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For his share of that gift of light, which then
Had long been his. But he perverted it,
Against Heaven's highest Lord he lifted war,
Against the Most High in His sanctuary.
Dear was he to our Lord, but was not hid
From Him that in his Angel pride arose.
He raised himself against his Maker, sought
Speech full of hate and bold presuming boast.
Refused God suit, said that his own form beamed
With radiance of light, shone bright of hue,
And in his mind he found not service due
To the Lord God, for to himself he seemed
In force and skill greater than all God's host.
Much spake the Angel of Presumption, thought
Through his own craft to make a stronger throne
Higher in Heaven. His mind urged him, he said,
That north and south he should begin to
work,

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Found buildings; said he questioned whether he

Would serve God. Wherefore, he said, shall I toil?

No need have I of master. I can work With my own hands great marvels, and have power

To build a throne more worthy of a God, Higher in heaven. Why shall I for His smile

Serve Him, bend to Him thus in vassalage? I may be God as He.

Stand by me, strong supporters firm in strife.

Hard-mooded heroes, famous warriors, 40 Have chosen me for chief; one may take

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Against his Lord, foolishly spake high words
Against the Supreme Father, he that deed
Must expiate, and in the work of strife
Receive his portion, take for punishment
Utmost perdition. So doth every man
Who sets himself in battle against God,
In sinful strife against the Lord Most High.
Then was the Mighty wroth, Heaven's highest Lord
Cast him from his high seat, for he had brought
His Master's hate on him. His favour lost,
The Good was angered against him, and he
Must therefore seek the depth of Hell's fierce pains,
Because he strove against Heaven's highest Lord;
Who shook him from His favour, cast him down
To the deep dales of Hell, where he became
Devil. The fiend with all his comrades fell
From Heaven, angels, for three nights and days,
From Heaven to Hell, where the Lord changed them all
To Devils, because they His Deed and Word
Refused to worship. Therefore in worse light

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Of Angel's pride deceived them, who refused
To worship the Almighty Word. Their pain
Was great, then were they fallen to the depth
Of fire in the hot hell for their loose thought
And pride unmeasured, sought another land
That was without light and was full of flame,1
Terror immense of fire. Then the fiends felt
That they unnumbered pains had in return,
Through might of God, for their great violence,
But most for pride. Then spoke the haughty king,
Once brightest among Angels, in the heavens
Whitest, and to his Master dear beloved
Of God until they lightly went astray,
And for that madness the Almighty God

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1" Yet from those flames No light, but rather darkness visible, Served only to discover sights of woe."

("Paradise Lost," i. 62-64.)

And these grim depths. Then may we for ourselves

Have them in this strong durance, sons of men,

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Was wroth with him and into ruin cast

Him down to his new bed, and shaped him then
A name, said that the highest should be called
Satan thenceforth, and o'er Hell's swart abyss
Bade him have rule and avoid strife with God.
Satan discoursed, he who henceforth ruled Hell
Spake sorrowing.

God's Angel erst, he had shone white in Heaven,
Till his soul urged, and most of all its Pride,
That of the Lord of Hosts he should no more
Bend to the Word. About his heart his soul
Tumultuously heaved, hot pains of wrath
Without him.

Then said he, "Most unlike this narrow place

To that which once we knew, high in Heaven's realm,
Which my Lord gave me, though therein no more
For the Almighty we hold royalties.

Yet right hath He not done in striking us

Down to the fiery bottom of hot Hell,

Banished from Heaven's kingdom, with decree
That He will set in it the race of Man.
Worst of my sorrows this, that, wrought of Earth,
Adam shall sit in bliss on my strong throne,
Whilst we these pangs endure, this grief in Hell.
Woe! Woe! had I the power of my hands,
And for a season, for one winter's space,
Might be without; then with this Host I-
But iron binds me round; this coil of chains
Rides me; I rule no more; close bonds of Hell
Hem me their prisoner. Above, below,
Here is vast fire, and never have I seen
More loathly landscape; never fade the flames,

Hot over Hell. Rings clasp me, smooth hard bands
Mar motion, stay my wandering, feet bound,
Hands fastened, and the ways of these Hell gates
Accurst so that I cannot free my limbs;
Great lattice bars, hard iron hammered hot,

Lie round me, wherewith God hath bound me down

Fast by the neck. So know I that He knew

My mind, and that the Lord of Hosts perceived
That if between us two by Adam came
Evil towards that royalty of Heaven,

I having power of my hands—

But now we suffer throes in Hell, gloom, heat,
Grim, bottomless; us God Himself hath swept
Into these mists of darkness, wherefore sin
Can He not lay against us that we planned
Evil against Him in the land. Of light
He hath shorn us, cast us into utmost pain.
May we not then plan vengeance, pay Him back
With any hurt, since shorn by Him of light.
Now He hath set the bounds of a mid earth
Where after His own image He hath wrought
Man, by whom He will people once again
Heaven's kingdom with pure souls. Therefore intent
Must be our thought that, if we ever may,

On Adam and his offspring we may wreak

Revenge, and, if we can devise a way,
Pervert his will. I trust no more the light
Which he thinks long to enjoy with angel power.
Bliss we obtain no more, nor can attain
To weaken God's strong will; but let us now
Turn from the race of Man that heavenly realm
Which may no more be ours, contrive that they
Forfeit His favour, undo what His Word
Ordained: then wroth of mind He from His grace
Will cast them, then shall they too seek this Hell

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For servants. Of the warfare let us now
Begin to take thought. If of old I gave

To any thane, while we in that good realm
Sat happy and had power of our thrones,
Gifts of a Prince, then at no dearer time
Could he reward my gift if any now
Among my followers would be my friend,

That he might pass forth upward from these bounds,
Had power with him that, winged, he might fly,
Borne on the clouds, to where stand Adam and Eve
Wrought on Earth's kingdom, girt with happiness,
While we are cast down into this deep dale.
Now these are worthier to the Lord, may own
The blessing rightly ours in Heaven's realm,
This the design apportioned to mankind.
Sore is my mind and rue is in my thought
That ever henceforth they should possess Heaven;
If ever any of you in any way

May turn them from the teaching of God's Word
They shall be evil to Him, and if they
Break His commandment, then will He be wroth
Against them, then will be withdrawn from them
Their happiness, and punishment prepared,
Some grievous share of harm. Think all of this,
How to deceive them. In these fetters then

I can take rest, if they that kingdom lose.
He who shall do this hath prompt recompense
Henceforth for ever of what may be won

Of gain within these fires. I let him sit
Beside myself"

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Then God's antagonist arrayed himself

Swift in rich arms. He had a guileful mind.

The hero set the helmet on his head

And bound it fast, fixed it with clasps. He knew
Many a speech deceitful, turned him thence,
Hardy of mind, departed through Hell's doors,
Striking the flames in two with a fiend's power; 1
Would secretly deceive with wicked deed
Men, the Lord's subjects, that misled, forlorn,

To God they became evil. So he fared,

Through his fiend's power, till on Earth he found
Adam, God's handiwork, with him his wife,
The fairest woman.

Having followed the narrative in the Book of Genesis until it enabled him to dwell with all his power upon the history of Abraham as a great lesson of faith in God, Cadmon proceeded with the Book of Exodus, for the sake of dwelling on the passage of the Red Sea as a lesson of faith in the God who can lead His people through deep waters. Then he passed to the Book of Daniel, for the sake of adding a lesson of faith in the God who can lead his people unhurt through the burning fiery furnace

"In the hot oven all the pious three.
One was in sight with them, an angel sent

1 - -"On each hand the flames, Driven backward, slope their pointing spires, and, roll'd In billows, leave in the midst a horrid vale."

("Paradise Lost," i. 222-224.)

From the Almighty. Therein they unhurt
Walked as in shining of the summer sun
When day breaks and the winds disperse the dew."

This part of the poem ends with Belshazzar's Feast. The rest of the MS., added in another handwriting, is founded on New Testament story, and has for its theme Christ and Satan. It tells partly what was known as the Harrowing of Hell from the apocryphal Gospel of Nicodemus, and partly the Temptation in the Wilderness. As Cædmon's Paraphrase was produced during the rule of Abbess Hilda in the Whitby monastery, its date is probably between the years 670 and 680.1

Before the death of Cadmon, Aldhelm, another poet, had begun his work. He was well born, and entered young into a monastery founded by a poor Scot named Meildulf, obtained a grant of the place in the year 672, and gave his wealth and energy to its development, till Meildulf's settlement, Meildulfesburh (Malmesbury) became one of the chief religious centres of its time. In 705 Aldhelm was made the first bishop of Sherborne, and he died in 709. In that Benedictine house of Malmesbury there lived in the earlier half of the twelfth century (he died probably in 1142) a monk named William, whose History of the Kings of England gave him, for genius as a historian, the first place among old

1 The whole of that part of Cadmon which relates the Creation and the Fall of Man was translated into rhymed heroic couplets by Mr. W. H. F. Bosanquet as "The Fall of Man, or Paradise Lost of Cadmon," and published in 1860, joined to a theory that Caedmon wrote ten-syllabled iambic lines with an occasional unaccented eleventh syllable, and that the English heroic line was of Cædmon's invention. This is not a true theory, though it is true that the rhythm of the First-English alliterative verse, set in cadences for chanting to the thrum of a stringed instrument, often accorded with that of our own modern heroic measure; and I think it is most fairly represented in translation when that and kindred measures, which fall smoothly on the English ear, underlie the music of its short accented and alliterated lines. A full and excellent account of Cædmon and his works was published in 1875 by Mr. Robert Spence Watson, in a little book entitled "Cædmon, the First English Poet,' which can be most heartily recommended to the reader. It is not unworthy of note that in the same year 1875 the story of Cædmon was made into a graceful little book of verse by a lady, as "A Dream and the Song of Cædmon. (A Legend of Whitby.) By J. M. J." The old poem itself was edited for the Antiquarian Society in 1832 by Mr. Benjamin Thorpe, with a literal English translation, and the same society published a valuable series of fac-similes of the pictures illustrating the one extant MS. of it in the Bodleian. K. W. Bouterwek published in 1849 a carefully edited text of Cadmon; followed in 1851 by an ample glossary to the poem, in which Latin is used for giving the meanings of words, and German for any comment upon them. Cædmon is of course included in Dr. C. W. M. Grein's "Bibliothek der Angelsächsischen Poesie in kritisch bearbeiteten Texten und mit vollständigen Glossar," published at Göttingen in 1857, 1858, 1861, and 1864. This work contains the whole body of First-English poetry, and its glossary serves as a full and critical concordance to it. It is a book that the more advanced student of First English cannot do without. A beginning of the study of First English might easily be made in schools with the help of a book written for the purpose, an “ Anglo-Saxon Delectus," by the Rev. W. Barnes. This includes elements of grammar, graduated readings, and sufficient glossary. Or use might at once be made of "A Grammar of the Anglo-Saxon Tongue, from the Danish of Erasmus Rask, by Benjamin Thorpe," which in its second and cheaper edition has become a most convenient book for school and college use. In the mere study of English grammar there can be no thoroughness until its development is taught, as it can be taught most simply and easily, by beginning at the beginning. This is not adding to, but lessening the trouble given to a boy or girl who seeks to work with understanding.

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WILLIAM OF MALMESBURY'S ACCOUNT OF ALDHELM.

This circumstance I have thought proper to mention, because Beda has left no account of the duration of his episcopate, and to disguise a fact which I learn from the Chronicles would be against my conscience; besides, it affords an opportunity which ought to be embraced, of making mention of a distinguished man, who by a clear and divinely inspired mind advanced the monastery of Malmesbury, where I carry on my earthly warfare, to the highest pitch. This monastery was so slenderly endowed by Meildulf-a Scot, as they say, by nation, a philosopher by erudition, a monk by profession-that its members could scarcely procure their daily subsistence; but Leutherius, after long and due deliberation, gave it to Aldhelm, a monk of the same place, to be by him governed with the authority then possessed by bishops. Of which matter, that my relation may obviate every doubt, I shall subjoin his own words.

"I, Leutherius, by divine permission bishop supreme of the Saxon see, am requested by the abbots who, within the jurisdiction of our diocese, preside over the conventual assemblies of monks with pastoral anxiety, to give and to grant that portion of land called Meildulfesburh to Aldhelm the priest, for the purpose of leading a life according to strict rule in which place, indeed, from his earliest infancy and first initiation in the study of learning, he has been instructed in the liberal arts, and passed his days, nurtured in the bosom of the holy mother church; and on which account fraternal love appears principally to have conceived this request: wherefore assenting to the petition of the aforesaid abbots, I willingly grant that place to him and his successors, who shall sedulously follow the laws of the holy institution. Done publicly near the river Bladon, this seventh of the kalends of September, in the year of our Lord's incarnation six hundred and seventy-two."

But when the industry of the abbot was superadded to the kindness of the bishop, then the affairs of the monastery began to flourish exceedingly; then monks assembled on all sides; there was a general concourse to Aldhelm; some admiring the sanctity of his life, others the depth of his learning. For he was a man as unsophisticated in religion as multifarious in knowledge; whose piety surpassed even his reputation; and he had so fully imbibed the liberal arts, that he was wonderful in each of them, and unrivalled in all. I greatly err, if his works written on the subject of Virginity, than which, in my opinion, nothing can be more pleasing or more splendid, are not proofs of his immortal genius; although, such is the slothfulness of our times, they may excite disgust in some persons, not duly considering how modes of expression differ according to the customs of nations. The Greeks, for instance, express themselves involvedly, the Romans clearly, the Gauls gorgeously, the Angles turgidly. And truly, as it is pleasant to dwell on the graces of our ancestors and to animate our minds by their example, I would here, most willingly, unfold what painful labours this holy man encountered for the privileges of our church, and with what miracles he signalised his life, did not my avocations lead me elsewhere; and his noble acts appear clearer even to the eye of the purblind, than they can possibly be sketched by my pencil. The innumerable miracles which at this time take place at his tomb, manifest

to the present race the sanctity of the life he passed. He has therefore his proper praise; he has the fame acquired by his merits: my history pursues its course.

William of Malmesbury wrote a life of Aldhelm, in which he says that he was unequalled as an inventor and singer of English verse, and that a song ascribed to him, which was still familiar among the people in King Alfred's days, had been sung by him on the bridge between Malmesbury and the country, to prevent people from running away after mass was sung without waiting to hear the sermon. He began the song as a gleeman, with matter to which they listened for their pleasure, gradually blended words of Scripture with his jesting, and "so brought health to their minds when he could have done nothing if he had thought to manage them severely and by excommunication." It is not improbable that among extant First-English poems are some of Aldhelm's pieces, but there is no piece known to be his. His Latin works remain, including the books in praise of virginity, to which William of Malmesbury referred. One is in prose, and after a long introduction in praise of purity proceeds to celebrate some holy men and many holy women who were distinguished for their exaltation of the soul over the flesh. In his poem, "De Laudibus Virginitatis," there is a shorter introduction, and it consists of a series of little celebrations, many of course honouring saints who had already been celebrated in his prose. Aldhelm's poem, "Of Maidens' Praise," begins thus with—

AN INVOCATION.1

Almighty Maker, Master of the World,

Who shap'st the starry Heaven's shining dome,
And formest Earth's foundations by thy Word;
Paint'st the pale meadows with their purple bloom,
Rein'st the blue waters of the wave-rolled plain
Lest they have force to flood the dry land's bound
Where checks of cliff shatter the rising main;
Thine the firm grasp of frost on tilth of ground,
Thou mak'st increase the seed in mists of rain;
Thou takest away darkness with twin lights,
Titan day's comrade, Cynthia the night's;
Thou hast adorned the waters and made fair
The scaly squadrons of the gray abyss;
Through Thee swift hosts that soar in the clear air
Chirp and to echoes pipe resounding bliss,

1 These are the lines themselves:

"Omnipotens genitor, mundum ditione gubernans,
Lucida stelligeri qui condis culmina coli,
Nec non telluris formas fundamina verbo;
Pallida purpureo pingis qui flore vireta,
Sic quoque fluctivagi refrenas cœrula ponti,
Mergere ne valent terrarum littora lymphis,
Sed tumidos frangant fluctus obstacula rupis
Arvorum gelido qui cultus fonte rigabis,
Et segetum glumas nimbosis imbribus anges;
Qui latebras mundi geminato sidere demis,
Nempe diem Titan, et noctem Cynthia comit;
Piscibus æquoreos qui campos pinguibus ornas,
Squamigeras formans in glauco gurgite turmas;
Limpida præpetibus sic comples æra catervis,
Garrula quæ rostris resonantes cantica pipant,
Atque Creatorem diversa voce fatentur:

Da pius auxilium, clemens, ut carmine possim,
Inclyta sanctorum modulari gesta priorum."

In differing notes their many voices raise
Ever one song to their Creator's praise:
Help me Thou, Merciful, my song to bring,
That I the famous deeds of saints of old may sing.

The central line of religious thought in the old First-English times, traceable from Cædmon to Aldhelm, whose work was commenced in Cadmon's lifetime, passes on from Aldhelm to Bede, who began his work in Aldhelm's lifetime, and was thirty-six years old when Aldhelm died. Bede was born in, or within a few months of, the year 673, about the time when Cædmon's Paraphrase was written. When he was a child, Benedict Biscop founded the twin monasteries of St. Peter and St. Paul at Wearmouth and Jarrow. St. Peter's at Wearmouth was first ready, and Bede entered it when he was seven years old. St. Paul's, on a bank of the Tyne about five miles from St. Peter's, was ready for opening when Bede was ten, and he was one of those inmates of St. Peter's who were removed to it. From the age of ten for the next fifty-two years, until his death in the year 735, Bede's home was in the Jarrow monastery, humbly fulfilling all his duties as a monk, and giving to useful studies all the time that was not spent in the exercises of religion. He compiled clear Latin treatises upon all branches of knowledge cultivated in his day, and digested into manuals the essence of the Scripture teaching of the Fathers. His labour supplied the best text-books for the monastery schools, which were the centres of education in all parts of the country, and the readiest aids for elder men to an exact study of the Bible. A book of his on the Nature of Things was for centuries the accepted manual for the learning of what was then known of the laws of nature; and his Ecclesiastical History, which ends with the year 731, is our first history of England. In it all information then to be obtained was collected and arranged with scholarly care and clearness, and this book is in our own day the chief source of information as to the events of which it treats. The chapter of it in which Cadmon's story is told has been already quoted. Bede's fame spread in his own day over the Christian world, yet he refused to be made abbot at Jarrow, because, he said, "the office demands household care, and household care brings with it distraction of mind, which hinders the pursuit of learning." At the end of his Ecclesiastical History of England, which he was finishing in the year 731, he wrote:

Thus much of the ecclesiastical history of Britain, and more especially of the English nation, as far as I could learn either from the writings of the ancients, or the tradition of our ancestors, or of my own knowledge, has, with the help of God, been digested by me, Bede, the servant of God, and priest of the monastery of the blessed apostles, Peter and Paul, which is at Wearmouth and Jarrow; who being born in the territory of that same monastery, was given, at seven years of age, to be educated by the most reverend Abbot Benedict, and afterwards by Ceolfrid; and spending all the remaining time of my life in that monastery, I wholly applied myself to the study of Scripture, and amidst the observance of

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regular discipline, and the daily care of singing in the church, I always took delight in learning, teaching, and writing. In the nineteenth year of my age, I received deacon's orders, in the thirtieth, those of the priesthood, both of them by the ministry of the most reverend Bishop John, and by order of the Abbot Ceolfrid. From which time, till the fifty-ninth year of my age, I have made it my business, for the use of me and mine, to compile out of the works of the venerable Fathers, and to interpret and explain according to their meaning, these following pieces :—

The list of his works follows, to which he adds

And now, I beseech thee, good Jesus, that to whom thou hast graciously granted sweetly to partake of the words of thy wisdom and knowledge, thou wilt also vouchsafe that he may some time or other come to thee, the fountain of all wisdom, and always appear before thy face, who livest and reignest world without end. Amen!

Tradition explained the word "Venerable" joined always to the name of Bede, by saying that after his death one of his pupils sought to write his epitaph in a line of metrical Latin, and left space for the adjective he had not yet found to fit his verse while it expressed his meaning. "In this grave are the

bones of Bede." "Hac sunt in fossa Bedæ ossa." The student slept over his unfinished line, and when he awoke, found that an angel had finished his verse with a word added in lines of light-"Hac sunt in fossa Bedæ VENERABILIS

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CUTHBERT'S LETTER ON THE DEATH OF VENERABLE BEDE.

To his fellow-reader Cuthwin, beloved in Christ, Cuthbert, his schoolfellow; health for ever in the Lord. I have received with much pleasure the small present which you sent me, and with much satisfaction read the letters of your devout erudition; wherein I found that masses and holy prayers are diligently celebrated by you for our father and master, Bede, whom God loved this was what I principally desired, and therefore it is more pleasing, for the love of him (according to my capacity), in a few words to relate in what manner he departed this world, understanding that you also desire and ask the same. He was much troubled with shortness of breath, yet without pain, before the day of our Lord's resurrection, that is, about a fortnight, and thus he afterwards passed his life, cheerful and rejoicing, giving thanks to Almighty God every day and night, nay, every hour, till the day of our Lord's ascension, that is, the seventh before the kalends of June [twenty-sixth of May], and daily read lessons to us his disciples, and whatever remained of the day, he spent in singing psalms; he also passed all the night awake, in joy and thanksgiving, unless a short sleep prevented it; in which case he no sooner awoke than he presently repeated his wonted exercises, and ceased not to give thanks to God with uplifted hands. I declare with truth, that I have never seen with my eyes, nor heard with my ears, any man so earnest in giving thanks to the living God.

1 "In this grave are the bones of the Venerable Bede."

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"For the journey we must all take no man becomes wiser of thought than he needs be to consider before his going hence for what good or evil his soul shall be judged after its departure."

He also sang antiphons according to our custom and his. own, one of which is, "O glorious King, Lord of all power, who, triumphing this day, didst ascend above all the heavens; do not forsake us orphans; but send down upon us the Spirit of truth which was promised to us by the Father. Hallelujah." And when he came to that word," do not forsake us," he burst into tears, and wept much, and an hour after he began to repeat what he had commenced, and we, hearing it, mourned with him. By turns we read, and by turns we wept, nay, we wept always whilst we read. In such joy we passed the days of Lent, till the aforesaid day; and he rejoiced much, and gave God thanks, because he had been thought worthy to be so weakened. He often repeated, "That God scourgeth every son whom he receiveth;" and much more out of Holy Scripture; as also this sentence from St. Ambrose, "I have not lived so as to be ashamed to live among you; nor do I fear to die, because we have a gracious God." During these days he laboured to compose two works well worthy to be remembered, besides the lessons we had from him, and singing of Psalms; viz., he translated the Gospel of St. John as far as the words, "But what are they among so many," &c. [St. John vi. 9], into our own tongue for the benefit of the church; and some collections out of the Book of Notes of Bishop Isidorus, saying: "I will not have my pupils read a falsehood, nor labour therein without profit after my death." When the Tuesday before the ascension of our Lord came, he began to suffer still more in his breath, and a small swelling appeared in his feet; but he passed all that day and dictated cheerfully, and now and then among other things, said, "Go on quickly, I know not how long I shall hold out, and whether my Maker will not soon take me away." But to us he seemed very well to know the time of his departure. And so he spent the night, awake, in thanksgiving; and when the morning appeared, that is, Wednesday, he ordered us to write with all speed what he had begun ; and this done, we walked till the third hour with the relics of saints, according to the custom of that day. There was one of us with him, who said to him, "Most dear master, there is still one chapter wanting: do you think it troublesome to be asked any more questions ?" He answered, "It is no trouble. Take your pen, and make ready, and write fast." Which he did, but at the ninth hour he said to me, "I have some little articles of value in my chest, such as pepper, napkins, and incense: run quickly, and bring the priests of our monastery to me, that I may distribute among them the gifts which God has bestowed on me. The rich in this world are bent on giving gold and silver and other precious things. But I, in charity, will joyfully give my brothers what God has given unto me." He spoke to every one of them, admonishing and entreating them that they would carefully say

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