In His Image: Unfurled

[whit_merule]

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Surrey, 1406. In which Gabriel visits a woman for whom tears are not a bad thing, and makes a decision; and the last brother he would have expected calls for him.
Margery Kempe, Gabriel.

affective piety: a model of piety, particularly strong in the wake of the Black Death in the fourteenth and early fifteenth century, in which people identified themselves powerfully in emotional and physical terms with the suffering of Christ (and other saints) in martyrdom. This would often involve obsessive self-immersion in the idea of their blood, tears, wounds, and body, and in extreme cases was characterised by uncontrollable tears and outcries.

 

Lynn, Surrey, 1406. [Note]

 

The Book of Margery Kempe is the earliest surviving autobiography to be written in English. Margery, who always speaks of herself in the third person, led a turbulent life, and opens her story with the madness and spiritual crisis that followed the difficult birth of her first child. A vision of Christ returns her to her senses, and from that day onwards she frequently sees or hears Christ and the music of Heaven in her mind, and devotes herself entirely to him.

“Then was pomp and pride laid down and cast aside. Those who before had respected her now very sharply reproved her; her kin and her former friends were now her greatest enemies. Then she, considering this astonishing change... went and humbled herself to her confessor, accusing herself of her misdeeds, and then she did great bodily penance. And within a short time our merciful Lord visited this creature with abundant tears of contrition day by day...

“She knew and understood many secret things that were later to happen, by the inspiration of the Holy Ghost. And often, while she was listening to these holy speeches and conversations, she would weep and sob so that men were astonished, for they little knew how the Lord nestled within her soul...

“And ever after her being drawn towards God in this way, she kept in mind the joy and melody that she had heard in heaven, so much so that she could not very well restrain herself from speaking of it.”

 

It so happened that one day, when she lay alone, great with her fourth child, this creature saw before her a light like the light in which the Lord our Saviour would show himself to her. And there appeared a figure of white and gold, bathed in that light, in the likeness of a man: the most seemly, the most beauteous, the most amiable that might ever be seen with man’s eyes, clad in a mantle of white silk, looking on her with so troubled a countenance that she was moved to charity.

And she knew him for an angel.

And she stretched out her hand to him, and she asked, “Wher arn thi wengys?”

Then the angel said, “My wengys arn brokyn, Margery Kempe. Brent owt by the Mornyng Ster.”

And she was filled with wonder, and she said, “Schewe hem onto me.”

Then the angel looked troubled, like a man who has lost his way, and said to her, “Ther is nothyng to schewe.”

And she was moved to ask again, and so she said again, “Schewe hem. ”

The angel started to speak, but said nothing; and then he closed his eyes, and put forth all his strength to bring his wings into the world. And there were no wings. And she put her hands to his face, and wept for him as he would try again, until he was crouched as a beast with both hands and one knee on the ground like a man about to run or fly or weep. And blood ran from his nose, and light burned the air around him, into the shape of a memory. Wings she saw through her tears, and wondered; but they were only fractured shadows and light, barely true; and it seemed to her that they were tattered, eaten and gnawed on as the rat gnaws of the stockfish.

“An illusyon,” said the angel, though he panted like a woman brought to childbed. “A deceyt of lyte and eyr, no thyng mor.”

The poor creature felt compassion and marvel, and she reached out to touch their memory, for she wanted to comfort him; and though she felt nothing, the angel shook.

“How suffryth God swech a thyng?”

The angel answered, “I wote not – he spekyth not onto me.”

“Oh, my sone.”

And she wept for him. And it seemed to her that his wings were the colour of her tears, and that they grew stronger as the water flowed down her cheeks.

But the angel did not see, and only said, like a man who has no other hope left to him, “Late me be schrevyn onto the.”

“I am but a smal and most unworthi creatur.”

And he took her hand, and he kissed it, and he begged her, “Schryve me.”

And though she was a woman, and was in no orders, she consulted within herself, and understood that his soul was in need; and so she consented, “for yyf I may wepe for yow, I hope to han grace for yow.”

“I fled, and I... fled agayn,” he said. “I am not a gode man, and I was nevyr a gode awngel. I was aferd – I am aferde. I was so long in terrowr of seeing my brethyres eythyr rendyn the othyr asunder that I have lost any chawnce I evyr had to hyndryn it. I was too besy feyning miself that I reked not, for that I wolde not be hurt. And now eythyr of hem wyl slee the othyr, and... and thei will take the world with hem.”

“Why rekist thu?”

“It’s the world, Margery.”

And that was truth; but it seemed to her that there was another deeper beneath it.

“Why rekist thu?”

“It’s... it’s the yonglinges, okay? Two men. Thei stonden for to die, and it wyl be not cownted at a monkys culyones. Morthryd as by-mater. Develych by-mater.”

“Why rekist thu?”

Impatiently, he spoke. “Oh, wend devel-wey. Thei lykyn me. Thei arn... thei arn muchel. Frendys.”

“Why rekist thu?”

And for a moment he was silent, and then he said, “... Brothyres. Thei’rn brothyres. And they schewe me worthy of schame. And I thouwt this tym, maybe... yyf they cowd make it to werken... we never cowde, but they’ve made it thorw, every cleppyng tyme, thei’ve goven the fynger to destiné and to every wyght who tryeth to dryvyn hem asunder, and –”

And his eyes shone gold with wrath and with wanhope.

“... But no, of cowrs not. Alwey the same story at the end. Thowt we myght scape it, because I’m develych blynd, because of alle pepil how cowd I ever forget? It alwey snarys you. No last-mynute save. He reketh nowt.”

There in him, in that moment, she saw the deepest and most insidious sickness of the soul: to despair of hope.

“And I kan in no wyse let it. Neyther armes ne force me remeyneth for to fyten therwith, and I hate it. Partys of me are tryckling back, but too slow, and there n’ys no tyme. I kan nowt evyn fly. Gangen in dremmys – expownded whil I sowt Sam, to avyse hym that I lyvid. Illusyons, wyth a tregetowre in Venyce. Brething lyf into thyngis that aren’t complicated by a sowle, gras and trees and so on, syker and simple – family in Russya who fed me the last of their mete and I revyved theyr ferme in the nyght. Confessid a dying archbusshop a whil back, worked out how to tap back into listening and speking to... well, awngelys, and othir things that don’t talk with voyces your eares would hear. Healing, yes, great, handy one, kid in Germany who got himself gutted by a cockatryce on my watch and I had to kill the little fucker and shove the kid’s guts back into his body and patch them together before he coughed his life out, which I couldn’t do, but I did it.”

Then he recollected himself and his voice, which had become strange and sharp and almost foreign, returned to the more familiar cadences of Surrey.

“But it ys all perlowr tryckis, Margery – illusyones and smal myracles. I’m not an awngel. Not even of man-kin, sekyr not a god. I n’am but clowtys of a man. And the – the creatur who made me hale and hole agayn aftir Lucifer slayid me, I wote not what sche put in me: if every thyng ys there and just takyng its swete cleppyng time or how to get it agayn if it is lost. I can’t fynd her, and I wote not what I am, and now is overlate. Sammis gon.”

And as he spoke, she held him close, and her tears fell on his face and hands, and the quiver of light behind and around him became more solid with every word and every droplet.

And although he spoke what she could not understand, she felt no fear; for Jesus Christ himself had promised her that he would help and protect her, so that no devil in hell should ever part her from him, nor angel in heaven, nor man on earth.

And suddenly the gift of understanding was given to her, and she lifted his face to hers, and spoke, and said, “This creatur. Sche gafe the nothyng but only brethe and mendys: al aftyr thow hast rebylt thiself.” Then, as he looked on her with wonder, she told him, “Thes aren the partys of thiself that thow hast chosyn, remakyng thiself in the ymage of the man thow chosyst. Hast the mind of an archawngyl and the sowle of a man – swych powyr is yn hem!”

And he looked at her, and touched her cheek, and said, “Why wepist so, Margery?”

So she replied, “My sone, for thes teerys are giftys to me of ower gracyows Savyowr, and I wepe in sorwe at Hys wowndys, and the worldis wowndys. And I wepe in joye that He is savyd, and attendith us in Hevyn.”

And he bowed his head and would not speak; and then he lifted his head and spoke to her, and said, “Thy feyth is grettyr than the feyth of awngelys, dowtyr.”

And this poor creature marvelled greatly, to see that an angel of the Lord felt in himself the same trials and despair that she did herself; and she stretched out her hands and wept, and said to him, “What is thi name?”

“I wote not.”

“How clepyst thow thiself?”

Then at last he said, “Gabriel. I clepe miself Gabriel.”

“What schal ye now make therof?”

And they were both silent. Then she heard, as from within her heart, a high cold voice calling, and it said,

“Gabriel, Gabriel, brother.”

“Thy brethyr the Torch-beryr callyth to the. Heryst thu hym?”

And he looked up, as if he could see the sky through the wood and the plaster, and said with wonder, “I here.”

He stood, and his wings unfolded around him, strong and whole and real and shaped from tears, with the feathers slipping over each other like drops of water. And it was only then that he saw them, and he touched them with hands as soft as a young child’s, amazed as a woman who emerges from her confinement to see the sun, after believing herself and her child sick and dead.

Then he looked down upon her and spoke, raw and honest. “I wote not what I am.”

And the poor creature closed her eyes and asked counsel in meditation of our Lord, and he replied in her mind. And she said to the angel, “Than chese. It is govyn to the to chesyn.”

And the angel spread his wings, and flew.

 

Note.

The variety of Middle English used in this chapter follows that of the sole surviving manuscript of Margery Kempe’s Book (at least so long as Gabriel sticks to it and doesn’t start using modern idiom and pronunciation), and is therefore quite different from that used briefly in chapters 8 (“Horae harenarum”) and 13 (“Maesnée”). As a quick guide for the words that haven’t shifted that much: she (or her scribe) usually uses -“is” or “-ys” for plural or possessive endings and -“id”/-“yd” for the past participle “-ed”, every “sh- ”becomes “sch-”, “are ”becomes “arn”, “if ”becomes “yyf ”(because hey, why not), and “y”/“i”, “ei/ai”, “au/aw”, “ou/ow”, etc, are usually interchangeable. As to whether Margery is actually in contact with God, or at least with some benevolent supernatural being that she thinks is God? Well... does it matter? (Return.)

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Comments

[kellyanne77.livejournal.com]

"He stood, and his wings unfolded around him, strong and whole and real and shaped from tears, with the feathers slipping over each other like drops of water. And it was only then that he saw them, and he touched them with hands as soft as a young child’s, amazed as a woman who emerges from her confinement to see the sun, after believing herself and her child sick and dead." God, I love your way with words.