Thoughts on the Gawain Poet Part II: Patience

Some of you may remember me posting about the works Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and Pearl. Both of these of course were written by an anonymous author. Well, Patience was another work by the writer that we refer to as the Pearl Poet. The story is rich with allegorical themes and references to Scripture. For this work, I read the translation by Marie Borroff.
 Patience is essentially the story of Jonah, and it has had an important place in the canon of Medieval English Literature. The story is quite short, written in the Middle English tone of the author's other works. As it has been noted by literary scholar Marie Borroff, ''Patience'' in Medieval Times meant much more than we think of today. In those days, it meant not simply being good tempered at the traffic light for instance, but also implied the ability to suffer. The story thus is about the suffering Jonah went through.
 Read Patience, especially if you like Biblical stories. The account is quite short as I mentioned earlier, but still a must read for any Medievalist.
 

Then Jonah prayed unto the Lord his God out of the fish's belly,
 And said, I cried by reason of mine affliction unto the Lord, and he heard me; out of the belly of hell  cried I, and thou heardest my voice.
 Jonah 2:1-2 A.V.