- s44 ##
44 (K-D 31)
Beautifully made in many ways
is this our world, cunningly adorned.
I saw a strange thing singing in a house;
its shape was more wonderful than aught among men.
Its beak was underneath, its feet and hands birdlike,
yet fly it cannot nor walk at all.
Yet eager for movement it starts to work
with various arts. It often goes around
again and again among noble men.
It sits at the banquet-board, awaits its turn
till comes its time to display its skill
among those who are near. It partakes of nothing
that the men there have for their pleasure.
Brave, eager for glory it remains dumb,
yet it has in its foot beautiful sounds,
a glorious gift of song. Wondrous it seems to me
how this very thing can play with words
through its foot beneath adorned with trappings.
It has on its neck when it guards its treasure,
bare, proud with rings, its two companions,
brother and sister. It’s a great thing surely
for a wise singer to think what this is.
It is a Bagpipe, pictured in the likeness of a bird over a man’s shoulder, head down (its beak, the chanter, on which the tune is played) and feet in the air (the two drones, brother and sister, which make the continuous sound). “When it guards its treasure” (l. 19) means the bellows, when inflated.
