it is begging the question to assert that they are all interpolations. On this point I entirely agree with Mr. Arnold. But although the poet was certainly a Christian, he as certainly had a deep sympathy with the heathen past; and he stands alone in Old English literature as the representative of a class, not uncommon in a later age among the Icelanders, but unknown, I think, among every other people on the face of the earth-men who, Christians themselves, and removed only a very few generations from idolatry, yet looked back with pride on their heathen forefathers, and for kinship's sake dealt tenderly with their erring faith. Of this class Snorri Sturluson is the best. example, who, in spite of his indisputable orthodoxy, could yet, in the prose Edda, tell with sympathetic humour the stories of the old gods, and in the Sagas of Olaf Tryggvason and St. Olaf touch with strange gentleness the heathenism which those monarchs so unsparingly and even cruelly rooted out. I ought, perhaps, to say a few words about the translation. It is as literal as I could make it, subject to the exigencies of metre and rhyme. Sometimes to clear up an ambiguous 'he' or him,' or to avoid the tiresome repetition, so common in Anglo-Saxon poetry, of a stereotyped form of words, in speaking of persons especially, I have substituted the proper name; but in spite of all my efforts, and I am very conscious of my shortcomings in this, as in other things, I cannot venture to hope that I have always, or often, succeeded in giving the sense of a difficult passage, or in making intelligible in the translation what in the original is dark and confused. There are many words and phrases which must necessarily seem strange at first to readers unacquainted with the old language-ringed-stem,' 'mead-bench,' 'ring-giver,' and the like; but their meaning is clear enough, and a full explanation of the ideas, manners, and customs which underlie these and similar phrases can easily be got elsewhere by those who wish it. The alliterated rhythmical lines of Anglo-Saxon poetry are, perhaps, more artificial than any modern form of English verse, and an attempt to reproduce them, unless done with the most consummate skill, would soon leave the ear at once wearied and unsatisfied. The common ballad measure has seemed to me on the whole the best fitted to give a close, but I hope a fairly readable, version of a work too little known to English readers. Although the original poem is divided into what may be called cantos, the divisions seem quite arbitrary, and are sometimes altogether inexplicable. I have, therefore, disregarded them, and have divided the translation so that each part shall contain, as nearly as possible, a separate adventure or stage in the development of the poem. The division into three parts, however, and their names, I owe to Mr. Arnold. I have used Grein's text, and have as a rule followed his guidance implicitly; but I cannot close this rough preface without recording the debt of gratitude which all Anglo-Saxon students owe to Mr. Arnold for his admirable edition of the poem, with its exhaustive Introduction and invaluable Glossary of Names; and I shall be well pleased if the foregoing pages serve only as a finger-post to a work where ample information on the subject will be found. |