Читать книгу The Pageant of English Literature - Sir Edward Parrott - Страница 18
ОглавлениеTHE VENERABLE BEDE.
“Bede I beheld, who, humbly and holy, Shone like a single star, serene in a night of darkness.” Southey.
A pathetic scene diversifies our pageant. A venerable figure, noble and commanding, though dim of eye and feeble of frame, reclines on a rough wooden couch, holding in his withered hands a Greek scroll of the Gospel of St. John. Around him rise the cold, bare walls of his monastic cell; comforts he has none, and the angel of death is hovering near. He knows that his end is fast approaching, for a few days ago he addressed his sorrowing companions in the following words:—
“It is time, if so it seem good to my Maker, that I should be set free from the flesh, and go to Him who, when I was not, fashioned me out of nothing. I have lived for a long time, and my merciful Judge has ordained my life well for me. The time for me to be set free is at hand, for indeed my soul much desires to behold my King Christ in His beauty.”
The Last Chapter. (From the picture by J. Doyle Penrose. By permission of the Autotype Company.) To List
Long indeed has the Venerable Bede served his Master within houses devoted to His praise. For fifty-five years he has lived a monastic life, and no single day has passed without a glad cry of gratitude to the God who ordained it so. He was but seven years of age when he became the ward of good Benedict Biscop, who founded the monastery in which he now lies a-dying. Full well he remembers the foreign artificers who filled the windows of the church with the pictured forms of saints, and painted on the walls in blue and purple and scarlet and gold those wondrous scenes of sacred history on which his young mind ever dwelt. Above all, he remembers the noble array of books which the good bishop brought from across the sea, and his eagerness to learn the Latin tongue in which they were written. Library and church were his world; he found all his joy of life in the one, and all his hope of eternity in the other. If ever there was a monk born and bred, it was Bede.
Never boy so eager and persistent in devotion to duty. Long ago a pestilence so thinned the ranks of the brotherhood at St. Paul's, Jarrow, that there was not one monk left who could read or answer the responses save the prior and this little son of the Church. For a whole week the services were sung without responses, save at vespers and matins, but, wearying of the monotony, prior and child laboured day by day through the whole services, singing each in his turn alone, until the new brothers had learned to take their part. And the same spirit glowed within him throughout life.
He became a monk at nineteen, and in every succeeding year grew in holiness and knowledge. Learning he loved and absorbed. His fame reached even to Rome, and Pope Sergius begged him to abandon England and live with him. But Bede could not be persuaded to quit his native land. Learning, teaching, writing, observing diligently the discipline of his order and never neglecting the daily services of his church, his days sped by. Men from afar flocked to him for instruction, and knew not which to admire the more, his skill as a teacher or his gentle and kindly sympathy as a man.
All the learning of the time was his—the grammar, rhetoric, mathematics, and physical science. Much he knew and much he wrote, chiefly in Latin, the language of the Church, but he did not despise the rough native speech of his own beloved land. Worthy and pure songs of the minstrels were stored in his memory, and when the spirit moved him he would burst into impromptu lays.
His greatest work, “The Ecclesiastical History of the English Race,” was written in Latin, but was successfully translated into English, and its literary virtues, its sincerity of purpose, and love of truth have impressed themselves on scholars in all subsequent ages. The beautiful story of the swallow flying from the winter night into the brightly-lighted hall, and out again into the dark, and the account of Cædmon, both of which find a place in these pages, are taken from this noble book. Many other important works fell from his industrious pen, amongst them translations of parts of the Scriptures into English.
Well does Bede deserve a place in our pageant. Though he wrote mainly in the language of the Church, he taught men to love learning. He set the model of a simple direct English style, and gave his unlettered brethren some of the words of God in their own tongue.
And now the faintness of death is upon him, and his task is not yet done. Before he goes hence and is no more seen he longs greatly to finish his translation into English of the Gospel of St. John. “I do not want my boys,” he says, “to read what is false or to have to work at this without profit when I am dead.” So he labours on while the cold dew gathers upon his brow, and his breath comes short and fitful. His young scribe is alone with him, for to-day is a festival and there is a procession in the church.
“Dearest master,” says the boy, “there is one chapter wanting, and it is hard for thee to question thyself.” “No, it is easy,” replied the dying man; “take thy pen and write quickly.”
So the day passes. The evening shadows are falling when the scribe announces, “There is yet one sentence, dear master, to write out.” Again comes the answer, “Write quickly.” A few strokes of the pen and the boy cries joyfully, “Now it is finished.” “Thou hast spoken truly,” responds Bede; “it is finished!”
Then he bids his friends place him where he can look upon the spot where he has been wont to kneel in prayer. And lying thus upon the pavement of his cell, he chants the Gloria Patri, and as he utters the words “The Holy Ghost,” he breathes his last, and so passes to the kingdom of heaven.
