
Ché il franklin sassone si doleva
per le cose che erano state belle,
per le care donne morte, vestite di cremisi, [60]
e le gran feste e gli amici che aveva;
ma l’anima del principe celtico era triste
per le cose che non furono mai.
Negli occhi italiani ogni cosa
morì, fuor che un riso nero; [65]
e Alfredo gettò a terra lo scudo
e si percosse il petto e gridò—
«Feci torto a un uomo fino a ucciderlo,
e a una donna fino alla vergogna,
e una volta posai gli occhi su una vergine giurata [70]
ch’era sposa del santo Nome.
«E una volta presi la moglie del vicino,
legata a un uomo d’oriente,
nella crudezza della mia giovinezza malvagia,
prima che i miei dolori cominciassero. [75]
«Gente, se avete preghiere,
dite preghiere per me:
e deponetemi sotto una pietra cristiana
in quella terra perduta che credevo mia,
ad attendere che suoni il corno santo, [80]
e tutti i poveri siano liberi.»
Allora Eldred della fattoria oziosa
si appoggiò alla sua antica spada,
mentre cadevano le sue parole gravi e poche;
e i suoi occhi erano d’un azzurro così straniero [85]
quale brilla dove l’uomo del Nord veleggia nuovo
in un fiordo sconosciuto.
«Fui uno stolto e sprecai la birra—
i miei servi la trovarono dolce;
fui uno stolto e sprecai il pane, [90]
e gli uccelli ebbero pane da mangiare.
«I re salgono e i re scendono,
e chi sa chi regnerà;
la prossima notte un re può patir fame o dormire,
ma uomini e uccelli e bestie piangeranno [95]
al funerale d’uno stolto.
«O ubriaconi nella mia cantina,
ragazzi sul mio melo,
il mondo si fa severo e strano e nuovo,
e uomini saggi vi governeranno, [100]
e voi piangerete per me.
«Ma aggiogatemi i miei buoi,
giù verso la mia fattoria;
il mio cane guairà per me,
i miei amici piegheranno il ginocchio, [105]
e i nemici che uccisi apertamente
non mi hanno mai voluto male.»
E tutti si commossero un poco,
ma Colan stava in disparte,
provando dapprima pietà, e poi [110]
udendo, come topo fra le travi,
quel piccolo verme di riso
che rode il cuore irlandese.
E i suoi occhi grigioverdi erano crudeli,
e il sorriso della sua bocca si fece duro, [115]
e disse: «E quando mai la Britannia
è divenuta il vostro camposanto?
«Prima che il Romano accendesse la terra,
quando non v’erano scuole né monaci,
alzammo al dio-sole pietre tali [120]
da poter spegnere il sole.
«Gli alti alberi di Britannia
adorammo, e fummo saggi,
ma voi razzierete tutta la terra
e mai un albero vi parlerà, [125]
benché ogni foglia sia lingua ammaestrata al vero
e la foresta sia piena d’occhi.
«Su un tondo colle verso il mare
gli alberi crescono alti e grigi
e gli alberi parlano tra loro [130]
quando tutti gli uomini sono lontani.
«Su pochi tondi colli dimenticati
gli alberi crescono alti in cerchi,
e gli alberi parlano tra loro
di molte cose pagane. [135]
«Eppure potrei giacere e ascoltare
con una croce sopra la mia creta,
e udire illeso per sempre
ciò che dicono gli alberi di Britannia.»
Un uomo fiero era il Romano, [140]
il suo discorso uno solo,
ma i suoi occhi erano come occhi d’aquila
che sta fissando il sole.
«Scavate per me dove morrò», disse,
«ch’io cada per primo o per ultimo— [145]
morto sul colle alla prima carica,
o morto sotto il muro di Wantage;
«non levate il mio capo dal suolo insanguinato,
non portate il mio corpo a casa,
ché tutta la terra è terra romana [150]
e io morirò a Roma.»
Allora Alfredo, Re d’Inghilterra,
fece suonare i corni di guerra,
e gettare al vento il Drago d’Oro,
tra crepitio e acclamazione e grido, [155]
a volute, fiammeggiante e lontano.
E sotto il Drago d’Oro
andò il Wessex tutto intero,
oltre la punta acuta delle vie biforcate,
fuori dal bosco nero dentro la vampa [160]
di sole e acciaio e canto.
E quando giunsero al campo aperto
ruotarono, si schierarono, e stettero;
nel mezzo erano Marco e il Re,
ed Eldred sull’ala destra, [165]
e a sinistra Colan, fosco,
nell’ultima ombra del bosco.
Ma i Conti della Grande Armata
giacevano come una lunga mezza luna,
dieci pertiche innanzi alle palizzate, [170]
con elmi dalle ampie ali e lame runiche,
rossi giganti d’un’età di razzie,
nella terra di rovi di Ethandune.
Nel mezzo le selle si levavano e ondeggiavano,
e un fremito di criniere, [175]
dove Guthrum e pochi cavalcavano alti
su cavalli presi in vittoria;
ma Ogier andò a piedi a morire,
alla vecchia maniera dei Danesi.
Lontano alla destra del Re Elf il bardo [180]
guidava l’ala d’occidente
con canti e incanti che mutano il sangue;
e alla sinistra del Re stava Harold,
il congiunto del Re.
Il giovane Harold, rozzo, dai colori gai, [185]
fumante d’olio e di muschio,
e con la piacevole violenza dei giovani,
si spinse tra la sua gente, levando la voce
verso il nemico, dove, grigi come ragnatele, pendevano
gli stendardi dell’Usk. [190]
Ma come venne davanti alla sua linea
per un piccolo tratto,
il viso imberbe gli si aprì al riso,
e gridò: «Che rotti pezzi di terra
son questi? Per quel che valgono i panni [195]
li venderei per una canzone.»
Ché Colan era vestito di panni
laceri come foglie d’autunno,
e i suoi uomini eran tutti magri come santi,
e tutti poveri come ladri. [200]
Non portavano archi né fionde né quadrelli,
ma roncole e picche mal fatte;
e nessuno fuorché Colan portava una spada,
e arrugginita era la sua lama.
E gli occhi di Colan di mistero [205]
e di ferreo riso fremettero,
e parlò ad alta voce, ma lieve,
senza sforzarsi d’esser udito.
«Oh, davvero siamo cuori spezzati,
per questa causa, si dice, [210]
accendiamo le nostre candele a quel Signore
che spezzò Se stesso per farsi pane.
«Ma benché teniamo solo amaramente
la terra che il Sassone lascia,
benché l’Irlanda non sia che terra di santi, [215]
e il Galles terra di ladri,
«io dico che ancora vi stancherete
dell’opera della vostra parola,
ché spiriti percossi non percuotono mai,
né magre mani reggono una spada. [220]
«E se mai cavalcherete in Irlanda,
il motto si potrà ancora dire:
quella è la terra dei cuori spezzati,
e la terra delle teste spezzate.»
Non minore un riso barbaro [225]
soffocò Harold come una piena:
«E dovrò battermi con spaventapasseri,
io che sono del sangue di Guthrum?
«Incontro può esservi tra uomini di guerra,
dove il miglior guerriero vince; [230]
ma tutta questa carogna la si saetta
prima che la battaglia cominci.»
E arrestando i suoi passi in avanti,
strappò con disprezzo un arco
a un vile schiavo, e lo tese su [235]
Colan, il cui destino s’oscurò; e brillarono
stelle maligne sopra Caerleon,
nel luogo dove era nato.
Ché Colan non aveva arco né fionda,
su una spada solitaria si appoggiava, [240]
come Artù su Excalibur
nella battaglia in riva al mare.
Fino al suo grande orecchino d’oro Harold
trasse indietro la coda impennata,
e rapida sarebbe scattata la freccia, [245]
ma più rapido scattò il Gaelico.
Roteando l’unica spada sopra il capo,
grande ruota nel sole,
la mandò splendida per il cielo,
in volo prima che il dardo potesse volare— [250]
colpì il conte Harold sopra l’occhio,
e il sangue cominciò a scorrere.
Colan stava nudo e senz’armi,
il conte Harold, come in pena,
tentò un sorriso, portò la mano al capo, [255]
vacillò e d’improvviso cadde morto;
e le piccole margherite bianche si fecero tutte rosse
del sangue uscito dal suo cervello.
E tutti, a quel prodigio della spada,
scagliata come pietra per uccidere, [260]
gridarono. Disse Alfredo: «Chi vuol vedere
segni, deve dare ogni cosa. In verità
l’uomo non gusterà vittoria
finché non getti via la sua spada.»
Allora Alfredo, principe d’Inghilterra, [265]
e tutti i conti cristiani,
sganciarono le spade e le levarono in alto,
ciascuna offerta a Colan, come una coppa
di crisolito e di perle.
E il Re disse: «Prendi tu la mia spada [270]
tu che hai compiuto quest’atto di fuoco,
ché questo è il costume degli uomini cristiani,
siano essi d’acciaio o di penna sacerdotale:
gettano i loro cuori fuori dal loro sguardo
per avere il desiderio del loro cuore. [275]
«E che giuriate un alveare di monaci,
o una sola bella sposa ad amica,
questo è il costume degli uomini cristiani:
il loro giuramento regge fino alla fine.
«Ché l’Amore, nostro Signore, alla fine del mondo, [280]
siede un rosso cavallo come un trono,
con elmo di bronzo e arco di ferro,
ma una freccia soltanto.
«L’Amore con lo scudo del Cuore Spezzato
sempre tende il suo arco, [285]
con un solo dardo per un solo premio,
e l’ultimo strale che parte e vola
viene con un tuono di cieli squarciati,
e un suono d’anime che si lacerano.
«Così guadagnerai la spada d’un re, [290]
tu che la tua spada hai gettato via.»
E il Re prese, con occhio distratto,
una rozza ascia da un contadino lì presso
e si volse alla mischia.
Ché le spade dei Conti di Daneland [295]
fiammeggiarono intorno al signore caduto.
Il primo sangue destò il canto delle trombe,
come in rima di monaco o runa di mago
comincia la Battaglia di Ethandune
col lancio della spada. [300]

BOOK VI
ETHANDUNE: THE SLAYING
OF THE CHIEFS

S the sea flooding the flat sands
Flew on the sea-born horde,
The two hosts shocked with dust and din,
Left of the Latian paladin,
Clanged all Prince Harold’s howling kin [5]
On Colan and the sword.
Crashed in the midst on Marcus,
Ogier with Guthrum by,
And westward of such central stir,
Far to the right and faintlier, [10]
The house of Elf the harp-player,
Struck Eldred’s with a cry.
The centre swat for weariness,
Stemming the screaming horde,
And wearily went Colan’s hands [15]
That swung King Alfred’s sword.
But like a cloud of evening
To westward easily,
Tall Eldred broke the sea of spears
As a tall ship breaks the sea. [20]
His face like a sanguine sunset,
His shoulder a Wessex down,
His hand like a windy hammer-stroke;
Men could not count the crests he broke,
So fast the crests went down. [25]
As the tall white devil of the Plague,
Moves out of Asian skies,
With his foot on a waste of cities
And his head in a cloud of flies;
Or purple and peacock skies grow dark [30]
With a moving locust-tower;
Or tawny sand-winds tall and dry,
Like hell’s red banners beat and fly,
When death comes out of Araby,
Was Eldred in his hour. [35]
But while he moved like a massacre
He murmured as in sleep,
And his words were all of low hedges
And little fields and sheep.
Even as he strode like a pestilence, [40]
That strides from Rhine to Rome,
He thought how tall his beans might be
If ever he went home.
Spoke some stiff piece of childish prayer,
Dull as the distant chimes, [45]
That thanked our God for good eating
And corn and quiet times—
Till on the helm of a high chief
Fell shatteringly his brand,
And the helm broke and the bone broke [50]
And the sword broke in his hand.
Then from the yelling Northmen
Driven splintering on him ran
Full seven spears, and the seventh [55]
Was never made by man.
Seven spears, and the seventh
Was wrought as the faerie blades,
And given to Elf the minstrel
By the monstrous water-maids;
By them that dwell where luridly [60]
Lost waters of the Rhine
Move among roots of nations,
Being sunken for a sign.
Under all graves they murmur,
They murmur and rebel, [65]
Down to the buried kingdoms creep,
And like a lost rain roar and weep
O’er the red heavens of hell.
Thrice drowned was Elf the minstrel,
And washed as dead on sand; [70]
And the third time men found him
The spear was in his hand.
Seven spears went about Eldred,
Like stays about a mast;
But there was sorrow by the sea [75]
For the driving of the last.
Six spears thrust upon Eldred
Were splintered while he laughed;
One spear thrust into Eldred,
Three feet of blade and shaft. [80]
And from the great heart grievously
Came forth the shaft and blade,
And he stood with the face of a dead man,
Stood a little, and swayed—
Then fell, as falls a battle-tower, [85]
On smashed and struggling spears,
Cast down from some unconquered town
That, rushing earthward, carries down
Loads of live men of all renown—
Archers and engineers. [90]
And a great clamour of Christian men
Went up in agony,
Crying, “Fallen is the tower of Wessex
That stood beside the sea.”
Centre and right the Wessex guard [95]
Grew pale for doubt and fear,
And the flank failed at the advance,
For the death-light on the wizard lance—
The star of the evil spear.
“Stand like an oak,” cried Marcus, [100]
“Stand like a Roman wall!
Eldred the Good is fallen—
Are you too good to fall?
“When we were wan and bloodless
He gave you ale enow; [105]
The pirates deal with him as dung,
God! are you bloodless now?”
“Grip, Wulf and Gorlias, grip the ash!
Slaves, and I make you free!
Stamp, Hildred hard on English land, no
Stand Gurth, stand Gorlias, Gawen stand!
Hold, Halfgar, with the other hand,
Halmer, hold up on knee!
“The lamps are dying in your homes,
The fruits upon your bough; us
Even now your old thatch smoulders, Gurth,
Now is the judgment of the earth,
Now is the death-grip, now!”
For thunder of the captain,
Not less the Wessex line, [120]
Leaned back and reeled a space to rear
As Elf charged with the Rhine maids’ spear,
And roaring like the Rhine.
For the men were borne by the waving walls
Of woods and clouds that pass, [125]
By dizzy plain and drifting sea,
And they mixed God with glamoury,
God with the gods of the burning tree
And the wizard’s tower and glass.
But Mark was come of the glittering towns [130]
Where hot white details show,
Where man can number and expound,
And his faith grew in a hard ground
Of doubt and reason and falsehood found,
Where no faith else could grow. [135]
Belief that grew of all beliefs
One moment back was blown
And belief that stood on unbelief
Stood up iron and alone.
The Wessex crescent backwards [140]
Crushed, as with bloody spear
Went Elf roaring and routing,
And Mark against Elf yet shouting,
Shocked, in his mid-career.
Right on the Roman shield and sword [145]
Did spear of the Rhine maids run;
But the shield shifted never,
The sword rang down to sever,
The great Rhine sang for ever,
And the songs of Elf were done. [150]
And a great thunder of Christian men
Went up against the sky,
Saying, “God hath broken the evil spear
Ere the good man’s blood was dry.”
“Spears at the charge!” yelled Mark amain, [155]
“Death on the gods of death!
Over the thrones of doom and blood
Goeth God that is a craftsman good,
And gold and iron, earth and wood,
Loveth and laboureth. [160]
“The fruits leap up in all your farms,
The lamps in each abode;
God of all good things done on earth
All wheels or webs of any worth,
The God that makes the roof, Gurth, [165]
The God that makes the road.
“The God that heweth kings in oak
Writeth songs on vellum,
God of gold and flaming glass,
Confregit potentias, [170]
Arcuum, scutum, Gorlias,
Gladium et bellum.”
Steel and lightning broke about him,
Battle-bays and palm,
All the sea-kings swayed among [175]
Woods of the Wessex arms upflung,
The trumpet of the Roman tongue,
The thunder of the psalm.
And midmost of that rolling field
Ran Ogier ragingly, [180]
Lashing at Mark, who turned his blow,
And brake the helm about his brow,
And broke him to his knee.
Then Ogier heaved over his head
His huge round shield of proof; [185]
But Mark set one foot on the shield,
One on some sundered rock upheeled,
And towered above the tossing field,
A statue on a roof.
Dealing far blows about the fight, [190]
Like thunder-bolts a-roam,
Like birds about the battle-field,
While Ogier writhed under his shield
Like a tortoise in his dome.
But hate in the buried Ogier [195]
Was strong as pain in hell,
With bare brute hand from the inside
He burst the shield of brass and hide,
And a death-stroke to the Roman’s side
Sent suddenly and well. [200]
Then the great statue on the shield
Looked his last look around
With level and imperial eye;
And Mark, the man from Italy,
Fell in the sea of agony, [205]
And died without a sound.
And Ogier, leaping up alive,
Hurled his huge shield away
Flying, as when a juggler flings
A whizzing plate in play. [210]
And held two arms up rigidly,
And roared to all the Danes:
“Fallen is Rome, yea, fallen
The city of the plains!
“Shall no man born remember, [215]
That breaketh wood or weald,
How long she stood on the roof of the world
As he stood on my shield.
“The new wild world forgetteth her
As foam fades on the sea, [220]
How long she stood with her foot on Man
As he with his foot on me.
“No more shall the brown men of the south
Move like the ants in lines,
To quiet men with olives [225]
Or madden men with vines.
“No more shall the white towns of the south,
Where Tiber and Nilus run,
Sitting around a secret sea
Worship a secret sun. [230]
“The blind gods roar for Rome fallen,
And forum and garland gone,
For the ice of the north is broken,
And the sea of the north comes on.
“The blind gods roar and rave and dream [235]
Of all cities under the sea,
For the heart of the north is broken,
And the blood of the north is free.
“Down from the dome of the world we come,
Rivers on rivers down, [240]
Under us swirl the sects and hordes
And the high dooms we drown.
“Down from the dome of the world and down,
Struck flying as a skiff
On a river in spate is spun and swirled [245]
Until we come to the end of the world
That breaks short, like a cliff.
“And when we come to the end of the world
For me, I count it fit
To take the leap like a good river, [250]
Shot shrieking over it.
“But whatso hap at the end of the world,
Where Nothing is struck and sounds,
It is not, by Thor, these monkish men
These humbled Wessex hounds— [255]
“Not this pale line of Christian hinds,
This one white string of men,
Shall keep us back from the end of the world,
And the things that happen then.
“It is not Alfred’s dwarfish sword, [260]
Nor Egbert’s pigmy crown,
Shall stay us now that descend in thunder,
Rending the realms and the realms thereunder,
Down through the world and down.”
There was that in the wild men back of him, [265]
There was that in his own wild song,
A dizzy throbbing, a drunkard smoke,
That dazed to death all Wessex folk,
And swept their spears along.
Vainly the sword of Colan [270]
And the axe of Alfred plied—
The Danes poured in like a brainless plague,
And knew not when they died.
Prince Colan slew a score of them,
And was stricken to his knee; [275]
King Alfred slew a score and seven
And was borne back on a tree.
Back to the black gate of the woods,
Back up the single way,
Back by the place of the parting ways [280]
Christ’s knights were whirled away.
And when they came to the parting ways
Doom’s heaviest hammer fell,
For the King was beaten, blind, at bay,
Down the right lane with his array, [285]
But Colan swept the other way,
Where he smote great strokes and fell.
The thorn-woods over Ethandune
Stand sharp and thick as spears,
By night and furze and forest-harms [290]
Far sundered were the friends in arms;
The loud lost blows, the last alarms,
Came not to Alfred’s ears.
The thorn-woods over Ethandune
Stand stiff as spikes in mail; [295]
As to the Haut King came at morn
Dead Roland on a doubtful horn,
Seemed unto Alfred lightly borne
The last cry of the Gael.

LIBRO VI
ETHANDUNE: L’UCCISIONE
DEI CAPI

Come il mare che inonda le piatte sabbie
volò l’orda nata dal mare,
i due eserciti cozzarono con polvere e fragore,
a sinistra del paladino laziale,
rimbombò tutta l’ululante stirpe del principe Harold [5]
su Colan e sulla spada.
Nel mezzo si abbatté su Marcus,
Ogier con Guthrum accanto,
e a ovest di quel tumulto centrale,
lontano a destra e più fioca, [10]
la casa di Elf l’arpista
investì con un grido quella di Eldred.
Il centro sudava di stanchezza,
arginando l’orda urlante,
e stanche andavano le mani di Colan [15]
che roteavano la spada di re Alfredo.
Ma come una nube della sera
verso ponente, senza sforzo,
l’alto Eldred rompeva il mare di lance
come un’alta nave rompe il mare. [20]
Il volto come un tramonto sanguigno,
la spalla una collina del Wessex,
la mano come colpo di maglio nel vento;
nessuno poteva contare i cimieri che spezzava,
tanto in fretta i cimieri cadevano. [25]
Come l’alto demone bianco della Peste
avanza dai cieli d’Asia,
col piede su un deserto di città
e il capo in una nube di mosche;
o come cieli di porpora e pavone si fanno scuri [30]
per una torre di locuste in cammino;
o come i fulvi venti di sabbia, alti e aridi,
battono e volano come rosse bandiere d’inferno,
quando la morte esce d’Arabia,
tale era Eldred nella sua ora. [35]
Ma mentre avanzava come un massacro
mormorava come nel sonno,
e le sue parole eran tutte di basse siepi
e di piccoli campi e di pecore.
Pur mentre incedeva come una pestilenza [40]
che marcia dal Reno a Roma,
pensava a quanto alte sarebbero cresciute le sue fave
se mai fosse tornato a casa.
Diceva qualche rigida preghiera infantile,
spenta come campane lontane, [45]
che ringraziava il nostro Dio del buon mangiare
e del grano e dei tempi quieti—
finché sull’elmo di un alto capo
cadde fracassando la sua lama,
e l’elmo si ruppe e l’osso si ruppe [50]
e la spada gli si ruppe in mano.
Allora dai Normanni urlanti
corsero scheggiando su di lui, sospinte,
ben sette lance, e la settima [55]
non fu mai fatta da uomo.
Sette lance, e la settima
era forgiata come le lame fatate,
e donata a Elf il menestrello
dalle mostruose fanciulle dell’acqua;
da quelle che dimorano dove livide [60]
le acque perdute del Reno
scorrono fra le radici delle nazioni,
affondate in segno di presagio.
Sotto tutte le tombe mormorano,
mormorano e si ribellano, [65]
strisciano giù verso i regni sepolti,
e come pioggia perduta ruggono e piangono
sui rossi cieli dell’inferno.
Tre volte annegò Elf il menestrello,
e fu gettato come morto sulla sabbia; [70]
e la terza volta che lo trovarono
la lancia era nella sua mano.
Sette lance cinsero Eldred,
come sartie attorno a un albero;
ma vi fu dolore in riva al mare [75]
per la spinta dell’ultima.
Sei lance vibrate su Eldred
si scheggiarono mentre rideva;
una lancia si infisse in Eldred,
tre piedi di lama e d’asta. [80]
E dal gran cuore dolorosamente
uscirono l’asta e la lama,
ed egli stette col volto di un morto,
stette un poco, e vacillò—
poi cadde, come cade una torre di guerra [85]
su lance infrante e brulicanti,
abbattuta da qualche città invitta
che, precipitando a terra, trascina giù
carichi di uomini vivi d’ogni fama—
arcieri e ingegneri. [90]
E un gran clamore di uomini cristiani
salì in agonia,
gridando: «Caduta è la torre del Wessex
che stava accanto al mare».
Al centro e a destra la guardia del Wessex [95]
impallidì di dubbio e paura,
e il fianco cedette all’avanzata,
per la luce di morte sulla lancia stregata—
la stella della lancia malvagia.
«Sta’ come una quercia», gridò Marcus, [100]
«sta’ come un muro romano!
Eldred il Buono è caduto—
siete voi troppo buoni per cadere?
Quando eravamo pallidi ed esangui
lui vi diede birra in abbondanza; [105]
i pirati lo trattano come letame,
Dio! siete voi esangui adesso?
Stringete, Wulf e Gorlias, stringete il frassino!
Schiavi, e io vi faccio liberi!
Pesta, Hildred, forte sulla terra inglese, no
sta’ saldo Gurth, saldo Gorlias, e tu Gawen!
Tieni, Halfgar, con l’altra mano,
Halmer, reggiti sul ginocchio!
Le lampade muoiono nelle vostre case,
i frutti sul vostro ramo; us
già ora il tuo vecchio tetto fuma, Gurth,
ora è il giudizio della terra,
ora è la stretta di morte, ora!»
Per il tuono del capitano,
non meno la linea del Wessex, [120]
piegò indietro e barcollò per un tratto
quando Elf caricò con la lancia delle fanciulle del Reno,
ruggendo come il Reno.
Perché gli uomini erano portati dai muri ondeggianti
di boschi e di nubi che passano, [125]
da piana vertiginosa e mare alla deriva,
e mescolavano Dio con l’incantesimo,
Dio con gli dèi dell’albero in fiamme
e della torre del mago e del cristallo.
Ma Mark veniva dalle città scintillanti [130]
dove i dettagli splendono caldi e bianchi,
dove l’uomo sa contare ed esporre,
e la sua fede crebbe in un duro terreno
di dubbio e ragione e menzogna smascherata,
dove nessun’altra fede poteva crescere. [135]
La credenza cresciuta da tutte le credenze
un attimo prima fu spazzata via
e la credenza che stava sull’incredulità
si levò, di ferro e sola.
La mezzaluna del Wessex all’indietro [140]
fu schiacciata, mentre con lancia insanguinata
Elf andava ruggendo e sbaragliando,
e Mark contro Elf, ancora gridando,
cozzò, in piena corsa.
Dritta sullo scudo romano e sulla spada [145]
corse la lancia delle fanciulle del Reno;
ma lo scudo non vacillò mai,
la spada calò a recidere,
il gran Reno cantò per sempre,
e i canti di Elf furono finiti. [150]
E un gran tuono di uomini cristiani
salì contro il cielo,
dicendo: «Dio ha spezzato la lancia malvagia
prima che asciugasse il sangue del giusto».
«Lance alla carica!» urlò Mark con forza, [155]
«Morte agli dèi della morte!
Sopra i troni del fato e del sangue
va Dio che è buon artigiano,
e oro e ferro, terra e legno,
ama e lavora. [160]
I frutti balzano su in tutte le vostre fattorie,
le lampade in ogni dimora;
Dio di ogni buona cosa fatta in terra,
di ogni ruota o tela che valga,
il Dio che fa il tetto, Gurth, [165]
il Dio che fa la strada.
Il Dio che intaglia re nella quercia
scrive canti su pergamena,
Dio dell’oro e del vetro fiammante,
Confregit potentias, [170]
Arcuum, scutum, Gorlias,
Gladium et bellum».
Acciaio e folgore gli si ruppero attorno,
allori di battaglia e palma,
tutti i re del mare ondeggiarono fra [175]
selve di braccia del Wessex levate in alto,
la tromba della lingua romana,
il tuono del salmo.
E nel mezzo di quel campo ondeggiante
corse Ogier furibondo, [180]
sferzando Mark, che ne deviò il colpo,
e gli spezzò l’elmo sulla fronte,
e lo abbatté in ginocchio.
Allora Ogier sollevò sopra il capo
l’immane scudo tondo a tutta prova; [185]
ma Mark pose un piede sullo scudo,
uno su una roccia divelta e rovesciata,
e torreggiò sopra il campo in tumulto,
statua sopra un tetto.
Menando lontano colpi sulla mischia, [190]
come folgori vaganti,
come uccelli sopra il campo di battaglia,
mentre Ogier si torceva sotto lo scudo
come testuggine nel suo guscio.
Ma l’odio nell’Ogier sepolto [195]
era forte come la pena nell’inferno,
con la nuda mano brutale da dentro
spezzò lo scudo di bronzo e di cuoio,
e un colpo di morte al fianco del Romano
vibrò d’improvviso e bene. [200]
Allora la grande statua sullo scudo
gettò intorno l’ultimo sguardo
con occhio fermo e imperiale;
e Mark, l’uomo d’Italia,
cadde nel mare dell’agonia, [205]
e morì senza un suono.
E Ogier, balzando su vivo,
scagliò via l’enorme scudo
in volo, come quando un giocoliere lancia
un piatto sibilante nel gioco. [210]
E levò rigide le due braccia,
e ruggì a tutti i Danesi:
«Caduta è Roma, sì, caduta
la città delle pianure!
Nessun uomo nato ricorderà, [215]
fra quanti spaccano bosco o brughiera,
quanto a lungo stette lei sul tetto del mondo
come lui stette sul mio scudo.
Il nuovo mondo selvaggio la dimentica
come svanisce la schiuma sul mare, [220]
quanto a lungo stette col piede sull’Uomo
come lui col piede su di me.
Mai più gli uomini bruni del sud
si muoveranno come formiche in file,
a quietare gli uomini con gli ulivi [225]
o a infiammarli con le viti.
Mai più le bianche città del sud,
dove scorrono Tevere e Nilo,
sedute attorno a un mare segreto
adoreranno un sole segreto. [230]
Gli dèi ciechi ruggiscono per Roma caduta,
per il foro e la ghirlanda perduti,
perché il ghiaccio del nord è rotto,
e il mare del nord avanza.
Gli dèi ciechi ruggiscono e delirano e sognano [235]
tutte le città sotto il mare,
perché il cuore del nord è rotto,
e il sangue del nord è libero.
Giù dalla cupola del mondo veniamo,
fiumi sopra fiumi in giù, [240]
sotto di noi turbinano sette e orde
e gli alti fati noi anneghiamo.
Giù dalla cupola del mondo e giù,
scagliati in volo come una barca
che su un fiume in piena gira e turbina [245]
finché giungiamo alla fine del mondo
che si tronca netta, come una rupe.
E quando verremo alla fine del mondo,
per me, lo stimo degno
spiccare il salto come un buon fiume, [250]
scagliato urlando oltre l’orlo.
Ma qualunque cosa accada alla fine del mondo,
dove il Nulla è percosso e risuona,
non saranno, per Thor, questi uomini da monaci,
questi umiliati cani del Wessex— [255]
non questa pallida fila di villani cristiani,
questa sola bianca corda di uomini,
a tenerci lontani dalla fine del mondo,
e dalle cose che accadono allora.
Non è la spada nana di Alfredo, [260]
né la corona pigmea di Egbert,
che ci fermerà, ora che scendiamo nel tuono,
squarciando i regni e i regni sottostanti,
giù attraverso il mondo e giù».
C’era qualcosa nei selvaggi alle sue spalle, [265]
c’era qualcosa nel suo stesso selvaggio canto,
un pulsare vertiginoso, un fumo da ubriachi,
che stordiva a morte tutta la gente del Wessex,
e ne travolgeva le lance.
Invano la spada di Colan [270]
e la scure di Alfredo si adoprarono—
i Danesi dilagavano come peste senza cervello,
e non sapevano quando morivano.
Il principe Colan ne uccise una ventina,
e fu abbattuto in ginocchio; [275]
re Alfredo ne uccise ventisette
e fu respinto contro un albero.
Indietro fino alla nera porta dei boschi,
indietro su per l’unico sentiero,
indietro fino al luogo delle vie divise [280]
i cavalieri di Cristo furono travolti via.
E quando giunsero alle vie divise
cadde il più greve martello del destino,
ché il re fu battuto, cieco, alle strette,
giù per la via di destra con la sua schiera, [285]
ma Colan fu spazzato dall’altra parte,
dove menò gran colpi e cadde.
I boschi di spine sopra Ethandune
stanno acuti e fitti come lance,
da notte e ginestre e insidie di foresta [290]
furono divisi lontano i compagni d’armi;
i forti colpi perduti, gli ultimi allarmi,
non giunsero alle orecchie di Alfredo.
I boschi di spine sopra Ethandune
stanno rigidi come punte di maglia; [295]
come all’Alto Re giunse al mattino
il morto Orlando su un corno incerto,
parve ad Alfredo lieve recato
l’ultimo grido del Gaelo.

BOOK VII
ETHANDUNE: THE LAST CHARGE

WAY in the waste of White Horse Down
An idle child alone
Played some small game through hours that pass,
And patiently would pluck the grass,
Patiently push the stone. [5]
On the lean, green edge for ever,
Where the blank chalk touched the turf,
The child played on, alone, divine,
As a child plays on the last line
That sunders sand and surf. [10]
For he dwelleth in high divisions
Too simple to understand,
Seeing on what morn of mystery
The Uncreated rent the sea
With roarings, from the land. [15]
Through the long infant hours like days
He built one tower in vain—
Piled up small stones to make a town,
And evermore the stones fell down,
And he piled them up again. [20]
And crimson kings on battle-towers,
And saints on Gothic spires,
And hermits on their peaks of snow,
And heroes on their pyres,
And patriots riding royally, [25]
That rush the rocking town,
Stretch hands, and hunger and aspire,
Seeking to mount where high and higher,
The child whom Time can never tire,
Sings over White Horse Down. [30]
And this was the might of Alfred,
At the ending of the way;
That of such smiters, wise or wild,
He was least distant from the child,
Piling the stones all day. [35]
For Eldred fought like a frank hunter
That killeth and goeth home;
And Mark had fought because all arms
Rang like the name of Rome.
And Colan fought with a double mind, [40]
Moody and madly gay;
But Alfred fought as gravely
As a good child at play.
He saw wheels break and work run back
And all things as they were; [45]
And his heart was orbed like victory
And simple like despair.
Therefore is Mark forgotten,
That was wise with his tongue and brave;
And the cairn over Colan crumbled, [50]
And the cross on Eldred’s grave.
Their great souls went on a wind away,
And they have not tale or tomb;
And Alfred born in Wantage
Rules England till the doom. [55]
Because in the forest of all fears
Like a strange fresh gust from sea,
Struck him that ancient innocence
That is more than mastery.
And as a child whose bricks fall down [60]
Re-piles them o’er and o’er,
Came ruin and the rain that burns,
Returning as a wheel returns,
And crouching in the furze and ferns
He began his life once more. [65]
He took his ivory horn unslung
And smiled, but not in scorn:
“Endeth the Battle of Ethandune
With the blowing of a horn.”
On a dark horse at the double way [70]
He saw great Guthrum ride,
Heard roar of brass and ring of steel,
The laughter and the trumpet peal,
The pagan in his pride.
And Ogier’s red and hated head [75]
Moved in some talk or task;
But the men seemed scattered in the brier,
And some of them had lit a fire,
And one had broached a cask.
And waggons one or two stood up, [80]
Like tall ships in sight,
As if an outpost were encamped
At the cloven ways for night.
And joyous of the sudden stay
Of Alfred’s routed few, [85]
Sat one upon a stone to sigh,
And some slipped up the road to fly,
Till Alfred in the fern hard by
Set horn to mouth and blew.
And they all abode like statues— [90]
One sitting on the stone,
One half-way through the thorn hedge tall,
One with a leg across a wall,
And one looked backwards, very small,
Far up the road, alone. [95]
Grey twilight and a yellow star
Hung over thorn and hill;
Two spears and a cloven war-shield lay
Loose on the road as cast away,
The horn died faint in the forests grey, [100]
And the fleeing men stood still.
“Brothers at arms,” said Alfred,
“On this side lies the foe;
Are slavery and starvation flowers,
That you should pluck them so? [105]
“For whether is it better
To be prodded with Danish poles,
Having hewn a chamber in a ditch,
And hounded like a howling witch,
Or smoked to death in holes? [110]
“Or that before the red cock crow
All we, a thousand strong,
Go down the dark road to God’s house,
Singing a Wessex song?
“To sweat a slave to a race of slaves, [115]
To drink up infamy?
No, brothers, by your leave, I think
Death is a better ale to drink,
And by all the stars of Christ that sink,
The Danes shall drink with me. [120]
“To grow old cowed in a conquered land,
With the sun itself discrowned,
To see trees crouch and cattle slink—
Death is a better ale to drink,
And by high Death on the fell brink, [125]
That flagon shall go round.
“Though dead are all the paladins
Whom glory had in ken,
Though all your thunder-sworded thanes
With proud hearts died among the Danes, [130]
While a man remains, great war remains:
Now is a war of men.
“The men that tear the furrows,
The men that fell the trees,
When all their lords be lost and dead [135]
The bondsmen of the earth shall tread
The tyrants of the seas.
“The wheel of the roaring stillness
Of all labours under the sun,
Speed the wild work as well at least [140]
As the whole world’s work is done.
“Let Hildred hack the shield-wall
Clean as he hacks the hedge;
Let Gurth the fowler stand as cool
As he stands on the chasm’s edge; [145]
“Let Gorlias ride the sea-kings
As Gorlias rides the sea,
Then let all hell and Denmark drive,
Yelling to all its fiends alive,
And not a rag care we.” [150]
When Alfred’s word was ended
Stood firm that feeble line,
Each in his place with club or spear,
And fury deeper than deep fear,
And smiles as sour as brine. [155]
And the King held up the horn and said,
“See ye my father’s horn,
That Egbert blew in his empery,
Once, when he rode out commonly,
Twice, when he rode for venery, [160]
And thrice on the battle-morn.
“But heavier fates have fallen
The horn of the Wessex kings,
And I blew once, the riding sign,
To call you to the fighting line [165]
And glory and all good things.
“And now two blasts, the hunting sign,
Because we turn to bay;
But I will not blow the three blasts,
Till we be lost or they. [170]
“And now I blow the hunting sign,
Charge some, by rule and rod;
But when I blow the battle sign,
Charge all, and go to God.”
Wild stared the Danes at the double ways [175]
Where they loitered, all at large,
As that dark line for the last time
Doubled the knee to charge—
And caught their weapons clumsily,
And marvelled how and why— [180]
In such degree, by rule and rod,
The people of the peace of God
Went roaring down to die.
And when the last arrow
Was fitted and was flown, [185]
When the broken shield hung on the breast,
And the hopeless lance was laid in rest,
And the hopeless horn blown,
The King looked up, and what he saw
Was a great light like death, [190]
For Our Lady stood on the standards rent,
As lonely and as innocent As when between white walls she went
And the lilies of Nazareth.
One instant in a still light [195]
He saw Our Lady then,
Her dress was soft as western sky,
And she was a queen most womanly—
But she was a queen of men.
Over the iron forest [200]
He saw Our Lady stand,
Her eyes were sad withouten art,
And seven swords were in her heart—
But one was in her hand.
Then the last charge went blindly, [205]
And all too lost for fear:
The Danes closed round, a roaring ring,
And twenty clubs rose o’er the King,
Four Danes hewed at him, halloing,
And Ogier of the Stone and Sling [210]
Drove at him with a spear.
But the Danes were wild with laughter,
And the great spear swung wide,
The point stuck to a straggling tree,
And either host cried suddenly, [215]
As Alfred leapt aside.
Short time had shaggy Ogier
To pull his lance in line—
He knew King Alfred’s axe on high,
He heard it rushing through the sky, [220]
He cowered beneath it with a cry—
It split him to the spine:
And Alfred sprang over him dead,
And blew the battle sign.
Then bursting all and blasting [225]
Came Christendom like death,
Kicked of such catapults of will,
The staves shiver, the barrels spill,
The waggons waver and crash and kill
The waggoners beneath. [230]
Barriers go backwards, banners rend,
Great shields groan like a gong
Horses like horns of nightmare
Neigh horribly and long.
Horses ramp high and rock and boil [235]
And break their golden reins,
And slide on carnage clamorously,
Down where the bitter blood doth lie,
Where Ogier went on foot to die,
In the old way of the Danes. [240]
“The high tide!” King Alfred cried.
“The high tide and the turn!
As a tide turns on the tall grey seas,
See how they waver in the trees,
How stray their spears, how knock their knees, [245]
How wild their watchfires burn!
“The Mother of God goes over them,
Walking on wind and flame,
And the storm-cloud drifts from city and dale,
And the White Horse stamps in the White Horse Vale, [250]
And we all shall yet drink Christian ale
In the village of our name.
“The Mother of God goes over them,
On dreadful cherubs borne;
And the psalm is roaring above the rune, [255]
And the Cross goes over the sun and moon,
Endeth the Battle of Ethandune
With the blowing of a horn.”
For back indeed disorderly
The Danes went clamouring, [260]
Too worn to take anew the tale,
Or dazed with insolence and ale,
Or stunned of heaven, or stricken pale
Before the face of the King.
For dire was Alfred in his hour [265]
The pale scribe witnesseth,
More mighty in defeat was he
Than all men else in victory,
And behind, his men came murderously,
Dry-throated, drinking death. [270]
And Edgar of the Golden Ship
He slew with his own hand,
Took Ludwig from his lady’s bower,
And smote down Harmar in his hour,
And vain and lonely stood the tower— [275]
The tower in Guelderland.
And Torr out of his tiny boat,
Whose eyes beheld the Nile,
Wulf with his war-cry on his lips,
And Hacro born in the eclipse, [280]
Who blocked the Seine with battleships
Round Paris on the Isle.
And Hacon of the Harvesting,
And Dirck from the Elbe he slew,
And Cnut that melted Durham bell, [285]
And Fulk and fiery Oscar fell,
And Goderic and Sigael,
And Uriel of the Yew.
And highest sang the slaughter,
And fastest fell the slain, [290]
When from the wood-road’s blackening throat
A crowning and crashing wonder smote
The rearguard of the Dane.
For the dregs of Colan’s company—
Lost down the other road— [295]
Had gathered and grown and heard the din,
And with wild yells came pouring in,
Naked as their old British kin,
And bright with blood for woad.
And bare and bloody and aloft [300]
They bore before their band
The body of their mighty lord,
Colan of Caerleon and its horde,
That bore King Alfred’s battle-sword
Broken in his left hand. [305]
And a strange music went with him,
Loud and yet strangely far;
The wild pipes of the western land,
Too keen for the ear to understand,
Sang high and deathly on each hand [310]
When the dead man went to war.
Blocked between ghost and buccaneer,
Brave men have dropped and died;
And the wild sea-lords well might quail
As the ghastly war-pipes of the Gael [315]
Called to the horns of White Horse Vale,
And all the horns replied.
And Hildred the poor hedger
Cut down four captains dead,
And Halmer laid three others low, [320]
And the great earls wavered to and fro
For the living and the dead.
And Gorlias grasped the great flag,
The Raven of Odin, torn;
And the eyes of Guthrum altered, [325]
For the first time since morn.
As a turn of the wheel of tempest
Tilts up the whole sky tall,
And cliffs of wan cloud luminous
Lean out like great walls over us, [330]
As if the heavens might fall.
As such a tall and tilted sky
Sends certain snow or light,
So did the eyes of Guthrum change,
And the turn was more certain and more strange [335]
Than a thousand men in flight.
For not till the floor of the skies is split,
And hell-fire shines through the sea,
Or the stars look up through the rent earth’s knees,
Cometh such rending of certainties, [340]
As when one wise man truly sees
What is more wise than he.
He set his horse in the battle-breach
Even Guthrum of the Dane,
And as ever had fallen fell his brand, [345]
A falling tower o’er many a land,
But Gurth the fowler laid one hand
Upon this bridle rein.
King Guthrum was a great lord,
And higher than his gods— [350]
He put the popes to laughter,
He chid the saints with rods,
He took this hollow world of ours
For a cup to hold his wine;
In the parting of the woodways [355]
There came to him a sign.
In Wessex in the forest,
In the breaking of the spears,
We set a sign on Guthrum
To blaze a thousand years. [360]
Where the high saddles jostle
And the horse-tails toss,
There rose to the birds flying
A roar of dead and dying;
In deafness and strong crying [365]
We signed him with the cross.
Far out to the winding river
The blood ran down for days,
When we put the cross on Guthrum
In the parting of the ways. [370]

LIBRO VII
ETHANDUNE: L’ULTIMA CARICA

LUNGI nella landa del Colle del Cavallo Bianco
un bimbo ozioso, solo,
giocava un piccolo gioco per ore che passano,
e paziente strappava l’erba,
paziente spingeva la pietra. [5]
Sull’orlo magro e verde, per sempre,
dove il gesso nudo toccava la zolla,
il bimbo giocava, solo, divino,
come gioca un bimbo sull’ultima linea
che divide sabbia e risacca. [10]
Poiché egli dimora in alte divisioni
troppo semplici da comprendere,
vedendo in quale mattino di mistero
l’Increato strappò il mare,
con ruggiti, dalla terra. [15]
Per le lunghe ore infantili come giorni
costruì invano una torre—
ammucchiò sassolini a far città,
e sempre le pietre cadevano,
e lui le riammucchiava ancora. [20]
E re cremisi sulle torri di guerra,
e santi su guglie gotiche,
ed eremiti sulle loro vette di neve,
ed eroi sulle loro pire,
e patrioti che regali cavalcano, [25]
che assaltano la città vacillante,
tendono mani, e bramano e aspirano,
cercando di salire dove alto, più in alto,
il bimbo che il Tempo mai può stancare
canta sul Colle del Cavallo Bianco. [30]
E questa fu la potenza di Alfredo,
al finire del cammino:
che di tali battitori, savi o selvaggi,
egli era il meno distante dal bimbo
che ammucchia pietre tutto il giorno. [35]
Poiché Eldred combatté da schietto cacciatore
che uccide e torna a casa;
e Marco aveva combattuto perché ogni arma
squillava come il nome di Roma.
E Colan combatté con animo doppio, [40]
cupo e follemente gaio;
ma Alfredo combatté con la gravità
d’un buon bimbo che gioca.
Vide ruote spezzarsi e l’opera rifluire,
e tutte le cose com’erano; [45]
e il suo cuore era tondo come la vittoria
e semplice come la disperazione.
Perciò Marco è dimenticato,
che fu savio di lingua e prode;
e crollò il tumulo sopra Colan, [50]
e la croce sulla tomba di Eldred.
Le loro grandi anime se n’andarono via su un vento,
e non hanno racconto né tomba;
e Alfredo nato a Wantage
regge l’Inghilterra fino al giudizio. [55]
Perché nella foresta d’ogni paura,
come strana fresca raffica dal mare,
lo colpì quell’antica innocenza
che è più della maestria.
E come un bimbo cui crollano i mattoni [60]
li riammucchia ancora e ancora,
venne la rovina e la pioggia che brucia,
tornando come torna una ruota,
e rannicchiato tra ginestre e felci
egli ricominciò la sua vita. [65]
Staccò dalla spalla il suo corno d’avorio
e sorrise, ma non di scherno:
«Finisce la Battaglia di Ethandune
col suono d’un corno.»
Su un cavallo scuro alla doppia via [70]
vide cavalcare il grande Guthrum,
udì fragore di bronzo e squillo d’acciaio,
le risa e lo squillar di tromba,
il pagano nella sua superbia.
E la testa rossa e odiata di Ogier [75]
si muoveva in qualche discorso o faccenda;
ma gli uomini parevano sparsi tra i rovi,
e alcuni avevano acceso un fuoco,
e uno aveva spillato una botte.
E un carro o due si levavano, [80]
come alte navi in vista,
quasi un avamposto fosse accampato
ai bivi per la notte.
E lieti dell’improvvisa sosta
dei pochi sbandati di Alfredo, [85]
uno sedette su una pietra a sospirare,
e alcuni scivolarono su per la strada in fuga,
finché Alfredo, tra le felci lì accanto,
portò il corno alla bocca e soffiò.
E tutti rimasero come statue— [90]
uno seduto sulla pietra,
uno a metà dell’alta siepe di spini,
uno con una gamba oltre un muro,
e uno guardava indietro, piccolissimo,
lassù per la strada, solo. [95]
Grigio crepuscolo e una stella gialla
pendevano su spini e colle;
due lance e uno scudo di guerra spaccato giacevano
abbandonati sulla strada come gettati via,
il corno morì fioco nelle foreste grigie, [100]
e i fuggiaschi si fermarono.
«Fratelli d’armi», disse Alfredo,
«da questo lato sta il nemico;
sono la schiavitù e la fame fiori,
che dobbiate coglierli così? [105]
«Che cosa è meglio, dunque:
esser punzecchiati da pertiche danesi,
dopo aver scavato una camera in un fosso,
e braccati come una strega urlante,
o affumicati a morte nelle tane? [110]
«O che prima che canti il gallo rosso
noi tutti, mille in forze,
scendiamo la scura strada verso la casa di Dio,
cantando una canzone del Wessex?
«Sudare da schiavo per una razza di schiavi, [115]
tracannare l’infamia?
No, fratelli, con vostra licenza, io penso
che la Morte sia birra migliore da bere,
e per tutte le stelle di Cristo che tramontano,
i Danesi berranno con me. [120]
«Invecchiare avviliti in terra conquistata,
col sole stesso scoronato,
vedere gli alberi curvarsi e il bestiame strisciare—
la Morte è birra migliore da bere,
e per l’alta Morte sull’orlo crudele, [125]
quel boccale farà il giro.
«Benché morti siano tutti i paladini
che la gloria ebbe in vista,
benché tutti i vostri thane dalle spade di tuono
con cuori fieri siano morti fra i Danesi, [130]
finché resta un uomo, resta grande guerra:
ora è una guerra di uomini.
«Gli uomini che squarciano i solchi,
gli uomini che abbattono gli alberi,
quando i loro signori siano perduti e morti [135]
i servi della terra calpesteranno
i tiranni dei mari.
«La ruota della ruggente quiete
di tutte le fatiche sotto il sole,
affretti l’opera selvaggia almeno così bene [140]
come si compie l’opera del mondo intero.
«Che Hildred squarci il muro di scudi
netto come pota la siepe;
che Gurth l’uccellatore stia freddo
come sta sull’orlo dell’abisso; [145]
«che Gorlias cavalchi i re del mare
come Gorlias cavalca il mare,
poi vengano pure tutto l’inferno e la Danimarca,
urlando a tutti i loro demoni vivi,
e non ce ne importa uno straccio.» [150]
Quando la parola di Alfredo fu finita
stette salda quella debole linea,
ognuno al suo posto con clava o lancia,
e furia più profonda della profonda paura,
e sorrisi aspri come salamoia. [155]
E il Re levò il corno e disse:
«Vedete il corno di mio padre,
che Egbert soffiò nel suo impero,
una volta, quando usciva a cavallo per uso,
due volte, quando cavalcava a caccia, [160]
e tre volte nel mattino di battaglia.
«Ma fati più gravi sono caduti
sul corno dei re del Wessex,
e io ho soffiato una volta, il segnale di marcia,
per chiamarvi alla linea di battaglia [165]
e alla gloria e a ogni bene.
«E ora due squilli, il segnale di caccia,
perché ci voltiamo a fronteggiare;
ma non soffierò i tre squilli
finché non siamo perduti noi, o loro. [170]
«E ora soffio il segnale di caccia:
carichino alcuni, per regola e per verga;
ma quando soffierò il segnale di battaglia,
carichino tutti, e vadano a Dio.»
Sbigottiti fissarono i Danesi alle doppie vie [175]
dove oziavano, tutti sparsi,
quando quella linea scura per l’ultima volta
piegò il ginocchio per caricare—
e afferrarono goffi le armi,
e si chiesero stupiti come e perché— [180]
in tale ordine, per regola e per verga,
il popolo della pace di Dio
scendesse ruggendo a morire.
E quando l’ultima freccia
fu incoccata e volata, [185]
quando lo scudo rotto pendeva sul petto,
e la lancia senza speranza fu messa in resta,
e il corno senza speranza soffiato,
il Re alzò gli occhi, e ciò che vide
fu una gran luce come la morte, [190]
perché Nostra Signora stava sugli stendardi lacerati,
così sola e così innocente come quando andava tra bianche mura
e i gigli di Nazareth.
Un istante in una luce immobile [195]
vide allora Nostra Signora,
la sua veste era morbida come cielo d’occidente,
ed era una regina sommamente donna—
ma era una regina di uomini.
Sopra la foresta di ferro [200]
vide stare Nostra Signora,
i suoi occhi erano tristi senz’arte,
e sette spade aveva nel cuore—
ma una era nella sua mano.
Poi l’ultima carica andò cieca, [205]
e troppo perduta per la paura:
i Danesi si chiusero intorno, anello ruggente,
e venti clave si levarono sul Re,
quattro Danesi lo colpivano, urlando,
e Ogier della Pietra e della Fionda [210]
gli si avventò con una lancia.
Ma i Danesi erano folli di risa,
e la grande lancia deviò larga,
la punta si piantò in un albero sbandato,
e l’una e l’altra schiera gridarono d’un tratto, [215]
quando Alfredo balzò di lato.
Poco tempo ebbe l’irsuto Ogier
per rimettere in linea la lancia—
conobbe l’ascia di re Alfredo levata in alto,
la udì fendere il cielo, [220]
vi si rannicchiò sotto con un grido—
lo spaccò fino alla spina:
e Alfredo balzò sopra il suo cadavere,
e soffiò il segnale di battaglia.
Poi rompendo tutto e travolgendo [225]
venne la Cristianità come la morte,
scagliata da tali catapulte di volontà,
le doghe si schiantano, le botti si rovesciano,
i carri vacillano e crollano e uccidono
i carrettieri di sotto. [230]
Le barriere arretrano, le bandiere si lacerano,
i grandi scudi gemono come un gong,
cavalli come corni d’incubo
nitriscono orribilmente e a lungo.
I cavalli s’impennano alti e ondeggiano e ribollono [235]
e spezzano le redini dorate,
e slittano sulla carneficina con clamore,
giù dove giace l’amaro sangue,
dove Ogier andò a piedi a morire,
all’antica maniera dei Danesi. [240]
«L’alta marea!» gridò re Alfredo.
«L’alta marea e la svolta!
Come una marea si volge sugli alti mari grigi,
guardate come vacillano tra gli alberi,
come vagano le loro lance, come battono i ginocchi, [245]
come ardono selvaggi i loro fuochi di guardia!
«La Madre di Dio passa sopra di loro,
camminando su vento e fiamma,
e la nube di tempesta si dilegua da città e valle,
e il Cavallo Bianco scalpita nella Valle del Cavallo Bianco, [250]
e noi tutti berremo ancora birra cristiana
nel villaggio del nostro nome.
«La Madre di Dio passa sopra di loro,
portata da cherubini tremendi;
e il salmo rugge sopra la runa, [255]
e la Croce passa sopra il sole e la luna,
finisce la Battaglia di Ethandune
col suono d’un corno.»
Perché indietro, in disordine davvero,
i Danesi andarono vociando, [260]
troppo sfiniti per riprendere il conto,
o storditi d’insolenza e di birra,
o attoniti dal cielo, o fatti pallidi
davanti al volto del Re.
Perché tremendo fu Alfredo nella sua ora [265]
— lo attesta il pallido scriba —
più possente fu lui nella sconfitta
che tutti gli altri uomini in vittoria,
e dietro, i suoi uomini venivano micidiali,
gole riarse, bevendo morte. [270]
E Edgar della Nave d’Oro
uccise di sua propria mano,
strappò Ludwig dall’alcova della sua dama,
e abbatté Harmar nella sua ora,
e vana e sola restò la torre— [275]
la torre in Gheldria.
E Torr dalla sua minuscola barca,
i cui occhi videro il Nilo,
Wulf col grido di guerra sulle labbra,
e Hacro nato nell’eclissi, [280]
che sbarrò la Senna con navi da guerra
intorno a Parigi sull’Isola.
E Hacon della Mietitura,
e Dirck dell’Elba egli uccise,
e Cnut che fuse la campana di Durham, [285]
e caddero Fulk e il focoso Oscar,
e Goderic e Sigael,
e Uriel del Tasso.
E più alta cantò la strage,
e più fitti caddero gli uccisi, [290]
quando dalla gola annerita della strada del bosco
un prodigio coronante e fragoroso colpì
la retroguardia del Danese.
Perché i resti della compagnia di Colan—
perduti giù per l’altra strada— [295]
s’erano raccolti e accresciuti e udito il frastuono,
e con urla selvagge vennero riversandosi,
nudi come i loro antichi parenti britanni,
e lucenti di sangue in luogo di guado.
E nudo e insanguinato e in alto [300]
portavano davanti alla loro schiera
il corpo del loro possente signore,
Colan di Caerleon e della sua orda,
che recava la spada di battaglia di re Alfredo
spezzata nella mano sinistra. [305]
E una strana musica andava con lui,
forte eppure stranamente lontana;
le pive selvagge della terra d’occidente,
troppo acute perché l’orecchio le intenda,
cantavano alte e mortali da ogni lato [310]
quando il morto andò alla guerra.
Serrati tra spettro e bucaniere,
uomini prodi sono caduti e morti;
e i selvaggi signori del mare ben potevano tremare
mentre le spettrali pive di guerra del Gaelo [315]
chiamavano i corni della Valle del Cavallo Bianco,
e tutti i corni rispondevano.
E Hildred, il povero siepaio,
abbatté quattro capitani morti,
e Halmer ne stese altri tre, [320]
e i grandi conti ondeggiavano qua e là
per i vivi e per i morti.
E Gorlias afferrò la grande bandiera,
il Corvo di Odino, lacerato;
e gli occhi di Guthrum mutarono, [325]
per la prima volta dal mattino.
Come un giro della ruota della tempesta
solleva alto tutto il cielo,
e rupi di pallida nube luminosa
si sporgono come grandi mura su di noi, [330]
quasi i cieli potessero cadere.
Come un tale cielo alto e inclinato
manda certa neve o luce,
così mutarono gli occhi di Guthrum,
e la svolta fu più certa e più strana [335]
di mille uomini in fuga.
Perché non finché il pavimento dei cieli si spacchi,
e il fuoco d’inferno splenda attraverso il mare,
o le stelle guardino su dalle ginocchia squarciate della terra,
viene tale strappo di certezze, [340]
come quando un savio davvero vede
ciò che è più savio di lui.
Spinse il suo cavallo nella breccia di battaglia,
proprio Guthrum il Danese,
e come sempre era caduta cadde la sua lama, [345]
torre che crolla su molte terre,
ma Gurth l’uccellatore posò una mano
su quella briglia.
Re Guthrum era un gran signore,
e più alto dei suoi dèi— [350]
mise i papi in riso,
sferzò i santi con le verghe,
prese questo nostro mondo cavo
per coppa da tenervi il vino;
al dividersi delle vie del bosco [355]
gli venne un segno.
Nel Wessex, nella foresta,
nello spezzarsi delle lance,
ponemmo un segno su Guthrum
che arda per mille anni. [360]
Dove le alte selle si urtano
e le code dei cavalli si agitano,
là si levò verso gli uccelli in volo
un ruggito di morti e morenti;
nella sordità e nel forte gridare [365]
lo segnammo con la croce.
Lontano fino al fiume serpeggiante
il sangue scorse per giorni,
quando ponemmo la croce su Guthrum
al dividersi delle vie. [370]

BOOK VIII THE SCOURING OF THE HORSE

N the years of the peace of Wessex, When the good King sat at home; Years following on that bloody boon When she that stands above the moon Stood above death at Ethandune [5] And saw his kingdom come— When the pagan people of the sea Fled to their palisades, Nailed there with javelins to cling And wonder smote the pirate king, [10] And brought him to his christening And the end of all his raids. (For not till the night’s blue slate is wiped Of its last star utterly, And fierce new signs writ there to read, [15] Shall eyes with such amazement heed, As when a great man knows indeed A greater thing than he.) And there came to his chrism-loosing Lords of all lands afar, [20] And a line was drawn north-westerly That set King Egbert’s empire free, Giving all lands by the northern sea To the sons of the northern star. In the days of the rest of Alfred, [25] When all these things were done, And Wessex lay in a patch of peace, Like a dog in a patch of sun— The King sat in his orchard, Among apples green and red, [30] With the little book in his bosom And the sunshine on his head. And he gathered the songs of simple men That swing with helm and hod, And the alms he gave as a Christian [35] Like a river alive with fishes ran; And he made gifts to a beggar man As to a wandering god. And he gat good laws of the ancient kings, Like treasure out of the tombs; [40] And many a thief in thorny nook, Or noble in sea-stained turret shook, For the opening of his iron book, And the gathering of the dooms. Then men would come from the ends of the earth, [45] Whom the King sat welcoming, And men would go to the ends of the earth Because of the word of the King. For folk came in to Alfred’s face Whose javelins had been hurled [50] On monsters that make boil the sea, Crakens and coils of mystery, Or thrust in ancient snows that be The white hair of the world. And some had knocked at the northern gates [55] Of the ultimate icy floor, Where the fish freeze and the foam turns black, And the wide world narrows to a track, And the other sea at the world’s back Cries through a closed door. [60] And men went forth from Alfred’s face, Even great gift-bearing lords, Not to Rome only, but more bold, Out to the high hot courts of old, Of negroes clad in cloth of gold, [65] Silence, and crooked swords, Scrawled screens and secret gardens And insect-laden skies— Where fiery plains stretch on and on To the purple country of Prester John [70] And the walls of Paradise. And he knew the might of the Terre Majeure, Where kings began to reign; Where in a night-rout, without name, Of gloomy Goths and Gauls there came [75] White, above candles all aflame, Like a vision, Charlemagne. And men, seeing such embassies, Spake with the King and said: “The steel that sang so sweet a tune [80] On Ashdown and on Ethandune, Why hangs it scabbarded so soon, All heavily like lead? “Why dwell the Danes in North England, And up to the river ride? [85] Three more such marches like thine own Would end them; and the Pict should own Our sway; and our feet climb the throne In the mountains of Strathclyde.” And Alfred in the orchard, [90] Among apples green and red, With the little book in his bosom, Looked at green leaves and said: “When all philosophies shall fail, This word alone shall fit; [95] That a sage feels too small for life, And a fool too large for it. “Asia and all imperial plains Are too little for a fool; But for one man whose eyes can see, [100] The little island of Athelney Is too large a land to rule. “Haply it had been better When I built my fortress there, Out in the reedy waters wide, [105] I had stood on my mud wall and cried: ‘Take England all, from tide to tide— Be Athelney my share.’ “Those madmen of the throne-scramble— Oppressors and oppressed— [110] Had lined the banks by Athelney, And waved and wailed unceasingly, Where the river turned to the broad sea, By an island of the blest. “An island like a little book [115] Full of a hundred tales, Like the gilt page the good monks pen, That is all smaller than a wren, Yet hath high towns, meteors, and men, And suns and spouting whales; [120] “A land having a light on it In the river dark and fast, An isle with utter clearness lit, Because a saint had stood in it; Where flowers are flowers indeed and fit, [125] And trees are trees at last, “So were the island of a saint; But I am a common king, And I will make my fences tough From Wantage Town to Plymouth Bluff, [130] Because I am not wise enough To rule so small a thing.” And it fell in the days of Alfred, In the days of his repose, That as old customs in his sight [135] Were a straight road and a steady light, He bade them keep the White Horse white As the first plume of the snows. And right to the red torchlight, From the trouble of morning grey, [140] They stripped the White Horse of the grass As they strip it to this day. And under the red torchlight He went dreaming as though dull, Of his old companions slain like kings, [145] And the rich irrevocable things Of a heart that hath not openings, But is shut fast, being full. And the torchlight touched the pale hair Were silver clouded gold, [150] And the frame of his face was made of cords, And a young lord turned among the lords And said: “The King is old.” And even as he said it A post ran in amain, [155] Crying: “Arm, Lord King, the hamlets arm, In the horror and the shade of harm, They have burnt Brand of Aynger’s farm— The Danes are come again! “Danes drive the white East Angles [160] In six fights on the plains, Danes waste the world about the Thames, Danes to the eastward—Danes!” And as he stumbled on one knee, The thanes broke out in ire, [165] Crying: “Ill the watchmen watch, and ill The sheriffs keep the shire.” But the young earl said: “Ill the saints, The saints of England, guard The land wherein we pledge them gold; [170] The dykes decay, the King grows old, And surely this is hard, “That we be never quit of them; That when his head is hoar He cannot say to them he smote, [175] And spared with a hand hard at the throat, ‘Go, and return no more.’ ” Then Alfred smiled. And the smile of him Was like the sun for power. But he only pointed: bade them heed [180] Those peasants of the Berkshire breed, Who plucked the old Horse of the weed As they pluck it to this hour. “Will ye part with the weeds for ever? Or show daisies to the door? [185] Or will you bid the bold grass Go, and return no more? “So ceaseless and so secret Thrive terror and theft set free; Treason and shame shall come to pass [190] While one weed flowers in a morass; And like the stillness of stiff grass The stillness of tyranny. “Over our white souls also Wild heresies and high [195] Wave prouder than the plumes of grass, And sadder than their sigh. “And I go riding against the raid, And ye know not where I am; But ye shall know in a day or year, [200] When one green star of grass grows here; Chaos has charged you, charger and spear, Battle-axe and battering-ram. “And though skies alter and empires melt, This word shall still be true: [205] If we would have the horse of old, Scour ye the horse anew. “One time I followed a dancing star That seemed to sing and nod, And ring upon earth all evil’s knell; [210] But now I wot if ye scour not well Red rust shall grow on God’s great bell And grass in the streets of God.” Ceased Alfred; and above his head The grand green domes, the Downs, [215] Showed the first legions of the press, Marching in haste and bitterness For Christ’s sake and the crown’s. Beyond the cavern of Colan, Past Eldred’s by the sea, [220] Rose men that owned King Alfred’s rod, From the windy wastes of Exe untrod, Or where the thorn of the grave of God Burns over Glastonbury. Far northward and far westward [225] The distant tribes drew nigh, Plains beyond plains, fell beyond fell, That a man at sunset sees so well, And the tiny coloured towns that dwell In the corners of the sky. [230] But dark and thick as thronged the host, “With drum and torch and blade, The still-eyed King sat pondering, As one that watches a live thing, The scoured chalk; and he said, [235] “Though I give this land to Our Lady, That helped me in Athelney, Though lordlier trees and lustier sod And happier hills hath no flesh trod Than the garden of the Mother of God [240] Between Thames side and the sea, “I know that weeds shall grow in it Faster than men can burn; And though they scatter now and go, In some far century, sad and slow, [245] I have a vision, and I know The heathen shall return. “They shall not come with warships, They shall not waste with brands, But books be all their eating, [250] And ink be on their hands. “Not with the humour of hunters Or savage skill in war, But ordering all things with dead words, Strings shall they make of beasts and birds, [255] And wheels of wind and star. “They shall come mild as monkish clerks, With many a scroll and pen; And backward shall ye turn and gaze, Desiring one of Alfred’s days, [260] When pagans still were men. “The dear sun dwarfed of dreadful suns, Like fiercer flowers on stalk, Earth lost and little like a pea In high heaven’s towering forestry, [265] —These be the small weeds ye shall see Crawl, covering the chalk. “But though they bridge St. Mary’s sea, Or steal St. Michael’s wing— Though they rear marvels over us, [270] Greater than great Vergilius Wrought for the Roman king, “By this sign you shall know them, The breaking of the sword, And Man no more a free knight, [275] That loves or hates his lord. “Yea, this shall be the sign of them, The sign of the dying fire; And Man made like a half-wit, That knows not of his sire. [280] “What though they come with scroll and pen, And grave as a shaven clerk, By this sign you shall know them, That they ruin and make dark; “By all men bond to Nothing, [285] Being slaves without a lord, By one blind idiot world obeyed, Too blind to be abhorred; “By terror and the cruel tales Of curse in bone and kin, [290] By weird and weakness winning, Accursed from the beginning, By detail of the sinning, And denial of the sin; “By thought a crawling ruin, [295] By life a leaping mire, By a broken heart in the breast of the world, And the end of the world’s desire; “By God and man dishonoured, By death and life made vain, [300] Know ye the old barbarian, The barbarian come again— “When is great talk of trend and tide, And wisdom and destiny, Hail that undying heathen [305] That is sadder than the sea. “In what wise men shall smite him, Or the Cross stand up again, Or charity or chivalry, My vision saith not; and I see [310] No more; but now ride doubtfully To the battle of the plain.” And the grass-edge of the great down Was cut clean as a lawn, While the levies thronged from near and far, [315] From the warm woods of the western star, And the King went out to his last war On a tall grey horse at dawn. And news of his far-off fighting Came slow and brokenly [320] From the land of the East Saxons, From the sunrise and the sea. From the plains of the white sunrise, And sad St. Edmund’s crown, Where the pools of Essex pale and gleam [325] Out beyond London Town— In mighty and doubtful fragments, Like faint or fabled wars, Climbed the old hills of his renown, Where the bald brow of White Horse Down [330] Is close to the cold stars. But away in the eastern places The wind of death walked high, And a raid was driven athwart the raid, The sky reddened and the smoke swayed, [335] And the tall grey horse went by. The gates of the great river Were breached as with a barge, The walls sank crowded, say the scribes, And high towers populous with tribes [340] Seemed leaning from the charge. Smoke like rebellious heavens rolled Curled over coloured flames, Mirrored in monstrous purple dreams In the mighty pools of Thames. [345] Loud was the war on London wall, And loud in London gates, And loud the sea-kings in the cloud Broke through their dreaming gods, and loud Cried on their dreadful Fates. [350] And all the while on White Horse Hill The horse lay long and wan, The turf crawled and the fungus crept, And the little sorrel, while all men slept, Unwrought the work of man. [355] With velvet finger, velvet foot, The fierce soft mosses then Crept on the large white commonweal All folk had striven to strip and peel, And the grass, like a great green witch’s wheel, [360] Unwound the toils of men. And clover and silent thistle throve, And buds burst silently, With little care for the Thames Valley Or what things there might be— [365] That away on the widening river, In the eastern plains for crown Stood up in the pale purple sky One turret of smoke like ivory; And the smoke changed and the wind went by, [370] And the King took London Town.

The Ballad of the White Horse Documentation and Abbreviations The notes use the author-date system. Authors names and the publication dates of their books appear in the text, usually in parentheses. For more complete documentation consult the references on pages 225-231. Abbreviations GK, GKC, Chesterton Gilbert Keith Chesterton BWH The Ballad of the White Horse ASC Anglo-Saxon Chronicle P Prefatory Note D Dedication E III: 109 Endnote Book III: line 109 IV:11 Book IV: line 11 Chesterton at Battersea in 1905

Notes: Prefatory Note P:1. This ballad needs historical notes, for the simple reason that it is steeped in history. Chesterton’s emphatic disavowal is linked to his need as a poet to place the important battle of Ethandune in Berkshire near White Horse Hill. He knew better. Yet he dared not say, “Although I believe that the battle of Ethandune was probably fought at Edington in the vicinity of Bratton Castle in Wiltshire, I intend, for my own reasons, to locate it in Berkshire. The ancient White Horse is a significant presence in the Ballad.” See Introduction iv. P:22-25. ultimate victory of Alfred: The battle of Ethandune. P:25-31. tradition: Chesterton avoids the controversy by claiming to write from hearsay. Wherever it occurred, King Alfred decisively defeated the Danes in 878. This victory made possible “the gradual re-conquest of the Danelaw in the tenth century” and preserved England from losing its language, culture, and religion. P:31-35. Alfred played the harp and sang in the Danish camp: William of Malmesbury, writing in the early twelfth century, is the first historian to mention this legend (Keynes and Lapidge 1983,22,212). P:36-59. Alfred came in contact with a woman and cakes: The earliest extant version of this legend occurs in an anonymous account of The Life of St. Neot. This manuscript was probably written in the late tenth century after the removal of the relics of St. Neot from Cornwall to a priory at Eyenesbury in Huntingdonshire (Keynes and Lapidge 1983,197-202). P:66. Eadwig: A youthful king of England whose short reign accomplished little of significance (ASC 955-59). P:72-86. He fought for the Christian civilization against the heathen nihilism: Here is the theme of the Ballad: Life is an ongoing struggle between good and evil forces. Down to the last verse Chesterton spells out this theme on multiple levels of life.

Notes: Dedication Synopsis: Chesterton speaks to the reader (1-46): These rhymes are about the warfare waged between King Alfred and the Danes in the latter part of the ninth century. Chesterton speaks to his wife (47-94): I am dedicating this poem to you out of love and appreciation for your joyful companionship, and the spiritual inspiration you are and have been in my life. Therefore I bring these rhymes to you, Who brought the cross to me, Since on you flaming without flaw I saw the sign that Guthrum saw When he let break his ships of awe, And laid peace on the sea. (D:53-58) D: 1-16. Chesterton opens his epic of King Alfred the Great by emphasizing that this is an account of the aboriginal struggle of the Christians and the heathens for the control of England. Alfred is the great face turned toward the darkness enveloping his kingdom after the Danish surprise invasion of Wessex in January 878. Garry Wills (1961,136) pointed out that the first two lines are from Chesterton’s early unpublished poem on Moses. The first stanza is included here through the courtesy of Wills and of A. P. Watt Ltd. on behalf of the Royal Literary Fund. Of great limbs gone to chaos Of a great face turned to night From the grey old earth’s first twilight The soul of a man of might The man of the shattered tables The man of the living rod The man who gave to the nations The Ten Great Words of God. D:3-16. Why does a poet look back a thousand years at the England of Alfred’s day? He wants to remind readers that it was Alfred the Great who saved England. D:6-16. Chesterton refers to previous eras as “sunken Englands.” In “telescoping history” he declares: “The prime function of imagination is to see our whole orderly system of life as a pile of stratified revolutions” (1906,60). D:9. thanes: Men who held lands of the king or other superior in Anglo-Saxon times. They gave military service and usually had hereditary rank. D:17. gonfalon: A pennon or flag affixed to the end of a lance. The gonfalon under which the Normans fought at Hastings in 1066 was a white banner sent by the Pope to William of Normandy. D:17-18. The Normans conquered the Anglo-Saxons. D:18. The Anglo-Saxon flag was a golden dragon mounted on a blood-red held. D:19-28. We will not touch on the deeds of King Arthur nor on events after the Norman Conquest. Our chief concern is with the last third of the ninth century when a great Christian King withstood the Pagan Danes. D:21-22. holy kings: King Arthur’s allies against the Saxons. D:23-24. Bayeux: The town in France which displays the embroidery known as the Bayeux Tapestry. Of Saxon workmanship, it pictorially depicts events connected with the Norman Conquest. D:25. dawn: The early sixth century when Arthur supposedly fought twelve battles against the heathen invaders. D:26-28. Alfred’s achievements are so remarkable and varied that moderns find them almost incredible. D:41-44. The recent outpouring of Anglo-Saxon studies enables readers to enter into the life and times of Alfred. James Campbell gives a brief, illustrated, interpretative account of Anglo-Saxon history with notes and a bibliography. Simon Keynes and Michael Lapidge have extensive references listed in Alfred the Great (1983,345-59). Their new translation of Asser’s Life of King Alfred provides excellent background reading for The Ballad of the White Horse. Dorothy Whitelock’s writings about the Anglo-Saxon era are both authoritative and illuminating. D:47-52. Alfred realized that it was only by relying on help from God that he could defeat the pagans. D:53-56. Gilbert Chesterton dedicates The Ballad of the White Horse to his wife, Frances. D:56-58. Guthrum: See E VII:325. D:59-64. Gilbert and Frances toured the area around Chippenham where the Danes surrendered. Compare his poetic and his prose descriptions of the battleground. [Here is proof that GKC knew before 1911 that Wiltshire had a better claim than Berkshire as the site of Ethandune.] “But the other day under a wild sunset and moonrise I passed the place which is best reputed as Ethandune, a high, grim upland, partly bare and partly shaggy; like that savage and sacred spot in those great imaginative lines about the demon lover and the waning moon. The darkness, the red wreck of sunset, the yellow and lurid moon, the long fantastic shadows, actually created that sense of monstrous incident which is the dramatic side of landscape. The bare grey slopes seemed to rush downhill like routed hosts; the dark clouds drove across like riven banners; and the moon was like a golden dragon, like the Golden Dragon of Wessex” (1911,228-29). D:65-94. Chesterton here expresses his appreciation for Frances’s loving companionship, giftedness, and her sterling qualities. Father John O’Connor, a close personal friend of the Chestertons, confirms how well-founded was Chesterton’s love and esteem for Frances. “It is to her that we owe the most and some of the best of Gilbert Chesterton. In all things she was his angel, a small Cockney, a connection of the first editor of Punch. She even converted him from what he calls the Higher Unitarianism to the more loyal and rational kind of Anglicanism—Tractarian more than Ritualistic” (1938,28). D:77-82. A reference to certain contemporary writers and editors. See VIII: 248-302 and Endnotes. D:94. Frome. An urban district in Somersetshire, England.

Notes: The Vision of the King Synopsis: Chesterton introduces the White Horse, and then presents an overview of the chaotic migration of nations after the Fall of Rome (1-80). The heathen Northmen, a sea-folk, caused widespread havoc, and by 878 had subjugated all of Britain except Wessex. After the Danish surprise raid at Chippenham in January 878, Alfred at his wit’s end hid out on the marshy island of Athelney (81-161). At this impasse Mary appears to Alfred (162-277). Night shall he thrice night over you, And heaven an iron cope. Do you have joy without a cause, Yea, faith without a hope? (I:258-61) I:17. The White Horse of the White Horse Vale: Meet the White Horse which Chesterton recognizes as a prehistoric presence (1911,257). Thomas Hughes quotes the description of this gigantic White Horse given by the author of A Tour through England: “Looking south from the Vale, we see a trench cut on the side of a high green hill, in the shape of a horse, and not ill-shaped neither; the trench is about a yard deep, and filled almost up with chalk, so that at a distance you see the exact shape of a White Horse, but so large, as to take up near an acre of ground… . From this figure the hill is called in our maps White Horse Hill, and the low or flat country under it the Vale of the White Horse” (1859,216). I:18-60. End of the world: The downfall of Rome. Darkness settled over the civilized world. Hordes of barbarians poured from the east and the north into the Roman Empire. “That outer world of universal anarchy which lay beyond Christendom” (Chesterton 1917,50). I:32. cresset: An iron vessel for holding burning oil or pitch. It may be mounted as a torch, or hung as a lantern. I:38. Titan flowers: Gigantic flowers. I:41. Ind’s: India’s. I:42. inmost one: Mt. Everest. I:61-80. The death of the Emperor Charlemagne in 814 weakened the defenses which Christendom had in Europe. During the latter part of the ninth century, Alfred with God’s help stayed the pagan tide of invasion. I:62. The ninth century was a dark period for the Papacy. Lay investiture multiplied evils in the disintegrating Carolingian Empire. The Saracens pillaged southern Italy and threatened the Papal States. Within the city of Rome itself, the Italian nobles frequently fought to secure position and wealth. As unscrupulous politicians, they endeavored to put someone who belonged to their party on the papal throne. By this means they hoped to gain control of the temporal government of the city, and to enrich themselves by graft. Weak and unworthy men were in some cases appointed Popes. In 1059, the revision of the system of electing the Pope freed these elections from irregularities and imperial control (Mann 1925, vols.2,3,4). I:63-76. Alfred’s kingdom was in the hands of the Danes after their surprise attack at Chippenham in January, 878. While mustering his army for the counter-attack in the spring, Alfred hid on the island of Athelney (ASC). After Easter [23 March] that year, Alfred with the help of the inhabitants of Somerset, Wiltshire, and Hampshire fought against the entire Danish army at Ethandune and was victorious (ASC 878). I:77-80. During the ensuing years King Alfred strengthened the fortifications in his kingdom. This enabled him in 886 to quickly defeat the army which was attacking London and to overcome renewed attacks from 892-96. Meanwhile he initiated programs for the revival of religion and learning. His composite law code showed his judicious concern for maintaining social and political order among his subjects (Keynes and Lapidge 1983,16370). I:81-111. Chesterton refers to the Northmen as “a horde of heathen raiders out of the northern seas and forests” (1930,114). These pirates were at first satisfied with booty, devastation, and tribute. Their encroachments brought ruination and the depressing impoverishment of civilization. After 865 they aspired to conquer and settle. By 878 much of Britain was under their sway, and they were making concerted efforts to take over Wessex. I:89. horned heads: The Northmen are often erroneously pictured with horned helmets. See E V:171. I:102. The barbarous religious ceremony of shedding the blood of animals as well as that of men was not entirely abolished in Scandinavia until well into the ninth century when they received the light of the Gospel (Mallet 1882,111). I:108. A great heathen army came to East Anglia in the autumn of 866 and took winter quarters there (ASC). From this time onwards we read of the heathen army being somewhere in Britain. I:116-22. Alfred’s sires courageously opposed the recurring onslaughts of the Danish warriors. Egbert (802-39), the paternal grandfather of Alfred, brought about a short-lived, fragile union of the Anglo-Saxon monarchies about the year 829. Ethelwulf, Alfred’s father, reigned from 839 to 858. Alfred’s brothers, who ruled in turn were Ethelbald, 85860; Ethelbert, 860-66; and Ethelred, 866-71. Alfred governed the kingdom from 871-99. I:125. Lyonesse: In Arthurian legend, a country fabled to have been formerly contiguous to Cornwall but to have long since sunk beneath the sea. I:125-26. Arthur is “the king that comes no more.” Chesterton compares the vanishing memory of Alfred’s family with the folk tales still afloat about King Arthur and his “lords” who fought against the invading Saxons. I:127. The Golden Drag on: The flag of the West Saxons. I:129. King Alfred. I:138. In 878 Athelney was an island in Somersetshire at the junction of the Parrett and Tone rivers. Today it is a hill on farm land that can be viewed from the layby on the A361 about half a mile northeast of Lyng. I:141. broken to his knee: After the surprise attack in January 878 Alfred is stunned but not defeated. I:146-55. Alfred recalls the incident in his childhood when he obtained an illuminated manuscript from his mother (Keynes and Lapidge 1983,75). I:148. Alfred’s mother was Osburh, “a religious woman, noble both by birth and by nature” (Giles 1891,44). I:162-76. There are no recorded traditions about the appearance of Our Lady to Alfred. The pivotal part Chesterton has Mary take in assembling the soldiers (Book II), winning the battle (Book VII), and watching over England as Protectress (Book VIII), is evidence of the sincere love he had for the Mother of God. See E VII:189-204. I:177-82. The Alfred Jewel: This jewel of Anglo-S axon workmanship is a gold plaque having the portrait of a man in cloisonné enamel. Round the edge in Anglo-Saxon workmanship are the words “Alfred had me worked” (Keynes and Lapidge 1983, 203-6). The Jewel, found in 1693 at Newton Park some four miles north of Athelney, is the most treasured possession of the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford University. I:183-202. Chesterton was vividly conscious of Mary’s nearness to people everywhere. Maisie Ward tells us that he often spoke of “Our Lady returning to his own land, to all lands, and saving the world” (Ward 1945,4). Rather than attribute Alfred’s victory to the legendary miraculous help given either by St. Neot or by St. Cuthbert, Chesterton chose to have Alfred ask Our Lady whether or not he and his Christian warriors would eventually become victorious. I:205. croft: A small enclosed field adjacent to a house. I:211. hind: A peasant; a farm laborer. I:216. the Three Kings: The three Persons of the Holy Trinity. I:209-61. At the age of thirty, a thoroughly humbled Alfred realizes that Mary’s visit to him meant that victory would come after a tremendous struggle. “Do you have… faith without a hope?” From now on he goes “gaily in the dark.”

Notes: The Gathering of the Chiefs Synopsis: “Alfred of the lonely spear” gathers his Christian freedom fighters from western Wessex and Wales for an all-out battle with the pagan Danes. Mary’s message convinces the Roman, Gael, and Saxon to assemble at Egbert’s Stone. Out of the mouth of the Mother of God Like a little word come I; For I go gathering Christian men From sunken paving and ford and fen, To die in a battle, God knows when, By God, but I know why. And this is the word of Mary, The word of the world’s desire: “No more of comfort shall ye get, Save that the sky grows darker yet And the sea rises higher.” (II:74-84) II:2. shaw: A strip of woodland forming the border of a held; a small wood or grove; a thicket [Dial.]. Chesterton creates the atmosphere of ninth century England by using words taken from the vocabulary of the people of that day. II:1-8. In “A Romance of the Marshes” Chesterton describes the terrain around Athelney: “Everything in that strange countryside seemed to be lying low, as if to avoid the incessant and rattling rain of the Danish arrows. There were indeed hills of no inconsiderable height quite within call; but those pools and flats of the old Parrett seemed to separate themselves like a central and secret sea; and in the midst of them stood up the rock of Athelney as isolate as it was to Alfred… . One stooped to stroke the grass, as if the earth were all one kind beast that could feel” (1911,299-300). II:9-24. Alfred, buoyed up after meeting Mary, sings as he travels north toward the estuary of the Severn river in search of Eldred the Saxon. Alfred needs the help of all the Christians to drive out the pagan Danes. II:21. Franklin: A substantial landholder but not a nobleman. II:23. Sacred Tree: An oak tree. To the druids the oak was an “emblem of the Divinity” (Lingard [1849] 1912,1:16-17). II:24. Usk: A river in Wales that flows through southwest England into the Severn estuary. II:25-62. Compare Chesterton’s description of Eldred with the “English virtues” he cites in Cobbett. “The love of loafing and of lonely adventure; the spirit of the genial eccentric; the capacity to be a hermit without being a misanthrope; the love of landscape and of roads astray; and above all, that love of the grotesque that is as brave as a broad grin. Nor… was he without that softer side, only that with him it was generally the inside. I mean that it was in his private and domestic character that we see the English aversion to what is painful and severe. He was a very gentle father” (1926,203-4). II:46-57. Eldred has lost interest in fighting the Danes because of the unending defeats. Out of nine battles in 871, only Englefield and Ashdown were clearly Saxon victories. Alfred then saved lives and bought time by paying the heathens to leave Wessex. Five years later Guthrum and his entire army returned with the intention of taking possession of Wessex. II:58. scalds: Bards who sang or recited heroic poems and eulogies. II:94. butt: Probably a cask of ale near Eldred. II:96. Egbert’s Stone: This meeting place cannot be identified with certainty. It was in Wiltshire east of Selwood Forest, and within a day’s march of the next camping place, Iley Oak. According to the ASC, men from Somersetshire, Wiltshire, and Hampshire assembled there. II:103-12. The marauding Danes ravaged the homesteads of the natives and the dwellings of the hermits. Alfred sees destruction on all sides. II:105. steading: A farmstead [Dial.]. II:107. combe: A narrow valley or deep hollow, especially one enclosed on all but one side. II:117-41. After walking all night Alfred arrives at Mark’s farm at daybreak. The organization evident everywhere reflects the character of the owner. II:147-52. Alfred humbly introduces himself to the Roman as one who is still struggling to defeat the heathen Danes. He acknowledges that he bought peace by paying them to withdraw from his kingdom. II:151. wold: An upland plain; a region without woods. II:166. Wiltshire: A county in southern England. White Horse wold: This upland plain takes its name from the prehistoric White Horse located atop White Horse Hill. II:165-68. Mark shows his military competence by forming a judgment of the situation in Wessex. II:167. Owsenfold: An unidentified place. II:191. Or: Before, ere [Archaic]. II:192. Caerleon: Atown on the Usk river in southern Wales. II:194. broken men: Colan’s ancestors fled into the crags of Wales to evade the Saxons. His forefathers preferred freedom in a mountainous terrain to slavery elsewhere under the Saxons. II:199. Druid trees: The Druids venerated the oak. II:201. the fallen kings: Arthur and the legendary allied kings of sixth century Britain. They were the Christian Celtic champions against the pagan Saxon invaders. II:203. Last of a race in ruin: Colan is a proud Celt whose ancestors retreated into the rocky fastnesses of Wales to preserve their lives and their freedom. They were the Christian resistance forces in the sixth century opposing the onslaught of the pagan Saxons. Now three centuries later a Christianized Saxon is seeking help to conquer invading heathens. Alfred’s meekness and his message from Mary win Colan’s assistance. II:204-6. The Irish overran Britain both during the Roman occupation and after the legions were withdrawn (Collingwood [1936] 1937,282). They colonized Wales to such an extent that Gaelic became the language of the people (Oman [1904] 1925,158-59). When the Irish settlements lost their independence to the Welsh, Gaelic gradually became extinct in Wales. II:208-9. Ireland is “the rain-wrapped isle.” Brandan [Brendan] in reality is the sixth century founder of the monastery of Clonfert. In story books Brendan has fantastic adventures as a navigator sailing westward from Ireland. II:231-41. Colan’s deeply rooted pagan past influences him. Catherine Mulroy, an older woman from northwestern Ireland, wrote this account of early Celtic religious beliefs. Before Christianity came to Ireland the people there worshipped pagan gods, e.g., sun, moon, stars, seas, rivers, trees, fire, stone, iron, etcetera. The Irish have always been a deeply religious people—constantly searching for a greater being to pay homage to. This worship was inspired more out of fear than love. They believed that their gods governed people according to a pattern of dark, unreasoned fate. This left them an easy prey to chance, luck, sadness and despair. They did their best to appease their gods by their worship, but they lived in fear and dread of how fate would turn for them. Here and there throughout the land there were mounds, forts, and stone altars set up for worship, and at festivals fires were lighted on high mountains as an outward sign of worship. The great tall boulders along the Atlantic coast, for example, the high cliffs of Moher in Co. Clare are places where the gods were worshipped. These tall cliffs today can be termed “the gods of unbearable beauty” as one walks along the high cliffs on that rugged western coast. These were the types of gods our ancestors worshipped and when Christianity came with St. Patrick, the country was steeped in pagan worship. The conversion was long and arduous but very real as the Gaels were searching for the One and true Living God which Patrick brought. The sod was ready for conversion and the seed took root and began to grow, spreading through the length and breadth of that land. The worship of pagan gods bed to be abandoned, hut as this was a deep-down thing, it was not easy for the New Christians to relinquish all their old deep-rooted nature worship. They feared to let go of everything and held on to what they thought was important in the line of small manners and customs—just in case there was anything important in them. These superstitions have been passed down from generation to generation and there are still some slight traces in evidence in certain areas in the West [of Ireland], even in the twentieth century. Catherine Mulroy, R.S.M. 1988. Manuscript to editor. (London: Bellord House, 7 Gun St.) II:235-36. The gods could break the hearts of men because the pagan Cert believed that death could come suddenly upon a person who broke his word to the Sun, Moon, etcetera. The people lived in rear of the avenging action of the elements. Professor Eoin MacNeill made an insightful summation: “The Celt was plying an age-long warfare against the crude primeval forces of the physical world, and was everywhere face to face, not with measure, but with immensity—with vast forest regions, the rigors of the northern… winter, the mystery of the boundless ocean. This experience has shaped and coloured all his thought and all his literature; most ofJ his legends of antiquity” (1910,4-5). II:268-75. Early Irish literature relates the legendary deeds of Cuchulainn, Deirdre and Naoise, Oisin and Fionn, and many others. II:277. See E V:201-2 where hills and pikes are described.

Notes: The Harp of Alfred Synopsis: While Alfred awaits his allies he visits the Danish camp disguised as a harper. This interlude provides a fine opportunity for comparing Pagan and Christian ideals and gives the motive for the whole campaign. The Harp of Alfred is a “tournament of song, in which the sensual Pagan [Harold], the poetic Pagan [Elf], the savage Pagan [Ogier], and the cultured Pagan [Guthrum] say their say with music, before Alfred says the say of Christian Fact” (O’Connor 1938,65). For our God hath blessed creation, Calling it good. I know What spirit with whom you blindly band Hath blessed destruction with his hand; Yet by God’s death the stars shall stand And the small apples grow. (III:373-78) III:3. mass-book: A book containing the prayers and rites used by persons assisting at the celebration of the Eucharist [Mass]. Asser, Alfred’s biographer, mentions that King Alfred assisted at daily Mass (Keynes and Lapidge 1983,91). III:20-25. Dr. John Lingard describes the destruction of the monasteries in A.D. 870: “From the ashes of Medeshamstede they proceeded to Huntingdon, and from the destruction of that place to the Isle of Ely. The nuns of this monastery, who were descended from the noblest of the Saxon families, were sacrificed to their lust and cruelty; the treasures of the country, which had been deposited in the island, were divided among the barbarians, and the edifice, with every other building… was devoured by the flames” ([1849] 1912,1:184-85). III:24. Fires over Glastonbury Thorn: The Danes during their raids in Somerset ravaged and despoiled the monastery established at Glastonbury. III:24. Glastonbury Thorn: A variety of hawthorn which has the peculiarity of flowering twice in the year, first about Christmas and again in May. According to an ancient legend, the original tree grew from the staff of St. Joseph of Arimathea (E VIII:223-24), (Chesterton 1911,112-18). III:2-39. From the foot of White Horse Hill one sees the shape of the White Horse. The whiteness of the gigantic White Horse is indicative of whether the pagans or the Christians are in control. While the heathens are harrying the countryside, the Horse is overrun with weeds, but when the country is at peace, the Christians keep the Horse well cleaned. Today the National Trust for Places of Historic Interest keeps the Horse white. III:52-74. Guthrum is a Danish king who occupies a notable place in Anglo-Saxon history. III:79-80. He sang of some old British raid: Asser relates that Alfred listened carefully to Saxon poems which he often heard recited, “and he [Alfred] readily retained them in his memory” (Keynes and Lapidge 1983,75). III:80. wild west march: The borderland between Mercia and Wales. III:86-90. Offa, the King of Mercia (757-96), constructed this dyke to prevent Welsh penetration of Mercia. Offa’s Dyke consisted “of a ditch to the west about 6 feet deep and a rampart rising up to 25 feet above it to the east; the whole structure being 60 feet across” (Campbell 1982,120). Asser writing in the 890s mentions its extent. “Offa … had a great rampart built from sea to sea between Britain [Wales] and Mercia” (Giles 1891,47). Eighty of the one hundred fifty miles of this phenomenal structure are extant. III:99. The marauding Northmen terrified the peoples between Cyprus in the Mediterranean and the island of Skye in the Heb rides off the northwest coast of Scotland. III:109. Tyre, famous for its purple dyes, was a maritime city in ancient Phoenicia. III:116. In Norse mythology Loki is the contriver of fraud. III:122,126. Chesterton introduces kennings, those metaphorical compound words such as “bracelet-giver” (king) and “sword-swinger” (warrior). These give “a slight feeling of antiquity” and place the reader into the ninth century ambience. III:130. shaven men: Clerics. Before becoming clerics, laymen received the sacred rite of tonsure. III:151. Allemagne: Germany [Fr.]. III:153. For the May Day festivities in the Rhineland, the people decorate a tree with ribbons, wreaths, cookies, etcetera. III:158-75. Balder beautiful: Balder, the son of Odin and Frigga, dies because his mother neglected to ask the mistletoe not to hurt her son. III:164-75. The sentimental Elf is sad because there is no security. His gods are superior beings, yet like himself mortal and subject to mishaps. Even Balder, the noblest and gentlest of the gods, was killed through a sneaky scheme of Loki. III:180. Stone and Sling: Although “the bow and arrows, the battle-axe, and the sword” were commonly used by the Northmen, some armed themselves with “javelins, slings, clubs stuck round with points, lances and a sort of daggers” (Mallet 1882,165-66). III:188. yew: The yew tree is symbolic of grief and death. III:188-230. The pessimistic Ogier, soured by hatred, delighting only in his power to destroy, awaits the final cataclysm. Stern and ruthless, he shares in the wrath of the gods who wait for the final break up of the universe. III:216-26. the last eclipse: Ragnarok, or the Twilight of the Gods, is the destruction of the gods and all things in a final battle with evil powers (Mallet 1882,451-58). III:221. the high ones in the happy town: All who died in a violent manner were received into Valhalla in the happy town of Asgard. III:231-34. King Guthrum was an educated Dane who knew how to read and write. III:235-95. Guthrum, recognizing the certainty of death and the uncertainty of a life to come, is happiest in battle where he can become oblivious of death. III:258-65. The soul is like a lost bird: This may be a reference to the speech [A.D. 627] of one of King Edwin’s counselors who compared the life of a man to that of a sparrow that flies in one door and disappears out another. “So this life of man appears for a short space, but of what went before or what is to follow we are utterly ignorant” (Beda 1910,91). III:303-318. Alfred declares his view of life. He begins with the Fall of Adam in the garden. Man misused his free will. The evil in the world is the result of “the wrong use of the will, and… it can eventually be righted by the right use of the will” (Chesterton 1930,226). III:329-42. Alfred’s faith in God is his basis for hope. Though “the sky grows darker,” he has an inner conviction that persistent efforts aided by God will somehow bring success. III:357-66. Alfred tells the Danes their way of life eventually ends in failure. Creators and preservers in the long run will be the survivors. For our God hath blest creation, Calling it good… . (III:373-74), (Gen. 1:12)

Notes: The Woman in the Forest Synopsis: Alfred scouts the environs of the Danish camp at Ethandune before going to the river-hut at Egbert Stone. There a woman asks him to watch the fire. While he pities her poverty he lets the cakes burn. The woman deals Alfred such a blow in the face that it leaves a scarlet scar. At this juncture Eldred, Colan, and Mark arrive. Note how Chesterton uses this incident to move his epic closer to the decisive battle of Ethandune. This blow that I return not Ten times will I return On kings and earls of all degree, And armies wide as empires be Shall slide like landslips to the sea If the red star burn. (IV:274-79) IV:10. paling of the pine: Apalisade made of pointed pine logs. IV:11. altar-lamp: The sanctuary lamp of a church. IV:16. The old stones of a Roman way: The Romans paved some of the important roadways in Britain with stones. IV:22. Doom: Future, outcome. IV:23-24. The ASC explains how ruin alternated with victory in 871. “And this year there fought against the Host, in the land from Thames southward, nine stricken fields. Yea, and beside these, Alfred the King’s brother and many an Alderman, and many a King’s Thane, ofttimes made, each for himself, raids upon them, which are not counted. And within the year nine Earls were slain, and one King thereto” (Conybeare 1900,123). IV:25-30. Chesterton knows and uses authentic sources. Asser supplies him with each detail about the battle of Ashdown, even to the hawthorn tree. But Alfred, with his men, as we have heard from truthful eyewitnesses came the quicker to the field and more readily. Nor wonder was it; for his brother King Ethelred was still in his tent, fixed in prayer, hearing Mass. Needs must he either draw him back from the battle, or charge the enemy ere yet his brother came into the fray. And, at the last, in manly wise, charged he, with the rush of a wild boar, leading his Christian forces against the iceman’s hosts. But here those who know not the place must be told it was no fair field of battle, for the Heathen had seized the higher ground, and the Christian battle-line was charging uphill. There was also in that same place a lone thorn-tree and a low, which we ourselves have beheld. Around this, then, came the lines together, with a mighty shouting, in warrior wise, the one side bent upon all mischief, the other to fight for life and land and dear ones. Most part of their force [Danes] were slain, and with all shame they betook them to flight (Conybeare 1900,93-94). IV:41-52. under-skies: Chesterton takes us on an imaginary trip to Hades. While descending to the river-hut Alfred notes the foul smelling night-shade plant, the murky atmosphere in which “evil cherubs” [owls] flit about. IV:59-60. The tilted roof implies that this peasant’s home had been damaged by the Danes. It was probably a thatched timber-built structure shared by the household and the livestock. [Alfred’s legendary encounter with the Woman and the Cakes took place while he was hiding on the island of Athelney in Somerset; Chesterton moves it to Egbert Stone in Wiltshire.] IV:70-74. J. A. Giles included a version of the legend of Alfred and the Cakes in his Asser’s Life of Alfred: But it happened on a certain Jay, that the country woman, wife of the cowherd, was preparing some loaves to bake, and the king, sitting at the hearth, made ready his bow and arrows and other warlike instruments. The unlucky woman espying the cakes burning at the fire, ran up to remove them, and rebuking the brave king, exclaimed: Ca’sn thee mind the ke-aks, man, an’ doossen zee ’em burn? I’m boun thee’s eat ’em vast enough, az zoon az ’tis the turn. The blundering woman little thought that it was King Alfred who had fought so many battl es against the pagans, and gained so many victories over them (1891,60). See E P:36-59. IV:84. And all the last are first: “Many who are first will be last, and the last first” (Mark 10:31). IV:85. “Here am I among you as one who serves” (Luke 22:27). IV:85-155. Alfred explains the ways God serves him every day. IV:89-91. God is Alfred’s gardener who planted oak trees on the plateaus and placed dense growths of shrubbery in the graveyards. IV:124-25. Golgotha: “So Jesus went out, carrying his own cross to the place named after a skull; its Hebrew name is Golgotha” (John 19:17). IV:130-40. Perhaps the best interpretation of the significance of the star that “spins and swirls” is that it refers to the tiny spark of hope in Alfred’s breast that the Christian cause will ultimately triumph after tremendous trials. Chesterton uses the “wandering star,” the “dancing star,” the “light that leaps and flies” as one of the means of unity in the poem. Watch his references to it throughout the several hooks. IV:142. A time discrowned of doom and birth: One’s value will not depend upon such accidents as personal status or family origin. Chesterton champions the dignity of the individual and hints that better days are coming after the defeat of the “evil earls.” IV:143-44. “How happy are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 5:3). IV:156-60. Alfred’s thoughts are far away. It was rash of him to promise to watch the cakes. IV:173. Marcus with all his slaves in arms: Dorothy Whitelock explains that the slave class in Wessex consisted of persons of different origins. Some were descendants of the Britons, others were persons captured in wars. The greater number “were the penal slaves, persons enslaved as a punishment for certain specific crimes, or because of their inability to pay the fines and compensations which they had incurred” ([1952] 1968,112). IV:174-75. Colan and his followers had a mingling of pagan and Christian beliefs. Their “strange spears hung with ancient charms” indicate a superstitious reliance on magic. IV:179. jars of mead: Mead is a fermented drink made of water and honey with malt, yeast, and sometimes other ingredients. IV:190-202. The impoverished followers of Colan, clothed in the remnants of former finery, were a far cry from their kin who went to war “in graceful shirts and many-colored enfolding tunics over comfortable long vests” (Green 1925,408). IV:194. With Druid beards and Druid spears: Chesterton goes along with the popular imagining of the appearance of the Druids. IV:206. Mark’s disciplined army marching in step together sounded like “great thunder.” IV:207-8. living walls: The interlocking shields carried hy the soldiers in battle formation formed living walls. Rome hedged mankind by her military outposts throughout the civilized world. IV:217. From red Arabia to the Tyne: Arabia in Asia marked the southeastern extent of the Roman Empire, and the Tyne river in Britain was the northwestern boundary. IV:219. Since the cry on the hill Capitoline: The cry on the Capitoline hill occurred about 753 B.C. when Romulus was trying to obtain wives from the Sabines for the Roman youths. A legend describes how the early Romans resorted to cunning in order to secure wives from the neighboring tribes. During a special entertainment to which the nearby tribes were invited, it had been agreed upon that at a certain outcry the Roman men would seize and carry off the young maiden visitors (Livy 1913,14-15). IV:220. And the fall of the golden shield: Titus Livius relates the legend how Tatius, a Sabine, bribes Tarpeia, the daughter of the commander of the Roman citadel, to give them access to the city in exchange for the golden rings and bracelets they wore on their left arms. Instead of these ornaments, they threw their shields (which they also carried on their left arms) upon her and crushed her to death (1913,17-18). IV:227. lintel beams: The horizontal crosspieces over doors or windows which support the weight above the openings. IV:236-41. The laughter of Christians rings through popular tales in which people poke fun at the foibles of one another. IV:246-47. The mummers in England are groups of persons, grotesquely dressed, who go round from house to house on the morning of Christmas Day and act a sort of drama founded on the legend of St. George. The verses repeated by the mummers of the different localities have the same origin, but as they are not committed to writing, they vary in a trifling degree, and have in some instances considerable interpolations. The following version of the drama is given in The Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Magazine 1(1854): 80-81. The characters are:

1. OLD FATHER CHRISTMAS
2. MINCE PIE
3. A TURKISH (evidently a Saracen) KNIGHT
4. ST. GEORGE
5. AN ITALIAN DOCTOR
6. A character called LITTLE JACK And the verses they repeat, divested of modern extraneous matter, are as follows: [Enter OLD FATHER CHRISTMAS, with a long beard.] Oh! here come I old Father Christmas, welcome, or welcome not, I hope old Father Christmas will never be forgot. Make room! room! I say! That I may lead Mince Pie this way. Walk in Mince Pie, and act thy part, And show the gentles thy valiant heart. [Enter MINCE PIE.] Room! room! you gallant souls give me room to rhyme, I’ll show you some festivity this Christmas time. [Enter a TURKISH KNIGHT, with a wooden sword.] I am a valiant Turkish Knight, And dare with any man to fight; Bring me the man that bids me stand, Who says he’ll cut me down with audacious hand, I’ll cut him and hew him as small as a fly, And send him to Satan to make mince pie. [Enter ST. GEORGE with a wooden sword.] Oh! in come I, St. George, the man of courage bold, With my sword and buckler I’ve won three crowns of gold; I fought the fiery dragon and brought him to the slaughter; I won a beauteous Queen—a King of Egypt’s daughter; If thy mind is high, my mind is bold, If thy blood is hot, I will make it cold. [ST. GEORGE and the TURKISH KNIGHT fight—the latter falls.] Turkish Knight. Oh! St. George spare my life! Father Christmas. Is no Doctor to be found To cure this man who’s bleeding on the ground? [Enter the DOCTOR.] Yes! an Italian Doctor’s to be found To cure the Knight who’s bleeding on the ground: I cure the sick of ev’ry pain, And raise the dead to life again. Father Christmas. Doctor, what is thy fee? The Doctor. Ten pounds is my fee, But fifteen I must take of thee Before I set this gallant free. Father Christmas. Work thy will, doctor. The Doctor. I have a little bottle by my side The fame of which spreads far and wide, I drop a drop on this poor man’s nose. [The DOCTOR touches the TURKISH KNIGHT’S nose, and he instantly springs on his feet quite recovered.] [Enter LITTLE JACK, a Dwarf, with several dolls strapped at his back.] Oh! in come I, little saucy Jack, With all my family at my back. Christmas comes but once a year, And when it comes it brings good cheer; Roast beef, plum pudding, and mince pie, Who likes that any better than I? Christmas ale makes us dance and sing; Money in purse is a very fine thing. Ladies and gentlemen give us what you please. IV:256. Pride flings frail palaces at the sky: This is the opening verse of Alfred’s hymn to humility. King Alfred, mindful of his sins, knows he is unworthy to receive help from heaven. He believes that the success of the Danes in overrunning his kingdom is a punishment for his transgressions. IV:274-79. Alfred is going against the powers of evil by using the spiritual strength he receives from a humiliation rightly borne. IV:286. Alfred leads his men as brothers to the first attack. IV:287. Roman roads came in many forms. The more important routeways ran on raised, ditch-flanked banks which resembled walls.

Notes: Ethandune: the First Stroke Synopsis: With practically all of England under Danish control, Alfred’s war-men sum up their situation. Each one has a sinking feeling that his death is imminent. After repenting of their sins, they put on a bold front. Colan slays the over confident Harold and receives King Alfred’s sword. To his great gold ear-ring Harold Tugged back the feathered tail, And swift had sprung the arrow, But swifter sprang the Gael. (V:243-46) V:1-6. King Guthrum was a dread king: Guthrum collaborated with Healfdene in pillaging, devastating, depopulating, and subjugating much of Northumbria, East Anglia, and the eastern part of Mercia. Healfdene went north to divide the Northumbrians’ lands among his followers, and three Danish kings (Guthrum, Oscetel, and Anwend) went south to Cambridge where they began to concentrate on the conquest of Wessex (Chesterton 1917,51). V:5. Chester: A city on the Dee river in northwestern England. V:5. Humber: The confluence of the Trent and Ouse rivers form the Humber estuary in eastern Englsnd. V:5-6. From the “Chester to the Humber” implies that before the battle of Ethandune the Danes dominated much of the territory between western Mercia and the eastern seaboard. V:7. Roman villas: A Roman villa in Roman Britain was usually the center of a large farm. Not a single villa has survived (Collingwood 1937,209-21). V:16. He saw the southern sea: The Southampton Water. V:17-19. With the exception of the territories south of the Thames and north of the Tyne, all the petty kingdoms were under Danish control in 877. Guthrum’s surprise raid in January 878 was an indication that he meant to make King Alfred and the West Saxons submissive to him. See E I:63-76. V:20-28. Guthrum’s scouts had most likely informed him that Alfred’s troops were assembling at Egbert’s Stone. Guthrum likewise collected all his warriors and carefully positioned them on the higher land overlooking the left fork of the road. V:35. Chesterton here relies on Asser for the time when Alfred engaged his foe: “Very early in the morning, he advanced his banners, and came to a place called Ethandune. And there against the whole Heathen host formed he firm his shield-wall, and fought a deadly fight” (Conybeare [1900] 1914,111-12). V:46. While still out of sight of the enemy, Alfred’s troops halt. They are losing their courage. V:58-151. This section is typical of epic poetry. Chesterton gives his characters voices. Note how each chieftain reveals himself “in the fashion of his blood.” V:62-63. Col an was sad because he did not have the amenities of ordinary living conditions. V:68-81. Chesterton is following John Lingard’s estimate of King Alfred’s early conduct. It has been said that the character of Alfred was without a blemish. Such unqualified praise is the language of rhetorical declamation, rather than historical truth. In his early years, indeed, his opening virtues endeared him to the nation; and in a more advanced age he was the guardian and the benefactor of his country. But at the commencement of his reign there was much in his conduct to reprehend. The young monarch seems to have considered his high dignity an emancipation from restraint; and to have found leisure, even amidst his struggles with the Danes to indulge the impetuosity of his passions. The scandal of Wallingford* may be dismissed with the contempt which it perhaps deserves; and we learn from more ancient authorities that his immorality and despotism provoked the censure of his virtuous kinsman St. Neot; and Asser, his friend and panegyrist, acknowledges, that he was haughty to his subjects, neglected the administration of justice, and treated with contempt the complaints of the indigent and oppressed. It was to this ‘indiscretion’ (to borrow the term under which the partiality of the biographer was willing to veil the misconduct of his patron), that Alfred himself attributed the severe and unexpected calamity, which overwhelmed him in the eighth year of his reign ([1849] 1912,19798).

• John of Wallingford’s Chronicle, written about mid-thirteenth century, mentions on p. 535 that “in the beginning of his reign Alfred was given to ‘serve the old man,’ and lived a slave to luxury” Cf. Conybeare (1914,222). V:79. lost land: Wessex. V:80. holy horn is blown: A reference to the Last Judgment (Matt. 24:31). V:118-20. Alice Stopford Green verifies that during prehistoric times Neolithic Stone Age people displayed extraordinary skill in budding cairns, stone circles, megalithic tombs, and fortresses (1925,5-9). Newgrange, County Meath, Ireland, is an outstanding neolithic passage grave built about 5000 years ago. Richard Muir’s History from the Air enables us to view some of these ancient tombs, temples, and stoneworks located in Ireland, England, and Wales. He comments that these relics provide many insights into prehistoric life: “They shatter the myth of the inept aboriginal savage, for the greater monuments could only be the handiwork of people who were sufficiently numerous and adept… as to be able to set the need for food-raising aside and dispatch sizable labour forces for work on building tombs or temples” (1983,33). [Reproduced by permission of Michael Joseph Ltd.] V:120. sun-god: Lug is the sun-god whose festival was formerly celebrated in Ireland on August 1. V:122-27. Lingard attributes to the druidical priests the ryn or mysterious language so often mentioned by the bards: “To every tree and shrub, to their leaves, flowers, and branches, they seem to have affixed a fanciful and symbolical meaning: and these allegorical substitutes for the real names of beings and their properties must have formed, in their numerous combinations, a species of jargon perfectly unintelligible to any but the adepts… . Taliessin boasts with complacency, that he is acquainted with every sprig in the cave of the diviner: that he knows the intent of the trees in the memorial of compact: that he knows both good an devil” ([1849] 1912,1:19-20n). V:130-33. Lingard relates that the Druids dwelt in huts or caves at a distance from the common people. “There, at the hours of noon or midnight, when the Deity was supposed to honour the sacred spot with his presence, the trembling votary was admitted within a circle of lofty oaks, to prefer his prayer, and listen to the responses of the minister” ([1849] 1912,1:17). V:146. fell: A rocky or barren hill, a down. (British) V:147. Wantage: In 848 King Alfred was born in Berkshire at the royal estate called Wantage. V:164-90. The Saxon kings actually fought on foot in the forefront of the battle. V:170. ten poles: Apole is a unit of length equal to 16 1/2 feet. V:171. wide-winged helms: The ninth century Danes wore conical helmets made of iron or leather. Although a helmet with curved horns dating from the Bronze Age has been unearthed in Denmark, it is a misconception to believe that the Danes who fought at Ethandune in the ninth century also wore horned helmets. V:171. runic blades: Paul Mallet describes the swords of the Scandinavian chieftains: “Their champions or heroes took particular care to procure very keen swords, which they inscribed with mysterious characters, and called by such names as might inspire terror” (1882,165-66). V:182. With songs and spells that change the blood: When they [Danes] went to meet their enemies, each warrior raised his shield up to a level with his upper lip, so that the round of the shield “formed a sort of sounding-board for their song.” They predicted the outcome of the battle by the impression the song made upon themselves. The runes of victory were supposed to stop weapons from wounding those whom Odin loved (Rydberg 1907,1:160-65). V:197-204. poor: lingard explains why the Britons became impoverished: “To escape from the exterminating sword of their enemies, the natives, as soon as opposition appeared fruitless, fled with their most valuable effects to the hills and forests. Multitudes found a secure asylum among the mountains which cover the west of the island: where, struggling with poverty, and engaged in constant warfare, they rapidly lost the faint polish of provincial civilization… . The captives were divided, together with the land, among the conquerors: they became the property, the chattels, of the lord” ([1849] 1912,1:84-85). V:201-4. sling: A leathern sling was used to propel stones, bolts, burning darts, and hot clay pellets. A bill was a shafted weapon having at its head a hooklike cutting blade with a beak at the back. A pike was a shafted weapon having a spiked tip. Chesterton shows his great love of arms in Book V: “This love of weapons, his revolver, his favorite sword-stick, remained with him all his life… . But they stood also in his mind for freedom, adventure, personal responsibility and much else” (Ward 1943,151-52). V:211-12. broke Himself for bread: This is a reference to the institution of the Holy Eucharist by Jesus Christ on Holy Thursday night (Matt. 26: 26-28). V:241. Excalibur: King Arthur’s magic sword. V:242. In the battle by the sea: Probably King Arthur’s battle at Carrdan where he uses Excalibur for the last time. V:243. great gold ear-ring: The Northmen with the help of foreign master craftsmen learned the secrets of metalworking and became expert in making bronze and gold jewelry. The women wore ear rings, and since Chesterton has Harold wearing one, it is possible that some men did too. V:247. The huge double-bladed swords of the Gaels were lifted above the head to strike. V:257. The small white daisy that grows amid the grass in England is known as the “turfing daisy.” It is a low perennial herb of Asia Minor having white daisylike flowers. V:265-69. The instant response of each of the Christian earls is to give Colan their most treasured and necessary possession. V:269. like a cup of chrysolite and pearls: Chrysolite is a transparent olive-green gem. V:274-75. The only way to get one’s heart’s desire is to put this desire out of one’s thoughts. This is a mystical insight. In order to save his life Colan gave up—let go—the one thing that could save his life (John 12:25). V:280-89. The “Broken Heart” has a personal love for each soul. Each individual is the target of His love. [In a prepublication holograph of the BWH these verses are a handwritten insertion. G. K. Chesterton Archives.]

Notes: Ethandune: the Slaying of the Chiefs Synopsis: The warriors fan out left and right on either side of their leaders. Noting the battle positions given below is a preparation for following the action that ensues. [In the text Alfred’s left wing faces Guthrum’s left wing. Even though this was pointed out to him, GKC kept the original wording (O’Connor 1938,67).] Guthrum on horseback Harold Ogier Elf Colan Mark Eldred Alfred After Elf slays Eldred, Mark overcomes Elf. Ogier kills Mark. The Danes push Alfred’s men back to the fork in the road. The King’s men retreat down the road to the right. Colan dies while opposing the enemy down the left branch. And when they came to the parting ways Doom’s heaviest hammer fell, For the King was beaten, blind, at bay, Down the right lane with his array. But Colan swept the other way, Where he smote great strokes and fell. (VI:282-87) VI:4. Latian paladin: Mark. A paladin is a military kero. Latian is the adjective form of Latium, the name of a country southeast of Rome in ancient Italy. VI:5-6. On Alfred’s left: Harold’s kin vs. Colan. VI:7-8. In the midst: Guthrum watching—Ogier vs. Marcus. VI:10-12. On Alfred’s right: Elf vs. Eldred. VI:13. swat: To sweat over a task; to grind [Dial.]. VI:17-51. Eldred overwhelms everyone until his sword breaks. VI:49. brand: A sword [Archaic & Poetical]. VI:56-62. faerie blades: In accounting for Elf’s wizard’s lance Chesterton takes us underwater into the never-never courses of the Rhine where the mermaids bestowed this magical spear on the thrice drowned Dane. VI:61-63. Lost waters of the Rhine: The Rhine river rises in the eastern part of Switzerland close to the Italian border, moves along the edges of Austria and of the miniature state of Liechtenstein, winds westward and then northward between France and Germany before passing through the Netherlands on its way to the North Sea. Geologists and oceanographers teach that the Thames river was a tributary of the Rhine before England was separated from the Eurasian landmass. VI:63-68. buried kingdoms: These lost waters have an unearthly fiery glow. While creeping down to the buried kingdoms, they “murmur and rebel,” “roar and weep / O’er the red heavens of hell.” Duncan Norton-Taylor and the Editors of Time-Life Books in The Emergence of Man: The Celts have identified part of western Europe as the “Celtic heartland, where the earliest identifiable Celtic culture developed during the Seventh and Sixth centuries B.C.” Parts of present day France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia approximate the area covered (1974,13). VI:95-99. Chesterton’s descriptions open up a fairylike world where Elf obtains a magical spear from the water-maids of the Rhine river. The “death-light on the wizard lance— / The star of the evil spear” heighten the eerie and sinister feelings which unnerve the Wessex troops. They believe Elf’s spear is lethal because of its faerie blade. VI:100-118. Mark encourages his own and Eldred’s men to stiffen their resolve to fight for their farms and homes. VI:108. ash: Bow. The tough, elastic wood of the ash tree was used to make bows for the archers. VI:119-29. Superstitious fears weaken their trust in God. VI:124-54. The soldiers’ latent belief in the magical powers of all objects, animate and inanimate, almost paralyzes them until Mark defeats Elf and breaks the evil spear. VI:127. glamoury: Magic. VI:127-29. The wizard’s tower and glass: These lines emphasize the superstition which is destroying the soldiers’ morale. In my quest for an explanation of this passage I have read many otherworldly accounts of magic. Merlin is known as the wizard of British folklore. “Glass” is associated with Glastonbury since people of Celtic stock used to call Glastonbury Ineswitrin, the Island of Glass. But what the exact references are to “the gods of the burning tree” and the “wizard’s tower and glass” elude me. VI:133. faith: “Whatever may be the meaning of faith, it must always mean a certainty about something we cannot prove” (Chesterton 1905,162). VI:138. Mark’s faith was above reason but not contrary to it. VI:140-50. In the sight of his fearful men, Mark’s sword ends any further action from Elf. VI:155-72. Mark encourages the men by reminding them that God is working through those who build, cultivate, weave, copy, compose, and create works of art. VI:170-72. “Gorlias, He [God] has broken the might of the bows, the shield, the sword, and the battle” (Pss. 76:3,46:9). VI:173-78. Battle-bays and palm branches are symbols of victory. The Wessex men seem to have seized the offensive after Mark has silenced Elf. VI:198. shield of brass and hide: Paul Mallet describes the shield used by the Scandinavians: “This most commonly was of wood, bark, or leather. The shields belonging to warriors of distinction were of iron or brass… ornamented with painting and sculpture… . Their shape and size varied…: the Scandinavians generally had them of a long oval form, just the height of the bearer, to protect him from arrows, darts, and stones” (1882,166). VI:216. weald: A wooded or wild open country. VI:216-64. Ogier rants and brags much as he did in Book III. To find similar contempt and boasting expressed by a Viking, read “The Dying Ode of Regner Lodbrog” (Alfred the Great [1858] 1969,1:376-78). VI:261. Egbert: See E I:116-22. VI:290. furze: Alow, spiny, much-branched shrub with yellow flowers, common on wastelands in Europe. VI:296. Haut King: Charlemagne (768-814). Legend has made him the uncle of Roland. VI:297. Roland: Roknd, the hero of the French epic poem, The Song of Roland, died at Roncesvalles in A.D. 778 defending the Christian cause against the Moors. VI:296-99. The final time Roland blew his horn the sound could scarcely be heard by Charlemagne. Chesterton here compares the last cry Alfred heard from the retreating Gael with the feeble note Charlemagne recognized as coming from Roland.

Notes: Ethandune: the Last Charge Synopsis: Book VII tells how the childlike Alfred, with Mary’s aid, changes a rout into a decisive victory. The opening stanzas refer to Alfred’s way of handling reverses. His appeal to the fleeing soldiers restored their derring-do. In the renewed fighting Alfred strikes down Ogier. As Mary, sword in hand, aids the Wessex warriors, Colan’s followers rejoin the battle. In his defeat Guthrum experiences an inner conversion and becomes a Christian. The Mother of God goes over them, Walking on wind and flame, And the storm-cloud drifts from city and dale, And the White Horse stamps in the White Horse Vale, And ye all shall yet drink Christian ale In the village of our name. (VII:247-52) For dire was Alfred in his hour The pale scribe witnesseth, More mighty in defeat was he Than all men else in victory; And behind, his men came murderously, Dry-throated, drinking death. (VII:265-70) VII:1-65. Chesterton returns the reader to the White Horse on the crest of the hill above the White Horse Vale. This prehistoric White Horse has an unobstructed view. He “looks on” while the battle of Ethandune is in progress. VII:14-15. Chesterton adds the sound effects “roarings.” The image “rent the sea / With roarings from the land” helps one to envision the cosmic upheaval taking place while the waters come “together into a single mass” (Gen. l:9-10). VII:16-20. The description of a child playing on the edge of White Horse Hill provides a quiet reflective interlude which reveals King Alfred’s character and his subsequent mode of action. Note the singleness of purpose and the unhurried calm and patience in tirelessly piling and repiling the stones. Alfred knew what he had to accomplish and he never accepted a reverse as final. He regrouped and started again. He “began to conquer because he did not mind defeat” (Chesterton 1911,9-10). VII:25-55. Patriots like Eldred, Colan, and Mark “rush,” “strain,” and “aspire” but lack Alfred’s patience, his staying power, his clogged determination to oust the pagan pirates from his kingdom. VII:54-55. Wantage, Alfred’s birthplace, was a royal estate in Berkshire near the traditional battleground of Ethandune. To celebrate the millennium of Alfred’s birth in 1849, the townspeople erected a statue to his memory. [There has been much discussion about the dates of Alfred’s birth and death.] Charles Plummer’s notes ([1899] 1965,2:79) fixed Alfred’s birth as 848; Dorothy Whitelock verified that his death occurred on 26 October 899 (Plummer [1899] 1965,2:cxlii). Chesterton has his finger on the pulse of the nation when he claims that Alfred “rules England to the doom.” The following excerpt records GK’s memories of the millennial celebrations of King Alfred’s death in September 1901: “A thousand years of thanks and praise have rightly concentrated upon Alfred a light of unique and universal admiration. From the first words of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle to the last wireless messages to the Anglor Saxon clubs and dinners in Boston or Philadelphia, there has been a chiming unanimity, a chain of polite or popular compliment, in which there is actually no break at all… . He is one of two or three men who have been nearly obliterated by praise” (Ward 1933,5758). VII:56-69. He began his life once more: Things are as bad as before, but Alfred doesn’t mind. Even though he and his warriors are separated from Colan and his followers, Alfred appeals to his men to consider the alternatives. Then he urges them to spare nothing in striving for victory. VII:70. double way: Guthrum’s choice of a battlefield facing a single branching road has strategic importance. V:29-33, 159, VII:279-87,291, VII:70,83,175. VII:70-87. After scattering Alfred’s men, the Danes are relaxing jubilantly. VII:84-87. sudden stay: “Stay” means a change of direction. “Alfred’s routed few” dispersed in all directions (VII:78-86). Some of the Danes, thinking it’s all over because they have defeated Alfred’s men, have “slipped up the road to fly.” When Alfred blows the horn he gets the attention of several of the foe as well as that of his soldiers. VII:102-26. Brothers… . Are slavery and starvation flowers: Haakon Shetelig confirms what Alfred has told his troops: “To a large extent, of course, the Vikings reduced the original inhabitants to the state of dependent serfs, appropriating all land to themselves” (1940,1:91). See also ASC 876. VII:127-55. Alfred’s respect for each individual transforms the men: “Stood firm that feeble line.” Together they “went roaring down to die.” VII:137. bondsmen: Serfs or slaves. VII:158. empery: The territory ruled over by King Egbert (802-839). VII:160. venery: The activity of hunting. VII:184-258. And when the last arrow Was fitted and was flown, takes us back to The Vision of the King when Alfred asks Our Lady: “When our last bow is broken, Queen, And our last javelin cast, … … … … … … … . . Shall we come home at last?” (I:197-98,202) In reply, Our Lady intimated Alfred would endure difficulties before victory, but hints at success by asking him, “Do you have joy without a cause, Yea, faith without a hope?” (I:260-61) Now “the queen of men,” sword in hand, shows kindness to Alfred by reversing the tide of war. VII:189-91. Instead of referring to the legendary apparition of St. Neot to King Alfred on the night before the battle, Chesterton gives Our Lady the role of obtaining Divine help for King Alfred. The following account from The Chronicle of St. Neots was in print in 1900 and was probably well known to Chesterton: On the night before the Battle of Ethandune, while Alfred slumbered, ‘there showed unto him an apparition in the likeness of St. Neot, erst his own dear friend and kinsman, and bade him “Cast away all fear and dreed of the Barbarians, neither be of faint heart because of their multitude. For tomorrow will the Lord visit thee and thy people, seeing that for the arrogance of thy youth hast thou suffered all this trouble.” “Yea, tomorrow,” added he, “will I go on all day long before thy banners, that the more surely thou mayest fight against thy foes, fearing nought; and mayest know that the Lord Almighty fighteth for thee and for thy people.” Thereupon up woke the King, gladdened indeed by the heavenly vision’ (Conybeare 1900,226). According to another legend St. Cuthbert appeared to Alfred at Athelney and foretold his eventual triumph (Conybeare [1900] 1914,179). VII:189-204. Chesterton’s use of this fiction about Our Lady’s appearance bears out his love for Mary. Speaking of himself in Chaucer: “I do not quite understand why Chaucer must have ‘passed through’ this fit of devotion; as if he had Mariolatry like the measles. Even an amateur who has encountered the malady may be allowed to testify that it does not usually visit its victim for a brief ‘period’; it is generally chronic and (in some sad cases I have known) quite incurable” (1932,118). VII:200-202. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle for 994 tells about Mary’s compassion on her birthday (8 September) for the citizens of London. She prevented Anlaf, Sweyn, and their host from sacking and setting fire to the city. With Mary’s help the garrison inflicted great harm and loss on the attackers. Stymied, they withdrew from London and continued to plunder elsewhere. Later in the same year, Anlaf received the sacrament of Confirmation, and he made and kept a promise never to attack England again (ASC 994). Was Chesterton’s choice of Mary as a heavenly helper in 878 inspired by Mary’s action in 994? The ASC chronicler records Mary’s repulse of the assault on London in 994; Chesterton ascribes to Mary’s assistance the decisive victory of Ethandune in 878. King Guthrum becomes King Athelstan of East Anglia; Anlaf becomes King Olaf Tryggvason of Norway. The spiritual conversions in both cases were lasting: “We set a sign on Guthrum / To blaze a thousand years;” King Olsf Tryggvason strove vigorously to establish Christianity in Norway. See the “Saga of Olsf Tryggvason” by Sturluson Snorri. VII:202. withouten: without [Archaic & Dial.]. VII:203-4. The seven swords symbolize the seven sorrows of Our Lady. “And a sword will pierce your own soul too—so that the secret thoughts of many may be laid bare” (Luke 2:35). VII:241-42. The London Times used these lines during World War I when Winston Churchill spoke of “the end of the beginning.” VII:250. The White Horse responds to the upswing in events by stamping his hooves. VII:252. village: Wantage. [Alfred’s birthplace] VII:255. The psalm is roaring above the rune: The Christians have conquered the heathens. Runes came into use among the Germans by the third century, A.D., chiefly for magic (Campbell 1982,26). Johannes Brondsted in The Vikings devotes chapter eleven to runic inscriptions (1965). He points out that the inscriptions are the most important direct sources through which the Vikings speak to us with their own voices and in their own language. Charles Mills Gayley explains why the Latin alphabet replaced the runic letters: “The association of the runic letters with heathen mysteries and superstition caused the first Christian teachers to discourage, and, indeed, as far as possible, suppress their use. They were therefore superseded by the Latin alphabet, which in First English was supplemented by the retention of two of the runes named ‘thorn’ and ‘wen’ to represent sounds of the ‘th’ and V for which the Latin alphabet had no letters provided” ([1893] 1911,539). VII:265-66. Asser tells how “dire was Alfred” at Ethandune: And there against the whole Heathen host formed he firm his shield-wall, and fought a deadly fight. Stoutly and long kept they at it; and, by God’s help, in the end he got the victory, and laid low the Heathen with a very great slaughter, and followed hard upon their flight, with blow on blow, even unto their stronghold [Chippenham]. And everything without the stronghold, men to wit, and horses, and herds, caught he and took, and the men he slew at once; and before the gates of the Heathen stronghold did he and all his host take camp, like men. And when he had there tarried 14 days, the Heathen, anhungered, and a-cold, and a-dread, and at last, hopeless, became sore afraid, and begged for peace, on this troth that the King should name and take from them such sureties as he would, giving none in return. Never before had they made peace with anyone after this sort (Conybeare 1900,100). VII:276. Guelderland: Gelderland, a province of the eastern Netherlands. VII:281-82. An unsuccessful siege of Paris by the Northmen occurred in 885-86 (Hodgkin [1935] 1952,2:654). VII:285. Durham: A city located in northeastern England on the Wear river. VII:285. melted Durham bell: Here is another reference to Danish destruction. VII:299. woad: A blue dye-stuff prepared from the leaves of the Isatis plant. VII:299. bright with blood for woad: “Woad” is here used in a figurative sense. The red blood stained the naked bodies of the Celts as the blue juice of woad had previously colored the skins of their British kin. VII:324. The Raven of Odin, torn: The Danish flag was “a black raven on a blood red held” (Gordon 1924,3). “They say that the three daughters of Lodbrok [the lather of Hubba] wove it, and that in one day. They say, moreover, that in every fight, whensoever that flag went before them, the Raven in the midst thereof, if they were fated to win that day, would seem to flutter as if alive; but were their doom to be worsted, then would it droop, still and lifeless. And oft was this well proven” (Conybeare 1914,37). VII:324. Odin: The chief god of the Northmen. VII:325. And the eyes of Guthrum altered: Walter Besant accounts for the remarkable change in the Danish leader: “He perceived—this logical pagan—that King Alfred’s Gods had shown their superiority over his own in a manner so unexpected, so amazing, and so decisive, that he hesitated no longer. He acknowledged that superiority; he was baptized, and he never afterwards relapsed” (Bowker 1899,17). VII:359-60. In speaking of the baptism of Guthrum and the Treaty of Wedmore, Chesterton emphasizes the importance of the conversion of the Danish King: “In all the tacts that followed, the baptism of Guthrum is really much more important than the Treaty of Wedmore. The treaty itself was a compromise, and even as such did not endure; a century afterwards a Danish king like Canute was really ruling in England. But though the Dane got the crown, he aid not get rid of the cross” (1917,53). VII:366. Asser and the ASC state that Guthrum was baptized three weeks after the battle of Ethandune: “Then did the Host give him sureties, with many an oath, that they would leave his kingdom. And they plighted unto him their troth that their King should undergo Baptism, and this they fulfilled even so. And, some three weeks after, came unto him King Guthrum, with some thirty more, the worthiest men in the Host, at Aller, near Athelney. And in Baptism the King was his Godfather. And his chrism-loosing was at Wedmore. And twelve nights abode he with the King; and many a worthy gift gave he [Alfred] to him and his” (Conybeare 1900,124-25). VII:367. Far out to the winding river: The Ock river flows through the Vale of the White Horse and joins the Thames, the winding river, at Abingdon.

Notes: The Scouring of the Horse Synopsis: While Wessex lies in “a patch of peace” (879-892), Alfred not only strengthens English life and culture on all levels, but he also maintains and expands military preparedness. Alfred’s hospitality and generosity encourage foreign visitors, and his ambassadors represent Wessex’s interests around the world. Informed that the Danish armies were raiding southeastern England again, Alfred discloses his vision which foresees in some far century the arrival of a different type of invader. They will be writers and teachers who poison minds by spreading falsehoods. After four hard years of fighting, the enemy withdraws to the continent. Alfred has not definitively defeated the Danes, hut he has prevented them from occupying his kingdom. And though shies alter and empires melt, This word shall still he true: If we would have the horse of old, Scour ye the horse anew. (VII:204-7) VIII:1. The years between the victory of Ethandune in 878 and the return of the Danes in 892 are the “years of the peace of Wessex.” Alfred had many skirmishes with the Danes on sea and land during this interval, but no serious threat to the kingdom. In 892, Haesten, with a fleet of eighty ships, and the Great Army in 250 vessels established themselves in the southeastern section of England. Book VIII relates Alfred’s successful meeting of this crisis. VIII:3. bloody boon: Mary’s help during the battle of Ethandune (VII:189-258). VIII:4. An allusion to Mary (Rev. 12:1). VIII:12. Guthrum withdrew to East Anglia where he distributed land among his followers. VIII:19-20. The chronicler Aethelweard mentions the presence of ealdorman Aethelnoth of Somerset at the “chrism-loosing” of Guthrum (Conybeare 1900,139). Lingard describes the baptism and the chrism-loosing: “After a few weeks, Guthrum with thirty of his officers was baptized at Aller, near Athelney. He took the surname Athelstan, and Alfred was his sponsor. After the ceremony both princes removed to Wedmore, where on the eighth day Guthrum put off the white robe and the chrysmal fillet, and on the twelfth hade adieu to his adopted father, whose generosity he had learned to admire as much as he had before respected his valour” ([1849] 1912,1:204). In his History and Antiquities of the Anglo-Saxon Church John Lingard gives greater detail: “The priest depressed his head three times below the surface, saying, I baptize thee in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. He was now anointed on the crown with chrism in the form of the cross, and a white linen cap called a chrismal was fastened over his head… . Still it was expected that he should return to the church on each of the next seven days, to attend to daily instruction and to receive daily the communion. On the last the chrysmal was removed, and the ceremony was concluded” (1845,1:318-319). VIII:21-24. After withdrawing from Wessex, the Danes retained lands north and east of the following boundaries: “Along the Thames, then up on the Lea unto its source; then on right to Bedford; then up on the Ouse unto Watling Street” (Alfred the Great [1858] 1969,2:139). [This territory became known as the Danelaw.] The text of the two treaties containing the terms of peace between Alfred and Guthrum is still in existence. Dorothy Whitelock’s translation of the longer version is in English Historical Documents ([1955] 1979,416-17). J. A. Giles included both treaties in the second volume of The Whole Works of King Alfred the Great ([1858] 1969). See R. H. Hodgkin for an explanation of the clauses of the treaty ([1935] 1952,2:578-81). VIII:33-34. John Earle stresses the fact that King Alfred’s educational revival installed the mother tongue as the medium of elementary teaching (Bowker 1899,205). In the same collection of essays, Sir Walter Besant explains how King Alfred laid the foundations of English poetry and prose: “He collected and preserved the poetry based on the traditions and legends brought from the German Forests. He himself delighted to hear and to repeat these legends and traditions: the deeds of the mighty warriors who fought with monsters, dragons, wild boars, and huge serpents. He made his children learn their songs; he had them sung in his Court. The tradition goes that he could himself sing them to the music of his own harp” (Bowker 1899,29). Asser speaks of the application of Alfred’s children to learning: “For they have learnt the psalms, and Saxon hooks, and Saxon songs above all, and are for ever reading” (Conybeare 1900,104). VIII:35. the alms he gave as a Christian: The ASC 883 notes: “Sigehelm and Athelstan bare to Rome the alms that the King had vowed to send thither, and eke to India, to St. Thomas and St. Bartholomew, when they sat down against [opposed] the Host that was in London” (Conybeare 1900,125). This addition belongs to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle for 886. It was in 886 that Alfred vowed to send alms if he defeated the Danish army that was occupying London. The ASC also states that Alfred sent alms to Rome in 887, 888, and 890. Simeon of Durham describes Alfred’s generosity to those of his own kingdom: “At the holy solemnities of the Festivals, what boons he bestowed on his bishops and chieftains and knights, none may declare. Then did the poor leap for gladness, then were widows and orphans full of joy; and heartfelt praises they gave him. Full well he knew that saying of the Teacher—‘Then is money of true worth, when it has been handed over to others. Almsgiving is the end of ownership’ ” (Conybeare 1900,158). VIII:37-38. An examination of the account given by Asser, Alfred’s biographer, shows that the King considered himself only a steward of the wealth entrusted to him: He bade his officers divide his annual income always into two equal shares, to begin with. When this was done he assigned the first share to secular affairs; and bade it be divided again into three shares… .[This went to his warriors, craftsmen, and foreigners from many lands.] But the second half of all the wealth which yearly came in to him, from whatever source, he vowed freely and fully to God. And he bade his officers heedfully to part the same into four shares, in such wise, that the first of these shares should be paid over to the poor of every race that came unto him. And the second part he gave to the two Abbeys of his own foundation. And the third to the School, wherein he had so carefully gathered many of the high-born of his own race. And the fourth to the Abbeys round about (Conybeare 1900,115-16). VIII:39. Keynes and Lapidge cite King Alfred’s own testimony that he used the earlier laws of Kings Ine, Offa, and Ethelberht as his sources (1983,164). VIII:45-46. Asser, as a companion and confidant living at the court, can be relied upon when he says that Alfred set aside one-third of the income which he had designated for secular use to be assigned to foreigners: “And the third share gave he to the strangers of every race who flocked unto him from far and near and asked of him money. Nay, even though they asked not, yet gave he to each according to his several worthiness, full gladly, and with a wondrously open hand, beyond all praise” (Conybeare 1900,116). Asser specifies “the ends of the earth” from which visitors came: “For the time would fail me to tell… how day by day had he embassies from the folk that dwell by the Tyrrhenian [Mediterranean] Sea, and unto the uttermost parts of Ireland” (Conybeare 1900,112). Among the famous visitors to the court were Ohthere and Wulfstan, who gave detailed reports of their voyages of discovery and exploration to King Alfred. The King inserted an account of these expeditions in his Anglo-Saxon translation of Orosius. From this source one learns that Ohthere doubled the North Cape and entered the White Sea on the first trip northward. Wulfstan reported his findings in the Baltic lands. Judging from the space devoted to Wulfstan’s exposition of the curious customs of the Esti, King Alfred must have been captivated by the strange reports he heard (Alfred the Great [1858] 1969,2:39-56). Through his generosity in paying for their services, King Alfred attracted numerous craftsmen to his kingdom. Tradesmen came “together from many a race, and in almost countless numbers, well skilled in every kind of building known on earth.” Their expert work promoted Alfred’s plans for the upbuilding of Wessex. VIII:45-48. Asser in writing of Alfred’s munificence, states that he gave alms to abbeys outside of his own kingdom: “And in some years, too, he gave, as he might, by turn to the churches in Wales and Cornwall, in Gaul, Brittany, Northumbria, and even, now and then, in Ireland, and to the servants of God who dwelt therein” (Conybeare 1900,116). VIII:47-48. See E VIII:35. VIII:52. crakens: Mythical sea-monsters or enormous size, said to have been seen at times off the coast of Norway. VIII:55-60. Chesterton seems to be referring to Ohthere, the navigator. Dr. Joseph Bosworth says in an explanatory note appended to bis translation of King Alfred’s “Orosius”: Ohthere was a Norwegian nobleman of great wealth and influence, anxious to state nothing, but that to which he could bear personal testimony. It appears impossible for any one to read this simple narrative, without being convinced, that this daring Northman is giving a detail of his voyage, on the north coast of Norway into the White Sea… . Ohthere had made discoveries, which he communicated to the king, and Alfred thought them of such importance, that he wrote and inserted this detail of them in his Geographical and Historical view of Europe (Alfred the Great [1858] 1969, 2:39). VIII:61-66. Chesterton may be alluding to Sigehelm and Athelstan as the “great gift-bearing lords” who in 883 [886] went even as far as India. William of Malmesbury mentions that Sigehelm, Bishop of Sherborne, brought back “many a strange and brilliant jewel” (Conybeare 1900,165). VIII:70. Prester John: This mythical priest-king supposedly ruled a mysterious kingdom in India. Before his palace stood a crystal mirror in which he could watch his entire kingdom. Chesterton treats this myth in “The Modern Magic” (1944,19). VIII:72. Terre Majeure: The Carolingian Empire. Before 814, Charlemagne had much of western Europe under his control. VIII:72-77. Alfred recognized the civilizing influence of the empire established by Charlemagne. VIII:87. Chesterton identifies the Picts as the people “who lay beyond Agricola’s boundary in what is now the Scotch Lowlands” (1917,27). VIII:88-89. In the ninth century, Strathclyde was the name given to the territory governed by the Northern Welsh. It included the valley of the Clyde river. VIII:94-114. Alfred replies with a proveth to his advisers who are pressing him to drive out the Danes and to conquer the country above Hadrian’s wall. “A seer feels too small for life, / And a fool too large for it.” (VIII:96-97). This passage is a rebuke to the ambitious empire-builders of Chesterton’s day. In What’s Wrong with the World he writes: “I have thus explained… why I do not believe in Imperialism as commonly understood. I think it not merely an occasional wrong to other peoples, but a continual feebleness, a running sore, in my own” (1910,106). King Alfred, unlike his grandfather Egbert, had engaged only in defensive warfare. VIII:96-97. King Alfred’s actions and writings affirm his humility and wisdom. VIII:129-30. From Wantage Town to Plymouth Bluff: At strategic locations Alfred “made his fences tough” by ordering the construction of burhs [forts]. Hodgkin explains Alfred’s well planned system of defense ([1935] 1967,2:585-90). VIII:135-42. Thomas Hughes wrote a lively account of the 1857 festival that followed the scouring of the White Horse. Thousands of spectators assembled on 17 and 18 September to enjoy the merrymaking, as well as to admire the Horse. Money prizes were awarded winners in backsword play, wrestling, a jingling match, climbing a greased pole; and in foot, hurdle, cart-horse, and donkey races. Whoever captured the pig that was released could claim it as a prize (1859,92-93). VIII:149-53. At the opening of his last war, Alfred was forty-four years old. He had aged prematurely because of his strenuous labors as king. VIII:160-63. The Danes from Boulogne invaded Kent in two large companies in 892. Numerous skirmishes occurred during the early months of the war. At the outset Alfred tried diplomacy, but eventually detachments of his army fought successfully in various engagements with the Danes. It appears that Alfred acted as a commander in chief while his son Edward, son-in-law Ethelred, and others led the troops. For greater detail of the 892-96 war see: ASC 892-96; Hodgkin ([1935] 1952,2:655-69); “Aethelweard’s Chronicle, AD. 893-95,” Keynes and Lapidge (1983,114-19; 189-91). VIII:170. dykes: These simulate running earthworks in certain districts. Some dykes provided protection; others established boundaries. VIII:184-213. In Orthodoxy, Chesterton enlarges on the fact that things naturally tend to grow worse. The chapter, “The Eternal Revolution,” explains: “if you leave a white post alone it will soon be a black post, if you particularly want it to be white you must be always painting it again; that is, you must be always having a revolution. Briefly, if you want the old white post you must have a new white post” (1908,212). VIII:211. wot: First and third person singular present of wit, to know. (Archaic except Scotch and Dialectal English.) VIII:214-30. Aethelweard’s Chronicle (Keynes and Lapidge 1983,189-91) and the ASC are primary sources for Alfred’s last war. By 893 fighting men from all over England outside the Danelaw were hastening to the aid of Alfred. The “distant tribes” included those from Wales, Cornwall, and English Mercia. Alfred’s allies realized that their survival was bound up with that of Wessex. Hodgkin ([1935] 1952,2:653-69) has an excellent chapter on Alfred’s last war. Alfred’s previous attention to shipbuilding, to the improvement of the fortifications, and to the military reorganization of manpower contributed to his success. VIII:216-18. Leg ions of drafted men marched by “in haste and bitterness / For Christ’s sake and the crown’s.” VIII:223-24. According to the “Legend of Glastonbury, A.D. 62,” the pilgrim staff of Joseph of Arimathea “came from a thornbrake that had furnished thorns for a crown [Christ’s]” Catholic World 7 (July 1868):522. This pilgrim staff is supposed to have miraculously taken root in the soil of Glastonbury. Chesterton refers to St. Joseph of Arimathea as a wealthy missionary who took the body of our Lord down from the Cross and laid it in his own tomb… (Matt. 26: 26-28). Here Chesterton links up the part St. Joseph of Arimathea had in the burial of Jesus with a legendary role attributed to him of introducing Christianity into Britain (1917,35-36). VIII:233-35,245-47. While the soldiers are thronging past him on their way to drive out the pagan Danes, Alfred has a vision, an inner certitude, that in some far century “the heathen shall return.” For Maurice Evans, Alfred’s vision is the most significant part of the Ballad (1939,114-15). VIII:236-37. King Alfred gives his kingdom to Our Lady. The king’s reverence for Mary may be assumed from the fact that her name is mentioned after God in one of his charters: “I Alfred king, in honour of God and of the blessed virgin Mary and of all the saints, give and grant, being alive and still thriving, to the church of Scepton a hundred hides of land” (Alfred the Great [1858] 1969,1:388). For details about the ancient devotions, shrines, and pilgrimages in England, consult H. W. R. Lillie, S.J., England, the Dowry of Mary. VIII:248-56. The modern barbarians will not be warriors but writers and orators who will use “dead words” to eliminate God as the Creator and Designer of the universe. In Orthodoxy Chesterton denounces the evil influence of Herbert Spencer on H. G. Wells (1908,111). Mr. Wells set down the theory of Natural Selection as a fact of modern science. Adherence to this teaching was an attempt to get rid of God. Elsewhere in Orthodoxy Chesterton gives the Christian viewpoint: “And the root phrase for all Christian theism was this, that God was a creator… . It was the prime philosophic principle of Christianity that this divorce in the divine act of making (such as severs the poet from the poem or the mother from the new-born child) was the true description of the act whereby the absolute energy made the world. According to most philosophers, God in making the world enslaved it. According to Christianity, in making it, He set it free. God had written, not so much a poem, but rather a play; a play he had planned as perfect, but which had necessarily been left to human actors and stage-managers, who had since made a great mess of it” (1908,142-43). VIII:249. brands: Probably in this context: torches. VIII:262-65. Herbert Spencer “popularized this contemptible notion that the size of the solar system ought to over-awe the spiritual dogma of man. Why should a man surrender his dignity to the solar system any more than to a whale?” (Chesterton 1908,110) VIII:268-69. These are references to the accomplishment of impossible feats. VIII:270-72. Vergil composed the Aeneid, it is said, at the request of Augustus. In form it followed closely the great Homeric poems, while in substance it magnified Rome and the ruler of Rome. VIII:273-306. Chesterton fights for “Christian civilization against heathen nihilism.” The modern barbarians come as scholars who know too much to believe in God, and by their teachings they undermine and destroy the faith of others. VIII:293-94 Chesterton points out the reality of sin: Modern masters of science are much impressed with the need of beginning all inquiry with a fact. The ancient masters of religion were quite equally impressed with that necessity. They began with the fact of sin—a fact as practical as potatoes. Whether or no man could be washed in miraculous waters, there was no doubt at any rate that he wanted washing. But certain religious leaders in London, not mere materialists, have begun in our day not to deny the highly disputable water, but to deny the indisputable dirt. Certain new theologians dispute original sin, which is the only part of Christian theology which can be really proved. Some followers of the Reverend R. J. Campbell, in their almost too fastidious spirituality, admit divine sinlessness, which they cannot see even in their dreams. But they essentially deny human sin, which they can see in the street (1908,24). VIII:295-96. Ibsen and Nietzsche are two writers whom Chesterton singles out for attack. “My meaning is that Ibsen has throughout,… a certain vagueness and a changing attitude as well as a doubting attitude towards what is really wisdom and virtue in this life… . All previous ages have sweated and been crucified in an attempt to realize what is really the right life, what was really the good man. A definite part of the modern world has come beyond question to the conclusion that there is no answer to these questions” (1905a,31-32). Some of the philosophers who are by “thought a crawling ruin” come in for attack in Orthodoxy: Nietzsche will stand very well as the type of the whole of this failure of abstract violence. The softening of the brain which ultimately overtook him was not a physical accident. If Nietzsche had not ended in imbecility, Nietzscheism would end in imbecility. Thinking in isolation and with pride ends in being an idiot… . By the accident of my present detachment, I can see the inevitable smash of the philosophies of Schopenhauer and Tolstoy, Nietzsche and Shaw, as clearly as an inevitable railway smash could be seen from a balloon (1908,75-77). VIII:296. By life a leaping mire: Since Oscar Wilde was a notorious decadent, this phrase could refer to him. Chesterton comments: “Oscar Wilde said that sunsets were not valued because we could not pay for sunsets. But Oscar Wilde was wrong; we can pay for sunsets. We can pay for them by not being Oscar Wilde” (1908,104). VIII:324. St. Edmund, king of East Anglia, obtained his martyr’s crown when he opposed the Danish invaders in 870. VIII:332-50. After the East Anglian violation of peace with Alfred, the king used force to recover London in 886 (ASC 886). VIII:351-71. The thriving “clover and silent thistle” have “unwound the toils of men.” The contest continues. Unchecked nature defaces the White Horse. VIII:366-71. “Abrupt and absolute as an epic ends, …” (Chesterton 1926a,29). Against the backdrop of a “pale purple sky” and ivory battle smoke, the great Alfred continues the unending defense of his realm.

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The Catholic Spirit in Modern English Literature. New York: Macmillan. Smith, Timothy W. 1978. “King Alfred: An Eleventh Centenary.” History Today 28:423-28. Snorri, Sturluson. 1967. Heimskringla. Translated by Lee M. Hollander. Austin: University of Texas Press. Stenton, Frank M. [1943] 1971. Anglo-Saxon England. 3d ed. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Thurman, John. 1857. “On the Barrow at Lanhill near Chippenham; and on the Battles of Cynuit and Ethandun, A.D. 878.” Wutshire Archaeological and Natural History Magazine 3:67-86. Ward, Maisie, ed. 1933. The English Way. New York: Skeed & Ward. 1943. Gilbert Keith Chesterton. New York: Skeed & Ward. 1952. Return to Chesterton. New York: Sheed & Ward. 1945. The Splendor of the Rosary. New York: Sheed & Ward. West, Julius. 1915. G. K. Chesterton. London: Martin Seeker. Whitelock, Dorotky. [1952] 1968. The Beginnings of English Society. 2d ed. Baltimore, Md.: Penguin Books. [1955] 1979. English Historical Documents. Vol. 1. 2d ed. London: Eyre Methuen. 1980. “The Importance of the Battle of Edington.” From Bede to Alfred. London: Variorum Reprint XIII, 1-15. Wills, Garry. 1961. Chesterton. Man and Mask. New York: Skeed & Ward. 1990. “A Chesterton for the Right.” Christian Century 107: 532-33. Wilson, David M. [1960] 1981. The Anglo-Saxons. 3d ed. Reprint. Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England: Pengui Books, 1986.

Typeset at Marygrove College Publications Department Typeface: Bernhard

LIBRO VIII LA RIPULITURA DEL CAVALLO

egli anni della pace del Wessex, quando il buon Re sedeva in casa; anni seguiti a quel dono di sangue quando colei che sta sopra la luna stette sopra la morte a Ethandune [5] e vide venire il suo regno— Quando il popolo pagano del mare fuggì alle sue palizzate, inchiodato là dai giavellotti, aggrappato, e lo stupore colpì il re pirata, [10] e lo condusse al suo battesimo e alla fine di ogni sua scorreria. (Ché finché la lavagna azzurra della notte non sia tersa dell’ultima stella, e segni nuovi e fieri non vi si scrivano, [15] occhi non guarderanno con tanto stupore come quando un grande uomo conosce davvero una cosa più grande di lui.) E vennero al suo scioglier del crisma signori di terre lontane, [20] e una linea fu tratta a nord-ovest che liberò l’impero di re Egbert, dando ogni terra lungo il mare del nord ai figli della stella del nord. Nei giorni del riposo di Alfred, [25] quando tutto ciò fu compiuto, e il Wessex giaceva in una chiazza di pace, come un cane in una chiazza di sole— il Re sedeva nel suo frutteto, fra mele verdi e rosse, [30] col piccolo libro in seno e il sole sopra il capo. E raccolse i canti degli uomini semplici che ritmano col timone e la secchia, e l’elemosina che diede da cristiano [35] corse come un fiume vivo di pesci; e fece doni a un mendicante come a un dio errante. E trasse buone leggi dagli antichi re, come tesoro dalle tombe; [40] e più d’un ladro in anfratto spinoso, o nobile in torre macchiata dal mare, tremò all’aprirsi del suo libro di ferro, e al radunarsi dei giudizi. Poi venivano uomini dai confini della terra, [45] che il Re sedeva accogliendo, e uomini andavano ai confini della terra per la parola del Re. Ché genti giunsero al cospetto di Alfred i cui giavellotti erano stati scagliati [50] su mostri che fanno bollire il mare, kraken e spire di mistero, o confitti in nevi antiche che sono la bianca chioma del mondo. E alcuni avevano bussato alle porte del nord [55] dell’ultimo pavimento di ghiaccio, dove il pesce gela e la schiuma si fa nera, e il vasto mondo si stringe a un sentiero, e l’altro mare alle spalle del mondo grida da una porta chiusa. [60] E uomini partirono dal cospetto di Alfred, persino gran signori carichi di doni, non a Roma soltanto, ma più arditi, fino alle alte corti ardenti e antiche, di mori vestiti di drappo d’oro, [65] silenzio, e spade ricurve, schermi istoriati e giardini segreti e cieli grevi d’insetti— dove pianure di fuoco si stendono senza fine fino al paese purpureo del Prete Gianni [70] e alle mura del Paradiso. E conobbe la possanza della Terre Majeure, dove i re presero a regnare; dove in una rotta di notte, senza nome, di Goti cupi e Galli, venne [75] bianco, sopra candele tutte in fiamma, come una visione, Carlo Magno. E gli uomini, vedendo tali ambascerie, parlarono col Re e dissero: «L’acciaio che cantò sì dolce nota [80] ad Ashdown e a Ethandune, perché pende nel fodero così presto, greve tutto come piombo? «Perché dimorano i Danesi nel Nord dell’Inghilterra, e cavalcano fino al fiume? [85] Tre altre marce come la tua li finirebbero; e il Pitto riconoscerebbe il nostro dominio; e i nostri piedi salirebbero al trono sui monti di Strathclyde.» E Alfred nel frutteto, [90] fra mele verdi e rosse, col piccolo libro in seno, guardò le verdi foglie e disse: «Quando ogni filosofia cadrà, questa parola sola starà; [95] che un saggio si sente troppo piccolo per la vita, e un folle troppo grande per essa. «L’Asia e tutte le piane imperiali sono troppo poco per un folle; ma per un uomo i cui occhi sanno vedere, [100] la piccola isola di Athelney è terra troppo grande da reggere. «Forse sarebbe stato meglio, quando vi costruii la mia fortezza, là nelle larghe acque dei canneti, [105] esser rimasto sul mio muro di fango a gridare: “Prendetevi tutta l’Inghilterra, da marea a marea— sia Athelney la mia parte.” «Quei folli della zuffa pei troni— oppressori e oppressi— [110] avrebbero gremito le rive presso Athelney, agitando le braccia e gemendo senza posa, dove il fiume volgeva al largo mare, presso un’isola dei beati. «Un’isola come un piccolo libro [115] colmo di cento racconti, come la pagina d’oro che vergano i buoni monaci, che è tutta più piccola d’uno scricciolo, eppur ha alte città, meteore e uomini, e soli e balene che sfiatano; [120] «una terra che ha sopra una luce nel fiume scuro e rapido, un’isola accesa di totale chiarezza, perché un santo vi era stato; dove i fiori sono fiori davvero e degni, [125] e gli alberi sono alberi finalmente, «così sarebbe l’isola d’un santo; ma io sono un re comune, e farò salde le mie difese da Wantage Town a Plymouth Bluff, [130] perché non sono abbastanza saggio per reggere cosa così piccola.» E avvenne nei giorni di Alfred, nei giorni del suo riposo, che poiché al suo sguardo le antiche usanze [135] erano una strada dritta e una luce ferma, comandò di tener bianco il Cavallo Bianco come la prima piuma delle nevi. E fino alla rossa luce delle torce, dal travaglio del mattino grigio, [140] spogliarono dell’erba il Bianco Cavallo come lo spogliano ancor oggi. E sotto la rossa luce delle torce egli andava sognando come assorto, dei vecchi compagni uccisi come re, [145] e delle ricche irrevocabili cose d’un cuore che non ha aperture, ma è serrato, essendo colmo. E la luce delle torce sfiorò i capelli pallidi ch’erano oro annuvolato d’argento, [150] e l’ossatura del suo volto era fatta di corde, e un giovane signore si volse fra i signori e disse: «Il Re è vecchio.» E mentre ancora lo diceva un messo entrò di corsa, [155] gridando: «All’armi, Sire Re, s’armino i borghi, nell’orrore e nell’ombra del danno, hanno arso la fattoria di Brand di Aynger— i Danesi son tornati! «I Danesi incalzano i bianchi Angli dell’Est [160] in sei battaglie sulle piane, i Danesi devastano il mondo intorno al Tamigi, Danesi a oriente—Danesi!» E mentre cadeva su un ginocchio, i thane proruppero in ira, [165] gridando: «Male vegliano le vedette, e male gli sceriffi guardano la contea.» Ma il giovane conte disse: «Male i santi, i santi d’Inghilterra, custodiscono la terra in cui giuriamo loro oro; [170] gli argini vanno in rovina, il Re invecchia, e certo questo è duro, «che mai ne siamo liberi; che quando il suo capo è canuto non possa dire a quelli che colpì, [175] e risparmiò con mano stretta alla gola: “Andate, e non tornate mai più.” » Allora Alfred sorrise. E il suo sorriso era come il sole in potenza. Ma egli additò soltanto: comandò di badare [180] a quei villani di stirpe del Berkshire, che mondavano il vecchio Cavallo dall’erbaccia come lo mondano a quest’ora ancora. «Vi disfarete dell’erbacce per sempre? O mostrerete alle margherite la porta? [185] O intimerete all’erba audace: va’, e non tornare mai più? «Così incessanti e così segreti prosperano il terrore e il furto sciolti; tradimento e vergogna verranno [190] finché un’erbaccia fiorisce in un pantano; e come la quiete dell’erba rigida la quiete della tirannia. «Anche sopra le nostre anime bianche eresie selvagge e alte [195] ondeggiano più fiere dei pennacchi d’erba, e più tristi del loro sospiro. «E io vado a cavallo contro la scorreria, e voi non sapete dove sono; ma saprete, fra un giorno o un anno, [200] quando una verde stella d’erba crescerà qui; il Caos vi ha caricato, destriero e lancia, ascia di guerra e ariete. «E benché i cieli mutino e gli imperi si sciolgano, questa parola resterà vera: [205] se vogliamo il cavallo di un tempo, ripulite il cavallo di nuovo. «Un tempo seguii una stella danzante che pareva cantare e annuire, e suonare in terra il rintocco d’ogni male; [210] ma ora so che se non ripulite bene ruggine rossa crescerà sulla gran campana di Dio ed erba nelle strade di Dio.» Tacque Alfred; e sopra il suo capo le grandi cupole verdi, i Downs, [215] mostrarono le prime legioni della calca, in marcia in fretta e amarezza per amore di Cristo e della corona. Oltre la caverna di Colan, oltre la casa di Eldred presso il mare, [220] sorsero uomini soggetti alla verga di re Alfred, dalle lande ventose dell’Exe mai calcate, o dove la spina della tomba di Dio arde sopra Glastonbury. Lontano a nord e lontano a ovest [225] le tribù remote s’appressarono, piane oltre piane, altura oltre altura, che un uomo al tramonto vede così bene, e le minuscole città colorate che dimorano negli angoli del cielo. [230] Ma per quanto scura e fitta si accalcasse la schiera, “con tamburo e torcia e lama, il Re dall’occhio fermo sedeva pensoso, come chi osserva una cosa viva, il gesso ripulito; e disse, [235] «Sebbene io dia questa terra a Nostra Signora, che mi soccorse in Athelney, sebbene alberi più sovrani e zolla più vigorosa e colline più liete carne non calcò mai del giardino della Madre di Dio [240] tra la riva del Tamigi e il mare, «io so che vi cresceranno erbacce più svelte di quanto l’uomo possa bruciarle; e benché ora si disperdano e vadano, in qualche secolo lontano, triste e lento, [245] ho una visione, e so che il pagano tornerà. «Non verranno con navi da guerra, non devasteranno con tizzoni, ma i libri saranno tutto il loro cibo, [250] e inchiostro sulle loro mani. «Non con l’umore dei cacciatori o selvaggia perizia in guerra, ma ordinando ogni cosa con parole morte, faranno stringhe di bestie e uccelli, [255] e ruote di vento e di stella. «Verranno miti come chierici di convento, con molti rotoli e penne; e indietro vi volgerete a guardare, bramando uno dei giorni di Alfred, [260] quando i pagani erano ancora uomini. «Il caro sole fatto nano da soli tremendi, come fiori più feroci sullo stelo, la Terra perduta e piccola come un pisello nell’alta foresta torreggiante del cielo, [265] —queste le piccole erbacce che vedrete strisciare, coprendo il gesso. «Ma benché gettino ponti sul mare di Santa Maria, o rubino l’ala di San Michele— benché innalzino meraviglie su di noi, [270] più grandi di quante il gran Virgilio ne operò per il re romano, «da questo segno li conoscerete: lo spezzarsi della spada, e l’Uomo non più libero cavaliere, [275] che ama oppure odia il suo signore. «Sì, questo sarà il loro segno, il segno del fuoco morente; e l’Uomo ridotto a un mezzo scemo, che non sa nulla di suo padre. [280] «Che importa se vengono con rotolo e penna, gravi come un chierico raso, da questo segno li conoscerete, che rovinano e fanno buio; «da tutti gli uomini asserviti al Nulla, [285] schiavi senza un signore, da un unico cieco mondo idiota obbedito, troppo cieco per essere aborrito; «dal terrore e dalle crudeli storie di maledizione nell’ossa e nel sangue, [290] dal fato e dalla debolezza vincenti, maledetti fin dal principio, dal dettaglio del peccare, e dal diniego del peccato; «dal pensiero rovina strisciante, [295] dalla vita fango che balza, da un cuore infranto nel petto del mondo, e dalla fine del desiderio del mondo; «da Dio e dall’uomo disonorati, dalla morte e dalla vita rese vane, [300] riconoscete il vecchio barbaro, il barbaro tornato ancora— «quando è gran parlare di corrente e marea, e di saggezza e destino, salutate quel pagano che non muore [305] che è più triste del mare. «In qual modo gli uomini lo colpiranno, o la Croce si rialzerà, o la carità o la cavalleria, la mia visione non dice; e io non vedo [310] più oltre; ma ora cavalco nel dubbio verso la battaglia della piana.» E l’orlo d’erba della grande altura fu rasato netto come un prato, mentre le leve affluivano da presso e da lungi, [315] dai boschi caldi della stella d’occidente, e il Re uscì alla sua ultima guerra su un alto cavallo grigio all’alba. E notizie del suo combattere lontano giungevano lente e a frammenti [320] dalla terra dei Sassoni dell’Est, dal levante e dal mare. Dalle piane della bianca aurora, e dalla triste corona di Sant’Edmondo, dove gli stagni dell’Essex impallidiscono e brillano [325] là oltre la città di Londra— in frammenti possenti e dubbiosi, come guerre fioche o favolose, scalavano i vecchi colli della sua fama, dove la fronte calva del Down del Bianco Cavallo [330] è vicina alle fredde stelle. Ma lontano nei luoghi d’oriente il vento della morte camminava alto, e una scorreria fu spinta contro la scorreria, il cielo arrossò e il fumo ondeggiò, [335] e l’alto cavallo grigio passò. Le porte del gran fiume furono sfondate come da una chiatta, le mura crollarono gremite, dicono gli scribi, e alte torri popolose di tribù [340] parvero piegarsi sotto la carica. Fumo come cieli ribelli rotolava arricciato su fiamme colorate, specchiato in mostruosi sogni di porpora nelle possenti acque del Tamigi. [345] Forte era la guerra sulle mura di Londra, e forte alle porte di Londra, e forte i re del mare nella nuvola irruppero oltre i loro dèi sognanti, e forte invocarono i loro Fati tremendi. [350] E intanto sulla Collina del Bianco Cavallo il cavallo giaceva lungo e smorto, la zolla strisciava e il fungo serpeva, e la piccola acetosella, mentre tutti dormivano, disfaceva l’opera dell’uomo. [355] Con dito di velluto, piede di velluto, i muschi feroci e soffici allora strisciarono sul grande bene comune bianco che ogni gente aveva lottato per spogliare e mondare, e l’erba, come una grande verde ruota di strega, [360] svolse le fatiche degli uomini. E trifoglio e cardo silenzioso prosperarono, e gemme sbocciarono in silenzio, con poca cura per la Valle del Tamigi o per ciò che vi potesse essere— [365] che laggiù sul fiume che s’allarga, nelle piane d’oriente per corona s’ergeva nel pallido cielo purpureo una torretta di fumo come avorio; e il fumo mutò e il vento passò, [370] e il Re prese la città di Londra.

The Ballad of the White Horse Documentation and Abbreviations The notes use the author-date system. Authors names and the publication dates of their books appear in the text, usually in parentheses. For more complete documentation consult the references on pages 225-231. Abbreviations GK, GKC, Chesterton Gilbert Keith Chesterton BWH The Ballad of the White Horse ASC Anglo-Saxon Chronicle P Prefatory Note D Dedication E III: 109 Endnote Book III: line 109 IV:11 Book IV: line 11 Chesterton at Battersea in 1905

Notes: Prefatory Note P:1. This ballad needs historical notes, for the simple reason that it is steeped in history. Chesterton’s emphatic disavowal is linked to his need as a poet to place the important battle of Ethandune in Berkshire near White Horse Hill. He knew better. Yet he dared not say, “Although I believe that the battle of Ethandune was probably fought at Edington in the vicinity of Bratton Castle in Wiltshire, I intend, for my own reasons, to locate it in Berkshire. The ancient White Horse is a significant presence in the Ballad.” See Introduction iv. P:22-25. ultimate victory of Alfred: The battle of Ethandune. P:25-31. tradition: Chesterton avoids the controversy by claiming to write from hearsay. Wherever it occurred, King Alfred decisively defeated the Danes in 878. This victory made possible “the gradual re-conquest of the Danelaw in the tenth century” and preserved England from losing its language, culture, and religion. P:31-35. Alfred played the harp and sang in the Danish camp: William of Malmesbury, writing in the early twelfth century, is the first historian to mention this legend (Keynes and Lapidge 1983,22,212). P:36-59. Alfred came in contact with a woman and cakes: The earliest extant version of this legend occurs in an anonymous account of The Life of St. Neot. This manuscript was probably written in the late tenth century after the removal of the relics of St. Neot from Cornwall to a priory at Eyenesbury in Huntingdonshire (Keynes and Lapidge 1983,197-202). P:66. Eadwig: A youthful king of England whose short reign accomplished little of significance (ASC 955-59). P:72-86. He fought for the Christian civilization against the heathen nihilism: Here is the theme of the Ballad: Life is an ongoing struggle between good and evil forces. Down to the last verse Chesterton spells out this theme on multiple levels of life.

Notes: Dedication Synopsis: Chesterton speaks to the reader (1-46): These rhymes are about the warfare waged between King Alfred and the Danes in the latter part of the ninth century. Chesterton speaks to his wife (47-94): I am dedicating this poem to you out of love and appreciation for your joyful companionship, and the spiritual inspiration you are and have been in my life. Therefore I bring these rhymes to you, Who brought the cross to me, Since on you flaming without flaw I saw the sign that Guthrum saw When he let break his ships of awe, And laid peace on the sea. (D:53-58) D: 1-16. Chesterton opens his epic of King Alfred the Great by emphasizing that this is an account of the aboriginal struggle of the Christians and the heathens for the control of England. Alfred is the great face turned toward the darkness enveloping his kingdom after the Danish surprise invasion of Wessex in January 878. Garry Wills (1961,136) pointed out that the first two lines are from Chesterton’s early unpublished poem on Moses. The first stanza is included here through the courtesy of Wills and of A. P. Watt Ltd. on behalf of the Royal Literary Fund. Of great limbs gone to chaos Of a great face turned to night From the grey old earth’s first twilight The soul of a man of might The man of the shattered tables The man of the living rod The man who gave to the nations The Ten Great Words of God. D:3-16. Why does a poet look back a thousand years at the England of Alfred’s day? He wants to remind readers that it was Alfred the Great who saved England. D:6-16. Chesterton refers to previous eras as “sunken Englands.” In “telescoping history” he declares: “The prime function of imagination is to see our whole orderly system of life as a pile of stratified revolutions” (1906,60). D:9. thanes: Men who held lands of the king or other superior in Anglo-Saxon times. They gave military service and usually had hereditary rank. D:17. gonfalon: A pennon or flag affixed to the end of a lance. The gonfalon under which the Normans fought at Hastings in 1066 was a white banner sent by the Pope to William of Normandy. D:17-18. The Normans conquered the Anglo-Saxons. D:18. The Anglo-Saxon flag was a golden dragon mounted on a blood-red held. D:19-28. We will not touch on the deeds of King Arthur nor on events after the Norman Conquest. Our chief concern is with the last third of the ninth century when a great Christian King withstood the Pagan Danes. D:21-22. holy kings: King Arthur’s allies against the Saxons. D:23-24. Bayeux: The town in France which displays the embroidery known as the Bayeux Tapestry. Of Saxon workmanship, it pictorially depicts events connected with the Norman Conquest. D:25. dawn: The early sixth century when Arthur supposedly fought twelve battles against the heathen invaders. D:26-28. Alfred’s achievements are so remarkable and varied that moderns find them almost incredible. D:41-44. The recent outpouring of Anglo-Saxon studies enables readers to enter into the life and times of Alfred. James Campbell gives a brief, illustrated, interpretative account of Anglo-Saxon history with notes and a bibliography. Simon Keynes and Michael Lapidge have extensive references listed in Alfred the Great (1983,345-59). Their new translation of Asser’s Life of King Alfred provides excellent background reading for The Ballad of the White Horse. Dorothy Whitelock’s writings about the Anglo-Saxon era are both authoritative and illuminating. D:47-52. Alfred realized that it was only by relying on help from God that he could defeat the pagans. D:53-56. Gilbert Chesterton dedicates The Ballad of the White Horse to his wife, Frances. D:56-58. Guthrum: See E VII:325. D:59-64. Gilbert and Frances toured the area around Chippenham where the Danes surrendered. Compare his poetic and his prose descriptions of the battleground. [Here is proof that GKC knew before 1911 that Wiltshire had a better claim than Berkshire as the site of Ethandune.] “But the other day under a wild sunset and moonrise I passed the place which is best reputed as Ethandune, a high, grim upland, partly bare and partly shaggy; like that savage and sacred spot in those great imaginative lines about the demon lover and the waning moon. The darkness, the red wreck of sunset, the yellow and lurid moon, the long fantastic shadows, actually created that sense of monstrous incident which is the dramatic side of landscape. The bare grey slopes seemed to rush downhill like routed hosts; the dark clouds drove across like riven banners; and the moon was like a golden dragon, like the Golden Dragon of Wessex” (1911,228-29). D:65-94. Chesterton here expresses his appreciation for Frances’s loving companionship, giftedness, and her sterling qualities. Father John O’Connor, a close personal friend of the Chestertons, confirms how well-founded was Chesterton’s love and esteem for Frances. “It is to her that we owe the most and some of the best of Gilbert Chesterton. In all things she was his angel, a small Cockney, a connection of the first editor of Punch. She even converted him from what he calls the Higher Unitarianism to the more loyal and rational kind of Anglicanism—Tractarian more than Ritualistic” (1938,28). D:77-82. A reference to certain contemporary writers and editors. See VIII: 248-302 and Endnotes. D:94. Frome. An urban district in Somersetshire, England.

Notes: The Vision of the King Synopsis: Chesterton introduces the White Horse, and then presents an overview of the chaotic migration of nations after the Fall of Rome (1-80). The heathen Northmen, a sea-folk, caused widespread havoc, and by 878 had subjugated all of Britain except Wessex. After the Danish surprise raid at Chippenham in January 878, Alfred at his wit’s end hid out on the marshy island of Athelney (81-161). At this impasse Mary appears to Alfred (162-277). Night shall he thrice night over you, And heaven an iron cope. Do you have joy without a cause, Yea, faith without a hope? (I:258-61) I:17. The White Horse of the White Horse Vale: Meet the White Horse which Chesterton recognizes as a prehistoric presence (1911,257). Thomas Hughes quotes the description of this gigantic White Horse given by the author of A Tour through England: “Looking south from the Vale, we see a trench cut on the side of a high green hill, in the shape of a horse, and not ill-shaped neither; the trench is about a yard deep, and filled almost up with chalk, so that at a distance you see the exact shape of a White Horse, but so large, as to take up near an acre of ground… . From this figure the hill is called in our maps White Horse Hill, and the low or flat country under it the Vale of the White Horse” (1859,216). I:18-60. End of the world: The downfall of Rome. Darkness settled over the civilized world. Hordes of barbarians poured from the east and the north into the Roman Empire. “That outer world of universal anarchy which lay beyond Christendom” (Chesterton 1917,50). I:32. cresset: An iron vessel for holding burning oil or pitch. It may be mounted as a torch, or hung as a lantern. I:38. Titan flowers: Gigantic flowers. I:41. Ind’s: India’s. I:42. inmost one: Mt. Everest. I:61-80. The death of the Emperor Charlemagne in 814 weakened the defenses which Christendom had in Europe. During the latter part of the ninth century, Alfred with God’s help stayed the pagan tide of invasion. I:62. The ninth century was a dark period for the Papacy. Lay investiture multiplied evils in the disintegrating Carolingian Empire. The Saracens pillaged southern Italy and threatened the Papal States. Within the city of Rome itself, the Italian nobles frequently fought to secure position and wealth. As unscrupulous politicians, they endeavored to put someone who belonged to their party on the papal throne. By this means they hoped to gain control of the temporal government of the city, and to enrich themselves by graft. Weak and unworthy men were in some cases appointed Popes. In 1059, the revision of the system of electing the Pope freed these elections from irregularities and imperial control (Mann 1925, vols.2,3,4). I:63-76. Alfred’s kingdom was in the hands of the Danes after their surprise attack at Chippenham in January, 878. While mustering his army for the counter-attack in the spring, Alfred hid on the island of Athelney (ASC). After Easter [23 March] that year, Alfred with the help of the inhabitants of Somerset, Wiltshire, and Hampshire fought against the entire Danish army at Ethandune and was victorious (ASC 878). I:77-80. During the ensuing years King Alfred strengthened the fortifications in his kingdom. This enabled him in 886 to quickly defeat the army which was attacking London and to overcome renewed attacks from 892-96. Meanwhile he initiated programs for the revival of religion and learning. His composite law code showed his judicious concern for maintaining social and political order among his subjects (Keynes and Lapidge 1983,16370). I:81-111. Chesterton refers to the Northmen as “a horde of heathen raiders out of the northern seas and forests” (1930,114). These pirates were at first satisfied with booty, devastation, and tribute. Their encroachments brought ruination and the depressing impoverishment of civilization. After 865 they aspired to conquer and settle. By 878 much of Britain was under their sway, and they were making concerted efforts to take over Wessex. I:89. horned heads: The Northmen are often erroneously pictured with horned helmets. See E V:171. I:102. The barbarous religious ceremony of shedding the blood of animals as well as that of men was not entirely abolished in Scandinavia until well into the ninth century when they received the light of the Gospel (Mallet 1882,111). I:108. A great heathen army came to East Anglia in the autumn of 866 and took winter quarters there (ASC). From this time onwards we read of the heathen army being somewhere in Britain. I:116-22. Alfred’s sires courageously opposed the recurring onslaughts of the Danish warriors. Egbert (802-39), the paternal grandfather of Alfred, brought about a short-lived, fragile union of the Anglo-Saxon monarchies about the year 829. Ethelwulf, Alfred’s father, reigned from 839 to 858. Alfred’s brothers, who ruled in turn were Ethelbald, 85860; Ethelbert, 860-66; and Ethelred, 866-71. Alfred governed the kingdom from 871-99. I:125. Lyonesse: In Arthurian legend, a country fabled to have been formerly contiguous to Cornwall but to have long since sunk beneath the sea. I:125-26. Arthur is “the king that comes no more.” Chesterton compares the vanishing memory of Alfred’s family with the folk tales still afloat about King Arthur and his “lords” who fought against the invading Saxons. I:127. The Golden Drag on: The flag of the West Saxons. I:129. King Alfred. I:138. In 878 Athelney was an island in Somersetshire at the junction of the Parrett and Tone rivers. Today it is a hill on farm land that can be viewed from the layby on the A361 about half a mile northeast of Lyng. I:141. broken to his knee: After the surprise attack in January 878 Alfred is stunned but not defeated. I:146-55. Alfred recalls the incident in his childhood when he obtained an illuminated manuscript from his mother (Keynes and Lapidge 1983,75). I:148. Alfred’s mother was Osburh, “a religious woman, noble both by birth and by nature” (Giles 1891,44). I:162-76. There are no recorded traditions about the appearance of Our Lady to Alfred. The pivotal part Chesterton has Mary take in assembling the soldiers (Book II), winning the battle (Book VII), and watching over England as Protectress (Book VIII), is evidence of the sincere love he had for the Mother of God. See E VII:189-204. I:177-82. The Alfred Jewel: This jewel of Anglo-S axon workmanship is a gold plaque having the portrait of a man in cloisonné enamel. Round the edge in Anglo-Saxon workmanship are the words “Alfred had me worked” (Keynes and Lapidge 1983, 203-6). The Jewel, found in 1693 at Newton Park some four miles north of Athelney, is the most treasured possession of the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford University. I:183-202. Chesterton was vividly conscious of Mary’s nearness to people everywhere. Maisie Ward tells us that he often spoke of “Our Lady returning to his own land, to all lands, and saving the world” (Ward 1945,4). Rather than attribute Alfred’s victory to the legendary miraculous help given either by St. Neot or by St. Cuthbert, Chesterton chose to have Alfred ask Our Lady whether or not he and his Christian warriors would eventually become victorious. I:205. croft: A small enclosed field adjacent to a house. I:211. hind: A peasant; a farm laborer. I:216. the Three Kings: The three Persons of the Holy Trinity. I:209-61. At the age of thirty, a thoroughly humbled Alfred realizes that Mary’s visit to him meant that victory would come after a tremendous struggle. “Do you have… faith without a hope?” From now on he goes “gaily in the dark.”

Notes: The Gathering of the Chiefs Synopsis: “Alfred of the lonely spear” gathers his Christian freedom fighters from western Wessex and Wales for an all-out battle with the pagan Danes. Mary’s message convinces the Roman, Gael, and Saxon to assemble at Egbert’s Stone. Out of the mouth of the Mother of God Like a little word come I; For I go gathering Christian men From sunken paving and ford and fen, To die in a battle, God knows when, By God, but I know why. And this is the word of Mary, The word of the world’s desire: “No more of comfort shall ye get, Save that the sky grows darker yet And the sea rises higher.” (II:74-84) II:2. shaw: A strip of woodland forming the border of a held; a small wood or grove; a thicket [Dial.]. Chesterton creates the atmosphere of ninth century England by using words taken from the vocabulary of the people of that day. II:1-8. In “A Romance of the Marshes” Chesterton describes the terrain around Athelney: “Everything in that strange countryside seemed to be lying low, as if to avoid the incessant and rattling rain of the Danish arrows. There were indeed hills of no inconsiderable height quite within call; but those pools and flats of the old Parrett seemed to separate themselves like a central and secret sea; and in the midst of them stood up the rock of Athelney as isolate as it was to Alfred… . One stooped to stroke the grass, as if the earth were all one kind beast that could feel” (1911,299-300). II:9-24. Alfred, buoyed up after meeting Mary, sings as he travels north toward the estuary of the Severn river in search of Eldred the Saxon. Alfred needs the help of all the Christians to drive out the pagan Danes. II:21. Franklin: A substantial landholder but not a nobleman. II:23. Sacred Tree: An oak tree. To the druids the oak was an “emblem of the Divinity” (Lingard [1849] 1912,1:16-17). II:24. Usk: A river in Wales that flows through southwest England into the Severn estuary. II:25-62. Compare Chesterton’s description of Eldred with the “English virtues” he cites in Cobbett. “The love of loafing and of lonely adventure; the spirit of the genial eccentric; the capacity to be a hermit without being a misanthrope; the love of landscape and of roads astray; and above all, that love of the grotesque that is as brave as a broad grin. Nor… was he without that softer side, only that with him it was generally the inside. I mean that it was in his private and domestic character that we see the English aversion to what is painful and severe. He was a very gentle father” (1926,203-4). II:46-57. Eldred has lost interest in fighting the Danes because of the unending defeats. Out of nine battles in 871, only Englefield and Ashdown were clearly Saxon victories. Alfred then saved lives and bought time by paying the heathens to leave Wessex. Five years later Guthrum and his entire army returned with the intention of taking possession of Wessex. II:58. scalds: Bards who sang or recited heroic poems and eulogies. II:94. butt: Probably a cask of ale near Eldred. II:96. Egbert’s Stone: This meeting place cannot be identified with certainty. It was in Wiltshire east of Selwood Forest, and within a day’s march of the next camping place, Iley Oak. According to the ASC, men from Somersetshire, Wiltshire, and Hampshire assembled there. II:103-12. The marauding Danes ravaged the homesteads of the natives and the dwellings of the hermits. Alfred sees destruction on all sides. II:105. steading: A farmstead [Dial.]. II:107. combe: A narrow valley or deep hollow, especially one enclosed on all but one side. II:117-41. After walking all night Alfred arrives at Mark’s farm at daybreak. The organization evident everywhere reflects the character of the owner. II:147-52. Alfred humbly introduces himself to the Roman as one who is still struggling to defeat the heathen Danes. He acknowledges that he bought peace by paying them to withdraw from his kingdom. II:151. wold: An upland plain; a region without woods. II:166. Wiltshire: A county in southern England. White Horse wold: This upland plain takes its name from the prehistoric White Horse located atop White Horse Hill. II:165-68. Mark shows his military competence by forming a judgment of the situation in Wessex. II:167. Owsenfold: An unidentified place. II:191. Or: Before, ere [Archaic]. II:192. Caerleon: Atown on the Usk river in southern Wales. II:194. broken men: Colan’s ancestors fled into the crags of Wales to evade the Saxons. His forefathers preferred freedom in a mountainous terrain to slavery elsewhere under the Saxons. II:199. Druid trees: The Druids venerated the oak. II:201. the fallen kings: Arthur and the legendary allied kings of sixth century Britain. They were the Christian Celtic champions against the pagan Saxon invaders. II:203. Last of a race in ruin: Colan is a proud Celt whose ancestors retreated into the rocky fastnesses of Wales to preserve their lives and their freedom. They were the Christian resistance forces in the sixth century opposing the onslaught of the pagan Saxons. Now three centuries later a Christianized Saxon is seeking help to conquer invading heathens. Alfred’s meekness and his message from Mary win Colan’s assistance. II:204-6. The Irish overran Britain both during the Roman occupation and after the legions were withdrawn (Collingwood [1936] 1937,282). They colonized Wales to such an extent that Gaelic became the language of the people (Oman [1904] 1925,158-59). When the Irish settlements lost their independence to the Welsh, Gaelic gradually became extinct in Wales. II:208-9. Ireland is “the rain-wrapped isle.” Brandan [Brendan] in reality is the sixth century founder of the monastery of Clonfert. In story books Brendan has fantastic adventures as a navigator sailing westward from Ireland. II:231-41. Colan’s deeply rooted pagan past influences him. Catherine Mulroy, an older woman from northwestern Ireland, wrote this account of early Celtic religious beliefs. Before Christianity came to Ireland the people there worshipped pagan gods, e.g., sun, moon, stars, seas, rivers, trees, fire, stone, iron, etcetera. The Irish have always been a deeply religious people—constantly searching for a greater being to pay homage to. This worship was inspired more out of fear than love. They believed that their gods governed people according to a pattern of dark, unreasoned fate. This left them an easy prey to chance, luck, sadness and despair. They did their best to appease their gods by their worship, but they lived in fear and dread of how fate would turn for them. Here and there throughout the land there were mounds, forts, and stone altars set up for worship, and at festivals fires were lighted on high mountains as an outward sign of worship. The great tall boulders along the Atlantic coast, for example, the high cliffs of Moher in Co. Clare are places where the gods were worshipped. These tall cliffs today can be termed “the gods of unbearable beauty” as one walks along the high cliffs on that rugged western coast. These were the types of gods our ancestors worshipped and when Christianity came with St. Patrick, the country was steeped in pagan worship. The conversion was long and arduous but very real as the Gaels were searching for the One and true Living God which Patrick brought. The sod was ready for conversion and the seed took root and began to grow, spreading through the length and breadth of that land. The worship of pagan gods bed to be abandoned, hut as this was a deep-down thing, it was not easy for the New Christians to relinquish all their old deep-rooted nature worship. They feared to let go of everything and held on to what they thought was important in the line of small manners and customs—just in case there was anything important in them. These superstitions have been passed down from generation to generation and there are still some slight traces in evidence in certain areas in the West [of Ireland], even in the twentieth century. Catherine Mulroy, R.S.M. 1988. Manuscript to editor. (London: Bellord House, 7 Gun St.) II:235-36. The gods could break the hearts of men because the pagan Cert believed that death could come suddenly upon a person who broke his word to the Sun, Moon, etcetera. The people lived in rear of the avenging action of the elements. Professor Eoin MacNeill made an insightful summation: “The Celt was plying an age-long warfare against the crude primeval forces of the physical world, and was everywhere face to face, not with measure, but with immensity—with vast forest regions, the rigors of the northern… winter, the mystery of the boundless ocean. This experience has shaped and coloured all his thought and all his literature; most ofJ his legends of antiquity” (1910,4-5). II:268-75. Early Irish literature relates the legendary deeds of Cuchulainn, Deirdre and Naoise, Oisin and Fionn, and many others. II:277. See E V:201-2 where hills and pikes are described.

Notes: The Harp of Alfred Synopsis: While Alfred awaits his allies he visits the Danish camp disguised as a harper. This interlude provides a fine opportunity for comparing Pagan and Christian ideals and gives the motive for the whole campaign. The Harp of Alfred is a “tournament of song, in which the sensual Pagan [Harold], the poetic Pagan [Elf], the savage Pagan [Ogier], and the cultured Pagan [Guthrum] say their say with music, before Alfred says the say of Christian Fact” (O’Connor 1938,65). For our God hath blessed creation, Calling it good. I know What spirit with whom you blindly band Hath blessed destruction with his hand; Yet by God’s death the stars shall stand And the small apples grow. (III:373-78) III:3. mass-book: A book containing the prayers and rites used by persons assisting at the celebration of the Eucharist [Mass]. Asser, Alfred’s biographer, mentions that King Alfred assisted at daily Mass (Keynes and Lapidge 1983,91). III:20-25. Dr. John Lingard describes the destruction of the monasteries in A.D. 870: “From the ashes of Medeshamstede they proceeded to Huntingdon, and from the destruction of that place to the Isle of Ely. The nuns of this monastery, who were descended from the noblest of the Saxon families, were sacrificed to their lust and cruelty; the treasures of the country, which had been deposited in the island, were divided among the barbarians, and the edifice, with every other building… was devoured by the flames” ([1849] 1912,1:184-85). III:24. Fires over Glastonbury Thorn: The Danes during their raids in Somerset ravaged and despoiled the monastery established at Glastonbury. III:24. Glastonbury Thorn: A variety of hawthorn which has the peculiarity of flowering twice in the year, first about Christmas and again in May. According to an ancient legend, the original tree grew from the staff of St. Joseph of Arimathea (E VIII:223-24), (Chesterton 1911,112-18). III:2-39. From the foot of White Horse Hill one sees the shape of the White Horse. The whiteness of the gigantic White Horse is indicative of whether the pagans or the Christians are in control. While the heathens are harrying the countryside, the Horse is overrun with weeds, but when the country is at peace, the Christians keep the Horse well cleaned. Today the National Trust for Places of Historic Interest keeps the Horse white. III:52-74. Guthrum is a Danish king who occupies a notable place in Anglo-Saxon history. III:79-80. He sang of some old British raid: Asser relates that Alfred listened carefully to Saxon poems which he often heard recited, “and he [Alfred] readily retained them in his memory” (Keynes and Lapidge 1983,75). III:80. wild west march: The borderland between Mercia and Wales. III:86-90. Offa, the King of Mercia (757-96), constructed this dyke to prevent Welsh penetration of Mercia. Offa’s Dyke consisted “of a ditch to the west about 6 feet deep and a rampart rising up to 25 feet above it to the east; the whole structure being 60 feet across” (Campbell 1982,120). Asser writing in the 890s mentions its extent. “Offa … had a great rampart built from sea to sea between Britain [Wales] and Mercia” (Giles 1891,47). Eighty of the one hundred fifty miles of this phenomenal structure are extant. III:99. The marauding Northmen terrified the peoples between Cyprus in the Mediterranean and the island of Skye in the Heb rides off the northwest coast of Scotland. III:109. Tyre, famous for its purple dyes, was a maritime city in ancient Phoenicia. III:116. In Norse mythology Loki is the contriver of fraud. III:122,126. Chesterton introduces kennings, those metaphorical compound words such as “bracelet-giver” (king) and “sword-swinger” (warrior). These give “a slight feeling of antiquity” and place the reader into the ninth century ambience. III:130. shaven men: Clerics. Before becoming clerics, laymen received the sacred rite of tonsure. III:151. Allemagne: Germany [Fr.]. III:153. For the May Day festivities in the Rhineland, the people decorate a tree with ribbons, wreaths, cookies, etcetera. III:158-75. Balder beautiful: Balder, the son of Odin and Frigga, dies because his mother neglected to ask the mistletoe not to hurt her son. III:164-75. The sentimental Elf is sad because there is no security. His gods are superior beings, yet like himself mortal and subject to mishaps. Even Balder, the noblest and gentlest of the gods, was killed through a sneaky scheme of Loki. III:180. Stone and Sling: Although “the bow and arrows, the battle-axe, and the sword” were commonly used by the Northmen, some armed themselves with “javelins, slings, clubs stuck round with points, lances and a sort of daggers” (Mallet 1882,165-66). III:188. yew: The yew tree is symbolic of grief and death. III:188-230. The pessimistic Ogier, soured by hatred, delighting only in his power to destroy, awaits the final cataclysm. Stern and ruthless, he shares in the wrath of the gods who wait for the final break up of the universe. III:216-26. the last eclipse: Ragnarok, or the Twilight of the Gods, is the destruction of the gods and all things in a final battle with evil powers (Mallet 1882,451-58). III:221. the high ones in the happy town: All who died in a violent manner were received into Valhalla in the happy town of Asgard. III:231-34. King Guthrum was an educated Dane who knew how to read and write. III:235-95. Guthrum, recognizing the certainty of death and the uncertainty of a life to come, is happiest in battle where he can become oblivious of death. III:258-65. The soul is like a lost bird: This may be a reference to the speech [A.D. 627] of one of King Edwin’s counselors who compared the life of a man to that of a sparrow that flies in one door and disappears out another. “So this life of man appears for a short space, but of what went before or what is to follow we are utterly ignorant” (Beda 1910,91). III:303-318. Alfred declares his view of life. He begins with the Fall of Adam in the garden. Man misused his free will. The evil in the world is the result of “the wrong use of the will, and… it can eventually be righted by the right use of the will” (Chesterton 1930,226). III:329-42. Alfred’s faith in God is his basis for hope. Though “the sky grows darker,” he has an inner conviction that persistent efforts aided by God will somehow bring success. III:357-66. Alfred tells the Danes their way of life eventually ends in failure. Creators and preservers in the long run will be the survivors. For our God hath blest creation, Calling it good… . (III:373-74), (Gen. 1:12)

Notes: The Woman in the Forest Synopsis: Alfred scouts the environs of the Danish camp at Ethandune before going to the river-hut at Egbert Stone. There a woman asks him to watch the fire. While he pities her poverty he lets the cakes burn. The woman deals Alfred such a blow in the face that it leaves a scarlet scar. At this juncture Eldred, Colan, and Mark arrive. Note how Chesterton uses this incident to move his epic closer to the decisive battle of Ethandune. This blow that I return not Ten times will I return On kings and earls of all degree, And armies wide as empires be Shall slide like landslips to the sea If the red star burn. (IV:274-79) IV:10. paling of the pine: Apalisade made of pointed pine logs. IV:11. altar-lamp: The sanctuary lamp of a church. IV:16. The old stones of a Roman way: The Romans paved some of the important roadways in Britain with stones. IV:22. Doom: Future, outcome. IV:23-24. The ASC explains how ruin alternated with victory in 871. “And this year there fought against the Host, in the land from Thames southward, nine stricken fields. Yea, and beside these, Alfred the King’s brother and many an Alderman, and many a King’s Thane, ofttimes made, each for himself, raids upon them, which are not counted. And within the year nine Earls were slain, and one King thereto” (Conybeare 1900,123). IV:25-30. Chesterton knows and uses authentic sources. Asser supplies him with each detail about the battle of Ashdown, even to the hawthorn tree. But Alfred, with his men, as we have heard from truthful eyewitnesses came the quicker to the field and more readily. Nor wonder was it; for his brother King Ethelred was still in his tent, fixed in prayer, hearing Mass. Needs must he either draw him back from the battle, or charge the enemy ere yet his brother came into the fray. And, at the last, in manly wise, charged he, with the rush of a wild boar, leading his Christian forces against the iceman’s hosts. But here those who know not the place must be told it was no fair field of battle, for the Heathen had seized the higher ground, and the Christian battle-line was charging uphill. There was also in that same place a lone thorn-tree and a low, which we ourselves have beheld. Around this, then, came the lines together, with a mighty shouting, in warrior wise, the one side bent upon all mischief, the other to fight for life and land and dear ones. Most part of their force [Danes] were slain, and with all shame they betook them to flight (Conybeare 1900,93-94). IV:41-52. under-skies: Chesterton takes us on an imaginary trip to Hades. While descending to the river-hut Alfred notes the foul smelling night-shade plant, the murky atmosphere in which “evil cherubs” [owls] flit about. IV:59-60. The tilted roof implies that this peasant’s home had been damaged by the Danes. It was probably a thatched timber-built structure shared by the household and the livestock. [Alfred’s legendary encounter with the Woman and the Cakes took place while he was hiding on the island of Athelney in Somerset; Chesterton moves it to Egbert Stone in Wiltshire.] IV:70-74. J. A. Giles included a version of the legend of Alfred and the Cakes in his Asser’s Life of Alfred: But it happened on a certain Jay, that the country woman, wife of the cowherd, was preparing some loaves to bake, and the king, sitting at the hearth, made ready his bow and arrows and other warlike instruments. The unlucky woman espying the cakes burning at the fire, ran up to remove them, and rebuking the brave king, exclaimed: Ca’sn thee mind the ke-aks, man, an’ doossen zee ’em burn? I’m boun thee’s eat ’em vast enough, az zoon az ’tis the turn. The blundering woman little thought that it was King Alfred who had fought so many battl es against the pagans, and gained so many victories over them (1891,60). See E P:36-59. IV:84. And all the last are first: “Many who are first will be last, and the last first” (Mark 10:31). IV:85. “Here am I among you as one who serves” (Luke 22:27). IV:85-155. Alfred explains the ways God serves him every day. IV:89-91. God is Alfred’s gardener who planted oak trees on the plateaus and placed dense growths of shrubbery in the graveyards. IV:124-25. Golgotha: “So Jesus went out, carrying his own cross to the place named after a skull; its Hebrew name is Golgotha” (John 19:17). IV:130-40. Perhaps the best interpretation of the significance of the star that “spins and swirls” is that it refers to the tiny spark of hope in Alfred’s breast that the Christian cause will ultimately triumph after tremendous trials. Chesterton uses the “wandering star,” the “dancing star,” the “light that leaps and flies” as one of the means of unity in the poem. Watch his references to it throughout the several hooks. IV:142. A time discrowned of doom and birth: One’s value will not depend upon such accidents as personal status or family origin. Chesterton champions the dignity of the individual and hints that better days are coming after the defeat of the “evil earls.” IV:143-44. “How happy are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 5:3). IV:156-60. Alfred’s thoughts are far away. It was rash of him to promise to watch the cakes. IV:173. Marcus with all his slaves in arms: Dorothy Whitelock explains that the slave class in Wessex consisted of persons of different origins. Some were descendants of the Britons, others were persons captured in wars. The greater number “were the penal slaves, persons enslaved as a punishment for certain specific crimes, or because of their inability to pay the fines and compensations which they had incurred” ([1952] 1968,112). IV:174-75. Colan and his followers had a mingling of pagan and Christian beliefs. Their “strange spears hung with ancient charms” indicate a superstitious reliance on magic. IV:179. jars of mead: Mead is a fermented drink made of water and honey with malt, yeast, and sometimes other ingredients. IV:190-202. The impoverished followers of Colan, clothed in the remnants of former finery, were a far cry from their kin who went to war “in graceful shirts and many-colored enfolding tunics over comfortable long vests” (Green 1925,408). IV:194. With Druid beards and Druid spears: Chesterton goes along with the popular imagining of the appearance of the Druids. IV:206. Mark’s disciplined army marching in step together sounded like “great thunder.” IV:207-8. living walls: The interlocking shields carried hy the soldiers in battle formation formed living walls. Rome hedged mankind by her military outposts throughout the civilized world. IV:217. From red Arabia to the Tyne: Arabia in Asia marked the southeastern extent of the Roman Empire, and the Tyne river in Britain was the northwestern boundary. IV:219. Since the cry on the hill Capitoline: The cry on the Capitoline hill occurred about 753 B.C. when Romulus was trying to obtain wives from the Sabines for the Roman youths. A legend describes how the early Romans resorted to cunning in order to secure wives from the neighboring tribes. During a special entertainment to which the nearby tribes were invited, it had been agreed upon that at a certain outcry the Roman men would seize and carry off the young maiden visitors (Livy 1913,14-15). IV:220. And the fall of the golden shield: Titus Livius relates the legend how Tatius, a Sabine, bribes Tarpeia, the daughter of the commander of the Roman citadel, to give them access to the city in exchange for the golden rings and bracelets they wore on their left arms. Instead of these ornaments, they threw their shields (which they also carried on their left arms) upon her and crushed her to death (1913,17-18). IV:227. lintel beams: The horizontal crosspieces over doors or windows which support the weight above the openings. IV:236-41. The laughter of Christians rings through popular tales in which people poke fun at the foibles of one another. IV:246-47. The mummers in England are groups of persons, grotesquely dressed, who go round from house to house on the morning of Christmas Day and act a sort of drama founded on the legend of St. George. The verses repeated by the mummers of the different localities have the same origin, but as they are not committed to writing, they vary in a trifling degree, and have in some instances considerable interpolations. The following version of the drama is given in The Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Magazine 1(1854): 80-81. The characters are:

1. OLD FATHER CHRISTMAS
2. MINCE PIE
3. A TURKISH (evidently a Saracen) KNIGHT
4. ST. GEORGE
5. AN ITALIAN DOCTOR
6. A character called LITTLE JACK And the verses they repeat, divested of modern extraneous matter, are as follows: [Enter OLD FATHER CHRISTMAS, with a long beard.] Oh! here come I old Father Christmas, welcome, or welcome not, I hope old Father Christmas will never be forgot. Make room! room! I say! That I may lead Mince Pie this way. Walk in Mince Pie, and act thy part, And show the gentles thy valiant heart. [Enter MINCE PIE.] Room! room! you gallant souls give me room to rhyme, I’ll show you some festivity this Christmas time. [Enter a TURKISH KNIGHT, with a wooden sword.] I am a valiant Turkish Knight, And dare with any man to fight; Bring me the man that bids me stand, Who says he’ll cut me down with audacious hand, I’ll cut him and hew him as small as a fly, And send him to Satan to make mince pie. [Enter ST. GEORGE with a wooden sword.] Oh! in come I, St. George, the man of courage bold, With my sword and buckler I’ve won three crowns of gold; I fought the fiery dragon and brought him to the slaughter; I won a beauteous Queen—a King of Egypt’s daughter; If thy mind is high, my mind is bold, If thy blood is hot, I will make it cold. [ST. GEORGE and the TURKISH KNIGHT fight—the latter falls.] Turkish Knight. Oh! St. George spare my life! Father Christmas. Is no Doctor to be found To cure this man who’s bleeding on the ground? [Enter the DOCTOR.] Yes! an Italian Doctor’s to be found To cure the Knight who’s bleeding on the ground: I cure the sick of ev’ry pain, And raise the dead to life again. Father Christmas. Doctor, what is thy fee? The Doctor. Ten pounds is my fee, But fifteen I must take of thee Before I set this gallant free. Father Christmas. Work thy will, doctor. The Doctor. I have a little bottle by my side The fame of which spreads far and wide, I drop a drop on this poor man’s nose. [The DOCTOR touches the TURKISH KNIGHT’S nose, and he instantly springs on his feet quite recovered.] [Enter LITTLE JACK, a Dwarf, with several dolls strapped at his back.] Oh! in come I, little saucy Jack, With all my family at my back. Christmas comes but once a year, And when it comes it brings good cheer; Roast beef, plum pudding, and mince pie, Who likes that any better than I? Christmas ale makes us dance and sing; Money in purse is a very fine thing. Ladies and gentlemen give us what you please. IV:256. Pride flings frail palaces at the sky: This is the opening verse of Alfred’s hymn to humility. King Alfred, mindful of his sins, knows he is unworthy to receive help from heaven. He believes that the success of the Danes in overrunning his kingdom is a punishment for his transgressions. IV:274-79. Alfred is going against the powers of evil by using the spiritual strength he receives from a humiliation rightly borne. IV:286. Alfred leads his men as brothers to the first attack. IV:287. Roman roads came in many forms. The more important routeways ran on raised, ditch-flanked banks which resembled walls.

Notes: Ethandune: the First Stroke Synopsis: With practically all of England under Danish control, Alfred’s war-men sum up their situation. Each one has a sinking feeling that his death is imminent. After repenting of their sins, they put on a bold front. Colan slays the over confident Harold and receives King Alfred’s sword. To his great gold ear-ring Harold Tugged back the feathered tail, And swift had sprung the arrow, But swifter sprang the Gael. (V:243-46) V:1-6. King Guthrum was a dread king: Guthrum collaborated with Healfdene in pillaging, devastating, depopulating, and subjugating much of Northumbria, East Anglia, and the eastern part of Mercia. Healfdene went north to divide the Northumbrians’ lands among his followers, and three Danish kings (Guthrum, Oscetel, and Anwend) went south to Cambridge where they began to concentrate on the conquest of Wessex (Chesterton 1917,51). V:5. Chester: A city on the Dee river in northwestern England. V:5. Humber: The confluence of the Trent and Ouse rivers form the Humber estuary in eastern Englsnd. V:5-6. From the “Chester to the Humber” implies that before the battle of Ethandune the Danes dominated much of the territory between western Mercia and the eastern seaboard. V:7. Roman villas: A Roman villa in Roman Britain was usually the center of a large farm. Not a single villa has survived (Collingwood 1937,209-21). V:16. He saw the southern sea: The Southampton Water. V:17-19. With the exception of the territories south of the Thames and north of the Tyne, all the petty kingdoms were under Danish control in 877. Guthrum’s surprise raid in January 878 was an indication that he meant to make King Alfred and the West Saxons submissive to him. See E I:63-76. V:20-28. Guthrum’s scouts had most likely informed him that Alfred’s troops were assembling at Egbert’s Stone. Guthrum likewise collected all his warriors and carefully positioned them on the higher land overlooking the left fork of the road. V:35. Chesterton here relies on Asser for the time when Alfred engaged his foe: “Very early in the morning, he advanced his banners, and came to a place called Ethandune. And there against the whole Heathen host formed he firm his shield-wall, and fought a deadly fight” (Conybeare [1900] 1914,111-12). V:46. While still out of sight of the enemy, Alfred’s troops halt. They are losing their courage. V:58-151. This section is typical of epic poetry. Chesterton gives his characters voices. Note how each chieftain reveals himself “in the fashion of his blood.” V:62-63. Col an was sad because he did not have the amenities of ordinary living conditions. V:68-81. Chesterton is following John Lingard’s estimate of King Alfred’s early conduct. It has been said that the character of Alfred was without a blemish. Such unqualified praise is the language of rhetorical declamation, rather than historical truth. In his early years, indeed, his opening virtues endeared him to the nation; and in a more advanced age he was the guardian and the benefactor of his country. But at the commencement of his reign there was much in his conduct to reprehend. The young monarch seems to have considered his high dignity an emancipation from restraint; and to have found leisure, even amidst his struggles with the Danes to indulge the impetuosity of his passions. The scandal of Wallingford* may be dismissed with the contempt which it perhaps deserves; and we learn from more ancient authorities that his immorality and despotism provoked the censure of his virtuous kinsman St. Neot; and Asser, his friend and panegyrist, acknowledges, that he was haughty to his subjects, neglected the administration of justice, and treated with contempt the complaints of the indigent and oppressed. It was to this ‘indiscretion’ (to borrow the term under which the partiality of the biographer was willing to veil the misconduct of his patron), that Alfred himself attributed the severe and unexpected calamity, which overwhelmed him in the eighth year of his reign ([1849] 1912,19798).

• John of Wallingford’s Chronicle, written about mid-thirteenth century, mentions on p. 535 that “in the beginning of his reign Alfred was given to ‘serve the old man,’ and lived a slave to luxury” Cf. Conybeare (1914,222). V:79. lost land: Wessex. V:80. holy horn is blown: A reference to the Last Judgment (Matt. 24:31). V:118-20. Alice Stopford Green verifies that during prehistoric times Neolithic Stone Age people displayed extraordinary skill in budding cairns, stone circles, megalithic tombs, and fortresses (1925,5-9). Newgrange, County Meath, Ireland, is an outstanding neolithic passage grave built about 5000 years ago. Richard Muir’s History from the Air enables us to view some of these ancient tombs, temples, and stoneworks located in Ireland, England, and Wales. He comments that these relics provide many insights into prehistoric life: “They shatter the myth of the inept aboriginal savage, for the greater monuments could only be the handiwork of people who were sufficiently numerous and adept… as to be able to set the need for food-raising aside and dispatch sizable labour forces for work on building tombs or temples” (1983,33). [Reproduced by permission of Michael Joseph Ltd.] V:120. sun-god: Lug is the sun-god whose festival was formerly celebrated in Ireland on August 1. V:122-27. Lingard attributes to the druidical priests the ryn or mysterious language so often mentioned by the bards: “To every tree and shrub, to their leaves, flowers, and branches, they seem to have affixed a fanciful and symbolical meaning: and these allegorical substitutes for the real names of beings and their properties must have formed, in their numerous combinations, a species of jargon perfectly unintelligible to any but the adepts… . Taliessin boasts with complacency, that he is acquainted with every sprig in the cave of the diviner: that he knows the intent of the trees in the memorial of compact: that he knows both good an devil” ([1849] 1912,1:19-20n). V:130-33. Lingard relates that the Druids dwelt in huts or caves at a distance from the common people. “There, at the hours of noon or midnight, when the Deity was supposed to honour the sacred spot with his presence, the trembling votary was admitted within a circle of lofty oaks, to prefer his prayer, and listen to the responses of the minister” ([1849] 1912,1:17). V:146. fell: A rocky or barren hill, a down. (British) V:147. Wantage: In 848 King Alfred was born in Berkshire at the royal estate called Wantage. V:164-90. The Saxon kings actually fought on foot in the forefront of the battle. V:170. ten poles: Apole is a unit of length equal to 16 1/2 feet. V:171. wide-winged helms: The ninth century Danes wore conical helmets made of iron or leather. Although a helmet with curved horns dating from the Bronze Age has been unearthed in Denmark, it is a misconception to believe that the Danes who fought at Ethandune in the ninth century also wore horned helmets. V:171. runic blades: Paul Mallet describes the swords of the Scandinavian chieftains: “Their champions or heroes took particular care to procure very keen swords, which they inscribed with mysterious characters, and called by such names as might inspire terror” (1882,165-66). V:182. With songs and spells that change the blood: When they [Danes] went to meet their enemies, each warrior raised his shield up to a level with his upper lip, so that the round of the shield “formed a sort of sounding-board for their song.” They predicted the outcome of the battle by the impression the song made upon themselves. The runes of victory were supposed to stop weapons from wounding those whom Odin loved (Rydberg 1907,1:160-65). V:197-204. poor: lingard explains why the Britons became impoverished: “To escape from the exterminating sword of their enemies, the natives, as soon as opposition appeared fruitless, fled with their most valuable effects to the hills and forests. Multitudes found a secure asylum among the mountains which cover the west of the island: where, struggling with poverty, and engaged in constant warfare, they rapidly lost the faint polish of provincial civilization… . The captives were divided, together with the land, among the conquerors: they became the property, the chattels, of the lord” ([1849] 1912,1:84-85). V:201-4. sling: A leathern sling was used to propel stones, bolts, burning darts, and hot clay pellets. A bill was a shafted weapon having at its head a hooklike cutting blade with a beak at the back. A pike was a shafted weapon having a spiked tip. Chesterton shows his great love of arms in Book V: “This love of weapons, his revolver, his favorite sword-stick, remained with him all his life… . But they stood also in his mind for freedom, adventure, personal responsibility and much else” (Ward 1943,151-52). V:211-12. broke Himself for bread: This is a reference to the institution of the Holy Eucharist by Jesus Christ on Holy Thursday night (Matt. 26: 26-28). V:241. Excalibur: King Arthur’s magic sword. V:242. In the battle by the sea: Probably King Arthur’s battle at Carrdan where he uses Excalibur for the last time. V:243. great gold ear-ring: The Northmen with the help of foreign master craftsmen learned the secrets of metalworking and became expert in making bronze and gold jewelry. The women wore ear rings, and since Chesterton has Harold wearing one, it is possible that some men did too. V:247. The huge double-bladed swords of the Gaels were lifted above the head to strike. V:257. The small white daisy that grows amid the grass in England is known as the “turfing daisy.” It is a low perennial herb of Asia Minor having white daisylike flowers. V:265-69. The instant response of each of the Christian earls is to give Colan their most treasured and necessary possession. V:269. like a cup of chrysolite and pearls: Chrysolite is a transparent olive-green gem. V:274-75. The only way to get one’s heart’s desire is to put this desire out of one’s thoughts. This is a mystical insight. In order to save his life Colan gave up—let go—the one thing that could save his life (John 12:25). V:280-89. The “Broken Heart” has a personal love for each soul. Each individual is the target of His love. [In a prepublication holograph of the BWH these verses are a handwritten insertion. G. K. Chesterton Archives.]

Notes: Ethandune: the Slaying of the Chiefs Synopsis: The warriors fan out left and right on either side of their leaders. Noting the battle positions given below is a preparation for following the action that ensues. [In the text Alfred’s left wing faces Guthrum’s left wing. Even though this was pointed out to him, GKC kept the original wording (O’Connor 1938,67).] Guthrum on horseback Harold Ogier Elf Colan Mark Eldred Alfred After Elf slays Eldred, Mark overcomes Elf. Ogier kills Mark. The Danes push Alfred’s men back to the fork in the road. The King’s men retreat down the road to the right. Colan dies while opposing the enemy down the left branch. And when they came to the parting ways Doom’s heaviest hammer fell, For the King was beaten, blind, at bay, Down the right lane with his array. But Colan swept the other way, Where he smote great strokes and fell. (VI:282-87) VI:4. Latian paladin: Mark. A paladin is a military kero. Latian is the adjective form of Latium, the name of a country southeast of Rome in ancient Italy. VI:5-6. On Alfred’s left: Harold’s kin vs. Colan. VI:7-8. In the midst: Guthrum watching—Ogier vs. Marcus. VI:10-12. On Alfred’s right: Elf vs. Eldred. VI:13. swat: To sweat over a task; to grind [Dial.]. VI:17-51. Eldred overwhelms everyone until his sword breaks. VI:49. brand: A sword [Archaic & Poetical]. VI:56-62. faerie blades: In accounting for Elf’s wizard’s lance Chesterton takes us underwater into the never-never courses of the Rhine where the mermaids bestowed this magical spear on the thrice drowned Dane. VI:61-63. Lost waters of the Rhine: The Rhine river rises in the eastern part of Switzerland close to the Italian border, moves along the edges of Austria and of the miniature state of Liechtenstein, winds westward and then northward between France and Germany before passing through the Netherlands on its way to the North Sea. Geologists and oceanographers teach that the Thames river was a tributary of the Rhine before England was separated from the Eurasian landmass. VI:63-68. buried kingdoms: These lost waters have an unearthly fiery glow. While creeping down to the buried kingdoms, they “murmur and rebel,” “roar and weep / O’er the red heavens of hell.” Duncan Norton-Taylor and the Editors of Time-Life Books in The Emergence of Man: The Celts have identified part of western Europe as the “Celtic heartland, where the earliest identifiable Celtic culture developed during the Seventh and Sixth centuries B.C.” Parts of present day France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia approximate the area covered (1974,13). VI:95-99. Chesterton’s descriptions open up a fairylike world where Elf obtains a magical spear from the water-maids of the Rhine river. The “death-light on the wizard lance— / The star of the evil spear” heighten the eerie and sinister feelings which unnerve the Wessex troops. They believe Elf’s spear is lethal because of its faerie blade. VI:100-118. Mark encourages his own and Eldred’s men to stiffen their resolve to fight for their farms and homes. VI:108. ash: Bow. The tough, elastic wood of the ash tree was used to make bows for the archers. VI:119-29. Superstitious fears weaken their trust in God. VI:124-54. The soldiers’ latent belief in the magical powers of all objects, animate and inanimate, almost paralyzes them until Mark defeats Elf and breaks the evil spear. VI:127. glamoury: Magic. VI:127-29. The wizard’s tower and glass: These lines emphasize the superstition which is destroying the soldiers’ morale. In my quest for an explanation of this passage I have read many otherworldly accounts of magic. Merlin is known as the wizard of British folklore. “Glass” is associated with Glastonbury since people of Celtic stock used to call Glastonbury Ineswitrin, the Island of Glass. But what the exact references are to “the gods of the burning tree” and the “wizard’s tower and glass” elude me. VI:133. faith: “Whatever may be the meaning of faith, it must always mean a certainty about something we cannot prove” (Chesterton 1905,162). VI:138. Mark’s faith was above reason but not contrary to it. VI:140-50. In the sight of his fearful men, Mark’s sword ends any further action from Elf. VI:155-72. Mark encourages the men by reminding them that God is working through those who build, cultivate, weave, copy, compose, and create works of art. VI:170-72. “Gorlias, He [God] has broken the might of the bows, the shield, the sword, and the battle” (Pss. 76:3,46:9). VI:173-78. Battle-bays and palm branches are symbols of victory. The Wessex men seem to have seized the offensive after Mark has silenced Elf. VI:198. shield of brass and hide: Paul Mallet describes the shield used by the Scandinavians: “This most commonly was of wood, bark, or leather. The shields belonging to warriors of distinction were of iron or brass… ornamented with painting and sculpture… . Their shape and size varied…: the Scandinavians generally had them of a long oval form, just the height of the bearer, to protect him from arrows, darts, and stones” (1882,166). VI:216. weald: A wooded or wild open country. VI:216-64. Ogier rants and brags much as he did in Book III. To find similar contempt and boasting expressed by a Viking, read “The Dying Ode of Regner Lodbrog” (Alfred the Great [1858] 1969,1:376-78). VI:261. Egbert: See E I:116-22. VI:290. furze: Alow, spiny, much-branched shrub with yellow flowers, common on wastelands in Europe. VI:296. Haut King: Charlemagne (768-814). Legend has made him the uncle of Roland. VI:297. Roland: Roknd, the hero of the French epic poem, The Song of Roland, died at Roncesvalles in A.D. 778 defending the Christian cause against the Moors. VI:296-99. The final time Roland blew his horn the sound could scarcely be heard by Charlemagne. Chesterton here compares the last cry Alfred heard from the retreating Gael with the feeble note Charlemagne recognized as coming from Roland.

Notes: Ethandune: the Last Charge Synopsis: Book VII tells how the childlike Alfred, with Mary’s aid, changes a rout into a decisive victory. The opening stanzas refer to Alfred’s way of handling reverses. His appeal to the fleeing soldiers restored their derring-do. In the renewed fighting Alfred strikes down Ogier. As Mary, sword in hand, aids the Wessex warriors, Colan’s followers rejoin the battle. In his defeat Guthrum experiences an inner conversion and becomes a Christian. The Mother of God goes over them, Walking on wind and flame, And the storm-cloud drifts from city and dale, And the White Horse stamps in the White Horse Vale, And ye all shall yet drink Christian ale In the village of our name. (VII:247-52) For dire was Alfred in his hour The pale scribe witnesseth, More mighty in defeat was he Than all men else in victory; And behind, his men came murderously, Dry-throated, drinking death. (VII:265-70) VII:1-65. Chesterton returns the reader to the White Horse on the crest of the hill above the White Horse Vale. This prehistoric White Horse has an unobstructed view. He “looks on” while the battle of Ethandune is in progress. VII:14-15. Chesterton adds the sound effects “roarings.” The image “rent the sea / With roarings from the land” helps one to envision the cosmic upheaval taking place while the waters come “together into a single mass” (Gen. l:9-10). VII:16-20. The description of a child playing on the edge of White Horse Hill provides a quiet reflective interlude which reveals King Alfred’s character and his subsequent mode of action. Note the singleness of purpose and the unhurried calm and patience in tirelessly piling and repiling the stones. Alfred knew what he had to accomplish and he never accepted a reverse as final. He regrouped and started again. He “began to conquer because he did not mind defeat” (Chesterton 1911,9-10). VII:25-55. Patriots like Eldred, Colan, and Mark “rush,” “strain,” and “aspire” but lack Alfred’s patience, his staying power, his clogged determination to oust the pagan pirates from his kingdom. VII:54-55. Wantage, Alfred’s birthplace, was a royal estate in Berkshire near the traditional battleground of Ethandune. To celebrate the millennium of Alfred’s birth in 1849, the townspeople erected a statue to his memory. [There has been much discussion about the dates of Alfred’s birth and death.] Charles Plummer’s notes ([1899] 1965,2:79) fixed Alfred’s birth as 848; Dorothy Whitelock verified that his death occurred on 26 October 899 (Plummer [1899] 1965,2:cxlii). Chesterton has his finger on the pulse of the nation when he claims that Alfred “rules England to the doom.” The following excerpt records GK’s memories of the millennial celebrations of King Alfred’s death in September 1901: “A thousand years of thanks and praise have rightly concentrated upon Alfred a light of unique and universal admiration. From the first words of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle to the last wireless messages to the Anglor Saxon clubs and dinners in Boston or Philadelphia, there has been a chiming unanimity, a chain of polite or popular compliment, in which there is actually no break at all… . He is one of two or three men who have been nearly obliterated by praise” (Ward 1933,5758). VII:56-69. He began his life once more: Things are as bad as before, but Alfred doesn’t mind. Even though he and his warriors are separated from Colan and his followers, Alfred appeals to his men to consider the alternatives. Then he urges them to spare nothing in striving for victory. VII:70. double way: Guthrum’s choice of a battlefield facing a single branching road has strategic importance. V:29-33, 159, VII:279-87,291, VII:70,83,175. VII:70-87. After scattering Alfred’s men, the Danes are relaxing jubilantly. VII:84-87. sudden stay: “Stay” means a change of direction. “Alfred’s routed few” dispersed in all directions (VII:78-86). Some of the Danes, thinking it’s all over because they have defeated Alfred’s men, have “slipped up the road to fly.” When Alfred blows the horn he gets the attention of several of the foe as well as that of his soldiers. VII:102-26. Brothers… . Are slavery and starvation flowers: Haakon Shetelig confirms what Alfred has told his troops: “To a large extent, of course, the Vikings reduced the original inhabitants to the state of dependent serfs, appropriating all land to themselves” (1940,1:91). See also ASC 876. VII:127-55. Alfred’s respect for each individual transforms the men: “Stood firm that feeble line.” Together they “went roaring down to die.” VII:137. bondsmen: Serfs or slaves. VII:158. empery: The territory ruled over by King Egbert (802-839). VII:160. venery: The activity of hunting. VII:184-258. And when the last arrow Was fitted and was flown, takes us back to The Vision of the King when Alfred asks Our Lady: “When our last bow is broken, Queen, And our last javelin cast, … … … … … … … . . Shall we come home at last?” (I:197-98,202) In reply, Our Lady intimated Alfred would endure difficulties before victory, but hints at success by asking him, “Do you have joy without a cause, Yea, faith without a hope?” (I:260-61) Now “the queen of men,” sword in hand, shows kindness to Alfred by reversing the tide of war. VII:189-91. Instead of referring to the legendary apparition of St. Neot to King Alfred on the night before the battle, Chesterton gives Our Lady the role of obtaining Divine help for King Alfred. The following account from The Chronicle of St. Neots was in print in 1900 and was probably well known to Chesterton: On the night before the Battle of Ethandune, while Alfred slumbered, ‘there showed unto him an apparition in the likeness of St. Neot, erst his own dear friend and kinsman, and bade him “Cast away all fear and dreed of the Barbarians, neither be of faint heart because of their multitude. For tomorrow will the Lord visit thee and thy people, seeing that for the arrogance of thy youth hast thou suffered all this trouble.” “Yea, tomorrow,” added he, “will I go on all day long before thy banners, that the more surely thou mayest fight against thy foes, fearing nought; and mayest know that the Lord Almighty fighteth for thee and for thy people.” Thereupon up woke the King, gladdened indeed by the heavenly vision’ (Conybeare 1900,226). According to another legend St. Cuthbert appeared to Alfred at Athelney and foretold his eventual triumph (Conybeare [1900] 1914,179). VII:189-204. Chesterton’s use of this fiction about Our Lady’s appearance bears out his love for Mary. Speaking of himself in Chaucer: “I do not quite understand why Chaucer must have ‘passed through’ this fit of devotion; as if he had Mariolatry like the measles. Even an amateur who has encountered the malady may be allowed to testify that it does not usually visit its victim for a brief ‘period’; it is generally chronic and (in some sad cases I have known) quite incurable” (1932,118). VII:200-202. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle for 994 tells about Mary’s compassion on her birthday (8 September) for the citizens of London. She prevented Anlaf, Sweyn, and their host from sacking and setting fire to the city. With Mary’s help the garrison inflicted great harm and loss on the attackers. Stymied, they withdrew from London and continued to plunder elsewhere. Later in the same year, Anlaf received the sacrament of Confirmation, and he made and kept a promise never to attack England again (ASC 994). Was Chesterton’s choice of Mary as a heavenly helper in 878 inspired by Mary’s action in 994? The ASC chronicler records Mary’s repulse of the assault on London in 994; Chesterton ascribes to Mary’s assistance the decisive victory of Ethandune in 878. King Guthrum becomes King Athelstan of East Anglia; Anlaf becomes King Olaf Tryggvason of Norway. The spiritual conversions in both cases were lasting: “We set a sign on Guthrum / To blaze a thousand years;” King Olsf Tryggvason strove vigorously to establish Christianity in Norway. See the “Saga of Olsf Tryggvason” by Sturluson Snorri. VII:202. withouten: without [Archaic & Dial.]. VII:203-4. The seven swords symbolize the seven sorrows of Our Lady. “And a sword will pierce your own soul too—so that the secret thoughts of many may be laid bare” (Luke 2:35). VII:241-42. The London Times used these lines during World War I when Winston Churchill spoke of “the end of the beginning.” VII:250. The White Horse responds to the upswing in events by stamping his hooves. VII:252. village: Wantage. [Alfred’s birthplace] VII:255. The psalm is roaring above the rune: The Christians have conquered the heathens. Runes came into use among the Germans by the third century, A.D., chiefly for magic (Campbell 1982,26). Johannes Brondsted in The Vikings devotes chapter eleven to runic inscriptions (1965). He points out that the inscriptions are the most important direct sources through which the Vikings speak to us with their own voices and in their own language. Charles Mills Gayley explains why the Latin alphabet replaced the runic letters: “The association of the runic letters with heathen mysteries and superstition caused the first Christian teachers to discourage, and, indeed, as far as possible, suppress their use. They were therefore superseded by the Latin alphabet, which in First English was supplemented by the retention of two of the runes named ‘thorn’ and ‘wen’ to represent sounds of the ‘th’ and V for which the Latin alphabet had no letters provided” ([1893] 1911,539). VII:265-66. Asser tells how “dire was Alfred” at Ethandune: And there against the whole Heathen host formed he firm his shield-wall, and fought a deadly fight. Stoutly and long kept they at it; and, by God’s help, in the end he got the victory, and laid low the Heathen with a very great slaughter, and followed hard upon their flight, with blow on blow, even unto their stronghold [Chippenham]. And everything without the stronghold, men to wit, and horses, and herds, caught he and took, and the men he slew at once; and before the gates of the Heathen stronghold did he and all his host take camp, like men. And when he had there tarried 14 days, the Heathen, anhungered, and a-cold, and a-dread, and at last, hopeless, became sore afraid, and begged for peace, on this troth that the King should name and take from them such sureties as he would, giving none in return. Never before had they made peace with anyone after this sort (Conybeare 1900,100). VII:276. Guelderland: Gelderland, a province of the eastern Netherlands. VII:281-82. An unsuccessful siege of Paris by the Northmen occurred in 885-86 (Hodgkin [1935] 1952,2:654). VII:285. Durham: A city located in northeastern England on the Wear river. VII:285. melted Durham bell: Here is another reference to Danish destruction. VII:299. woad: A blue dye-stuff prepared from the leaves of the Isatis plant. VII:299. bright with blood for woad: “Woad” is here used in a figurative sense. The red blood stained the naked bodies of the Celts as the blue juice of woad had previously colored the skins of their British kin. VII:324. The Raven of Odin, torn: The Danish flag was “a black raven on a blood red held” (Gordon 1924,3). “They say that the three daughters of Lodbrok [the lather of Hubba] wove it, and that in one day. They say, moreover, that in every fight, whensoever that flag went before them, the Raven in the midst thereof, if they were fated to win that day, would seem to flutter as if alive; but were their doom to be worsted, then would it droop, still and lifeless. And oft was this well proven” (Conybeare 1914,37). VII:324. Odin: The chief god of the Northmen. VII:325. And the eyes of Guthrum altered: Walter Besant accounts for the remarkable change in the Danish leader: “He perceived—this logical pagan—that King Alfred’s Gods had shown their superiority over his own in a manner so unexpected, so amazing, and so decisive, that he hesitated no longer. He acknowledged that superiority; he was baptized, and he never afterwards relapsed” (Bowker 1899,17). VII:359-60. In speaking of the baptism of Guthrum and the Treaty of Wedmore, Chesterton emphasizes the importance of the conversion of the Danish King: “In all the tacts that followed, the baptism of Guthrum is really much more important than the Treaty of Wedmore. The treaty itself was a compromise, and even as such did not endure; a century afterwards a Danish king like Canute was really ruling in England. But though the Dane got the crown, he aid not get rid of the cross” (1917,53). VII:366. Asser and the ASC state that Guthrum was baptized three weeks after the battle of Ethandune: “Then did the Host give him sureties, with many an oath, that they would leave his kingdom. And they plighted unto him their troth that their King should undergo Baptism, and this they fulfilled even so. And, some three weeks after, came unto him King Guthrum, with some thirty more, the worthiest men in the Host, at Aller, near Athelney. And in Baptism the King was his Godfather. And his chrism-loosing was at Wedmore. And twelve nights abode he with the King; and many a worthy gift gave he [Alfred] to him and his” (Conybeare 1900,124-25). VII:367. Far out to the winding river: The Ock river flows through the Vale of the White Horse and joins the Thames, the winding river, at Abingdon.

Notes: The Scouring of the Horse Synopsis: While Wessex lies in “a patch of peace” (879-892), Alfred not only strengthens English life and culture on all levels, but he also maintains and expands military preparedness. Alfred’s hospitality and generosity encourage foreign visitors, and his ambassadors represent Wessex’s interests around the world. Informed that the Danish armies were raiding southeastern England again, Alfred discloses his vision which foresees in some far century the arrival of a different type of invader. They will be writers and teachers who poison minds by spreading falsehoods. After four hard years of fighting, the enemy withdraws to the continent. Alfred has not definitively defeated the Danes, hut he has prevented them from occupying his kingdom. And though shies alter and empires melt, This word shall still he true: If we would have the horse of old, Scour ye the horse anew. (VII:204-7) VIII:1. The years between the victory of Ethandune in 878 and the return of the Danes in 892 are the “years of the peace of Wessex.” Alfred had many skirmishes with the Danes on sea and land during this interval, but no serious threat to the kingdom. In 892, Haesten, with a fleet of eighty ships, and the Great Army in 250 vessels established themselves in the southeastern section of England. Book VIII relates Alfred’s successful meeting of this crisis. VIII:3. bloody boon: Mary’s help during the battle of Ethandune (VII:189-258). VIII:4. An allusion to Mary (Rev. 12:1). VIII:12. Guthrum withdrew to East Anglia where he distributed land among his followers. VIII:19-20. The chronicler Aethelweard mentions the presence of ealdorman Aethelnoth of Somerset at the “chrism-loosing” of Guthrum (Conybeare 1900,139). Lingard describes the baptism and the chrism-loosing: “After a few weeks, Guthrum with thirty of his officers was baptized at Aller, near Athelney. He took the surname Athelstan, and Alfred was his sponsor. After the ceremony both princes removed to Wedmore, where on the eighth day Guthrum put off the white robe and the chrysmal fillet, and on the twelfth hade adieu to his adopted father, whose generosity he had learned to admire as much as he had before respected his valour” ([1849] 1912,1:204). In his History and Antiquities of the Anglo-Saxon Church John Lingard gives greater detail: “The priest depressed his head three times below the surface, saying, I baptize thee in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. He was now anointed on the crown with chrism in the form of the cross, and a white linen cap called a chrismal was fastened over his head… . Still it was expected that he should return to the church on each of the next seven days, to attend to daily instruction and to receive daily the communion. On the last the chrysmal was removed, and the ceremony was concluded” (1845,1:318-319). VIII:21-24. After withdrawing from Wessex, the Danes retained lands north and east of the following boundaries: “Along the Thames, then up on the Lea unto its source; then on right to Bedford; then up on the Ouse unto Watling Street” (Alfred the Great [1858] 1969,2:139). [This territory became known as the Danelaw.] The text of the two treaties containing the terms of peace between Alfred and Guthrum is still in existence. Dorothy Whitelock’s translation of the longer version is in English Historical Documents ([1955] 1979,416-17). J. A. Giles included both treaties in the second volume of The Whole Works of King Alfred the Great ([1858] 1969). See R. H. Hodgkin for an explanation of the clauses of the treaty ([1935] 1952,2:578-81). VIII:33-34. John Earle stresses the fact that King Alfred’s educational revival installed the mother tongue as the medium of elementary teaching (Bowker 1899,205). In the same collection of essays, Sir Walter Besant explains how King Alfred laid the foundations of English poetry and prose: “He collected and preserved the poetry based on the traditions and legends brought from the German Forests. He himself delighted to hear and to repeat these legends and traditions: the deeds of the mighty warriors who fought with monsters, dragons, wild boars, and huge serpents. He made his children learn their songs; he had them sung in his Court. The tradition goes that he could himself sing them to the music of his own harp” (Bowker 1899,29). Asser speaks of the application of Alfred’s children to learning: “For they have learnt the psalms, and Saxon hooks, and Saxon songs above all, and are for ever reading” (Conybeare 1900,104). VIII:35. the alms he gave as a Christian: The ASC 883 notes: “Sigehelm and Athelstan bare to Rome the alms that the King had vowed to send thither, and eke to India, to St. Thomas and St. Bartholomew, when they sat down against [opposed] the Host that was in London” (Conybeare 1900,125). This addition belongs to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle for 886. It was in 886 that Alfred vowed to send alms if he defeated the Danish army that was occupying London. The ASC also states that Alfred sent alms to Rome in 887, 888, and 890. Simeon of Durham describes Alfred’s generosity to those of his own kingdom: “At the holy solemnities of the Festivals, what boons he bestowed on his bishops and chieftains and knights, none may declare. Then did the poor leap for gladness, then were widows and orphans full of joy; and heartfelt praises they gave him. Full well he knew that saying of the Teacher—‘Then is money of true worth, when it has been handed over to others. Almsgiving is the end of ownership’ ” (Conybeare 1900,158). VIII:37-38. An examination of the account given by Asser, Alfred’s biographer, shows that the King considered himself only a steward of the wealth entrusted to him: He bade his officers divide his annual income always into two equal shares, to begin with. When this was done he assigned the first share to secular affairs; and bade it be divided again into three shares… .[This went to his warriors, craftsmen, and foreigners from many lands.] But the second half of all the wealth which yearly came in to him, from whatever source, he vowed freely and fully to God. And he bade his officers heedfully to part the same into four shares, in such wise, that the first of these shares should be paid over to the poor of every race that came unto him. And the second part he gave to the two Abbeys of his own foundation. And the third to the School, wherein he had so carefully gathered many of the high-born of his own race. And the fourth to the Abbeys round about (Conybeare 1900,115-16). VIII:39. Keynes and Lapidge cite King Alfred’s own testimony that he used the earlier laws of Kings Ine, Offa, and Ethelberht as his sources (1983,164). VIII:45-46. Asser, as a companion and confidant living at the court, can be relied upon when he says that Alfred set aside one-third of the income which he had designated for secular use to be assigned to foreigners: “And the third share gave he to the strangers of every race who flocked unto him from far and near and asked of him money. Nay, even though they asked not, yet gave he to each according to his several worthiness, full gladly, and with a wondrously open hand, beyond all praise” (Conybeare 1900,116). Asser specifies “the ends of the earth” from which visitors came: “For the time would fail me to tell… how day by day had he embassies from the folk that dwell by the Tyrrhenian [Mediterranean] Sea, and unto the uttermost parts of Ireland” (Conybeare 1900,112). Among the famous visitors to the court were Ohthere and Wulfstan, who gave detailed reports of their voyages of discovery and exploration to King Alfred. The King inserted an account of these expeditions in his Anglo-Saxon translation of Orosius. From this source one learns that Ohthere doubled the North Cape and entered the White Sea on the first trip northward. Wulfstan reported his findings in the Baltic lands. Judging from the space devoted to Wulfstan’s exposition of the curious customs of the Esti, King Alfred must have been captivated by the strange reports he heard (Alfred the Great [1858] 1969,2:39-56). Through his generosity in paying for their services, King Alfred attracted numerous craftsmen to his kingdom. Tradesmen came “together from many a race, and in almost countless numbers, well skilled in every kind of building known on earth.” Their expert work promoted Alfred’s plans for the upbuilding of Wessex. VIII:45-48. Asser in writing of Alfred’s munificence, states that he gave alms to abbeys outside of his own kingdom: “And in some years, too, he gave, as he might, by turn to the churches in Wales and Cornwall, in Gaul, Brittany, Northumbria, and even, now and then, in Ireland, and to the servants of God who dwelt therein” (Conybeare 1900,116). VIII:47-48. See E VIII:35. VIII:52. crakens: Mythical sea-monsters or enormous size, said to have been seen at times off the coast of Norway. VIII:55-60. Chesterton seems to be referring to Ohthere, the navigator. Dr. Joseph Bosworth says in an explanatory note appended to bis translation of King Alfred’s “Orosius”: Ohthere was a Norwegian nobleman of great wealth and influence, anxious to state nothing, but that to which he could bear personal testimony. It appears impossible for any one to read this simple narrative, without being convinced, that this daring Northman is giving a detail of his voyage, on the north coast of Norway into the White Sea… . Ohthere had made discoveries, which he communicated to the king, and Alfred thought them of such importance, that he wrote and inserted this detail of them in his Geographical and Historical view of Europe (Alfred the Great [1858] 1969, 2:39). VIII:61-66. Chesterton may be alluding to Sigehelm and Athelstan as the “great gift-bearing lords” who in 883 [886] went even as far as India. William of Malmesbury mentions that Sigehelm, Bishop of Sherborne, brought back “many a strange and brilliant jewel” (Conybeare 1900,165). VIII:70. Prester John: This mythical priest-king supposedly ruled a mysterious kingdom in India. Before his palace stood a crystal mirror in which he could watch his entire kingdom. Chesterton treats this myth in “The Modern Magic” (1944,19). VIII:72. Terre Majeure: The Carolingian Empire. Before 814, Charlemagne had much of western Europe under his control. VIII:72-77. Alfred recognized the civilizing influence of the empire established by Charlemagne. VIII:87. Chesterton identifies the Picts as the people “who lay beyond Agricola’s boundary in what is now the Scotch Lowlands” (1917,27). VIII:88-89. In the ninth century, Strathclyde was the name given to the territory governed by the Northern Welsh. It included the valley of the Clyde river. VIII:94-114. Alfred replies with a proveth to his advisers who are pressing him to drive out the Danes and to conquer the country above Hadrian’s wall. “A seer feels too small for life, / And a fool too large for it.” (VIII:96-97). This passage is a rebuke to the ambitious empire-builders of Chesterton’s day. In What’s Wrong with the World he writes: “I have thus explained… why I do not believe in Imperialism as commonly understood. I think it not merely an occasional wrong to other peoples, but a continual feebleness, a running sore, in my own” (1910,106). King Alfred, unlike his grandfather Egbert, had engaged only in defensive warfare. VIII:96-97. King Alfred’s actions and writings affirm his humility and wisdom. VIII:129-30. From Wantage Town to Plymouth Bluff: At strategic locations Alfred “made his fences tough” by ordering the construction of burhs [forts]. Hodgkin explains Alfred’s well planned system of defense ([1935] 1967,2:585-90). VIII:135-42. Thomas Hughes wrote a lively account of the 1857 festival that followed the scouring of the White Horse. Thousands of spectators assembled on 17 and 18 September to enjoy the merrymaking, as well as to admire the Horse. Money prizes were awarded winners in backsword play, wrestling, a jingling match, climbing a greased pole; and in foot, hurdle, cart-horse, and donkey races. Whoever captured the pig that was released could claim it as a prize (1859,92-93). VIII:149-53. At the opening of his last war, Alfred was forty-four years old. He had aged prematurely because of his strenuous labors as king. VIII:160-63. The Danes from Boulogne invaded Kent in two large companies in 892. Numerous skirmishes occurred during the early months of the war. At the outset Alfred tried diplomacy, but eventually detachments of his army fought successfully in various engagements with the Danes. It appears that Alfred acted as a commander in chief while his son Edward, son-in-law Ethelred, and others led the troops. For greater detail of the 892-96 war see: ASC 892-96; Hodgkin ([1935] 1952,2:655-69); “Aethelweard’s Chronicle, AD. 893-95,” Keynes and Lapidge (1983,114-19; 189-91). VIII:170. dykes: These simulate running earthworks in certain districts. Some dykes provided protection; others established boundaries. VIII:184-213. In Orthodoxy, Chesterton enlarges on the fact that things naturally tend to grow worse. The chapter, “The Eternal Revolution,” explains: “if you leave a white post alone it will soon be a black post, if you particularly want it to be white you must be always painting it again; that is, you must be always having a revolution. Briefly, if you want the old white post you must have a new white post” (1908,212). VIII:211. wot: First and third person singular present of wit, to know. (Archaic except Scotch and Dialectal English.) VIII:214-30. Aethelweard’s Chronicle (Keynes and Lapidge 1983,189-91) and the ASC are primary sources for Alfred’s last war. By 893 fighting men from all over England outside the Danelaw were hastening to the aid of Alfred. The “distant tribes” included those from Wales, Cornwall, and English Mercia. Alfred’s allies realized that their survival was bound up with that of Wessex. Hodgkin ([1935] 1952,2:653-69) has an excellent chapter on Alfred’s last war. Alfred’s previous attention to shipbuilding, to the improvement of the fortifications, and to the military reorganization of manpower contributed to his success. VIII:216-18. Leg ions of drafted men marched by “in haste and bitterness / For Christ’s sake and the crown’s.” VIII:223-24. According to the “Legend of Glastonbury, A.D. 62,” the pilgrim staff of Joseph of Arimathea “came from a thornbrake that had furnished thorns for a crown [Christ’s]” Catholic World 7 (July 1868):522. This pilgrim staff is supposed to have miraculously taken root in the soil of Glastonbury. Chesterton refers to St. Joseph of Arimathea as a wealthy missionary who took the body of our Lord down from the Cross and laid it in his own tomb… (Matt. 26: 26-28). Here Chesterton links up the part St. Joseph of Arimathea had in the burial of Jesus with a legendary role attributed to him of introducing Christianity into Britain (1917,35-36). VIII:233-35,245-47. While the soldiers are thronging past him on their way to drive out the pagan Danes, Alfred has a vision, an inner certitude, that in some far century “the heathen shall return.” For Maurice Evans, Alfred’s vision is the most significant part of the Ballad (1939,114-15). VIII:236-37. King Alfred gives his kingdom to Our Lady. The king’s reverence for Mary may be assumed from the fact that her name is mentioned after God in one of his charters: “I Alfred king, in honour of God and of the blessed virgin Mary and of all the saints, give and grant, being alive and still thriving, to the church of Scepton a hundred hides of land” (Alfred the Great [1858] 1969,1:388). For details about the ancient devotions, shrines, and pilgrimages in England, consult H. W. R. Lillie, S.J., England, the Dowry of Mary. VIII:248-56. The modern barbarians will not be warriors but writers and orators who will use “dead words” to eliminate God as the Creator and Designer of the universe. In Orthodoxy Chesterton denounces the evil influence of Herbert Spencer on H. G. Wells (1908,111). Mr. Wells set down the theory of Natural Selection as a fact of modern science. Adherence to this teaching was an attempt to get rid of God. Elsewhere in Orthodoxy Chesterton gives the Christian viewpoint: “And the root phrase for all Christian theism was this, that God was a creator… . It was the prime philosophic principle of Christianity that this divorce in the divine act of making (such as severs the poet from the poem or the mother from the new-born child) was the true description of the act whereby the absolute energy made the world. According to most philosophers, God in making the world enslaved it. According to Christianity, in making it, He set it free. God had written, not so much a poem, but rather a play; a play he had planned as perfect, but which had necessarily been left to human actors and stage-managers, who had since made a great mess of it” (1908,142-43). VIII:249. brands: Probably in this context: torches. VIII:262-65. Herbert Spencer “popularized this contemptible notion that the size of the solar system ought to over-awe the spiritual dogma of man. Why should a man surrender his dignity to the solar system any more than to a whale?” (Chesterton 1908,110) VIII:268-69. These are references to the accomplishment of impossible feats. VIII:270-72. Vergil composed the Aeneid, it is said, at the request of Augustus. In form it followed closely the great Homeric poems, while in substance it magnified Rome and the ruler of Rome. VIII:273-306. Chesterton fights for “Christian civilization against heathen nihilism.” The modern barbarians come as scholars who know too much to believe in God, and by their teachings they undermine and destroy the faith of others. VIII:293-94 Chesterton points out the reality of sin: Modern masters of science are much impressed with the need of beginning all inquiry with a fact. The ancient masters of religion were quite equally impressed with that necessity. They began with the fact of sin—a fact as practical as potatoes. Whether or no man could be washed in miraculous waters, there was no doubt at any rate that he wanted washing. But certain religious leaders in London, not mere materialists, have begun in our day not to deny the highly disputable water, but to deny the indisputable dirt. Certain new theologians dispute original sin, which is the only part of Christian theology which can be really proved. Some followers of the Reverend R. J. Campbell, in their almost too fastidious spirituality, admit divine sinlessness, which they cannot see even in their dreams. But they essentially deny human sin, which they can see in the street (1908,24). VIII:295-96. Ibsen and Nietzsche are two writers whom Chesterton singles out for attack. “My meaning is that Ibsen has throughout,… a certain vagueness and a changing attitude as well as a doubting attitude towards what is really wisdom and virtue in this life… . All previous ages have sweated and been crucified in an attempt to realize what is really the right life, what was really the good man. A definite part of the modern world has come beyond question to the conclusion that there is no answer to these questions” (1905a,31-32). Some of the philosophers who are by “thought a crawling ruin” come in for attack in Orthodoxy: Nietzsche will stand very well as the type of the whole of this failure of abstract violence. The softening of the brain which ultimately overtook him was not a physical accident. If Nietzsche had not ended in imbecility, Nietzscheism would end in imbecility. Thinking in isolation and with pride ends in being an idiot… . By the accident of my present detachment, I can see the inevitable smash of the philosophies of Schopenhauer and Tolstoy, Nietzsche and Shaw, as clearly as an inevitable railway smash could be seen from a balloon (1908,75-77). VIII:296. By life a leaping mire: Since Oscar Wilde was a notorious decadent, this phrase could refer to him. Chesterton comments: “Oscar Wilde said that sunsets were not valued because we could not pay for sunsets. But Oscar Wilde was wrong; we can pay for sunsets. We can pay for them by not being Oscar Wilde” (1908,104). VIII:324. St. Edmund, king of East Anglia, obtained his martyr’s crown when he opposed the Danish invaders in 870. VIII:332-50. After the East Anglian violation of peace with Alfred, the king used force to recover London in 886 (ASC 886). VIII:351-71. The thriving “clover and silent thistle” have “unwound the toils of men.” The contest continues. Unchecked nature defaces the White Horse. VIII:366-71. “Abrupt and absolute as an epic ends, …” (Chesterton 1926a,29). Against the backdrop of a “pale purple sky” and ivory battle smoke, the great Alfred continues the unending defense of his realm.

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