POEMS ASCRIBED TO CAEDMON 25 phrase of Exodus, and it seems scarcely possible that the work of an author of such celebrity should have been extinguished by an anonymous writer. On the whole it appears safest to attribute the poem to him. The Daniel is more dubious. cribed to The poems on New Testament history or legend comprised in the Poems erroBodleian MS. are considerably later than the genuine Caedmon, if the neously as paraphrases of Genesis and Exodus are rightly attributed to him. They Caedmon manifest the same independence and invention as the poem on the Fall in the Old Testament series, and may well be attributed to its author. The spirit is totally unlike that which Bede would lead us to ascribe to Caedmon; it is vindictive, unchristian, and far below the substantially heathen Beowulf. They consist of several poems, on the Fall of the Angels, the Temptation of Christ, the Harrowing of Hell, the Resurrection, and other subjects from the New Testament, welded into one by the transcriber. The Dream of the Holy Rood has been ascribed to Caedmon in consequence of some lines from it being engraved on the Ruthwell Cross with the statement "Cadmon wrought me," but this clearly refers to the sculptor, and the poem is almost certainly by Cynewulf or one of his disciples. There remains a considerable fragment of an elaborate poem on the history of Judith, which has been ingeniously conjectured to have been composed in compliment to Queen Judith, Ethelwulf's wife and Alfred's stepmother, but is more probably a production of one of Caedmon's Northumbrian group some time in the eighth century. Some have deemed the author but mediocre as a poet; others have judged his work more favourably; and their opinion, we think, will be deemed fully confirmed by the brilliant translation of Professor Oliver Elton in the volume of essays published in 1900 in honour of Dr. Furnivall. This, by the favour of Professor Elton and the Delegates of the Clarendon Press, we are enabled to cite at full length, and it will be found a perfect specimen of the average style of Anglo-Saxon poetry : Large is the face of our world, but she loosed not trust in His gifts, To the Prince, who presides, far-famed, in the height, to protect her now And he sent forth a bidding to wine, a banquet of bravery measureless For all the eldest of thanes in the orders of shielded fighters, And the chiefs of the folk came quick to that mighty captain of theirs. And fourth was the day since the fairily-radiant And they bore down the benches the beakers lofty Full cups and flagons for feasting in hall; And the soldiers seized them, the strong men in bucklers, Translation of "Juaith" Who were sealed—and their sovereign saw not-to death. Till they lay at the last like dead men stricken, in languor lapped, Till dusk had descended nigh on the world. And he bade them, that soul of all sins commingled, To bring to his bed the blest among women, Bracelet-laden, and lordly with rings. And swiftly his servants set to the will of The mailed ones' master, and made in a flash To the guest-room of Judith, of judgement deep. To his tall-arched tent, the targeted warriors, For the captain of war and contriver of harms And they carried unto his couch the woman whose cunning was sure, Then his heart was hot with his lust, and he went, the hellish of soul, Mid the press of his princes, along to his bed, where the pride of his life Was to finish before the morn; not soft was the fortune here Of the monarch of many, the puissant of soul, but meet for his works On earth done under the sky, and his mind was empty of wit As he stumbled to sleep his fill, the chieftain sodden with wine. Then strode the soldiers straight from the chamber, Drenched in their drink; they had drawn the detested one, False to his faith and fell to his people, the Last time on earth to his lair, in haste. And the handmaid of God in her heart took counsel Swiftly to slay, as he slumbered, the terrible Lecher unclean, for her Lord; and His maiden A sword that was scoured unto sharpness of temper; THE ANGLO-SAXON JUDITH Men upon earth by His might in the firmament: Give me Thy grace in my greatness of trouble. For my heart is afire within, and my soul is heavy, and sore Sunken in sorrow; be mine of Thy grace, O Sovereign above, Conquest, and keenness of faith that my sword shall cut him in twain, Glory-allotter to men, and great in Thy majesty, now Wreak for the wrath and the flame of my soul a repayment. And soon He in the highest who sits made sharp her heart in its strength, As He may for us men who entreat Him aright and with meetness of faith; And hard she haled by the hair the idolater Deadly and hateful, and dragged him disdainfully Forth to her featly, to fall at her mercy. And the sword of the maiden with sinuous tresses Flickered and fell on the furious-hearted Bane of his foes, bit into his neck-bone. And drunken he lay there, drowned in a stupor, And life in him lingered, though large was his wound. Forth on the floor; and the filthy carrion Lay on the bed without life; but the spirit had Fared away far in the fathomless underworld, To be hampered in hell-pains and humbled eternally, He has done with our life; nor dare he have hope In the heart of the dark habitation of dragons Thence to depart, but he there must abide In that dwelling of dimness, undawned on of joy, 27 Cynewulf and his school The other important group of Anglo-Saxon Christian poetry, inferior in Poems of antiquity and legendary interest to the Caedmonian collection, but not in poetical merit, is that associated with the name of Cynewulf. The circumstances under which these poems have reached us are analogous to those which have preserved Caedmon. They exist in two manuscripts, the Exeter MS. of Anglo-Saxon poetry given by Bishop Leofric to Exeter Cathedral in 1046, and treasured there ever since, and a similar MS. in the cathedral library at Vercelli, discovered in 1832. The poems in the two MSS. are not the same, and we should have no clue to the authorship of any of them but for the fortunate and simultaneous discovery of Mitchell Kemble and Jacob Grimm, afterwards completed by Professor Napier, that runic letters interwoven with the text of two of the Exeter poems, the Crist and the Juliana, and two of the Vercelli poems, the Elene and the Andreas, more commonly called the Fata Apostolorum, for the poem usually so entitled is in fact but a fragment of it, disclose the name of Cynewulf. A similar cryptogram has been detected by some in a collection of metrical riddles and gnomic verses, |