You have traded baptism for an evil end.
Once you were anointed front and back
And high on your head with holy oil, 55
A soul’s signature, a royal sign.
* * *
You were supposed to be raised high into heaven,
The servant of God, but you tossed this away
For the devil’s teachings. At our baptismal blessing,
Before handing you over, your godparents promised 60
That you would always shelter and sustain me
Through the love of Christ and lead me to him
Through virtuous living and righteous deeds.
You renounced the devil, his pernicious pride,
His dark deceit, and cunning desires, 65
Echoing the holy words of Christ.
But you left your Lord, hating his laws,
And began to love that loathsome demon.
The children we were always meant to bear,
Our holy offspring, were left unborn. 70
Our trust was undone, our marriage unmade.
You were meant to be their bodily father,
So that I could be their sacred mother.
We were meant to bear and bring our children
To the arms of Christ. These children I mention, 75
As the psalmist says, are like olive plants
From the fruitful vines. Our vines are withered,
Our olives unborn, our offspring unmade.”
* * *
SUTTON DISC BROOCH
Stanley explains that the Sutton disc brooch was first found by a plowman in 1694, as reported by Bishop Edmund Gibson in 1695; it was lost for two centuries, rediscovered in 1950, and then acquired by the British Museum (1987, 401). Thornbury notes that a poetic inscription is located “on the inner rim of the late tenth-or early eleventh-century silver brooch found near Sutton, Isle of Ely, Cambridgeshire (now in the British Museum)” (375), and considers the first line a possible elaboration of the patron-formulae such as the inscription on the Alfred Jewel, Ælfred mec heht gewyrcan, “Alfred ordered me made.” Okasha notes that “the owner formula is followed by a Christian curse, as occurs in wills and charters” (117).
Sutton Disc Brooch
Ædvwin keeps me—may the Lord keep her.
May the Lord curse whoever carries me off
Unless she wants to give me up willingly.
TWO MARGINALIC LINES
Bergman accepts as poetry two marginalic lines noted by Robinson (Bergman, 13–14, 22, and Robinson, 1994, 18). The first is in a margin of the Lindisfarne Gospels that echoes a line in Durham. Robinson notes that the writer of this line “may be quoting a line from a lost Old English poem on Bede” (18). The second is a line from MS Harley 208, which is apparently a pen trial, which Bergman notes, echoes line 869 in Beowulf (867 in my translation) and “might be the opening line of a lost Old English poem” (22, n. 21).
Two Marginalic Lines
1
Thus Bede the renowned scholar said.
2
Listen! I will tell everything of old.
VERSE IN A CHARTER
Kitson discovered that “alone among the more than a thousand boundary surveys extant in Anglo-Saxon land charters, the second of the two in Æthelred I’s grant in 868 to Cuthwulf bishop of Rochester, no 3 in Sawyers’ hand-list, is in verse [and] more remarkably that part of the charter’s dispositive clause dealing with the same piece of land casts high-sounding Latin words into a rough equivalent of Old English verse form” (147).
Verse in a Charter
The second section is outside the city,
North of the wall, with marshes and meadows,
To the Medway River. The rightful boundaries
Are marked as follows: beginning with the Medway,
Then between two streams rightly named 5
The Shipfleet and Pearfleet that enclose the land,
To the east and west up to the walled place.
Thus are the boundaries marked by charter.
Amen.
VERSE IN A HOMILY: THE JUDGMENT OF THE DAMNED
Jones points out that “the Old English prose text with the greatest admixture of verse is a sermon about Judgment Day preserved in different forms in two Vercelli Homilies (nos. II and XXI) and within a composite eleventh-century sermon that also draws from sermons by Archbiship Wulfstan (d. 1023)” (270). The passages exist in several varying forms, embedded in the Vercelli Homilies and in MS 201, Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, as well as other manuscripts (see Jones, 372). The verse passages are sometimes edited as prose like their surrounding contexts and sometimes separated out as poetry. In a detailed study that concentrated primarily on the Corpus Christi manuscript, Stanley concluded that several passages constituted legitimate poetic texts, though admitting that “the dividing line between what looks more like prose than verse or verse than prose is far from sharp” (1985, 367). The prose passages in and around the poetry sections below are indicated in the translation by their farther left-hand margin. I have followed the text edited by Jones, who identifies more verse passages than some other editors (269 ff.), and I have made occasional use of his literal prose translation (which itself draws upon Stanley’s translation) in making the poetic one here.
Verse in a Homily: The Judgment of the Damned
Listen! To the wicked in this world, there is nothing that seems
So hot or cold, so hard or soft,
So delightful or disagreeable, so easy or difficult,
So cherished or hated, so loved or loathed,
that it might cut them off from the Lord’s love, if they could wield the 5 power to control the outcome. Yet those wretched souls give little thought to carrying out God’s will while they can.
Alas, it is a source of shame and sorrow,
A gathering guilt, a grief beyond measure,
A story to be told in great anguish, 10
That such faithless sinners must finally come
Before the face of God and all the saints,
Before the blessed beauty and great glory,
of high heaven and be thrust in judgment into the terrible torments of hell. 15
Listen! The minds of men are so murky,
So darkened and deceived, foolish and faithless,
that they continue to let that death-dragging devil lead them astray with untold temptation so that they can indulge endlessly in sin and cannot carry out the will of the one who lifted them from dust, making 20 them out of mud, breathing life into them from his own spirit, offering them everlasting life.
Listen! What are we thinking when we do not dread the great day of judgment, of impending doom?
That will be a dark day of suffering and sorrow, 25
A hard day of misery and harrowing pain.
On that day we shall finally see revealed to every one on earth
The opening of heaven, a host of angels,
The fall of the faithless, the agony of creatures,
The dissolution of life, the destruction of earth, 30
The strife of the sinful, the plummeting of stars,
The crash of thunder, the slash of storms,
The flash of lightning, the crackle of fire,
The battle of souls, the grip of fear,
The grimmest of visions, a godly power, 35
A scalding rain, the shriek of fiends,
A burst of hills, a blast of trumpets,
A hungry fire stalking the land,
Gnawing the night, devouring the day,
A sense of evil, a slaughter of men, 40
The separation of souls, the hour of judgment,
Bliss for some, the abyss for others,
A bitter torment, a river of blood,
The fear of demons, a fiery rain,
Heathens groaning in a pit of pain, 45
Robbers moaning, thieves wailing,
The lamentation of the loathsome, the unloved,
The terror of judgment before the Lord
And his gathering of glory in the anticipant air, 50
The forbidding face of almighty God,
His mystery to some, his menace to others,
The justness of judgment, the shame of our sins,
The accusation of demons, the despair of fiends,
Pale human faces petrified with fear, 55
The shouts of sinners, the screams of nations,
The weeping of the world before God’s judgment,
The lament of lost souls separated from grace,
The inhuman sound of unholy hymns
From the eternal abyss, the savagery of serpents 60
Seizing each soul in a dread clutch,
The dark fear of being beyond dead,
Tormented by an army of implacable foes,
Ruthless, remorseless, utterly unforgiving,
On that day of darkness, that day of doom. 65
On that day such terror will be revealed that the sinful will wish they had never been born from father and mother so that the gift of unbeing would be a blessing to them greater than all gifts.
Listen! We are foolish not to heed our own advice, warning ourselves and dreading this fate as we watch our neighbors and loved ones falling 70 in desperation, dying before our eyes.
Then a grave will be readied for the cold corpse,
The body-house lowered in a hole in the ground,
A loathsome bed, a rest-home in the rot,
Where the flesh will be a feast for worms. 75
Then the body and soul will finally separate
In a painful parting, a miserable unmeeting,
Since the soul must travel into eternal torment,
The endless, abysmal tortures of hell,
Wounded, wretched, raging, reeling, 80
Wracked with pain in a perilous prison,
Confined with demons, murder and mayhem,
Suffering with serpents, in a woe of worms,
In the arms of death, the embrace of devils,
In burning and bitterness, rancor and resentment, 85
An aching inferno of flames and filth,
Agony and affliction, an endless perishing,
A grinding of teeth, a hopeless howling,
The anxiety of ever increasing pain,
The unchecked misery of immutable woe, 90
From the moans of morning to the gnashing of night,
In hunger and thirst, heat and hardship,
Fire and filth, unrest and ruin,
In the venomous dark of the endless abyss,
In the soul-slashing storm of wracking rain, 95
In torture and torment, wickedness and woe,
In the mouth and gut, bowel and belly,
Of the death-dealing dragon who is called the devil.
VERSE PARAPHRASE OF MATTHEW 25:41
Trahern (1977, 2008) identified the following verse paraphrase of Matthew 25:41, which he notes “not only meets the metrical and alliterative standards for classical verse but also shows a good deal of rhetorical sophistication” (2008, 40). The passage is a description by Christ of the Last Judgment of those who have not shown any concern for people who were suffering in this life and who called out for help. For the OE text, see Trahern (2008, 40). The passage appears in MS 302 of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge (Napier’s homily 49). Trahern notes that it can be compared with a similar passage in Vercelli Homily X. I have added the introductory line from Matthew in brackets to indicate the biblical context of the poem.
Verse Paraphrase of Matthew 25:41
[Then the Lord will say to those on his left hand:]
“Depart from me, deprived of glory,
Shorn of grace, separated from friends,
Delivered to fiends, entrusted to evil,
Embraced in a wave of ferocious flame, 5
Hideous hell-fire, where you will dwell forever
In the torture and torment of hell’s hatred,
Wandering in a world of woe without end.”
VERSE PROVERB IN A JUNIUS HOMILY
Trahern (1982) points to a two-line verse passage in an Old English homily, De Descensu Christi ad Inferos, preserved on folios 148v–154v of Bodleian MS Junius 121 (419). He notes that the homily begins by recounting “Satan’s capture of the soul of John the Baptist and his subsequent plan to obtain the soul of Christ following the crucifixion. The end result is Satan’s being bound in hell” (419). The homily writer leads up to the verse proverb as follows: “Satan was not so much overcome with might as with right, and he was thrown into the punishing abasement of hell. So the Savior himself said about this: ‘What evil do you hope to find in me? Why do you lay hold of me?’” Christ then speaks the proverb. The OE phrase his agen … forlyseð in the proverb probably means literally “loses his property,” a possible result of serious criminal action, but since his agen can also mean “his own,” and forlyseð can mean “to destroy or ruin,” the phrase might also mean “destroy himself.” I have incorporated both possibilities in the translation.
Verse Proverb in a Junius Homily
A man who attacks another with evil
Will often end up losing everything,
Sometimes even slaying himself.
VERSES IN VERCELLI HOMILY XXI
Selected homiletic passages are thought by several editors to contain passages which cross over from rhythmical prose into poetry, especially the following passages in Vercelli Homily XXI in the Vercelli Book. Trahern, for example, in defining these passages as poetry, uses the standard of Blake’s definition of “rhythmical alliteration,” which “emphasizes that the boundary between verse and prose was so blurred that a clear division is impossible [and] at times, the rhythm in rhythmical alliteration becomes so regular, as in passages of great intensity or emotion, that the result is close to poetry; at other times, when the rhythm becomes less insistent, prose results” (2008, 37; citing Blake, 1969, 119–20). For more on the subject of rhythmical prose, see McIntosh; Wright; and Trahern (2008). The OE poetic texts for the verses in this homily may be found in both Wright and Trahern. See also Verse in a Homily: The Judgment of the Damned above, where one of several source texts also comes from Vercelli Homily XXI.
Verses in Vercelli Homily XXI
1. Doomsday
We are mortal men who in this world
Will drop down dead and turn to dust,
Food for worms, a feast of flesh.
We will all rise again from the grave,
Out of the earth on Doomsday, 5
To disclose to God what we have done
And receive the reward of righteous judgment.
2. The Fall of Angels
Through overweening pride, the rebel angels
Were turned into devils, demon-thanes,
And thrust into hell, an abyss of pain,
Where they suffer forever flaming torment
Because they hated and loathed the Lord, 5
The God of glory, Giver of victories,
Ruler of all heaven and earth.
Those sinful angels meant to make
A separate home in the heavenly kingdom,
But that pernicious plan could not succeed, 10
For God almighty, righteous and resolute,
Cast their arrogant leader, an evil fiend,
From his usurped seat into endless exile,
Along with his demon horde, unholy thanes.
They landed in hell to a woeful welcome 15
Of blaze and bale, terror and torment.
Those fallen angels now know
Who their adversary is—almighty God.
APPENDIX OF POSSIBLE RIDDLE SOLUTIONS
Solutions to the Exeter Book riddles are not given in the manuscript, so scholars continue to debate them. Some solutions are now generally accepted; others are still hotly contested. Solutions often depend on different readings of ambiguous pa
ssages or on whether to take a particular description as literal or metaphoric. I have given below a brief but nonexhaustive list of proposed solutions, listed in order from those generally accepted or probable to those possible or unlikely. New solutions are, of course, proposed all the time. I have also explained the occasional runes and other problematic or ambiguous features of some of the riddles. For more on the riddles, their structure and sources, their solutions and proposers, see the discussions in Williamson (1977, 1982), Muir, Niles (2006), Bitterli, and Murphy. For the various sources and analogues noted here, see the Notes and Commentary section for the riddle in question in Williamson (1977).
Riddle 1. Wind, Storm, Wind-Master (God). This riddle is sometimes edited as three separate storm riddles (land-storm, sea-storm, thunderstorm, etc.). As separate riddles, lines 14–27 have also been solved as Fire; lines 28 ff. as Cross or Spirit; and these two separate riddles together as Sun. In classical and medieval writings, the wind was often thought to be responsible for a variety of phenomena, including storms, earthquakes, and sub-marine tremors. The riddle characterizes the wind as a warring creature wreaking havoc upon the land and sea, destroying the high halls and bone-houses (bodies) of men. The riddler asks not only, “Who is this destroyer?” but also, “Who shapes and drives the destroyer?”
Riddle 2. Uncertain. This riddle remains much debated and is called by Muir “perhaps the most perplexing of all the riddles” (655). Possible solutions include Bell, Well-Bucket, Bucket, Plow or Plow Team, Handmill, Millstone, Flail, Lock, Pen, Phallus, Watchdog, Devil, and Man Called Back from the Dead. None of the proposed solutions satisfies the riddlic details entirely. It is difficult to translate this riddle because of the ambiguity of some of the language. OE þragbysig, for example, might mean “sometimes busy,” “always busy,” or “periodically employed,” and slæpwerigne could mean “weary from lack of sleep” or “weary from too much sleep.” The number of “ring” and “ringing” words in the riddle would seem to point toward the Bell solution.
Riddle 3. Shield. The shield is portrayed as a fierce wooden warrior, difficult to slay, impossible to revive with ordinary herbal medicines. Anglo-Saxon shields were made of wood, sometimes covered with leather, often adorned with metal fittings and ornamental mounts. The “hard hammer-leavings” and the “battle-sharp / Handiwork of smiths” are both kennings referring to the shield’s enemy, the sword. In the OE manuscript, the riddle is followed by a marginal S-rune that may indicate the solution, OE scyld (shield).
The Complete Old English Poems Page 124