The Complete Old English Poems

by Craig Williamson

  The demons hoped to haul God’s champion,

  His chosen warrior, down into darkness,

  But they had not reckoned on their own doom, 605

  The judgment of God. Filled with frustration,

  Hateful to Christ, they spoke fiercely to Guthlac:

  “You are neither worthy nor wanted by God.

  You have not been chosen as God’s champion

  Or servant. Your heart has not been proven 610

  Holy according to your words and works.

  Now you must follow us into the fiery abyss,

  Dwell in a house in hell, not a home in heaven,

  Lost from the light, for your flesh is too full

  Of sin and shame, temptation and treachery. 615

  Now we will reward you for your worldly evil

  By tormenting your soul with endless agony.”

  Then blessed Guthlac answered back,

  His spirit strengthened by the power of God:

  “Torment me if you think that the Lord Christ, 620

  Shaper and sustainer of the living light,

  Will let you lead me to that loathsome flame.

  That is under the control of the King of glory,

  The Savior Christ. He is the one

  Who easily defeated you, exiled you from heaven, 625

  And bound you in chains. I am his humble

  And obedient servant—I submit to his doom,

  His righteous judgment, with my heart and soul.

  He is my radiant Lord, my redeeming light.

  I praise the Creator for the wonders he made 630

  For the angels in heaven and the inhabitants of earth.

  I will exalt my Father and exult with him

  For all of the blessings he has bestowed on us.

  I will sing his praise-songs both day and night

  As demons can never do. Your tongues are tied 635

  With unbreakable bonds of infinite light,

  So you can never sever the silence of exile.

  At death’s door you will mourn your grim fate

  With surging grief. You can lament in hell

  But never praise or petition heaven’s King.” 640

  Then courageous Guthlac continued speaking:

  “In all my days I will honor my Judge,

  Loving my Lord in my words and works.”

  So learning and faith go hand in hand

  With honor and eloquence for any man 645

  Who wants to fulfill God’s will with his works.

  Then Guthlac spoke again to the demons:

  “You are all faith-breakers, trust-betrayers,

  Exiles from heaven and your own heart’s good.

  You drink fire daily and feast on flame. 650

  You were deceived by Satan, deprived of heaven,

  Despoiled of joy, seduced by sin,

  Harrowed by hopelessness, delivered to death.

  Your blindness has no cure—you see nothing

  Except the madness of sin without mercy. 655

  You rebelled against God, renouncing creation

  And your place in heaven. You lost perfect peace,

  The heart’s holy joy, in rejecting God.

  For your pride and presumption, your fierce unfaith,

  Your cruelty and crime, you were cast forth 660

  From God’s comfort and the kingdom of heaven

  Into the endless and unholy flames of hell,

  Where you must always endure darkness and death,

  Weeping and woe, lamenting with the lost.

  Your reward is never to know relief. 665

  I have placed my faith in the Lord of creation,

  The source of life, the savior of Men.

  In his might and mercy, my Maker will be

  My shield and sustainer. He will never forsake me

  Because I have fought for him, body and soul, 670

  In words and works, by means of the mystery

  Of his wondrous power. I trust in the Trinity’s

  Radiant glory, in the true Creator,

  Who holds in his hands heaven and earth.

  He watches over me and will never allow 675

  Dread demons to torment me without end.

  On me your malice is meaningless and wasted,

  Your purpose pointless, your hatred hopeless.

  You will never drag me into despair and darkness,

  Never seduce me in the snares of sin, 680

  Never touch me with your terrible afflictions.

  You are damned demons, marauders and murderers,

  Exiles and outlaws, unblessed and undone.

  My heart is filled with faith—my soul seeks salvation,

  A better life in a homeland of eternal light 685

  With the glory of the Father and the light of the Savior,

  A redeeming radiance you shall never see.

  Your perverse pride expelled you from heaven

  When jealousy arose in your maddened minds.

  You imagined yourselves as glorious as God. 690

  Your envy was your evil undoing. Your rebellion

  Reached as far as hell. Your boast was your bane.

  You fought for heaven’s glory—you found hell’s grief.

  For your claim, God cast you downward into darkness

  Where you discovered despair and a righteous flame. 695

  Those tongues of fire lashed out with a bitter venom.

  You were angels no more but angry demons,

  Afflicted with agony, pursued by pain,

  Bereft of joy and the company of angels.

  Now you have traded blessing for burning, 700

  Exultation for agony, hope for shame.

  There’s no point in thinking you can drag me down

  Into the devil’s lair of doubt and despair.

  You will never catch me with your cunning craft,

  Your sinful snares. You can never steal my soul, 705

  Seduce or snatch me from my holy purpose,

  Carry me off to the flames of hell,

  Where the demons of undelight must dwell forever

  In perpetual darkness till the end of days,

  For I will live in a community of comfort 710

  In a sublime kingdom with a host of angels,

  Where the true King resides forever,

  The help and protection of all mankind.”

  Then God sent a holy messenger from heaven,

  Who arrived like a terror speaking dread words, 715

  Demanding that the devils return the hero,

  The guiltless Guthlac, with life and limb intact,

  Unburned and unblemished, from the edge of the abyss,

  That wretched place, so that his eternal soul,

  Properly prepared, might depart in joy 720

  On another road, the pathway to heaven,

  In God’s perfect peace and protection.

  Then the pack of fiends was filled with fear—

  Their courage cooled. The messenger of the Lord

  Was radiant as the sun. The bright guardian 725

  Shielded Guthlac in his power and protection.

  He bound those demons in dire restraint

  With mental bonds, a force of mind

  Beyond their knowing, commanding them:

  “Bring Guthlac home whole. Let there be 730

  No bone-breaking, body-bruising, skin-scorching,

  Bloody wounding, or any sign of suffering,

  When you leave him safely in the hill-home

  Where you vilely seized him. He shall rule

  That small realm without your sinister resistance. 735

  I am the judge sent by God to say this:

  You will heal with your hands all his hurts,

  Accept his constraints, obey his commands.

  It’s no great secret that I am God’s servant,

  One of the twelve whom the Lord loved 740

  In his human
form. He sent me from heaven

  When he saw envious demons tormenting his disciple.

  Guthlac is my brother—his suffering grieves me.

  He is my friend forever. When he’s home alone,

  I will be by his side, shielding and sustaining him. 745

  If fierce fiends come to visit him in his sanctuary,

  They will come face to face with an angry apostle

  Who channels God’s wrath to protect his champion.

  To Guthlac I will be the gentlest of visitors;

  To you I will be the grimmest of houseguests. 750

  Now I must be a witness for Guthlac before God,

  Bringing back the testament of his words and works

  To the Lord who knows him and delights in his deeds.”

  Guthlac’s spirit was glad after Bartholomew declared

  God’s message. The demons were determined 755

  To be obedient to the saint’s sacred commands.

  Then the Lord’s chosen champion set out

  On the welcome road home to his hillside,

  The spot of land he had left and longed for.

  The chastised demons bore him back carefully, 760

  Holding him without hurt in their hateful hands.

  In their fear of God, they carried him gently

  And kept him from falling, cushioning his ride.

  The holy builder was brought home to the hill,

  Triumphant over all the temptation and terror. 765

  He was blessed by God’s creatures great and small,

  In sight and sound, in grove and glade.

  Beautiful birds welcomed him home

  With their colorful songs, a torrent of tree-music.

  He had offered them food on many occasions 770

  When they had flown hungrily around his hand.

  Wild beasts also turned out in welcome,

  Glad to be with this gentle spirit

  Who had turned his back on the world of men.

  They shared the joy of life in the wood. 775

  The ground sang a green song, the birds

  A bright hymn, the earth a rich melody

  Of birth and bloom, the cuckoo a spring-song.

  Guthlac was blessed in his wild-wood home

  With green-stalk and birdsong, protected by God. 780

  The guardian from heaven had driven out demons.

  What greater pleasure has ever been granted

  To any man in the memory of middle-earth?

  We are all witness to these holy wonders,

  The miracles that happened to a man of our time. 785

  No one can doubt or deride this sacred story

  Of God’s way of strengthening and shielding the soul.

  Let no man’s mind be so feeble or foolish

  As to miss the joy, the majesty and meaning,

  Of this true tale—God delights in it too. 790

  So the almighty Lord, who loves all creatures

  Alive under heaven in their embodied beauty

  And the races of men throughout middle-earth,

  Wants us to imbibe the wisdom of these sacred stories

  So that his truth may be made known, a payment 795

  For the promise he has offered, a return for his reward.

  He clears a way for our souls through life.

  This is not the least of God’s gifts when love

  Lights up the heart with a shining grace.

  So the almighty Lord exalted Guthlac’s 800

  Days and deeds. The holy warrior

  Was faithful and firm against the evil demons,

  Strong in virtue, steadfast against sin.

  He kept his promises and prayed to God,

  Thankful that he had been given time to suffer 805

  Until God could lift him to a better life.

  Then Guthlac’s soul was borne into heaven

  In the embrace of angels who carried him lovingly,

  Bringing him gently before the face of God.

  The generous and eternal Judge gave Guthlac 810

  His soul’s sustenance, his heart’s home,

  The radiant place his Ruler had promised

  Where he might know joy without suffering

  And find a reward for faith in the boundless bliss

  And shielding arms of his loving Lord, 815

  The Son of God, the holy shepherd,

  Who guards all glory and shares out grace.

  So the souls of the righteous will ascend into heaven,

  Those who keep faith, follow God’s laws,

  And fulfill his promise with words and works. 820

  They are Christ’s communicants, his chosen champions,

  Who bear in their hearts both holy hope

  And a pure purpose in serving their Savior.

  They carry courage and wisdom on the long road

  To stand against sin and the attacks of demons, 825

  Both subtle and savage, the lusts of the heart,

  The doubts of the mind, the delights of the body,

  The pains and pleasures of an imperfect world.

  They construct a house where the soul can survive

  All earthly suffering and will spiritually thrive. 830

  They build a community with brotherly love.

  They chastise themselves for their unchaste thoughts.

  They sustain their minds and souls with meditation.

  They love fasting and forswear feasting.

  They hold no hatred and seek no sin. 835

  They keep their commitment to truth and justice.

  They accomplish on earth what Christ has commanded.

  They will not sorrow or suffer after death

  When the Lord comes calling but will follow

  Their generous Judge, their righteous Ruler, 840

  Through the streets of glory in the city of Jerusalem,

  Where they will gaze joyfully on the face of God,

  That perfect peace, beautiful and blissful,

  And abide forever in the land of the living.

  GUTHLAC B

  For a general introduction to the Guthlac poems, see the headnote to Guthlac A. While the sources of the previous poem are debated, the source for this one is clear—chapter 50 of Felix’s legend, Vita S. Guthlaci (see Calder and Allen, 108–12, for a translation). Fulk and Cain point out that Guthlac B “loosely renders one chapter (50) describing the saint’s sickness and death, and it is this dependence that lends the poem its eastern hagiographical flavor, given the similarity of Guthlac’s mode of eremitism as portrayed by Felix, to that of the Desert Fathers” (103). Some critics have argued that the poet of Guthlac B knew the Guthlac A poem and decided to fill in the rather brief death scene in the former poem, but Roberts, in her edition, notes that “it does not seem likely that Guthlac A provided much in the way of actual source-material for the Guthlac B poet” (42). Greenfield notes that “this second Guthlac poem is quite different from its predecessor, emphasizing time rather than place, ‘Holy Dying’ rather than ‘Holy Living,’ the Fall and Redemption rather than saintly apotheosis” (Greenfield and Calder, 177). Important themes in this poem include the fall of Adam and Eve and their expulsion from Eden, the entrance of death into this world, Guthlac’s solitude in the wilderness, his struggles with demons (much less extensive than in Guthlac A), his love of the natural world, his visitations with an angel, his sickness over Eastertide, his conversations with his servant and disciple, his death accompanied by the earth’s shuddering (as in the case of Christ’s death in The Dream of the Rood), and finally, his servant’s sailing over the waves to report his death to his beloved sister. This last portion of the poem has strong elegiac elements that recall passages from The Wanderer.

  The end of the poem is cut short because of the loss of a least a folio, but some or much of the missing material is probably the beginning of the next poem. Some scholars believe that Guthlac B is one of the Cynewulfian poems
because of certain similarities in style and theme and argue that a Cynewulfian signature may be part of the missing elements at the end of the poem (see Bjork, 2001, 5; 2013, xi and note 20).

  Guthlac B

  It is widely known to endless generations

  And celebrated among people everywhere

  That the Lord of creation, the almighty King,

  Shaped mankind out of purest earth.

  That was the beginning of all our offspring, 5

  The blessing and beauty of generations to come.

  Our father Adam was born first

  Through the grace of God in paradise,

  Where for him nothing in the world was wanting:

  There was no lack or loss, no absence in Eden, 10

  No inexorable ruin to wealth or well-being,

  No transience to time, no fade or fall

  To flesh or flower, no declining joy,

  No waning life, no decay or death.

  Mankind might have lived in that new land 15

  Forever flawless in endless bliss

  As life and limb, body and soul,

  Dwelled in peace in God’s presence,

  If only Adam and Eve had lived his law,

  Heard and held his words in their hearts, 20

  Not twisted his trust. But finally they tired

  Of too much obedience, so the subtle serpent

  Tempted Eve to pluck the forbidden fruit

  From the tree of knowledge of good and evil

  And taste the flesh that would unmake innocence. 25

  Eve ate the apple. It was that simple.

  She devoured knowing and discovered death,

  Then gave her husband Adam an equal share

  Of the bitter fruit through the devil’s guile.

  Adam ate. He lost his smile. 30

  Satan lured them lusting out of Eden,

  Lonely as angels banished from bliss.

  Paradise was lost to all their progeny.

  In sin and shame they were thrust out

  Into an alien world of weeds and woe, 35

  Toil and torment, longing and labor.

  For the tooth of crime, they paid the cost,

  The taste of death. It was a bad bargain.

  Ever after, the world’s progeny would pay

  In anguish and atonement for inexorable sin, 40

  The soul’s severance, and guilt before God.

  Death rushed in and the devil ruled

  Over all mankind in middle-earth.

  After the fall, no one of that renowned race

  Was ever so wise or able to follow God’s 45

  Will or do his work to escape the evil

  Of that bitter drink that the young bride

  Eve gave to Adam. That rich treat