Tomorrow, my class on Old English poetry will be discussing the poem known as “The Order of the World.” The poem is found in the tenth-century Exeter Book (the first anthology of English poetry!) and is one of my favorite Old English poems.

The poem is a self-referential exploration of the power of verbal art set up as a kind of challenge to its audience to trade wisdom with its speaker. It begins by noting the power that poetry has to convey the wisdom begotten by the “sage who ponders the world, / holding in the meditation of his heart / what many have recounted in rhythmic recitations.” The speaker exhorts the audience to listen to his herespel (praise poem), which turns out to be a meditation on the nature of the sun reminiscent of Psalm 19. But herein lies the poem’s skill–the herespel becomes a “script” or a model for how contemplation of creation operates to lift the attentive mind (mens intenta in Gregory the Great’s vocabulary) to the Creator. And so he “shows” his audience how poetry conveys the mysteries of creation after he “tells” them it does. An artful poem all the way.

In my chapbook, Lofsangas, I translated this poem and gave it the title “Se Woðbora,” referring to one of the speaker’s epithets for himself from the poem’s second line. I read the original Old English and then my translation in the audio file below.