16 - The Fate of Lot’s Wife: A ‘Canterbury School’ Gloss in Genesis A

Summary

In the Old English Genesis A, the poet describes how Lot's wife was turned into a sealtstān, adding that she must remain in that place until the Lord decides her fate at the Last Judgment:

       þā þæt fȳrgebræc,

lēoda līfgedāl,  lōthes gehȳrde

brȳd on burgum,  under bæc beseah

wið þæs wælfylles.  ūs gewritu secgað

þæt heo on sealtstānes  sōna wurde

anlīcnesse.  ǣfre siððan

se monlīca,  þæt is mǣre spell,

still wunode  þǣr hīe strang begeat

wīte þæs hēo wordum  wuldres þegna

hȳran ne wolde.  Nu sceal heard and stēap

on þām wīcum  wyrde bīdan,

drihtnes dōmes  hwonne dōgora rīm,

woruld gewīte (11. 2562b–74a, ed. Doane 2013: 261)

When Lot's wife heard that crash of fire among the cities, the parting from life of peoples, she looked back at the destruction. Writings tell us that she was immediately turned into a likeness of a stone of salt. Ever since, that human likeness (that is a famous tale) has stood motionless where the severe punishment befell her because she did not wish to obey the words of the thanes of glory. Now, hardened and projecting, she must await fate in that place, the judgment of the Lord when the count of days, the world passes away.

The Vulgate says that Lot's wife “was turned into a statue of salt” (versa est in statuam salis, Gen. 19:26), which the poet renders as sealtstānes anlīcnes. OE anlīcnes can refer to a statue – as it does here insofaras it corresponds to Vulgate statua – but always as a specification of its base meaning “likeness” or “image,” which designates a representation of something else. Here it is a “likeness” made of sealtstān (material genitive), but also a “likeness” of a sealtstān (genitive of comparison), for it is not a natural formation. At the same time it is a monlīica, a “likeness” of what had been a human being. For medieval Christians the human was defined by the book of Genesis as “the image and likeness” of God (Faciamus hominem ad imaginem et similitudinem 0nostram, Gen. 1:26), and both Latin imago and similitudo were regularly translated by anlicnes in Old English.