Imatges de pàgina
PDF
EPUB

NOTES.

NOTE I.-PAGE 12.

"In the year 938 Anlaff, a pagan king of the Hybernians and the adjacent isles, invited by Constantine king of the Scots, entered the river Abi or Humber with a strong fleet. Our Saxon king Athelstan, and his brother Eadmund Clito [Ætheling], met them with a numerous army, near a place called Brunenburgh; and after a most obstinate and bloody resistance, drove them back to their ships. The battle lasted from day-break till the evening. On the side of Anlaff were slain five petty kings, and seven chiefs or generals." Warton's Dissertation on the Origin of Romantic Fiction in Europe.

It is worthy of remark that on the evening previous to this batttle Anlaff, after the example of King Alfred, obtained admittance into the camp of the Saxons, and into the presence of Athelstan, disguised as a minstrel. He was however recognised, previously to his departure, by a soldier who had once fought beneath his banners, but the man had too much magnanimity to betray his former general.

The following version of the ode is from the Saxon, and not from the Latin of Gibson, from which Warton appears to have followed in his prose translation. The poem has frequently been rendered into English, and the author should apologize to his readers for laying before them his own imperfect paraphrase.

King Athelstan, the glory

Of his leaders brave and bold,

Who gave unto his barons

Bracelets of yellow gold,

And his brother the Prince Edmund,

A chief of warlike might,

With the sword's sharp edge, at Brunenburgh,

Struck the enemy in fight;

The children of King Edward,

With the hammer-beaten blade,

Clove down the walls of mighty shields,

And low the banners laid.

They inherited their valour

From a long and noble race,

That valour which had oft preserv'd,

In ev'ry battle place,

Their country, home, and hoards, and crush'd

The foe before their face.

The fated Scottish armies,

And the mariners lay dead,
While the battle field resounded,

With the blood of warriors red,
Since first the sun rose up

At morning in the sky,
Until the mighty planet,

The lamp of the Most High,
The lamp of the Eternal Lord,

To rest sank drowsily.*
And many northern warriors

Were stretch'd upon the field,
Strewn with a crowd of winged darts,

Shot o'er the shelt'ring shield;

And by them lay the Scotchmen,

Weary of war's array.

But the Saxons, in battalions,

Came forth the livelong day,

And press'd upon the footsteps

Of the enemy abhorr'd,

* Literally-The field resounded with the blood of warriors since the sun rose up at morning, while the mighty planet, the bright candle of God, of the Eternal Lord, glided over the grounds, until the noble creature sank to her seat

And hewed them downwards, as they filed,

With the mill-sharpen'd sword.

The Mercians they refus'd not
The rough game of the hand

To those who with King Anlaf came,
To seek our native land,

In the bosom of their bounding ship,
Across the ocean tide,

And hurried to the fatal strife,

Where they were doom'd-and died.

Five young and noble kings

On the battle field were lain,

In the gloomy sleep of mighty death,
By the swords of warriors slain;
And with them slumber'd seven earls,
Of Anlaf's proud array,

And countless mariners and Scots

Died in the desp'rate fray. The leader of the Northmen

Was chas'd away and flew, Compell'd to seek his winged ship, With his remaining few;

The crowded vessel drove afloat,

While rushing from the strife,

And wading through the fallow flood,
The king preserv'd his life.

The hoary chief King Constantine,
The valiant and the wise,

Fled homewards to his native North,

Fled from his enemies.

He had no need to boast

In the war of sword and shield,

His kindred and his friends lay dead

On the crowded battle field.

He left his son but young

in war,

Mangled with many a wound,

All lifeless amidst heaps of dead,

Upon the ruddy ground.

He needed not to boast,

Whose locks were ting'd with gray,

L

Of all his bootless stratagems

In that sword-clashing fray.
Nor either had King Anlaf,

With the relic of his host,
When he saw the few around him,
A better cause to boast

That his followers on the battle field
At warlike deeds were best,

At the conflict of the banners,
When spear to spear was press'd;
When the men of arms assembled,
At the interchange of blows,
And he met King Edward's children
On the slaughter field as foes.
The Northmen who escaped

The arrow's gory rain,

Departed in their nail-bound ships,

Upon the stormy main,

Over the deep blue water,

With bosoms fill'd with shame,

To the lonely shores of Ireland,

And to Dublin whence they came.

The brothers then together,

The king and prince, return'd

To their own West-Saxon homes, the while

Their hearts exultant burn'd.

They left behind the sallowy kite,

The raven swarth and dread,

With its horned beak, and the dusky hawk,

To prey upon the dead;

They left the white back'd eagle,

And the greedy war-hawk there,

And that gray beast the wolf of the wold,

The vanquish'd dead to tear.

Never on this island yet

So many mortals fell

By the sword's edge since that old time

Of which historians tell,

When hither from the eastward came

The Anglo-Saxon host,

« AnteriorContinua »