EN095.20 Ode
(Redirected from En 13d Ode to Adela)
Ott 2025
R. Apollania
3. Ode to Adela
95.20 Ode to the Burgmaid
- Yes, comrade from afar. Thousands have already come , and yet more are on their way.
- Why? They come to honor the wisdom of Adela.
- She is surely chief among us, for she always was foremost.
- Say, o wall[1] — to what shall they attend? Her shirt is of linen, her tunic of wool, which she spun and wove herself. What could they add [096] to heighten her beauty? Not pearls, for her teeth were whiter. Not gold, for her hair shone brighter. Not jewels, for her eyes, though soft as a lamb’s, blazed such that one scarce dared hold their gaze.
- What prattle I though of beauty? Frya herself was surely no fairer. Yea, comrade. Frya, who had seven gifts of beauty, of which her daughters gained each but one, or three at most. Yet, even were she unlovely, Adela would have been no less dear to us.
- Was she heroic? Hark, comrade. Adela was our reeve’s only child, seven feet tall she was, and yet greater than her stature was her wisdom — and her courage was like both combined.
- Behold! There once was a peat fire, and three children had climbed onto a gravestone to escape it. A fell wind blew. They screamed and their mothers were desperate. Then came Adela, calling out: “Why do you stand and wince? Try to help them and Wralda shall give you strength!” She hurried to the thicket,[2] grabbed some alder trunks [097] to build a bridge. Then the others came to help and the children were saved.
- Every year, the children returned here to lay flowers. Once, three Phoenician sailors were about and sought to harass them. But Adela heard their cries and came. She knocked the molesters into a swoon and, to teach them what unworthy men they were, she bound them all fast together to a distaff. Their foreign masters came to look for them and, seeing how they had been humiliated, became furious. But we told them how it had happened. And what did they then do? They bowed before Adela and kissed the fringe of her tunic.
- But come, distant comrade! The forest birds flee from the many attendants. Come so you may hear of her wisdom!
Nearby the gravestone mentioned in the ode, my mother’s remains were buried. And upon her own gravestone, these words were written: “Pass by not too hastily, for here lies Adela.”
Notes
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EN093.18 Arrow ᐊ previous/next ᐅ EN097.28 Teachings1
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EN093.18 Arrow ᐊ previous/next ᐅ EN090.01 Adelbond
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Other English translations
Chapters P and R1 to R3: Sandbach 1876