‘Lost in an Herbere’: Mourning and Loss in the Medieval Pearl-poem
Dena VanEnkevort, Senior - English
Faculty Mentor: Dr. David Wood - English
A medieval dream vision poem, Pearl follows the story of a Dreamer who is grieving the loss of his beautiful, perfect pearl: “In a garden green with grass, my cheer / Was lost! It lunged to land. O lot! / A lovelorn, longing look I bear / For that precious pearl without a spot” (9-12). Precisely what this pearl is or what it represents is never explicitly made clear, but its function as a representation of loss is its most important quality; in The Complete Works of the Pearl Poet, they remark that “the transcendental referent remains forever just beyond reach. Does the pearl finally typify the soul? God? Newborn innocence? Significantly, the question is left very much open” (Finch 32). Despite the vagueness of what the pearl itself is, in context with the Dreamer and the maiden, it sets the poem’s focus on the Dreamer’s loss and the maiden’s attempts at consolation. This, along with Christian doctrine, allows the poem to explore how man may seek a way to transcend loss through faith in God (32).
In Pearl, before falling asleep in the garden and beginning his dream vision, the Dreamer laments his loss:
My care had cut me to the core.
From wounds of woe within I bled.
Though reason bid me rage no more,
I suffered still; my sadness spread.
I knew of neither wisdom nor
The consolation Christ had bred.
My saddened soul still showed its sore;
I fell upon the grassy floor (lines 49-60).
Accordingly, within the first sixty lines of the poem, the Dreamer fully develops the themes of loss and consolation as represented by the pearl and the pearl-maiden. He also directly acknowledges that this consolation will be in some way related to Christianity. He affirms this for us again when he falls asleep, saying “My soul soared from that spot to the sky, / While on the land my limbs lay still, / And with God’s mercy hovered high” (61-63).
The start of this dream is where the Dreamer gets his first taste of consolation for the pain and loss he is feeling: “In awe within those wondrous heights, / My soul from suffering found cure” (85-86). This allows for us to see that all is not lost for the Dreamer; there remains potential relief from his misery. From here, this idea and feeling of consolation is maintained and expanded upon throughout for over one hundred lines: “That wonderment, both far and wide…/ I set my sorrows all aside / And soothed my grinding grief and gall” and “At each unsullied sight I sighed / With awe, my heart assuaged” (121-24, 127-28). This section of the poem indicates that the power of this dream and what he is seeing has the ability to outweigh and offset his pain, demonstrating the intensity and strength of the Christian God. The Dreamer’s longing to cross the river to “paradise” is emphasized throughout and he nods toward the familiar trope that there is always something better, that the grass is always greener on the other side: “More and more and ever more / I pined and longed… / …For fair / As was my side, far fairer yet / Did seem that sweet, opposing shore” (137, 145-49).
A major shift in the poem occurs when the Dreamer first sees the pearl-maiden. He describes her as “a child, a maid of noble blood. / She wore all white. And very well / I recognized this marvelous maid!” (162-64). Her being dressed all in white indicates to us that the maiden is a heavenly, pure figure, aligning her with the Dreamer’s hardship and search for consolation as well as her Christian faith. Her appearing to be familiar to the Dreamer’s is also worth noting. He states that “I doted on her face, delayed, / And the more I knew her, more and more” (166-67), as well as that she is “Nearer to me than aunt or niece, / She made my mirth so much the more” (233-34). This recognition and familiarity are akin to the idea of family in Christian religion; God is our father, Mary is our mother, and Jesus is his son. The maiden, therefore, also seems to adhere to this familial model for the Dreamer.
The Dreamer asks her if she is who or what he has lost and is looking for, inquiring “Are you my pearl for whom I’ve pined / And hung my head each hopeless night / When gall and grief my heart confined?” (242-44). The maiden answers him, explaining that he has not been targeted to be punished and that he doesn’t understand the temporality of his pearl, telling him “O sir, you’re certainly misled / To say your gem has gone away… / Forever here she’ll frolic, play” and “For what you lost was but a rose / That flowered and finally failed in time” (265-67, 269-70). However, she expresses to him that all is not lost; much in the same way that an irritant causes a clam to create a pearl, the Dreamer’s “withered rose” (pearl) is
But healed within this heavenly house,
And blessed, your beauteous pearl’s become.
Though fate, you feel, has felled your gem,
It was from naught renewed. Its cure
You call a curse! Confused you seem
To be (271-76).
The Dreamer doesn’t seem to comprehend what the maiden is trying to tell him, still selfishly focusing on the loss of his pearl, crying “What good is wealth that makes men cry / When with it men must part for drear / And dreadful ways? (329-31). The maiden responds that the Dreamer is fixated on the wrong thing: “Men often moan to lose the less / And lose what matters more thereby” (339-40). By focusing on the loss and the thing (the pearl) itself, the Dreamer is missing the opportunity to find consolation in God and his will: “Much better, you should learn to bless / Your God, not grind your teeth and cry… / God will with suffering supply / Whomever He will” (341-45). While the Dreamer cannot avoid pain and suffering that may beleaguer him in his life, he can find solace and comfort in God.
The maiden encourages the Dreamer’s ability to accept his suffering as part of God’s will and “cease [his] loud complaints and spite,” as if he is able to do so and “seek God’s goodly grace,” through prayer he will be able to find consolation and mercy: “For what of grace would God begrudge? / To men His mercy overflows. / All lies in Him, Your Lord and Judge!” (353, 354, 358-60). The Dreamer appears to finally understand her, proclaiming “I recommend to God’s mercy / My soul: Forgive my sacrilege / Of mourning most indulgently. / O show me your sweet sanctity” (366-69). She accepts his declaration and tells him a parable with the lesson that God pays all of his people the same, despite the amount of or variance in their work for him:
Though differently does He requite,
Here equally each one is paid.
What He allots, though harsh or light,
Here equally each gift is weighed
[…]
Each gift; who loved the Lord in life
With precious prizes thus is paid,
For God’s good grace is great enough (601-12).
This parable serves to reinforce to the Dreamer that God loves and rewards all of his people the same; the Dreamer is not entitled to any more or less from God than anyone else. The maiden goes on to further develop and bolster her position as she does in lines 863-64: “Each one is with kind bliss caressed, / Yet others’ honors are never less.”
Pearl and the shorter medieval dream poem “Dream of the Rood” both end in a similar way, with the Dreamer waking up and contemplating his vision. For both men, these reflections on their dream visions result in a positive conclusion about Christian religion. In “Dream of the Rood,” the man praises God and commits to worshipping the cross (36 lines 122-155). Meanwhile, the Dreamer in Pearl is woken when he attempts to cross the river, but God prevents him from doing so and he wakes up. Finally accepting his lesson, he undertakes the Christian task of fulfilling God’s will (99 lines 1165-1212). Pearl’s theme of loss, as represented by the pearl, is clearly presented to us, while the true nature of the loss remains rather ambiguous and therefore retains the ability to be relatable to the widest audience. The theme of consolation and its nature, however, is decidedly unambiguous; it is the salvation of Christian religion and God’s mercy.
Works Cited
Finch, C., et al. “Pearl.” In The Complete Works of the Pearl Poet (pp. 44-101). Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1993, pp. 36, 44–101.