Elene; Judith; Athelstan, or the Fight at Brunanburh; Byrhtnoth, or the Fight at Maldon; and the Dr | Page 6

Soon afterwards Morley's "English Writers," Vol.
II., appeared (1888), in which an English translation is given (pp.
237-241); also Stopford Brooke, in his "History of Early English
Literature" (1892), has given an account of the poem, with partial
translation and epitome (pp. 436-443). (See also p. 337 and pp.
384-386 for further notice.) The poem is very briefly mentioned by
Trautmann in his monograph on Cynewulf (1898, p. 40). There are
some very interesting questions connected with the poem which cannot
be discussed here. Was it by Cynewulf? On the affirmative side we find
Dietrich, Rieger, Grein, ten Brink, D'Ham, and Sweet. On the negative,
Wülker, Ebert, Trautmann, Stephens, Morley, Brooke, and others.
Pacius, who edited the text, with a German translation, in 1873, thinks
that we know nothing about the poet. Brooke has propounded a theory,
previously adumbrated by the editors of the Corpus Poeticum Boreale,
Vigfusson and Powell, that an older poem, possibly of Cædmonian
origin, as shown by the long six-accent lines, has been worked over by
Cynewulf, with additions, and that it is "his last work" (p. 440). Certain
lines of the poem, in the Northumbrian dialect, are found on the
Ruthwell Cross, which fact complicates the question of origin. These
are compared by Brooke (p. 337). The other upholders of the
Cynewulfian authorship think that this Dream, occurring in the early
part of Cynewulf's religious life, led to the longer and more highly
finished poem, the ELENE, written near the close of his life. The
questions of the relationship of the poem to the Ruthwell Cross and to
the ELENE deserve further discussion. With these is connected the
question of date, and the poem has been placed all the way from 700 to
800 A.D., even a little before and a little after, possibly 675 to 825 A.D.,

so as yet there is no common agreement. The similarity of thought in
the personal epilogue (II. 122 ff.) to the epilogue of the ELENE (II.
1237 ff.) is striking, and they may be compared by the curious reader.
The translation is made from the Grein-Wülker text (Vol. II., pp.
116-125), with emendations from others, as seen in the notes. All can
agree with Kemble (Codex Vercellensis, Part II., p. ix) that "it is in
some respects the most striking of all the Anglo-Saxon remains,
inasmuch as a departure from the mere conventional style of such
compositions is very perceptible in it. It contains some passages of real
poetical beauty, and a good deal of fancy." Brooke says (op. cit., p.
443): "This is the last of the important poems of the eighth century. It is
good, but not very good. The older part, if my conjecture be right, is the
best, and its reworking by Cynewulf has so broken it up that its dignity
is much damaged. The shaping is rude, but the imagination has indeed
shaped it." ten Brink says (p. 53): "Cynewulf himself has immortalized
this vision in a poem, giving utterance to an irrepressible emotion, but
still exhibiting the delicate lines of a beautifully designed composition."
The other Germans are usually so taken up with technical and
mechanical questions that they leave no room for æsthetic
considerations. Whether Cynewulf wrote the poem or not,--and the
probabilities favor his authorship, though we may not hesitate to say
with Morley, "I don't know,"--it is certainly the work of a gifted
Christian poet, who reverences the cross as the means of the
redemption of mankind.
This brief Introduction will, it is hoped, be sufficient to interest the
reader in the accompanying translations of some of the finest pieces of
Old English poetry that remain to us from the eighth, ninth, and tenth
centuries. The earlier period was the golden age of Old English poetry
in the Northumbrian dialect, which poetry, there is good reason to think,
was copied into the West-Saxon dialect, and it now remains to us only
in that form; for, when the Northmen harried Northumbria, destroyed
its monasteries, massacred its inhabitants, and settled in its homes,
manuscripts perished, and the light of learning in Western Europe was
extinguished. It is sufficient to recall King Alfred's oft-quoted lament,
in the Preface to his translation of Pope Gregory's "Pastoral Care," to
realize the position held by Northumbria in respect to culture, and when

learning was restored in Wessex by the efforts of the king himself, and
poetry again revived, it shone but by a reflected light. Still we should
treasure all that remains, and the Old English language should be at
least as well known as Latin is now, and should occupy as prominent a
position in education and general culture. Until that millennial period
arrives, translations of Old English poems may not be without service.
ABBREVIATIONS IN NOTES.
B. = Bouterwek;
C. = Cook;
Gm. = Grimm;
Gn. =