Sing a song of Bethlehem

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33693, 16 November 1974, Page 12

Sing a song of Bethlehem

In the early church the birthday of Christ was celebrated on January 6. But by the time the first carols were sung the Nativity and the Epiphany had come to be regarded as separate feasts. So the birthday was put back by 12 days to December 25.

But poets have never cared for being too strictly tied by dates. You find a good deal of punning in Nativity and Epiphany poems, along the line: Were not the shepherds also wise men?

Poetry has always been a means of saying several things at one and the same time, and the 12 verses from the gospel of St Matthew, and the one from Luke in which the complete Christmas story js rooted, prove rio exception. Neither Matthew nor Luke mention an ox, an ass, or a stable. Joseph is never said to be an old man with a grey beard. There is no reference to camels, and although the gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh are described, the actual number of wise men is never given. Symbolism

The choice of three, like so much else connected with the story as it has been hahded down, is probably an inspired piece of symbolism. Three probably stands for the three stages of life—youth, middle-age and old age. One thing is certain about the additions to the story —they are all intended as further acts of adoration at

This article is by NEVILLE BRAYBROOKE, at present resident on the Isle of Wight, and is part of a. book in progress.

the manger. So, in the poet’s eye, when the wise men rode away down the centuries, it was not long before their cloaks flew out in the wind and they became invested with the attributes of royalty. By the time of the early English morality plays they are definitely kings and no doubt about it. But not every poet who has followed has thought the same. Milton thought them “star-led wizards.” Charles Fitzgefiery, a Cornish poet of the sixteenth century, thought them “noble Persians.” And another Cornish poet, Charles Causley, from Launceston, sees them as gypsies—and adds: One teas rich and one was poor. And one had the face of a blackamoor. Still, whether they are kings, or wizards or gypsies, they remain, above all, travellers who, with their animals, have followed a star. And if you see them as such, you will see that they become pilgrims representing all mankind—past, present, and to come. The Christmas cave offers shelter to everyone, man and beast alike. Other animals George Herbert in one of his poems brings his horse to the crib. William Austin, m the same century, multiplies the ox and ass of the medieval moralities to oxen and asses. Christina Rossetti, when her turn came, thought it unfair to leave out the camel, and since then others have arrived with leopards, apes and peacocks. In ‘The Wind in the Willows” the field-mice sing a special carol. Once when 1 was editing

a Christmas anthology, I asked Frances Comford to contribute. She sent me this poem: There is a bird, they say. That only sings When snow is on the way. And the moon ice-cold. His name is so old That now his name is lost But* 1 have heard His nest is made of frost. So, you see, poets have involved practically the whole of creation in the Bethlehem story — even birds from long long ago whose names are now forgotten. _ But there remains one totally forgotten figure. Odder still, without him there could have been no Christmas story. He is Joseph. In “The Oxford Book of

Christian Verse’’ not a single poem is devoted to him, and the one carol about him that is reprinted —the sixteenth century “Cherry Tree Carol”—continues the myth of him as an old man. This becomes doubly curious when it is remembered that, in the earliest preserved dramatic scene in English literature, Joseph is presented as a virile young man well up to a four-day journey on a donkey: Much bane have I borne by this conception. 1 received . . \ A spotless maiden unstained of sin. Now all is altered . . . If 1 tell the truth David’s daughter must die. Stoned with stones. Yet harder still If- I shield the evil. . . ,

1 shall live hereafter loathed

in all lands, Despised among men. The fact that later in the poem God’s plan is revealed to Joseph does not diminish the agony of conscience which he must have undergone at the time. Until he knew that plan, he just had to have perfect faith in his spouse and in God.

The message of this Anglo-Saxon poem is that celebacy only becomes a means of spiritual enrichment if it is accepted voluntarily. Joseph’s acceptance was not just a passive gesture, but a young man’s positive act of trust in his Maker. It is an aspect of the Nativity story that has been sadly neglected and certainly one that has a striking relevance for today.