Library › St Gildas › On the Ruin of Britain

On the Ruin of Britain

St Gildas, tr. Williams, 1899

Reasons for Introducing Words of the Holy Prophets (sancti vates)

Here indeed, or even before, was to be concluded this tearful and complaining story¹ of the evils of this age, so that my mouth should no further relate the deeds of men. But let them not suppose that I am timid or wearied, so as not to be carefully on my guard against that saying of Isaiah: Woe unto him who calleth evil good, and good evil, putting darkness for light, and light for darkness, bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter. Who seeing do not see, and hearing do not hear, whose heart is covered with a thick cloud of vices. Rather, I wish succinctly to relate what threatenings, and how great, the oracles of the prophets exclaim against the above-named lascivious and mad five horses² of the retinue of Pharaoh, by whom his army is actively incited to its ruin in the Red sea, and those like unto them. By these oracles, as if by a noble roof, the undertaking of my little work is safely covered, so that it may not stand open to the rain-storms of envious men, which shall rush upon it, vieing with one another.

Let, therefore, the holy prophets speak for me now, as they did formerly—they who stood forth as the mouth, so to speak, of God, the instrument of the Holy Spirit with prohibition of sins unto men, befriending the good—against the stubborn and proud princes of this age, lest they say, that out of my own invention and mere wordy rashness, I am hurling against them such threatenings, and terrors of such magnitude. For to no wise man is it doubtful how much more grievous are the sins of this time, than those of the primitive time, when the apostle says: He that transgresses the law, is put to death on the word of two or three witnesses; of how much sorer punishments, think ye, is he worthy who hath trodden under foot the Son of God.

Notes

This “tearful narrative of complaint” (flebilis querulaque historia) includes the part beginning, in c. 26, where the older men die and are succeeded by an age ignorant of the earlier struggles with the Saxons, with experience only of the present time of quiet. The story ends with c. 36. Bede’s well-known words about Gildas, that he wrote “with tears in his language” (flebili sermone, i, 22), may have been borrowed from this passage, as also the name liber querulus, so frequently applied to this work. The phrase querula historia means a narrative setting forth definite charges or complaints. In Col. iv, 13, we have probably the Latin querela reproduced by the Authorised Versions, Welsh and English, in the (now) archaic cweryl and quarrel. “If any man have a quarrel (= complaint) against any.”
quinque equis. These words are best understood if connected thus: his supra dictis lascivientibus insanisque satellitum Faraonis quinque equis, placing a bracket after similibus: “these above-named lascivious and foolish horses of Pharaoh’s following.” The Mon. Germ. Hist. edition explains “five horses,” by the five horses mentioned in 2 Kings, vii, 13. “Let some take, I pray thee, five of the horses that remain, which are left in the city.” But the story of famine-stricken Samaria hardly suits this reference to Pharaoh. In the eyes of Gildas, the five British princes of the previous chapters are to be compared to the omnis equitatus Pharaonis, as the Vulgate translates, or πᾶς ἵππος of the LXX, which led the Egyptian host into the destruction of the Red Sea, Exod. xiv, 23. Compare the still more apposite words of xv, 19. The Hebrew may mean “Pharaoh’s horses” in both places. Gildas is certainly guilty of mixing figure and reality. Owing, probably, to this difficulty, the copyist of Codex A has omitted all reference to “horses” and Pharaoh. It reads: libet itaque edicere quid quantumque minarum inclamitent prophetica oracula his supra dictis quinque regibus lasciuientibusque eorum insanis intellectibus quibus oraculis ueluti quodam pulcro tegmini fidissime contegatur opusculi nostri molimen ut ne certatim . . .