ANCRENE WISSE

The Seven Deadly Sins

A line-by-line translation by Sujaan Mukherjee

The proud(s) are his trumpeters, draw wind inward with worldly (OE woroldlic) praise (OE

herian + word) and often with idle (vain) boasting (OE gielp) puff it outward as the

trumpeters do, make noise and loud sound to display (OE sceawian) their pride (OE orgel).

But if they thought well of God’s trumpeters, of the angels trumpeting which should in the

four quarters of the world, before the dreadful judgement day, grimly blow, “Arise! Dead,

arise! Come to Lord’s judgement in order to be deemed/judged, where no proud trumpeter

shall be saved!” – if they thought this well (contemplated this carefully), they would soon

enough in the devil’s service more quietly be. Of these tricks St Jerome said: A wild ass

accustomed to the wilderness in the desire of his heart snuffed up the wind of his heart –

about the wind being out for love of praise, he says what I said.

Some clowns (OF juglere, joglere) are the …. perform no other entertainment but making

faces, twist (OE wrencan) the mouth / distorting the mouth, squinting with the eye. Of this

master serve the wretched (OE unsælig) envious people (OE anda) in the devil’s court, to

make laugh their malicious lord. If I say that others do well, he may not in any way look there

with right eye of good heart, but wink in that half and look and with the left if there is

anything to criticize, or shall [look at] that with ill will with both. When they hear anything

good, flap their ears down; but the left is always wide open towards evil. Then he wrenches

the mouth when he turns good to evil, and if it is some part evil, through more detraction (ON

lasta) drags it to worse. These are forecasters, prophets of their own doom; These portend

before they who horribly (ætelic) devil’s shall yet terrify them with their gnashing of teeth,

and who shall himself gnash and snivel and make rueful faces (OF semblaunt) for the much

anguish (OF anguisse) in the pain of hell. But because they are the less to be pitied in as

much as they before hand learn [from?] their master to make grim faces.

The wrathful before the fiend tosses (AN askirmir) knives and in his knife-throwing, and

plays with swords, bores (a hole?) them with the sharp point up on his tongue. Sword and

knife both both represent sharp and cutting (OE ceorfan) words that he throws from him and

throws towards others; and he portends how the devil shall play with him with their sharp

flesh hooks (OE āwol), toss with him around and fling like a bit of old fur each towards [the]

other, and with the swords of hell pierce him through and through, that are keen and horrible

and cutting sharp (ppl. Adj. OE ceorfan) pains.

The slothful lie and sleep in the devil’s bosom as his dear darling and the devil tells his lies

down to his ear and lies to him all that he will. For so it is certainly to whom who is idle of

good: the fiend speaks eagerly and the idle receives lovingly his learning. Idle and heedless is

the devil’s son’s sleep, but he shall on Doomsday grimly awaken from the dreadful sound of

the angel blowing and in hell’s misery (ON vantrædi) awaken. “Arise”, they say, “arise you

dead, and come to the judgement of the Saviour.”

The miser is his ash-fool, busies himself with ashes and busily occupies himself to heap

together great and many heaps, blows in them and blinds himself, stirs and makes in them

arithmetical figures as the calculators do and they have much to calculate. This is all the

fool’s bliss, and the fiend beholds this game and laughs till he bursts. Each wise man well

understands that gold and silver too and each earthly possession is nothing but earth and ash

that blind each man who in them blows, that is, the who puffs himself up pride of heart as a

consequence of them. And all he heaps and gathers together and retains of anything that is

nothing but ash over and above what is essential, shall in hell become for him (weor[th]an)

toads (OE tādige) and adders (OE næddre); and also, as Isiah says, shall be of worms his

bedspread (OF couveture) and his blanket, who would not therewith the needful feed and

clothe. “Under thee shall the moth be strewed, and worms shall be your covering.”

The greedy (Ȝivere from OE gīfre) glutton is the devil’s manciple1, but he sticks (OE stician)

ever to the cellar or in the kitchen; his heart is in the dishes, his thought all in the cups, his

life in the barrel (OE tunne), his soul in the jug. [He] Comes before his lord besmeared and

beslobbered, a dish in his hand, a bowl (ON scál) in his other, pronounces bad words,

staggers (MLG wiggelen) as a fore-drunk man who is about to fall. [The devil] Beholds his

great stomach, and the devil laughs. Through Isiah, God threatens these: My servants shall

eat, and you shall be hungry, etc. ‘My men shall eat and you (dative ow) shall always be

hungry’, and you shall be on fiend’s food till the world ends, eternally (OE būtan). “As much

as she has glorified herself and lived in delicacies, so much torment and sorrow give ye to

1 One who buys provisions for the household. French word, first known usage.

her. In the apocalypse. IN return for one cup wherein she hath mingled, mingle ye double

unto her’. If the boozer (OE celc + pot) boiling brass drinks. Pour in his wide throat that

inside may melt. In return for one, give him two! Such is God’s judgement against gluttons

and drunken in the Apocalypse.

The lechers in the devil’s court have rightly their own name, for in these great courts (AN

curt) those are called lechers who have so lost (OE forleosan) shame that to them there

is(not) nothing of shame, but [they] seek whom they may the greatest villainy work. The

lecher in the devil’s court befouls himself fully and his fellows (OE feolaga < ON felagi) all,

stink of that filth, and gratifies well his lord with that stinking breath better than he should

with any sweet riches. How he stinks to God in Vitas Patrum (Lives of the Fathers) the angel

showed it, who holds his nose when there comes the proud lecher riding, and not for the

rotted body that he helps the holy hermit to bury. Of all the other then have these that foulest

master in the fiend’s court who so befouls himself, and he shall befoul them, pain them with

eternal stench in the pit of hell.

Now you who have any part heard, my dear sisters, of those which we call the seven mother

sins and of their brood, and of which masters these each men serve in the devil’s court who

have married those seven hags, and which of they are greatly to hate and to shun. You are

very far from them, our Lord be thanked; but that foul breath of this last vice, that is lechery,

stinks the best by far, because the field sows it, and blows it over all, that I am some-part

afraid lest it rise some time into our heart’s nose. Stench rises (OE stīgan) upwards, and you

be climbed high where the wind is greatly of strong temptations. Our Lord give us good

strength to withstand!

From A book of Middle English, 3rd edition, ed. J.A. Burrow and Thorlac Turville-Petre.