The Lombe and His Meyny Schene: Signs of God in Pearl and the Apocalypse

IN THE Pearl poet's works the actual images of God Himself are rare—like the Bible, the poems of Cotton Nero A.x. avoid direct theophany, although Pearl and Cleanness offer images of the experience of theophany (not theophany itself) and promise the beatific vision as a reward awaiting us in the world beyond. On the other hand, images of God's kingdom, his cort or the Lombe's meyny, to use two of the Pearl poet's terms, are central to the poems Pearl and Cleanness and stand behind the assumptions in the other two, Patience and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Less frequent, but scarcely less important are the contraré, that is, the images of judgment, punishment, and cosmic catastrophe : flood, fire, dungeon, and axe, which historically are to precede the final establishment of the kingdom and our full enjoyment of it.

These visions and images of God and his Kingdom, of the End, of punishment and reward, of separation or reunion with God in His cort, as well as the human understanding and experience of those visions, are best understood in light of medieval apocalyptic tradition. There have been a number of varying (and often conflicting) definitions of "apocalyptic" by scholars, but for our purposes John's text and the iconography and commentary it inspired serve as the best models. Technically, "apocalypse" is but another term, one of Greek derivation (apokalypsis), for "revelation," but it was also used in the narrower sense, as Klaus Koch puts it, for "the title of literary compositions that resemble the Book of Revelation, i.e. secret divine disclosures about the end of the world and the heavenly state" (16). Koch further provides a list of the most common distinguishing features of apocalypses: "great discourse cycles" that include a "long dialogue between the apocalyptic seer and his heavenly counterpart" (21), as well as visions filled with "mythical images rich in symbolism" (23), and a mood of "spiritual turmoil" as a "result of the unexpected experience of vision and audition" (22). In addition, Koch points to pseudonymity as a common feature of many apocalypses (23), while other scholars remark on the tendency of apocalyptic texts to focus on the scribal mode of transmission. Behind all the specific features of the apocalyptic mode and of apocalypses usually stands an eschatological perspective, a perspective minimized or denied by a few scholars, but otherwise considered central to the revelation of divine secrets that, one way or another, constitutes apocalypse.

For many today and certainly for the Middle Ages, John's Apocalypse is the archetypal apocalyptic text, the one that defines and sets the model for all others. While it is not pseudonymous since the author identifies himself as John, John's text contains all of the remaining features we associate with apocalyptic writing: it refers repeatedly to the seer's "spiritual turmoil" ; it takes the form of a "great discourse cycle," a series of visions punctuated by dialogue with the interpreting angel; the visions are imbued with highly popular and influential "mythical images," many of them derived from Old Testatment apocalyptic visions, especially Ezekiel's; the events and images and vision are all concerned with the Last Days and the world beyond ; and finally, John's Apocalypse emphasizes the scribal mode of transmission - repeatedly the angel directs John to write down his visions, and books and written characters play important roles in the visions themselves.

For most of us, and for the Middle Ages, the "mythical images," generally eschatological and always "rich in symbolism," are probably the characteristics that first come to mind when we think of apocalypticism. Because of this, because I believe apocalyptic signs so important in all the poems of Cotton Nero A.x., and because the Pearl poet is such a visual poet, I shall begin this study of his poetics and his fayre formez with his apocalyptic imagery, with first of all the images in Pearl and their biblical and iconographic background. For it is Pearl that provides the reader with the visual and visionary introduction to the other three poems, in much the same way that an apocalyptic vision of God Enthroned stands over the west doorway of so many late medieval churches. [Figure 1]

The dream in Pearl gives a glimpse of the future kingdom, which is visualized as the New Jerusalem, the new world where the saved celebrate their joyous love of God with the canticum novum, a celebration symbolized by the Wedding of the Lamb to his "meyny schene" (1145), his "homly hyne" (1211). God himself is symbolized by the Lamb, and his power by the Throne and by the light of the Lamb. Because all of these signs of God and his kingdom are drawn from John's Apocalypse—either directly, as word-for-word translations of the Vulgate text, or indirectly, through the traditions that developed in exegesis and iconography, close examination of each of these important signs in Pearl, along with their textual and iconographic sources, will help us understand their function in Pearl and their impact on the other poems.

Signs of God: The Throne and the Lamb

The sign that evokes God in Pearl is the Lamb. Before we can understand the force of this symbol in the Pearl poet's writing, we need first to examine its context in the Apocalypse and in the art based on John's text. First of all, the Lamb is not the preeminent symbol either in John's text or even in much of the artistic tradition. In the Apocalypse the dominant sign of God is the Throne, on which the Lamb, is sometimes, but not always, seated. The vision of God Enthroned occurs several times in John's text and was the most reproduced of his visions in the late Middle Ages. There is, however, an important difference between the biblical text and the later representations in art. Whereas the art of the high Middle Ages revels in glorious representations of God Enthroned, John's text seems to avoid actual visualization of this scene, an avoidance also prevalent in early Christian art. Because I think this difference, between the early reluctance toward full theophany and the later tendency to visualize God on his throne is important to the Pearl poet, I want to look more closely at the actual words of John's major visions and then compare the text to a few of the representations of the Throne in art.

The first of the several visions of the Throne occurs directly after John writes the letters to the seven churches. With his scribal and apostolic tasks accomplished, John then returns to the visionary mode, with which his text begins:

Statim fui in spiritu,
et ecce sedis posita erat in caelo,
et supra sedem sedens.
Et qui sedebat similis erat aspectui
lapidis iaspidis et sardini.
Et iris erat in circuitu sedis similis visioni zmaragdinae.
(4.2-3)

[At once I was in divine ectasy.
And behold a throne was standing there in heaven,
And on the throne (was) a Sitting (One).
And the One who was sitting was like the appearance
Of a jewel, of jasper and carnelian,
And around the throne was a rainbow like the
appearance of emeralds.]

John suddenly finds himself in spiritu, a state in which perceptions are of a special nature, but even in this special state he does not claim he saw God, nor does he say that God or Christ was seated upon the throne. There is only a hint of visualization of the One on the Throne, when we are told what the Enthroned One's appearance was like (similis erat aspectui), a strange circumlocution that denies visual actuality. Furthermore, there is an unmistakable distancing in the omission of God's name. Indeed, in the passage above, no noun or pronoun of any kind is used for God, only a participle used substantively. The line, et super sedem sedens, does not introduce a substantive word or clause, but as the independent clause that follows makes clear, stands alone—in other words, what is sitting on the Throne is what is sitting on the Throne. God, here, is act and being, not visual reality. In this respect, John's vision of the Throne is close to the divine presence in the Old Testament, which is rarely visual, almost always verbal. However, unlike the God of the prophets and patriarchs, the Enthroned (One) of John's vision is not voice or words, even though in the vision of the first chapter of John's text, it was a voice he first experienced and a voice he wanted to see: "audivi post me vocem magnam.... et conversus sum ut viderem vocem quae loquebatur mecum" (1.10, 12). [I heard behind me a loud voice ... and I turned around to see the voice that had spoken to me.] The Lamb, as a sign of the divine presence, especially of the Son, soon appears in the middle of the Throne. Actually, the image of the Lamb is a separate vision, or at least a subsequent stage of envisioning, since it is first introduced with the phrase, "et vidi et ecce ..." [and then I saw/envisioned, and behold there was ...].

Throughout most of the rest of John's text the images of the Lamb and the Throne dominate as visual signs of God. In the final vision they are combined with the Voice, which has been heard throughout the book, but has never before been connected to the visual symbols. Coming as it does at the end of John's visions and as the climax of the revelation of the new creation, this manifestation of the divine as voice and words represents John's ultimate experience of God:

Et audivi vocem magnam de throno ...
Et dixit qui sedebat in throno,
"Ecce nova facio omnia."
Et dicit, "Scribe quia haec verba fidelissima sunt et vera."
Et dixit mihi, "Factum est.
Ego sum A et Ω initium et finis." (21.3, 5-6)

[And I heard a loud voice from the throne ...
..................
And (the One) who sat on the throne said
"Behold I make all things new!"
And he said "Write (this) down, for the words are
trustworthy and true!"
And he said to me, "It (these words) is accomplished.
I am Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End."

It is significant that this final and climactic vision, though it places the divine voice on the Throne, still does not really constitute a theophany, at least not a fully embodied visual one. Throughout his text, by using the visual symbols of the Lamb and the Throne, or the oral sign of the Voice, John avoids giving a record of the beatific vision (which he never claims to have experienced). Rather than recreating theophany itself, what the visions of the Throne and the Lamb do is to reveal the experience of theophany for those beyond the time and space of this world. This experience, for those who have it, can be divided into two phases: the act of judgment by the enthroned Christ, and the celebration of God's majesty by the saved. The former is an event within time, although at its outer edge; the latter is an eternal act.

The act of divine judgment, for many the most typically apocalyptic moment, is strangely almost a minor event in John's text. Coming just before the passage quoted above that places the Voice upon the Throne, the traditional scene of the Last Judgment is described in a brief passage:

Et vidi thronum magnum candidum,
et sedentem super eum
a cuius aspectu fugit terra et caelum,
et locus non est inventus ab eis.

Et vidi mortuos magnos et pusillos stantes in conspectu
throni.

Et libri aperti sunt,
et alius liber apertus est qui est vitae.

Et iudicati sunt mortui ex his quae scripta erant in libris,
secundum opera ipsorum.

Et dedit mare mortuos qui in eo erant,
et mors et inferus dederunt mortuos qui in ipsis erant,
et iudicatum est de singulis secundum opera ipsorum.
(20.11-13)

[And I saw a large white throne,
And (One) sitting on it,
From whose appearance the earth and sky fled,
And they could find no place to go.

And I saw the dead, the great and the lowly, standing
before the throne.
And the books were opened.

And another book was opened, which is the book of the
living,
And the dead were judged from the things which were
written in the books,
According to their deeds.
And the sea gave up the dead which were in it,
And death and the underworld gave up the dead which
were in them.
And each person was judged separately according to his
deeds.]

Yet, although John's vision of the Last Judgment seems of minor importance when compared to most of the other scenes in the Apocalypse, it is but one detail in a full dramatization of God as judge. In John's visions the Last Judgment comes as a conclusion and a culmination of the mythic and allegorical battles that occupy the bulk of the Apocalypse, since all of the text's monsters and devils function as figures of evil, and since their final defeat illustrates the power of God's judgment. From the beginning, Christian exegesis and iconography have made this connection, and it has become so imbedded in tradition that few seem aware of how little basis John's Apocalypse gives for the popular Last Judgment scene.

The act of final judgment is historically the first of humanity's experiences of the theophany that will come at the end of time. For the saved, Christ's second coming will be heralded and celebrated by the canticum novum, a new song sung in the new world. It is this act of celebration, not the image of God Himself, that is the focus of most of John's visions of the Lamb and the Throne, and as such those visions are best thought of as scenes of God adored. The first of the visions of the Throne, for example, provides a full description of those worshipping the enthroned one—the twenty-four elders (4.4) and the living beasts (animalia; 4.6-8)—and also repeats their words of praise:

Sanctus, sanctus, sanctus, Dominus Deus omnipotens,
Qui erat et qui est et qui venturus est.
..................
Dignus es Domine et Deus noster accipere gloriam et
honorem et virtutem,
Quia tu creasti omnia,
Et propter voluntatem tuam erant et creata sunt.
(4.8, 11)

[Holy, holy, holy, Lord God almighty,
Who was, who is, and who is to come.
..................
Worthy art thou, Lord, our God, to receive glory and
honor and power,
Because thou didst create all things,
And by thy will they were and are created.]

In chapter seven, John witnesses another scene of adoration, this time by a great crowd:

Post haec vidi turbam agnam quam dinumerare nemo
poterat,
ex omnibus gentibus et tribubus et populis et linguis,
stantes ante thronum et in conspectu agni,
amicti stolas albas,
et palmae in manibus eorum.
Et clamabant voce magna dicentes,
"Salus Deo nostro qui sedet super thronum et agno."
(7.9-10)

[After this I saw a huge crowd, which no one could
count,
From every nation and tribe and people and tongue,
Standing before the throne and in sight of the Lamb,
Dressed in white robes,
And with palm branches in their hands,
And they cried out in a loud voice, saying,
"Salvation is from our God, who is seated on the throne
and from the Lamb!"]

In a similar vision of the Lamb adored, in chapter fourteen, the Lamb stands on Mount Sion and is worshipped by 144,000 virgins (actually men, because they have not "been defiled by women"—14.4).

The climax of all these visions of the Lamb and the Throne is not a visual description of either, but the act of adoration by those witnessing the vision. In the vision recorded in chapter fourteen, the 144,000, like the twenty-four elders (seniores) and the four living beasts (animalia) of the earlier vision, celebrate God's reign with songs of praise. In this later vision John elaborates on the uniqueness of the song:

Et cantabant quasi canticum novum ante sedem et ante
quattor animalia et seniores.
Et nemo poterat discere canticum nisi ilia centum
quadraginta quattuor milia qui empti sunt de terra.
(14.3)

[And they were singing a kind of new hymn,
Before the throne and before the four living creatures and
the elders,
And no one could learn this hymn, except the 144,000 who
had been ransomed from the world.]