Ballardian

Over at Yahoo’s JG Ballard newsgroup, Ballard scholar Umberto Rossi posted, in his words, “part of a poem called the Ruin, which describes the remains of a Roman city in England… probably Acquae Sulis, which the barbarians call Bath today. It came to my mind that the haunted and haunting description of ruins which were almost supernatural to the anglo-saxons can be one of the deep roots of JG Ballard’s fascination with urban decay”.

Here’s the translation from Olde English, by Alexander, M. 1966; The Earliest English Poems. We present the original Olde English version (via Rossi) after that:

“Well-wrought this wall: Wierds broke it.
The stronghold burst…
Snapped rooftrees, towers fallen,
the work of the Giants, the stonesmiths,
mouldereth.
Rime scoureth gatetowers
rime on mortar.
Shattered the showershields, roofs ruined,
age under-ate them.
And the wielders & wrights?
Earthgrip holds them - gone, long gone
fast in gravesgrasp while fifty fathers
and sons have passed.
Wall stood,
grey lichen, red stone, kings fell often,
stood under storms, high arch crashed -
stands yet the wallstone, hacked by weapons,
by files grim-ground…
…shone the old skilled work
…sank to loam-crust

Mood quickened mind, and man of wit,
cunning in rings, bound bravely the wallbase
with iron, a wonder.

Bright were the buildings, halls where springs ran,
high, horngabled, much throng-noise;
these many meadhalls men filled
with loud cheerfulness: Weird changed that.

Came days of pestilence, on all sides men fell dead,
death fetched off the flower of the people;
where they stood to fight, waste places
and on the acropolis, ruins.
Hosts who would build again
shrank to the earth. Therefore are these courts dreary
and that red arch twisteth tiles,
wryeth from roof-ridge, reacheth groundwards…
Broken blocks…

There once many a man
mood-glad, gold-bright, of gleams garnished,
flushed with wine-pride, flashing war-gear,
gazed on wrought gemstones, on gold, on silver,
on wealth held and hoarded, on light-filled amber,
on this bright burg of broad dominion.

Stood stone houses; wide streams welled
hot from source, and a wall all caught
in its bright bosom, and the baths were
hot at hall’s hearth; that was fitting…

………… Thence hot streams, loosed, ran over hoar stone
unto the ring-tank…
…It is a kingly thing
…city…”

“Wrætlic is þes wealstan;
wyrde gebræcon, burgstede burston, brosnað enta geweorc.
Hrofas sind gehrorene, hreorge torras,
hrungeat berofen, hrim on lime,
scearde scurbeorge scorene, gedorene,
Aeldo undereotone. Eorðgrop hafað
waldendwyrhtan, forweorone, geleorene heard gripe hrusan,
oþ hund cnea werþeoda gewitan.
Oft þæs wag gebad, ræghar and readfah, rice æfter oþrum,
ofstondem under stormum; steap geap gedreas.”