Book – Rebekah Curry

Pearl: A New Verse Translation

Pearl, that a prince in pleasure’s way
displays in settings of gold so clear;
in all the Orient, I daresay,
I never came on her priceless peer.
So round, so lovely in each array,
so smooth, with her shape a perfect sphere;
wherever I judged that gems were gay,
I set her apart on the highest tier.
Alas, in a garden I lost my dear;
she tumbled away in a grassy plot.
With lovelorn longing my eyes are blear,
for that precious pearl without a spot.

A father mourning the loss of his young daughter falls into a dream and finds himself in a beautiful and unearthly landscape. There he meets again with his child, who is now transformed into a heavenly queen, and the two begin a dialogue that challenges all he thought he knew. The poem known as Pearl was written by an anonymous author of the medieval period, and its themes of grief and faith remain meaningful centuries later. This edition presents the Middle English text of Pearl alongside a Modern English translation in the intricate poetic form of the original.