FYI: Harrowing of Hell

[pynchonoid]

<http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07143d.htm>
Harrowing of Hell
This is the Old English and Middle English term for
the triumphant descent of Christ into hell (or Hades)
between the time of His Crucifixion and His
Resurrection, when, according to Christian belief, He
brought salvation to the souls held captive there
since the beginning of the world. According to the
"New English Dictionary" the word Harrowing in the
above connection first occurs in Aelfric's homilies,
about A.D. 1000; but, long before this, the descent
into hell had been related in the Old English poems
connected with the name of Caedmon and Cynewulf.
Writers of Old English prose homilies and lives of
saints continually employ the subject, but it is in
medieval English literature that it is most fully
found, both in prose and verse, and particularly in
the drama. Art and literature all through Europe had
from early times embodied in many forms the Descent
into Hell, and specimens plays upon this theme in
various European literatures still exist, but it is in
Middle English dramatic literature that we find the
fullest and most dramatic development of the subject.
The earliest specimen extant of the English religious
drama is upon the Harrowing of Hell, and the four
great cycles of English mystery plays each devote to
it a separate scene. It is found also in the ancient
Cornish plays. These medieval versions of the story,
while ultimately based upon the New Testament and the
Fathers, have yet, in their details, been found to
proceed from the apocryphal Gospel of Nicodemus, the
literary form of a part of which is said to date back
to the second of third century. In its Latin form this
"gospel" was known in England from a very early time;
Bede and other Old English writers are said to show
intimate acquaintance with it. English translations
were made of it in the Middle Ages, and in the long
Middle English poem known as "Cursor Mundi" a
paraphrase of it is found. 


The Cambridge History of English and American
<http://www.bartleby.com/215/0308.html>
Literature in 18 Volumes (1907–21).
Volume V. The Drama to 1642, Part One.
III. The Early Religious Drama.
§ 8. The Harrowing of Hell.
A poem on Christ’s descent to hell, from the middle of
the thirteenth century (The Harrowing of Hell), which
has often been called the oldest English drama, does
not, in reality, belong to this species; it is, for
the most part, in dialogue; but, in the beginning, the
author says: “A strif will I tellen on, Of Jesu and of
Satan”; and, at the end, he likewise speaks in his own
person. Evidently, the poem was intended to be
delivered, with changes of voice, by a professional
reciter—an art that had been brought to great
perfection by the wandering Jongleurs.


<http://freespace.virgin.net/cade.york/limen/plays/waghh.htm>
The Harrowing of Hell
The Thirty-Seventh Play of the York Cycle of Mystery
Plays


pix:
<http://www.kfki.hu/~arthp/html/d/durer/2/13/3/14limbo.html>
<http://www.kb.nl/kb/manuscripts/highlights/73E1_uk.html>


Ikon: The Harrowing of Hell

 Down through the tomb's inward arch
 He has shouldered out into Limbo
 to gather them, dazed, from dreamless slumber:
 the merciful dead, the prophets,
 the innocents just His own age and those
 unnumbered others waiting here
 unaware, in an endless void He is ending
 now, stopping to tug at their hands,
 to pull them from their sarcophagi,
 dazzled, almost unwilling. Didmas,
 neighbor in death, Golgotha dust
 still streaked on the dried sweat of his body
 no one had washed and anointed, is here,
 for sequence is not known in Limbo;
 the promise, given from cross to cross
 at noon, arches beyond sunset and dawn.
 All these He will swiftly lead
 to the Paradise road: they are safe.
 That done, there must take place that struggle
 no human presumes to picture:
 living, dying, descending to rescue the just
 from shadow, were lesser travails
 than this: to break
 through earth and stone of the faithless world
 back to the cold sepulchre, tearstained
 stifling shroud; to break from them
 back into breath and heartbeat, and walk
 the world again, closed into days and weeks again,
 wounds of His anguish open, and Spirit
 streaming through every cell of flesh
 so that if mortal sight could bear
 to perceive it, it would be seen
 His mortal flesh was lit from within, now,
 and aching for home. He must return,
 first, in Divine patience, and know
 hunger again, and give
 to humble friends the joy
 of giving Him food -- fish and a honeycomb.

 Denise Levertov
<http://www.stanford.edu/group/ivgrad/poems/levertov3.html>


Doug, juggling that world cursor




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