De quodam caeco regio tactu similiter curato.
The Blindness of Wulfwin
While working on the royal palace at Bruheham, a young man named Wulfwin falls asleep in the shade and awakens to find he has completely lost his sight, plunging him into years of darkness.
It happened at one time that a royal palace was being built in a place called Bruheham. A good number of country workers had been sent for by the overseers of the work to cut timber. After their work they ate a meal, and when the midday sun was beating down more harshly than usual, they scattered here and there through the shade and rested. But after a short while, when the others had eagerly gone back to the work assigned them, a young man named Wulfwin woke up, opened his eyes, and could see nothing at all.1 He turned his aching head this way and that, rubbed his forehead with his hand, wiped his eyes with his fingers, but couldn't clear away the darkness. At last he realized he'd lost his sight, and soon, breaking into weeping and tears, he called his companions over and told them what had happened. They gave him what comfort they could in his misery, and leading him by the hand they took him back home. He sat in darkness — the shadow of darkness, one year in twenty — and now, see: the time for mercy toward him had come.2
A Messenger of Healing
A devout woman appears to Wulfwin with a promise that his sight will be restored if he undertakes a penitential pilgrimage of eighty churches on bare feet and then seeks healing from the king.
One day, as he was miserably lamenting his misfortune, a certain woman of respectable life and serious character came to comfort the wretched man. When she had asked about his condition, as is common with many people, and he had answered her according to his state of mind at the time, she said: 'I've been sent to you as a messenger of good news, and if you follow me without any doubt, your lost light will soon be restored to you, once the darkness has been driven out.' The man began to tremble with joy, and promising even greater things through her influence, he deserved to receive this kind of response from her. 'You must,' she said, 'my friend, go around eighty churches on bare feet and without linen, and with the greatest humility ask for the saints' intercession, and so with unfeigned faith, firm confidence, and a joyful spirit hurry to the palace to receive your former health from the king's hands.'
Persistence at the Royal Court
Wulfwin completes his pilgrimage and presses into the royal court, where repeated rejection by the crowd only intensifies his cries until his persistence moves the attendants and the compassionate king receives him.
He wasted no time; once he had asked for a guide, just as he had been instructed, he visited the churches, and so, full of faith, he entered the court looking for someone to announce him to the king. But everyone, worn out by the crowd of people pressing in, ignored the poor man's cry, and on top of that they scolded him to be quiet. And he, that outstanding imitator of the blind man in the Gospel, cried out all the more. At last, overcome by the persistence of his knocking, his attendants brought his case before the king. He was already used to such things, and said: 'Let him come — for who am I to be sad rather than to rejoice, if divine mercy has allowed the promised blessing to be given to the poor man by my hands, unworthy as they are?'
The Miracle of Restored Sight
The king anoints the blind man's eyes with water and the sign of the cross, blood flows, his sight is miraculously restored, and he is appointed guardian of the royal palace, living on as a lasting witness to Edward's virtue.
The blind man was called and came forward; and the king, having dipped his fingers in water, anointed his face and pressed the sign of the cross upon the dark, round spots. The grace of the Savior was soon present, and between the king's hands blood poured abundantly from both their eyes, cleared the pupils, and removed the swelling of the eyelids. And so the man, restored to the light and looking at the king standing beside him, said: 'I see you, my lord king, and your face is like the face of an angel standing before me.' The king gave thanks to God, and ordered that he himself should be the guardian of the royal palace near the church of Blessed Peter the Apostle, for as long as he lived. He lived on into the time of William the Great, having proven himself a witness to Edward's virtue.
Read the original Latin
Accidit aliquando regale palatium construi in loco cui Bruheham nomen est. Missa est a magistris operum ad ligna caedenda rusticorum non parva manus. Qui post laborem cibo satiati, cum sol meridiano fervore inclementius aestuaret, huc illucque dispersi per umbras, dederunt membra quieti. Post modicum vero caeteris ad opus injunctum alacriter redeuntibus, adolescens quidam Wulfwinus nomine surrexit a somno, apertisque oculis nihil videbat. Contorquet miserum caput hac atque illac, fricat frontem manu, digitis oculos tergit, sed non extergit caliginem. Intellexit tandem se privatum lumine, et mox in clamorem lacrymasque prorumpens, socios advocat, casum exponit. Praebent illi quale possunt ejus infelicitati solatium, et manuducatum praestantes reducunt ad propria: sedit in tenebris, et umbra mortis annis uno de viginti, et ecce tempus miserendi ejus. Die quadam infelicitatem suam miserabiliter deploranti, matrona quaedam honestae vitae gravis moribus miserum consolatura advenit.
Quae dum de statu ejus ut multis moris est, percunctata fuisset, et ille prout tunc animo habebat, respondisset: «Ego, inquit illa, missa sum ad te boni nuntii bajula, quod si fueris absque ulla dubitatione secutus, tibi mox excussis tenebris lux amissa reparabitur.» Coepit homo gestire prae gaudio, et virtute majora promittens, tale meruit a muliere responsum accipere. «Oportet te, inquit, mi amice, ecclesias numero octoginta nudis pedibus et absque lineis circumire, sanctorum cum summa humilitate postulare suffragia, et sic fide non ficta, spe certa, hilari spiritu ad palatium properare recepturum ex regiis manibus pristinam sanitatem.» Ille nil moratus, ductore petito, sicut ei fuerat imperatum ecclesias visitavit, et sic fide plenus curiam ingressus quaerebat qui eum principi nuntiaret. Pertaesi omnes multitudine adventantium pauperis neglexere clamorem, insuper increpabant eum ut taceret. Et ille caeci illius evangelici imitator egregius multo magis clamabat. Victi tandem pulsantis importunitate ministri, ejus causam referunt regi. Ille jam his assuetus operibus: «Veniat, inquit, quis enim ego sum qui contrister et non potius exsultem, si meis manibus licet indignis promissum beneficium pauperi pietas divina contulerit?»
Vocatus adfuit vir captus oculis, et rex tinctis aqua digitis linit faciem, et orbiculis tenebrosis signum crucis impressit. Adfuit mox gratia Salvatoris, et inter manus regis ab oculis utriusque ubertim sanguis effluxit, serenavit pupillas, tumorem deposuit palpebrarum. Sic homo redditus luci et astantem sibi intuens regem: «Video te, inquit, domine mi rex, et facies tua tanquam facies angeli stantis ante me.» Egit rex gratias Deo, ipsumque regii palatii juxta ecclesiam Beati Petri apostoli quoad viveret, jussit esse custodem. Vixit autem usque ad Willielmi magni tempora, virtutis Edwardi testis expertus.
Notes
- 1 ↩vero rendered as 'but' to mark the adversative shift from the rest of the group to the individual's condition.
- 2 ↩The phrase 'annis uno de viginti' is rendered as 'one year in twenty' following the most plausible sense, but the exact idiomatic meaning is uncertain; it may indicate he had been blind for about twenty years.
Aelred of Rievaulx, Vita Sancti Edwardi Regis et Confessoris companion
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