THE HISTORY OF THE ANGLO-SAX ON S. воок XII. Their Poetry, Literature, Arts, and Sciences. CHAP. I. Their Native or Vernacular Poetry. OETRY has been always classed among the most inte- CHAP. resting productions of the human mind; and few topics of human research are more curious than the history of this elegant art, from its rude beginning to that degree of excellence to which it has long been raised by our ingenious countrymen. In no country can the progress of the poetical genius and taste be more satisfactorily traced than in our own. During that period which it is the office of this work to commemorate, it existed in a rude and barbaric state. It could, indeed, have been scarcely more uncultivated, to have been at all discernible. Towards the close of the Anglo-Saxon æra it began. to lay aside its homely dress and coarser features, and to be preparing to assume the style, the measures, and the subjects, I.. BOOK which in a future age were so happily displayed as to deserve the notice of the latest posterity. XII. Their Native Their poems The poetry of the Anglo-Saxons was of two sorts; the which they composed in their own tongue, and the poems which they wrote in Latin. These two kinds of poetry were completely distinct from each other-distinct in origin, distinct in style. The characteristics of the Anglo-Saxon native poetry seem to be these: it consists chiefly of periphrasis, and metaphors expressed in a metrical but simple arrangement of words, with some alliteration. The usual particles are most frequently omitted; and the intended meaning is conveyed in short and contracted phrase, multiplied by the periphrasis and metaphor. The position of the words is forced out of their natural arrangement by a wilful inversion, and the regular course of the subject is frequently interrupted by violent and abrupt transitions. By these peculiarities, which seem to be quite artificial, the Saxon poetry is distinguished from prose. The most ancient piece of Anglo-Saxon poetry which we possess is that fragment of the song of the ancient Cadmon which Alfred has inserted in his translation of Bede. Cædmon was a monk who accustomed himself to religious poetry, which he began late in life. He died in 680. The fragment, which has descended to us, he made on waking in a stall of oxen which he was appointed to guard during the night :* Now we should praise The Guardian of the heavenly kingdom; The mighty Creator, And the thoughts of his mind, Glorious Father of his works! Eternal Lord! Established the beginning; Nu we sceolan herigean Heafon rices weard; Weorc wuldor fæder! Swa he wuldres gehwæs Ece drihten ! Ord onstealde; 'Bede, iv. 24. In these eighteen lines the periphrasis is peculiarly evident. The Guardian of the heavenly kingdom; The mighty Creator Glorious Father of his works! Eternal Lord! Holy Creator! The Guardian of Mankind, The Eternal Lord Almighty Ruler! Three more of the lines are used for the periphrasis of the first making the world: he established the beginning; he first shaped he afterwards made Three more lines are employed to express the earth as often by a periphrasis: The earth for the children of men The middle region The ground for men So that of eighteen lines, the periphrasis occupies fourteen, and in so many lines only conveys three ideas; and all that 3 CHAP. · I. BOOK Their Their Omis the eighteen lines express is simply the first verse of the book of Genesis, "In the beginning God created the heavens and "the earth." No Saxon poem can be inspected without the periphrasis being found to be the leading characteristic. The elegant Menology in the Cotton Library displays it in its very beginning: Crist was acennyd On midne winter: Mære theoden! Ece ælmihtig! On thy eahteothan dæg Heofon rices weard. Christ was born he was called the Saviour, As all the specimens of their native poetry which will be adduced in this chapter will be found to abound with periphrastical amplifications, it will be unnecessary to introduce more instances here. Their periphrasis is always mingled with metaphors; and as these will be found very frequent in the subsequent citations, they need not be particularized. One striking instance will suffice, which we will take from Cedmon's periphrasis and metaphors to express the ark; he calls it successively, the ship, the sea-house, the greatest of watery chambers, the ark, the great sea-house, the high mansion, the holy wood, the house, the great sea-chest, the greatest of treasure-houses, the vehicle, the mansion, the house of the deep, the palace of the ocean, the cave, the wooden fortress, the floor of the waves, the receptacle of Noah, the moving roof, the feasting-house, the bosom of the vessel, the nailed building, the ark of Noah, the vehicle of the ark, the happiest mansion, the building of the waves, the foaming ship, the happy receptacle. Another prevailing feature of the Anglo-Saxon poetry was sion of Par- the omission of the little particles of speech, those abbrevia ticles. |