Overchurch Memorial
People raised a monument. Pray for Æthelmund.
5. THORNHILL III MEMORIAL
Page identifies this as a ninth-century runic memorial stone, similar in style to the Great Urswick Stone (141–42).
Thornhill III Memorial
Gilswith raised a memorial on a mound
In memory of Berhtswith. Pray for her soul.
GENEALOGICAL VERSE
In his 1823 edition of The Saxon Chronicle, Ingram notes in the appendix the existence of a poetic portion of genealogical verse in OE meter that he describes as follows:
To the Saxon genealogy of the kings of Wessex, which properly belongs to the year 494, and is probably the production of King Alfred, an interesting addition may be made from a copy preserved in the Cathedral Library at Rochester, which escaped me before, because it is merged in the miscellaneous volume denominated “Textus Roffensis,” compiled by bishop Ernulf, who flourished in the reign of Henry I. As this genealogy is sometimes found prefixed to Alfred’s Saxon version of Bede, so here it immediately precedes a copy of his Saxon laws. Those who continued the genealogy from the reign of Alfred to the accession of Edward the martyr seem to have omitted the passage in question as too great an interruption to the series of kings. It is, however, well worthy of occupying the first place in our Appendix, as an early specimen of Saxon poetry, consisting of three irregular stanzas in Cædmonian metre, which may be read thus. (375)
Cerdic, who is mentioned in the poem, is generally considered to be the first of the West Saxon kings. The fact that his name seems to be of Breton origin is cause for some debate. It is possible that the name derives from his mother’s side of the family and that his father was an invading Saxon, as the Chronicle states, or he may have been a Breton-born leader whose ancestry was given Germanic mythic origins over time.
Genealogical Verse
So Cerdic was, as I said before,
The first king to battle the Bretons
With his brave-hearted war-band
And secure the land of the West-Saxons.
His offspring arose and defended the realm 5
He had earlier conquered and kept it safe.
They also seized by the same war-skill
That God had lent them, wider lands,
And wisely ruled those realms as well.
GODRIC’S HYMNS
These poems, sometimes called Godric’s Prayers, occur in a Latin Vita of that saint’s life found in MS Royal 5 F.vii in the British Library in London and appear with musical notations. Jones notes that it also is transmitted in numerous other manuscripts (353). Each poem was inspired by a divine visitation to Godric, similar to that which came to Cædmon, as recorded by Bede (see Cædmon’s Hymn). Treharne explains that “Saint Godric had led a varied life before his decision to become a hermit: he had been a pedlar, and travelled widely as the master of a ship and as a pilgrim” (272). The first hymn is sung by Godric’s deceased sister Burgwine in a vision. The second is a hymnal prayer to the Virgin Mary and “represents one of the earliest such Marian lyrics, and illustrates the personal devotion afforded to this saint that was burgeoning by the last decades of the twelfth century” (272). The last poem is a prayer to Saint Nicholas, the patron saint of sailors. The poems contain both alliteration and end-rhyme, which is typical of the late period of OE verse. The combination here is difficult to translate, and I have occasionally expanded the verses slightly to accommodate the complex style. The translation is based on Treharne’s edited text.
Godric’s Hymns
1. Hymn of Godric’s Sister, Burgwine
Christ and Saint Mary led me to the sweet
Holy altar, the footstool of the church,
That I in this earthly life could never reach,
Touch or tread, with my poor bare feet.
2. Hymn to Saint Mary
Saint Mary, beloved Blessed Virgin,
Mother of Jesus Christ the Nazarene,
Accept my hymn and help poor Godric—
Be my shield as heaven’s Queen,
Keep me honorably in God’s reach. 5
Saint Mary, beauty of Christ’s bower,
Mother and maiden, purest flower,
Erase my sins, rule my mind,
Bear me to bliss that I might find
Some share of God’s embracing power. 10
3. Hymn to Saint Nicholas
Saint Nicholas, God’s servant dear,
Build us a hall, shining and clear,
So when we travel from birth to death
And move beyond this earthly breath,
Saint Nicholas, you can lead us there. 5
THE GRAVE
The Grave was probably composed in the century after the Norman Conquest and is considered Old English by some and Middle English by others. It is an important link between OE poetic traditions and those of the fourteenth-century alliterative revival. Fulk and Cain note that it was “copied onto a blank leaf ca. 1200 in the important homily manuscript Oxford, Bodleian, Bodley 343” (139). Jones notes that “the final three verses [lines 34–38 in the translation] have been added by a later thirteenth-century hand” (36), and Siebert discusses possible sources for these lines. Ricciardi notes, “We have no record of [the manuscript] until 1603, when it was presented to Oxford University by Sir Robert Cotton—assuming the validity of Humphrey Wanley’s identification of it with Cotton’s ‘Sermones Anglici’ in folio” (4–5). In the poem, a narrator addresses a body in the grave somewhat in the manner of the soul in the OE Soul and Body poems. Conlee argues that the poem’s “general implications of memento mori (especially reminiscent of Job 17:11–16) and its use of specific themes and images found in the early Middle English death lyrics and Body and Soul poems associate The Grave with this important group of poems” (4). Woolf points out that the poem “plays with the conceit of the grave as a house, exploiting with ironic wit the discords that arise from this basic metaphor,” noting that “the oddity of the grave, thought of as a house, is stressed: the walls are disproportionately low, there are no doors, and the roof lies immediately above its inhabitant’s chest; and the older idea of the loneliness of the corpse is here expanded into the idea that no friends will call upon the dead to ask him how he likes his new home” (1968, 83). Short adds that the impact of the poem “results as much from the manipulations and embellishments of the rhetorical mode in which it is cast as from the grave-hus [grave-house] metaphor inherent in the poem” (299). For the OE text of the poem, see Short, Ricciardi, or Jones.
The Grave
This house was built before you were born;
This mold was made before your making.
This soil was shaped before your crawling
From your mother’s womb. Grave men
Come quietly now to take your measure 5
For the measureless ground. The earth’s embrace
Is dark and deep. It hems the heart
In a harrowing sleep. Take heed.
You dream to wake to the day of doom.
No breath remains in your spent body; 10
No spirit sings in your soulless flesh.
Your house has no rafters, no high halls;
It’s low and loathsome where you lie.
The sheltering walls slide down inside;
The roof-ridge runs too close to your breast. 15
The cold creeps into your windowless room.
The smell of flesh disturbs your sleep,
Your doorless dreaming underground.
You once were free. You found your fate
In a house that’s locked against the living. 20
Take heed—it’s Death who holds the key.
This teeming mulch has always been
Your appointed end. Can’t you see?
Your house is grim, a home for worms
Who are welcomed into a feast of flesh, 25
A screech of teeth inside your skin—
Your rotting flesh usher
s them in.
These are your only friends on earth.
No one else will visit you here.
No one wants to open your door 30
And share your dinner. It’s too late
To shed some light on your living.
Soon you will be loathsome to look at—
Your festering head will lose its hair.
No one will ever care to comb it again 35
Or run gentle fingers through its fine filigree.
It’s all rust and rot in the airless deep—
No one wants the company you keep.
HONINGTON CLIP
Hines reports that a small metal artifact, which might be a base silver clip, a pair of tweezers, a gripping instrument of some sort, or “what survives of an object used in liturgical ritual” (272), was found in 2011 in one of the neighboring parishes of Honington in Lincolnshire (its exact location remains a secret, and it was first reported as located in Barkston Parish). It was submitted to the British Museum for identification in 2012 and subsequently acquired by the museum called The Collection in Lincoln. Hines notes that the inscription on the clip “consists of a single row of runes along the outside of each of the arms” (259) and that the runes correspond roughly to the Benedicite canticle in lines 362 and 363b–364a of Daniel in the Junius Manuscript and lines 73 and 74b–75a of Azarias: The Suffering and Songs of the Three Youths in the Exeter Book (lines 365–67a and 76–78a in my translations). See Hines for more details on the discovery and the reading of the runes.
Honington Clip
Let us bless you, gracious Father …
And each of works. Heaven and angels …
INSTRUCTIONS FOR CHRISTIANS
This poem occurs at the end of the twelfth-century MS. I.i.I.33 in the Cambridge University Library. The title was given to the poem by Rosier, who edited it in 1964, noting that “the style of these verses owes nothing to the heroic tradition and is quite undistinguished as poetry” (1964a, 5). Youngs argues that although the poem appears to be “a rather disorganized list of maxims giving instructions for Christian living … the text contains an unusually tolerant and encouraging attitude (for an Anglo-Saxon text) towards the possession of the good things of this world … with a direct purpose: to encourage the giving of alms by a wealthy audience” (13). Hansen points out that the themes in the poem are similar to those found in other wisdom poems such as Precepts and the two Maxims poems. These include “the contrast between the fool and the wise man; admonitions to teach the young; warnings against laziness and sluggishness; foolish speech and pride; and statements about the limitations of human knowledge, the need for stoic endurance, and the value of wisdom and learning … [and] admonitions to tithing, prayer, penance, fasting, almsgiving, and meditation on death and the life hereafter” (109). The poem often alternates religious advice and admonition with gnomic utterances, some of them strangely convoluted and difficult to follow. At the end of the poem, Rosier notes that “there is a [prose] passage of alternating Old English and Latin in the same scribal hand,” which he prints not in the text but in a footnote (1964a, 22). Each of the two Latin prose passages is followed by a rough translation in Old English. My translation at the end of the poem begins with the Old English version and includes some shadings of meaning from the Latin as well.
Instructions for Christians
Give to your eternal God a tenth share
Of the goods you own, the property you possess,
And he will greatly increase the other nine.
There are four things that lead finally
To full happiness and eternal blessing— 5
Try not to miss them when you meet them.
The first is honest labor; the second, spoken prayer.
The third is learning the laws of life.
The fourth is the fasting that we must perform.
There are likewise four worldly means 10
That make it possible to depart from the devil
And be a loving servant of our blessed Lord.
The first is to weep and practice penitence
For all of our sins in words and works.
The second is to praise the Prince of heaven. 15
The third is to always seek eternal life.
The fourth is to be moderate in meat and drink.
Our worldly woes are nothing compared
To the rich rewards prepared for us
In the kingdom of God. So we endure for Christ 20
The wounds of this world, the pain and punishment,
The torments of time, then enter into eternity
To dwell forever in the house of the Lord.
A man must always adopt patience,
For that is surely the soul’s greatest strength. 25
Oh, wretched, miserable and mortal man,
Why can’t you remember death’s decay,
The relentless rotting of fallen flesh,
That once beautiful bone-house?
Do you not see mortality as a gift from God? 30
If all you want are earthly pleasures
And worldly wealth, then how are you different
From beasts of the field who know nothing?
All you can see here on earth is emptiness.
All you can hold is a fistful of shadows. 35
Everything you desire darkens and drifts
Like pale clouds or a pall of rain.
So cherish the reward that waits in heaven—
Its eternal radiance is greater than gold.
All the treasure you hoard will turn to dust, 40
And your reward will be hard before the Lord.
You should never delay in keeping your promise,
In paying your debt to the King of heaven,
For he is vexed with evil habits, aggravated with sin,
Righteous in his anger over a broken trust— 45
Nor should you fear or flinch from judgment.
A man should give alms for two good reasons:
It largely absolves one of shameful deeds
Or at least lightens his punishment and pain
On earth or in hell. Giving alms 50
May be rightfully repaid on Judgment Day,
When God’s grace may match your giving.
If we guard against sin in all of our works,
The almighty Prince will not punish us.
A man who seeks self-restraint after sinning 55
And practices abstinence, remaining chaste,
Will be like a good man right from the beginning,
Held clean and pure for the sake of Christ’s love.
The man who refuses to learn anything
Is loathsome to the Lord. He sins in his soul. 60
A man who yearns to learn something
And who loves wisdom is precious to the Lord,
Who offers him the priceless gift of understanding
With his heart and hands through the Holy Spirit.
A wise man knows that a concealed vice 65
And a hidden hoard are not entirely different.
Sometimes it is better for a fool to lock
His lack of wisdom in a guarded heart
Than it is for a wise man to hoard his learning.
Teach and mentor each day with God’s blessing, 70
While the Almighty sustains your strength of spirit,
The measure of your mind, lest you look back
In the end when you have lost your learning
And sorely regret both the time and talent
You might have used to the glory of God. 75
Teach your children and everyone around you
The right rules of virtuous living
By your own example, so you may earn
Great honor and eternal glory
When the world you live in passes on. 80
A man who loves learning and studies scripture
Will gain wisdom, instruct his students,
Educating
the learned and unlearned alike.
Holy wisdom humbles every earthly king.
Likewise it lifts up the poor man, 85
Clearing his mind and cleansing his soul.
It makes a man proud of his learning
And sometimes liberates an enslaved spirit.
The Lord must judge—a man must deliberate.
A wise man ponders in his daily prayers 90
What he will say to God when he stands in judgment.
Anyone who gives a gift and then takes it back
Leaves scorn behind and shame in his heart.
He often finds that he has no friends.
When a man gives up meat and drink, 95
The belly’s delights, God fills his breast
With spiritual sustenance. Fasting for the Lord
Leaves room in the heart for holy fare.
If you give nothing you cherish to a friend,
You will receive nothing of value in return. 100
The mass-priest is called a sacerdos by men
Because he is holy and gives purely to all.
He is chosen for this by the Lord of victories.
He must teach holy scripture and the sacred laws
At the clear command of the King of heaven. 105
A monk is meant for fellowship and community—
He is not allowed to own anything exclusively.
What God grants him he must share with the group.
Listen to the sayings passed down from David.
You must never think that the Lord will not listen 110
To each man’s prayer and save the penitent,
Even though that man owns worldly wealth,
A splendid treasure of silver and gold,
Along with land and prized possessions.
But it is also wise to remember the words 115
Of the apostle Paul, who taught all Christians
That wealthy men might prove too proud,
Be haughty in their hearts, and despise others.
An arrogant man who exalts himself
Is paltry and pathetic in the eyes of God. 120
His worth is worthless on the day of doom.
Listen, we know that in ancient Israel
Jacob and Moses were prosperous leaders,
Also Abraham and Isaac. And God gave David
The Complete Old English Poems Page 121
