Anglo-Saxon version, however, is older than this, and direct from the German. These wrecks of a vanished literature, which may have been extensive, show that the Anglo-Saxon gleemen (scôpas) were acquainted with the languages and legends of their neighbours, and justify the conclusion that they had not much invention of their own. As they must have been a numerous body, and their hearers must have required variety, their stock of lays was probably large, much larger than was ever committed to writing. They do not appear to have been organised into a guild, or to have been depositories of ritual or mythic lore like the bards of Wales and Ireland: and the story of Caedmon shows that the guests participated with them in the entertainment of the company. Before proceeding further with the subject of Anglo-Saxon poetry, Anglo-Saxon it will be convenient to give some account of Anglo-Saxon metre, which metre cannot be done better than in the words of Vigfusson and Powell (Corpus Poeticum Boreale, vol. i. pp. 433, 434). For further details, Schipper's elaborate treatise on English metre may be consulted. "Every line of old Teutonic poetry is a blank verse divided into two halves by a line-pause which always comes at the end of a word. "Each half is made up of a fixed number of measures; a measure being a word, or a number of words, of which the first root-syllable is shaped, ie, forcibly pronounced, as one does in speaking when one wishes to draw attention to a particular word or syllable. In every line two stress syllables at least, one in each half line, must begin with a similar consonant or a vowel. "In many lines there occur one or more unstressed syllables, which form, as it were, the elastic unmeasured part of the line; these for want of a better term we call slurred syllables, or collectively a slur. It is not meant that these syllables are gabbled over, they may be spoken fast or slow, but that they are redundant or unimportant for the 'make' or structure of the verse, and that they would be less emphasised, and spoken in a less vigorous tone than the rest of the line. There may be one or more slurs in a line. "When a monosyllabic word is stressed and followed by no enclitic words before the next stress, it is succeeded by a short interval of silence, which we call a rest. Such a monosyllable with its rest is a measure in itself." The of Anglo It appears then that, like almost all the poetry of primitive nations, Difficulties the structure of Anglo-Saxon poetry was trochaic and alliterative. Saxon poets Greeks, the Indians, and in modern times the Italians have been enabled to ascend from this lowly plane to rich complication and voluminous harmony of metre, and less gifted nations have had to learn from these. In so doing they have parted with much of their originality, but have gained immensely in variety and flexibility. In In estimating the merits of the Anglo-Saxon poets we must remember that they were hampered no less by the imperfection of their metrical system than by the poverty VOL. I. B Northum brian school of poetry of their vocabulary. The progress of amendment would have been very It is an ordinary phenomenon for literature, especially poetical literature, to be for a considerable time confined in its manifestations to a single nook of an extensive country. Ionian Greece in the days of Homer, Sicily and afterwards Tuscany in the early ages of Italian literature, Massachusetts in modern America, are familiar examples. For all these good reasons can be given; but it is not evident why, although the very earliest post-Christian productions of Anglo-Saxon literature-glossaries of merely linguistic interest-appear to proceed from Kent, Anglo-Saxon poetry should for a long period have been almost restricted to Northumbria. The fact - wheresoever Beowulf may have been written-seems indubitable. Of the two representative poets of whom we are now to treat, Caedmon was certainly Northumbrian, and although there is no direct evidence as respects Cynewulf, the maritime descriptions and allusions in the poems written by or ascribed to him almost prove that the author or authors were dwellers by the sea. The most probable explanation of the advanced literary position of Northumbria at the period would seem to be that which connects it with the evangelising exertions of Celtic missionaries. As already remarked, the ancient British churches, estranged by resentment and racial hatred, had done nothing for the conversion of the barbarous invaders before the mission of Augustine. After, however, the example thus shown them, they appear to have discerned where their duty and their interest lay; and the proximity of Northumbria to the great Celtic sanctuary of Iona and the British kingdom of Cumbria, as well as the survival of a Celtic population in some Northumbrian districts, would naturally indicate it as a sphere for missionary effort. It is important to observe STORY OF CAEDMON that the Celtic monks, though employing Latin by If the circumstances related of Caedmon's initiation into the poetic art are mythical, they at least attest the celebrity of the poems which gave birth to the legend; if, on the other hand, they are authentic, they are a poem in themselves. Whichever view is taken, they at all events serve to show the prevalence of minstrelsy at AngloSaxon banquets in the seventh century, and disclose the very interesting fact that the minstrel was not invariably a professional bard, but that music and singing were sufficiently cultivated to warrant the expectation that every guest would be able to bear a part in them. Caedmon, Beda tells us, lived nigh the abbey of Streoneshalch (Whitby) in the time of the Abbess Hilda (658-680). A farm servant in all probability, at all events simple and unlettered man, he was unable to play or sing, and whenever he saw the harp approaching him at a banquet he was accustomed to withdraw in haste. Having on one of these occasions fled from the banqueting-room to the stable where he was engaged in tending cattle, he fell asleep and dreamed that he heard a voice commanding a 19 nufcrlun hq5in the fa&mcaquand maudas madeni &nd his mod gidane u&cuuldur Padur Halgraß&- chamışdun geardmonGnnar uard Ardry can after-dadæ fimum Foldfreaallm&tz jueheuundragihuac &ıdrtuan orafelide heaquft sopaeldabar nu heben allpope primo Cantauit Caedmon I ftud Carmon Caedmon's Hymn, the oldest Christian poem in Anglo-Saxon From an eighth-century MS. in the University of Cambridge Caedmon him to sing. His excuses not being accepted he made the attempt, and Poems altributea to Caedmon Expulsion of Adam and Eve from Paradise From the Caedmon MS. (tenth century) in the Bodleian Library in the Scriptures as an auditor if not as a reader, and that his reluc- The poetry attributed entirely or in part to Caedmon has come down 1 CAEDMON'S PARAPHRASES 21 of the exordium in a Latin version sufficiently in accord with the diction of the Bodleian MS. to render it, all discrepancies notwithstanding, nearly certain that he is following the same text. King Alfred, or the translator who worked under his direction, rendering Beda into Anglo-Saxon, gives indeed quite a different text as Caedmon's; but it seems almost certain that, not having the poet himself to refer to, he is merely turning Beda's Latin back into the vernacular. Beda further gives an account of Caedmon's Anglo-Saxon representation of Musicians From a manuscript Psalter (eighth century) in the British Museum writings which agrees with the contents of the MS. to a considerable extent. He describes them as paraphrases of Genesis and Exodus, "with many other histories of holy writ," also of the New Testament, and of poems on the world to come. So far as Genesis is concerned, the description, with one remarkable exception to be noticed, tallies exactly; and "the other histories" may be thought to be represented by a paraphrase of Daniel, also in the MS. The Caedmonian authorship of the Exodus is questioned on the ground of its superior poetical merit, and the internal evidence it seems to afford of the poet's having been a warrior. The poems contained in the MS. which relate to the New Testament and the invisible world do not agree so well, there are also linguistic variations, and the hand |