Andreas: The Legend of St. Andrew

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Title: Andreas: The Legend of St. Andrew
Author: Unknown
Release Date: March 1, 2005 [EBook #15225]
Language: English
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0. START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ANDREAS:
THE LEGEND OF ST. ANDREW ***
Produced by S.R.Ellison, David Starner, and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team.
YALE STUDIES IN ENGLISH
ALBERT S. COOK, EDITOR
VII
ANDREAS:
THE LEGEND OF ST. ANDREW
TRANSLATED FROM THE OLD ENGLISH
BY
ROBERT KILBURN ROOT

NEW YORK
HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY
1899
ERRATA.
p. IV. For _Angelsächsen_ read Angelsachsen.
p. V. " Fritsche " Fritzsche.
p. IX. " homilest " homilist.
p. 18, 1. 550. " has " hast.
p. 27, 1. 835. " 'Till " Till.
P. 57. " Siever's " Sievers'.
PREFACE
It is always a somewhat hardy undertaking to attempt the translation of
poetry, for such a translation will at the best be but a shadow of that
which it would fain represent. Yet I trust that even an imperfect
rendering of one of the best of the Old English poems will in some
measure contribute towards a wider appreciation of our earliest
literature, for the poem is accessible to the general reader only in the
baldly literal and somewhat inaccurate translation of Kemble,
published in 1843, and now out of print.
I have chosen blank verse as the most suitable metre for the translation
of a long and dignified narrative poem, as the metre which can most
nearly reproduce the strength, the nobility, the variety and rapidity of
the original. The ballad measure as used by Lumsden in his translation
of Beowulf is monotonous and trivial, while the measure used by
Morris and others, and intended as an imitation of the Old English
alliterative measure, is wholly impracticable. It is a hybrid product,
neither Old English nor modern, producing both weariness and disgust;

for, while copying the external features of its original, it loses wholly
its æsthetic qualities.
In my diction I have sought after simple and idiomatic English,
studying the noble archaism of the King James Bible, rather than
affecting the Wardour Street dialect of William Morris or Professor
Earle, which is often utterly unintelligible to any but the special student
of Middle English. My translation is faithful, but not literal; I have not
hesitated to make a passive construction active, or to translate a
compound adjective by a phrase. To quote from King Alfred's preface
to his translation of Boethius, I have "at times translated word by word,
and at times sense by sense, in whatsoever way I might most clearly
and intelligibly interpret it."
The text followed is that of Grein-Wülker in the _Bibliothek der
Angelsächsischen Poesie_ (Leipzig, 1894), and the lines of my
translation are numbered according to that edition. I have not, however,
felt obliged to follow his punctuation. Where it has seemed best to
adopt other readings, I have mentioned the fact in my notes.
I have compared my translation with those of Kemble and Grein
(_Dichtungen der Angelsächsen_), and am occasionally indebted to
them for a word or a phrase.
It gives me great pleasure to acknowledge my indebtedness to Dr.
Frank H. Chase, who has very carefully read my translation in
manuscript; and to Professor Albert S. Cook, who has given me his
help and advice at all stages of my work from its inception to its
publication. To Mr. Charles G. Osgood, Jr., I am also indebted for
valuable criticism.
ROBERT KILBURN ROOT.
YALE UNIVERSITY,
April 7, 1899.
INTRODUCTION
[Sidenote: The Manuscript.]

While traveling in Italy during the year 1832, Dr. Blume, a German
scholar, discovered in the cathedral library at Vercelli an Old English
manuscript containing both poetry and prose. The longest and the best
of the poems is the Andreas_, or _Legend of St. Andrew.
How did this manuscript find its way across the Alps into a country
where its language was wholly unintelligible? Several theories have
been advanced, the most plausible being that advocated by Cook.[1]
According to this view it was carried thither by Cardinal Guala, who
during the reign of Henry III was prior of St. Andrew's, Chester. On his
return to Italy he built the monastery of St. Andrew in Vercelli,
strongly English in its architecture. Since the manuscript contained a
poem about St. Andrew, it would have been an appropriate gift to St.
Andrew's Church in Vercelli. Wülker's theory that it was owned by an
Anglo-Saxon hospice at Vercelli rests on very shadowy arguments,
since he adduces no satisfactory proof that