And at the same time he began to guess that if in the New Life there are
new and unheard-of joys, there are also new and unheard-of dangers. In
his manuscript books which professed to deliver the outer sense of those
mysterious 'Hidden Songs of Iolo Sant' there was a little chapter that
bore the heading: _Fons Sacer non in communem Vsum convertendus est_,
and by diligence, with much use of the grammar and dictionary, Darnell
was able to construe the by no means complex Latin of his ancestor. The
special book which contained the chapter in question was one of the most
singular in the collection, since it bore the title _Terra de Iolo_, and
on the surface, with an ingenious concealment of its real symbolism, it
affected to give an account of the orchards, fields, woods, roads,
tenements, and waterways in the possession of Darnell's ancestors. Here,
then, he read of the Holy Well, hidden in the Wistman's Wood--_Sylva
Sapientum_--'a fountain of abundant water, which no heats of summer can
ever dry, which no flood can ever defile, which is as a water of life,
to them that thirst for life, a stream of cleansing to them that would
be pure, and a medicine of such healing virtue that by it, through the
might of God and the intercession of His saints, the most grievous
wounds are made whole.' But the water of this well was to be kept
sacred perpetually, it was not to be used for any common purpose, nor to
satisfy any bodily thirst; but ever to be esteemed as holy, 'even as the
water which the priest hath hallowed.' And in the margin a comment in a
later hand taught Darnell something of the meaning of these
prohibitions. He was warned not to use the Well of Life as a mere luxury
of mortal life, as a new sensation, as a means of making the insipid cup
of everyday existence more palatable. 'For,' said the commentator, 'we
are not called to sit as the spectators in a theatre, there to watch the
play performed before us, but we are rather summoned to stand in the
very scene itself, and there fervently to enact our parts in a great and
wonderful mystery.'
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account