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NOTE 9, p. 19.

Earendel.-Gollancz's note on this word is as follows: "It is difficult to translate the word adequately; some bright star is evidently meant, probably the same as Orvandels-tà, 'Orwendel's toe,' mentioned in the Edda.' . . . 'Earendel' does not occur elsewhere in A. S. poetry as a poetical designation of Christ; the word is interpreted in the Epinal Glossary by 'jubar.'" Professor Cook ("Christ," p. 89, note 104) says: "The first impulse is to translate the word by 'dawn,' partly because in the form 'Earendel,' it glosses aurora in the two hymns, 'Splendor paternæ gloriæ' and 'Aurora jam spargit polum.'

Finally one might argue in favour of 'dawn' from 'the Dayspring' of Luke i. 78, a word which, first used in this place by Tyndale, has been retained even in the R.V." I think, however, it is plain from Cynewulf's epithet, “Thou of thy very self dost constantly enlighten every season," that "Earendel" in his idea connotes "the sun "" as a poetical designation of Christ. I have somewhere seen the conjecture that "Earendel" was the traditional mythical name of "the Star of Bethlehem."

NOTE 10, p. 20.

It is not possible, of course, to mark out with absolute precision the chronology of a moral ideal. But there can be little question, I think, that in the history of European civilisation the change of sentiment with regard to the position of woman, and consequently of the ideal of womanhood, synchronises with the change from Pagan to Christian influences, although perhaps it might be difficult to say whether Christianity instituted the change of ideal, or constituted itself the representative of the change. Certainly in the women of Cynewulf's poems-typically in his "Juliana"-the special quality of race cannot be forgotten. Just as the Teutonic racial element is responsible, no doubt, for much of the sombre Puritan aspect of the Anglo

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Saxon Christian's faith, and especially his lurid conception of the future of the unfaithful, so the same element affected the Early English conception of womanhood. The women of Cynewulf are noble women, sweet and winsome, clothed in a tender light-he always, indeed, speaks of women preferably in terms of light: "My sweetest sunshine!" "Light of mine eyes," "What radiant beauty hast thou!"—and yet almost always represented also as of a character strenuous and firm, with a resoluteness, purpose, and will carried almost to grimness. It is an ideal, one is glad to think, that has persisted long in the hearts of Cynewulf's countrymen. Witness Wordsworth's lines:

It is an

"The reason firm, the temperate will,
Endurance, foresight, strength, and skill :
A perfect woman, nobly planned

To warn, to comfort, and command.”

In this connection the following passage from Mr. Stopford Brooke's "Early English Literature," vol. i. pp. 274–5, may be quoted: "The saintly women, who in the days of martyrdom kept their chastity against the tyranny of men and the threats of the Demon, like Juliana whom Cynewulf sang, passed, like the ancient goddesses who brought peace and protection to the faithful wife of the good spinner, from land to land, and became dear to every household. When the shepherd Eoves, in Bishop Ecgwine's legend, told that he saw in a forest glade fair women singing a magic song, and thought them perhaps heathen haunters of the forest land, the Bishop saw in them a vision of the Virgin Mother and angels, and in the spot where they had sung rose the abbey of Evesham. It was no longer Choosers of the Slaughter or Elf-women that rode in the air or shot deadly spears, but figures of excelling beauty, clothed in light, singing softly, took their place-the Angels of God whom Caedmon exalts, and Cynewulf is unwearied in praising, who brighten the pages of Bæda from legend to legend, whose songs are not of war but of spiritual peace, and who receive the

warriors of Christ into the heavenly Hall and to the heavenly Banquet. The relations of women to men, which we have seen honoured in "Beowulf," and which played so large a part in English policy and war while England was yet heathen, received a fresh dignity in Christianity; and this new source of emotion produced many a poetic story. It increased the material of literature. The double monasteries, which afterwards became the cause of scandal, were, while they kept their first purity, the cause of tender and beautiful friendships between grave men and holy women. The relations of Hild and Aidan, of Cuthbert and Ælflæda, of Cuthbert and Verca, of Ealdhelm and the virgins whose praise he wrote and to whom his letters are so gay, of Boniface and the nuns who wrote to him so lovingly, were charming, full of grace and poetry, though, when the men were not Cuthbert and Aidan, similar relationships soon degenerated. The great abbesses were great folk in Northumbria. Heiu, who founded Hartlepool, was noble; so was Verca of Tynemouth. Hild, whom we know, and Ebba, whose monastery of Coldingham, seated on its lofty cape, rivalled its sister of Whitby; Ætheldreda who, amidst the rushy fens, founded Ely on its emerald isle; Ælflæda, as patriotic as religious, who finally brought peace to Wilfrid-were all princesses, powers in the state, with whom kings and bishops had to count, whose advice was taken in great movements, and whose lives, and all the legends which the emotion of the people for noble womanhood collected round them, became for centuries the material for ballad and song; but more especially for that silent literature which is, as it were, the background of the literature which is written-the popular emotion, the feelings of the mother and father and child in hamlet and town, the memories and prayers in times of distress and joy, which come together, like doves to their dwelling, to the names of the women who have consoled or exalted the world."

NOTE 11, p. 20.

"As the source of Part I. is found in the Breviary, so also is the principal source of Part II. the Ascension Sermon of Pope Gregory the Great. The fact that Gregory was the Father of English Christianity, or at least of Roman Christianity in England, together with the circumstance that to him was attributed the constitution of the liturgy, the compilation of the musical service books employed by the Church, and the instruction of the school for chanters from which England had received its training in sacred song, imparts a singular interest to this poetic amplification of one of his most eloquent homilies" (Cook's "Christ," p. xliii.). Ozanam is tempted to call him the last of the Romans. If this be true, he in whom ancient Rome died was he in whom the civilisation of England began to live.

Gregory's Homily on the Ascension is 29 of his Homilies on the Gospels (Migne 76, 1218-9), extracts from which in the Breviary formed the Lessons at Nocturns in the Octave of the Ascension.

Another important source of this Part II. of Cynewulf is the spirited Ascension Hymn ascribed to the Venerable Bede, Hymnum canamus gloria. This hymn, which consists of 128 lines, is printed in full by Giles in his "Miscellaneous Works of Venerable Bede," i. 83-86; and in part by the Surtees Society in their "Latin Hymns of the Anglo-Saxon Church," from an eleventh century MS. at Durham.

NOTE 12, p. 22.

Athanasius, de Incarnatione, 54, “Avtòs Évηvůρáπ noev, iva nμeis Оεожоnowμev." Compare also Gregory, Orat. xlii. 17, ἡμεῖς θεοποιηθῶμεν.” "How should He not be God, to insert in passing a bold deduction, by whom thou also dost become God." But although it should be noticed that this deification, as understood by the

Greek Church, did not by any means merely signify "becoming like God"-it is the ineffable, the transcendent, which is described as Oela vois, because it is enjoyed for ever-yet the interval between Christ, who was born and did not become Son of God, and the sons of adoption, is always very strongly emphasised by the Greek Fathers.

NOTE 13, p. 22.

Commenting on the lines 558-585, which describe an episode called the "Harrowing of Hell," an event which strictly should follow a record of the Resurrection, not of the Ascension, Professor Cook rightly, I think, points out that Bede's Hymn, mentioned above, is a sufficient illustration of the fact that strict chronological order need not be expected in lyricodramatic writing. Nevertheless, Mr. Stopford Brooke's interpretation of the passage, though I think mistaken, is interesting. He considers the whole passage a fragment of another poem by Cynewulf, clumsily interpolated at this point when he was refitting the several parts of "The Christ" written separately as a whole, and taking no particular pains to fit it properly into its place. "The episode," he says, "is really a choric hymn, supposed to be sung by the host of angels who come forth from the gates of Heaven on the day of the Resurrection to meet and welcome the Old Testament saints, as, rising from Hades, they mount the sky with Christ. The scene is laid in mid space. The angels from Heaven have met the ascending bands, and when Cynewulf sees this mighty meeting in his vision, the warrior awakens in him, and the speech the angelic leader makes to his followers is such as a heathen chief might have made to his Lord returning from war with the spoils of victory.” (E. E. L., ii. 227.)

NOTE 14, p. 23.

It is interesting to compare Cynewulf's rendering of Psalm xxiv. 7, which was sung as an antiphon at the Second Nocturne

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