DREAM OF THE ROOD: PERSONIFYING THE CROSS
The story of Jesus Christ's crucifixion is well-known for those in the Christian faith. Because of Christianity's dominance in the western world, the story is recognized among other circles as well. In all biblical accounts of the crucifixion, Jesus meets his end when he is nailed to the cross as a sacrifice for the redemption of humankind. The cross is seen as an inanimate object that is seen only as a tool for destruction. However, in 'Dream of the Rood', the cross is given a voice. It is seen as a character that suffered along with Christ and a beacon of hope for sinners.
The cross first appears in the poem
as a “more wonderful tree / lifted in the air, wound round with light / the
brightest of beams. That beacon was entirely / cased in gold...”1
This is not an image that is usually associated with the cross. In biblical
tellings, the cross is seen only on Good Friday, a dark day, with light and
hope returning only three days later on Christ’s resurrection. The cross itself
becomes a symbol of hope. The narrator of the poem is able to see their own
likeness, their own sins, reflected in the image of the cross. “Wondrous was
the victory-tree, and I stained with sins, / wounded with guilts… /
Nevertheless, I was able to perceive through that gold / the ancient hostility
of wretches, so that it first began / to bleed on the right side. I was all
drenched with sorrows.”2
The cross itself also suffered
alongside Christ. The reader is able to feel remorse for the cross as it is
personified through the tale it tells to the narrator. The tale starts while it
was still a tree; “That was very long ago, I remember it still, / that I was cut
down from the edge of the wood, / ripped up by my roots. They seized me there,
strong enemies, / made me a spectacle for themselves there, commanded me to
raise up their criminals.”3 The strong verbs ‘cut’, ‘ripped’, and ‘seized’
suggest that the tree, as it was taken down to be fashioned into a cross,
experienced this as a painful and traumatic event. Then, as Jesus was
crucified, the cross also took the nails that drove through his hands. "They pierced me with dark nails; on me are the wounds visible, / the open wounds of malice; I did not dare to injure any of them. / They mocked us both together. I was all drenched with blood / poured out from that man's side after he had sent forth his spirit.”4
The narration of the cross expresses a great sorrow at what happened to both it and to the life that was lost through the crucifixion. It is unusual for an account of the cross as if if was a true character in the event. In this narrative, the cross is in every right its own character, if not the main protagonist. It is a character that, normally perceived as merely an object, has a chance to tell its own story.
- Elaine Treharne, trans.. Old and Middle English: An Anthology (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers Ltd., 2000), lines 4-7.
- Ibid., lines 18-20.
- Ibid., lines 28-31.
- Ibid., lines 46-49.
