The Complete Old English Poems
Page 120
2. PRINCE EDWARD’S RETURN (1057)
This passage from the Worcester Manuscript (D) is treated as poetry by some but not all editors. It praises Prince Edward, who was exiled by King Cnut to Hungary for some unknown reason, and speaks of his return at last to England, where he died suddenly, to the distress of the nation.
Prince Edward’s Return (1057)
In this year Prince Edward came to England,
Nephew of King Edmund, known as Ironside
For his great bravery. King Cnut had banished
The worthy prince into Hungary, betraying him,
But he grew up there to be a good man, 5
As God granted him and as it suited him,
So that he took the emperor’s kinswoman Agatha
As a wife and raised a fine family with her.
No one knows why he was exiled from his uncle,
King Edmund. Alas! It was a cruel fate 10
And a great harm to all of his kith and kin
That he ended his life so quickly after he came
Into England. It was a source of great sorrow,
A web of woe, for the people of this nation.
3. MALCOLM AND MARGARET (1067)
The Chronicle entry for 1067 in the Worcester Manuscript (D) describes how Prince Edgar went with his mother Agatha, his sisters Margaret and Christina, and also Mærleswein, the sheriff of Lincoln, to Scotland, where King Malcolm desired to marry Edgar’s sister Margaret. Both Margaret and her family initially opposed the marriage because she desired to serve God as a chaste maiden. Ultimately, the family was persuaded to approve the marriage, and the chronicler says that this actually worked out well (even though Margaret came reluctantly to be wed) because “she was meant to increase the glory of God in that land and turn the king and all of his people from the path of error.”
Lines 5–10 of the translation below have been considered poetry by some but not all editors (see Bredehoft, 2010, 32, n. 3, for a summary). Bredehoft (2010), however, has recently argued that the larger passage here should be considered poetry by the standards of late Old English verse. Swanton notes that the passage “is rhetorically heightened and may derive from some Life of St. Margaret” (201, n. 15). Bredehoft summarizes the passage as follows:
It begins with Malcolm’s wooing of Margaret (including her initial refusal), and it concludes with a general statement of her accomplishments in his country. The two references to scripture (one referring to Matthew 10.29; the other a paraphrase of 1 Corinthians 7.14) bracket the reference to the actual marriage, and both serve (in context) to articulate the salutary effects of Margaret’s religious feeling upon her husband. The parallelism—as well as the scriptural content—serves to emphasize the power of God’s will in the circumstances and results of the marriage. (2010, 38–39)
My poetic translation is based on Bredehoft’s edition (2010) and is indebted to his prose translation in several respects.
Malcolm and Margaret (1067)
Then King Malcolm began to desire
Edgar’s sister Margaret to be his wife,
But Edgar and his men resisted this
And argued against it for a long time.
Margaret swore that she would never be 5
The king’s bride if God’s great mercy
Would grant her the grace to keep pure and chaste
In her bodily heart, to take no man,
But serve the Almighty with her maidenhood
As well as she might in this brief life. 10
The king persisted and pressed her brother
Until he relented, saying “Yes” in response,
And indeed he dared not refuse the king
Because they were guests in his own country
And under his rule. So it came to pass, 15
As surely God had seen from the beginning
(Otherwise it could never have happened),
Just as the Lord himself says in his Gospel
That not even a sparrow can fall into a snare
Without his foreseeing. The foreknowing Creator 20
Knew from the beginning what he would do
With respect to Margaret because she was meant
To increase the glory of God in that land
And turn the king and all of his people
From the path of error to a better way, 25
So they could give up their sinful customs,
The shameful deeds they had always done.
So Margaret did as she was meant to do.
The king accepted her against her will
For her customs and behavior pleased the ruler, 30
And he thanked God for giving him
Through his great power such a good mate.
Thus Malcolm thoughtfully turned to God
And wisely gave up his wicked ways.
With regard to this, the apostle Paul, 35
A wise teacher of peoples, said:
“Salvabitur vir infidelis per mulierem fidelem.
Sic et mulier infidelis per virum fidelem (et reliquiae).”
That means in our tongue: “The unbelieving man
Is very often made holy and healed 40
By means of a true and righteous woman,
And likewise is a woman made holy and healed
By means of a believing and faithful man.”
So the previously mentioned queen Margaret
Afterwards performed many worthy acts 45
In praise of God throughout the country
And prospered in all the affairs of state
With great character as was natural for her.
4. THE WEDDING CONSPIRACY AGAINST KING WILLIAM (1075)
This entry occurs as poetry in the Worcester (D) and Peterborough (E) manuscripts. Swanton notes that “the Old English lines form a rhythmic epigram, the version in D with some rhyme” (212, n. 2). The passage explains that King William gave to Earl Ralph of Norfolk, lord of Gael in Brittany, the daughter of William fitz Osbern. Ralph was Breton on his mother’s side and English on his father’s side. Earl Ralph was then involved in a Breton conspiracy against the king, which apparently began to take shape at the wedding. The first poetic line in the passage is a grim epigrammatic summary of the effects of the wedding plot. Eventually King William imprisoned the plotters, and all the Bretons who were at the wedding were sentenced to a variety of punishments detailed in the second poetic passage.
The Wedding Conspiracy Against King William (1075)
1. The Wedding Plot
That bridal-ale was to many men a death-bale.
2. The Punishments
Some were blinded, some were blamed,
Some were exiled, some were shamed.
Those betrayers of the king had no prayer—
Straightway the traitors were laid low.
5. THE RHYME OF KING WILLIAM (1086)
A long entry about King William occurs in the Peterborough Manuscript (E) under the mistaken date of 1087. Swanton notes that “this part of the annal, marked by poetic rhetoric and opening and closing with rhyming couplets, is best set out as a poem” (221, n. 11; see also Whiting). The chronicler talks at length of the terrible storms, fevers, and famine that killed many people, declaring, “Who cannot pity such a time or be so hard-hearted he cannot weep for such woe.” He ascribes such suffering to the sins of the people, especially the king and royal court who “loved gold and silver too much and didn’t care how they came by it.” The chronicler goes on to record William’s death and to summarize his life, noting that the king was a study in contrasts, both gentle and stern, gracious and greedy, power-hungry and protective. The poem in the middle of the entry epitomizes these characteristics with a nod to the darker elements. At the end of the poem, the chronicler admits: “We have written about both the good and evil characteristics of the king in order that good men may imitate the good points and avoid the bad points and travel on the way to heaven.” Whiting discusses the complex rhymes in the poem that
occur at the ends of the (sometimes overlong) half-lines. The combination of inconsistent alliteration and perfect and imperfect rhymes makes the poem difficult to translate (compare The Rhyming Poem in the Exeter Book), so I have taken some liberties with the placement of the rhymes in the translation.
The Rhyme of King William (1086)
He had castles built and felt no guilt
For crushing the poor, wretched commoners.
The king was stark, seizing marks from his subjects,
A royal pilfer, pounds of gold and silver.
It was his people’s plight, an unright thievery— 5
They had little need for the king’s greed.
He embraced avarice and lost face.
He set up game preserves to save animals
For himself. It was compassionate self-service.
If any man killed hart or hind, he was blinded. 10
He loved stag and boar as if he were their father
And let hares go free with no kind share
Of meat for the common table. Men were unable
To feed their families. It was a dark deed.
The powerful complained, the poor lamented— 15
Everyone was constrained. People everywhere
Suffered and were unsustained. He didn’t care.
This was the law: obey the king’s command
If you want life and land, a share of property
With his royal favor. He was slow to compassion, 20
Sharing out woe. Alas, that such pride
Should reside in a king’s heart, that self-praise
Should be raised up as a standard, and no eye
Lifted heavenward in honest humility.
May God Almighty whom all good men extol 25
Forgive his sins and have mercy on his soul.
6. THE SUFFERING UNDER KING HENRY (1104)
This passage from the Peterborough Manuscript (E) is almost always edited as poetry. The passage describes and decries the excessive taxes levied by King Henry on the commoners as well as the devastation of land and lives by the king’s court as they traveled about the country. The OE lines form a rhymed couplet, Eall þis wæs God mid to gremienne / And þas arme leode mid to tregienne (Plummer and Earle, vol. 1, 239), which can be translated literally, “All this was to anger God / And these wretched people to harass.” It is difficult to catch the rhythms, rhymes, and meaning in a simple couplet, so I have expanded the two lines into three and varied the rhyme scheme a little with the off-rhyme in the second line. I include the prose introduction here, which explains the context of the poem.
The Suffering Under King Henry (1104)
It is not easy to describe the miseries that the country was suffering at this time because of various injustices and taxes which never ceased or diminished. Wherever the king went, there was always, because of his court, the raiding and ravishing of the land and people, and often the burning of houses and the slaughter of men. 5
All this was done in spite and gall
To God and also to torment and trouble
Poor, wretched people and harass them all.
CAPTIONS FOR DRAWINGS
The Junius Manuscript (MS Junius 11) in the Bodleian Library contains a number of ink drawings, some of which have captions (which are listed by Krapp, 1931, xvi–xvii). Bliss noticed that several of the captions were in OE metrical form. The first three have meter and alliteration. The fourth has meter and no alliteration, but since, as Bliss notes, a number of lines in the manuscript follow the same non-alliterative pattern, I have included a translation for it as well.
Captions for Drawings
1. Page 3
Here the angel began to be arrogant.
2. Page 3
Here the Savior shaped hell as his torment.
3. Page 7
Here he divided day from night.
4. Page 6
Here he separated water and earth.
CNUT’S SONG
Cnut’s Song appears in the twelfth-century Liber Eliensis. E. O. Blake calls this work “unique among post-Conquest monastic histories in the extensive use it makes … of vernacular documents,” adding that “this makes it an important source for the history in pre-Conquest times of an area of England for which evidence is not plentiful” (1962, ix). In section 85 of the history (Blake, 1962, 153–54), the Latin chronicler describes Cnut rowing on the river near Ely and includes the Old English song. Gummere describes the narrative setting and translates the Latin passage immediately leading up to the song as follows: “Cnut, with his queen Emma and divers of the great nobles (optimatibus regni), was coming by boat to Ely; and, as they neared land, the King stood up, and told his men to row slowly while he looked at the great church and listened to the song of the monks which came sweetly over the water. ‘Then he called all who were with him in the boats to make a circle about him, and in the gladness of his heart he bade them join him in song, and he composed in English a ballad (cantilenam)’” (58). The song, taken by Gummere to be the beginning of an English ballad tradition, includes both alliterative and rhyming elements.
Cnut’s Song
Merrily sang the monks of Ely
When King Cnut came rowing by.
“Row, knights, near the land,
So we can hear these monks sing.”
DISTICH: PSALM 17:51
In their edition of The Salisbury Psalter, the Sisams point out that “Roeder in his edition [BM MS Royal 2B.v, c. 950] notes OE words in the marginal gloss, but does not mention that at 17.51 the interpretation Omnis rex in antiquis diebus aput Iudeos nominabatur Christus is translated by an alliterative couplet” (1959, 52–53).
Distich: Psalm 17:51
Among the Jews in ancient days,
Each of the kings was called Christ.
DISTICH ON KENELM
Ker explains that the distich or couplet on Kenelm and the following one on the Sons of Lothebrok occur as notes on the first leaf of the twelfth-century MS Cambridge, Pembroke College 82. He points out that the Kenelm lines here are “well known from their occurrence, in a slightly different form, in the histories of Roger Wendover and Matthew Paris [and] this seems to be the earliest extant copy of them” (124). The OE verse is accompanied in the manuscript margin by a rhyming Latin version. The Kenelm distich is based on a legend (see Wilson, 99) in which King Coenwulf is said to have died in 821, leaving a son Kenelm, who at the age of seven was acknowledged as king but was slain a few days later. News of Kenelm’s death was carried to Rome by a white dove, bearing a letter that included the couplet. Kenelm is said to have been buried under a thorn bush in a pasture in Worcestershire. Clayton notes that “the eleventh-century life includes a story about one of the cows pastured in the hills eating the grass near where Kenelm was buried and producing twice as much milk as the entire herd together” (391). I am indebted to David McDougall at the Dictionary of Old English Project for several suggestions with respect to the translation and notes to this and the following poem.
Distich on Kenelm
In Clench cow-pasture under a thorn bush
Lies Kenelm, the king’s child, bereft of his head.
DISTICH ON THE SONS OF LOTHEBROK
This couplet about the legendary Viking scourge, Ragnarr Loðbrók, and his sons occurs as a note on the first leaf of the MS Cambridge, Pembroke College 82, noted above (Ker, 124). Wilson points out that the lines in the manuscript “are followed by a note in Latin telling how Hubba was slain at ‘Vbbelaue’ in Yorkshire, whilst Beorn, after having destroyed the church at ‘Scapeia’ and violated the nuns there, was engulfed by the earth as he was riding in full armour and with lance erect at ‘Frendesbiri’ near Rochester,” adding that “it is possible that [the lines] may at one time have formed part of a longer poem on the sons of Lothbrog of which the remainder has been lost” (38). David McDougall at the Dictionary of Old English Project notes the presence of a “folk-etymological pun, taking the Loð-of Ragnarr’s nickname, Loðbrók, ‘Sh
aggy-breech,’ as if ME loth, OE lað, ‘loathsome, hateful’” (private communication).
Distich on the Sons of Lothebrok
There were Ynguar and Ubbe—Beorn was the third:
The sons of Lothebrok were loathsome to Christ.
FIVE MEMORIAL STONE INSCRIPTIONS
Robinson and Stanley identify the following five stone inscriptions as being metrical (28). They are also noted by Page and/or Okasha.
1. DEWSBURY MEMORIAL (OR STONE CROSS)
This is a Roman-lettered inscription that Okasha identifies as a “carved sandstone, probably incomplete cross-shaft, with incomplete, slightly deteriorated text set without framing lines on one face … in insular majuscule, eighth to ninth century” (no. 30, p. 65).
Dewsbury Memorial (or Stone Cross)
A monument set here in memory of …
His child [or lord]. Pray for his soul.
2. FALSTONE HOGBACK MEMORIAL
Page notes that this memorial stone “has two inscriptions set side by side on the face of the stone [and] both are fragments but enough is left to show that they were substantially the same, one in Roman characters—insular majuscule to be precise—the other in runes” (142). See also Okasha (no. 39, pp. 71–72).
Falstone Hogback Memorial
A monument set up here in memory
Of Hroethbeht, his uncle. Pray for his soul.
3. GREAT URSWICK MEMORIAL
Page notes that “Great Urswick is a standing monument, with its carved foliage, beats and human figures,” and notes that it dates to the ninth century (141). It contains a metrical runic inscription.
Great Urswick Memorial
Tunwini set up this monument
For Torhtred his son. Pray for his soul.
4. OVERCHURCH MEMORIAL
Page notes that “the Overchurch stone is a flat slab, presumably designed for a grave [and] its top has animal interlace and the [runic] inscription is in two lines on one of its sides” (142).