chronicles

A committee of eight Hebrew scholars –

politically balanced between high church

and puritan – produced in Cambridge

University four hundred years ago,

what Tennyson called ‘the greatest poem’,

the King James’ version of The Book of Job.

They were not paid but promised possible

preferment – essential for some comfort

in the church and the groves of academe

of a country racked by civil strife.

 

Their contribution to the new monarch’s

pursuit of national unity

was ten books: from Chronicles – ‘These are the sons

of Israel…’ – to The Song of Solomon –

‘Let him kiss me with the kisses

of his mouth.’ The Book of Job was the sixth.

 

Imagine a committee of divines,

an octet of cloistered pedants producing

not a camel but a steed that ‘saith

among the trumpets, Ha, ha; and he

smelleth the battle afar off, the

thunder of the captains, and the shouting…’

 

 

 

Note: the poem was first published on the site in November 2015.