Elene; Judith; Athelstan, or the Fight at Brunanburh; Byrhtnoth, or the Fight at Maldon; and the Dr | Page 4

dialect on the Ruthwell Cross in
Dumfriesshire.
However it may be, a poet named Cynewulf wrote the ELENE, and
thereby left us one of the finest Old English poems that time has
preserved, on a subject that was of great interest to Christian Europe. A
collection of "Legends of the Holy Rood" has been issued by the Early
English Text Society (ed. Morris, 1871), from the Anglo-Saxon period
to Caxton's translation of the Legenda Aurea; but they are arranged
without system, and no study has been made of the date and relation of
the several forms of the story. If Cynewulf made use of the Latin Life
of Cyriacus in the Acta Sanctorum, he expanded his source
considerably and showed great skill and originality in his treatment of
the subject, as may be seen by comparing the translation with the Latin
text in Zupitza's third edition of the ELENE (1888), or in Professor
Kent's forthcoming American edition, after Zupitza. The Old English
text was discovered by a German scholar, Dr. F. Blume, at Vercelli,
Italy, in 1822, and the manuscript has since become well known as the
Vercelli Book (cf. Wülker's Grundriss, p. 237 ff.). A reasonable
conjecture as to how this MS. reached Vercelli may be found in
Professor Cook's pamphlet, "Cardinal Guala and the Vercelli Book." A
Bibliography of the ELENE will be found in Wülker, Zupitza, and
Kent. English translations have been made by Kemble, in his edition of
the Codex Vercellensis (1856), and very recently by Dr. R.F.
Weymouth, Acton, England, after Zupitza's text (privately printed,
1888). A German translation will be found in Grein's Dichtungen der
Angelsachsen (II. 104 ff., 1859), and of lines 1-275 in Körner's

_Einleitung in das Studium des
Angelsächsischen_ (p. 147 ff., 1880).
A good summary of the poem is given in Earle's "Anglo-Saxon
Literature" (p. 234 ff., 1884), and a briefer one in Morley's "English
Writers" (II. 196 ff.).
The ELENE is conceded to be Cynewulf's best poem, and ten Brink
remarks of the ANDREAS and the ELENE: "In these Cynewulf
appears, perhaps, at the summit of his art" (p. 58, Kennedy's
translation). The last canto is a personal epilogue, of a sad and
reflective character, evidently appended after the poem proper was
concluded. This may be the last work of the poet, and there is good
reason for ten Brink's view (p. 59) that "not until the writing of the
ELENE had Cynewulf entirely fulfilled the task he had set himself in
consequence of his vision of the cross. Hence he recalls, at the close of
the poem, the greatest moment of his life, and praises the divine grace
that gave him deeper knowledge, and revealed to him the art of song."
II. The JUDITH is a fragment, but a very torso of Hercules. The first
nine cantos, nearly three-fourths of the poem, are irretrievably lost, so
that we have left but the last three cantos with a few lines of the ninth.
The story is from the apocryphal book of Judith, and the part remaining
corresponds to chapters XII. 10 to XVI. 1, but the poet has failed to
translate the grand thanksgiving of Judith in the sixteenth chapter. The
story of Judith and Holofernes is too well known to need narration. The
poet, doubtless, followed the Latin Vulgate, as we have no reason to
think that a knowledge of Greek was a common possession among Old
English poets; but, as Professor Cook says, "the order of events is not
that of the original narrative. Many transpositions have been made in
the interest of condensation and for the purpose of enhancing the
dramatic liveliness of the story."
The Old English text is found in the same manuscript with the
BÉOWULF (Cotton, Vitellius, A, xv.), and, to my mind, this poem
reminds the reader more of the vigor and fire of BÉOWULF than does
any other Old English poem; but its author is unknown. It has been
assigned by some scholars to the tenth century, which is rather late for
it; but Professor Cook has given reasons for thinking that it may have

been written in the second half of the ninth century in honor of Judith,
the step-mother of King Alfred. It was first printed as prose by
Thwaites at the close of his "Heptateuch, Book of Job, and Gospel of
Nicodemus" (1698), and has been often reprinted, its shortness and
excellence making it a popular piece for inclusion in Anglo-Saxon
Readers. A most complete edition has been recently (1888) issued by
Professor Albert S. Cook, with an excellent introduction, a translation,
and a glossary. A Bibliography is given by Professor Cook (pp. 71-73),
and by Wülker (Grundriss, p. 140 ff.). To the translations therein
enumerated may be added the one in Morley's "English Writers" (II.
180 ff.). Professor Cook has