of Easter Eve, with this stanza from Giles Fletcher, "Christ's Victory and Triumph ": "Toss up your heads, ye everlasting gates, And let the Prince of Glory enter in ! At whose brave volley of sidereal states The sun to blush, and stars grow pale, were seen, When leaping first from earth He did begin To climb His angels' wings; then open hang Your crystal doors,' so all the chorus sang Of heavenly birds, as to the stars they nimbly sprang." NOTE 15, p. 23. Following upon these lines, there intervenes a passage, 658-684, upon "The Gifts of Men," a theme which is a common motive of early poetry-we shall see it repeated in Langlands' "Piers Plowman"-but, as interpreted by Cynewulf, of finer poetic quality than is shown elsewhere. It may have come to him from the similar thought in the Thirteenth Book of Homer's "Iliad," 726-734, or more likely from Pope Gregory's Homily on the "Gifts of the Spirit," in 1 Corinthians xii. 8. The passage I may render as follows: "Lo! the world shaper, God's spirit-son, There to ennoble us, Gave to us grace, Sowed there and set there Lore for men's minds: One He gave eloquence, Through the mind's memory Wisdom right noble ; One can with fingers deft Wake the shrill harp-strings, One can the star's wide course When the sharp spear shower, Drive the black war ships Swift through the surges : One can the lofty trees Climb to their topmost steep: One can with smith-craft Fashion war-weapons: One can the spacious ways Mete the out-going : Thus doth the mighty One, Granteth all wisdom, Lest pride should injure him; By his own skill-craft Raised beyond others." NOTE 16, p. 24. In "Modern Language Notes" for June 1889, Professor Cook of Yale proved that one important source of Cynewulf's Part III. is the following alphabetic Hymn, quoted by Bede in his De Arte Metrica : Hymnus de Die Judicii. Apparebit repentina dies magna Domini, Brevis totus tum parebit prisci luxus sæculi, Stellæ cadent pallescentes, mundi tremit ambitus. Flamma ignis anteibit justi vultum Judicis, Gloriosus in sublimi Rex sedebit solio; angelorum tremebunda circumstabunt agmina. Hujus omnes ad electi colligentur dexteram ; "Ite," dixit Rex ad dextros, "regnum cæli sumite Karitate qui fraterna me juvistis pauperem, Karitatis nunc mercedem repostate divites." Læti dicent: "Quando, Christe, pauperem te vidimus, Vermis quorum non morietur, flamma nec restringuitur Satan atro cum ministris quo tenetur carcere, Tunc fideles ad cælestem sustollentur patriam Ydri fraudes ergo cave, infirmentes subleva Zona clara castitatis lumbos nunc præcingere In occursum magni regis fer ardentes lampades. NOTE 17, p. 24. Cynewulf was the first old English writer of whom we have any knowledge to lay emphasis upon the story of the Invention of the Cross and Constantine's premonitory dream, related in Eusebius, "Life of Constantine," Bk. I., chap. xxviii.-xxxi. He seems to have treated of the subject three times, in this passage of "The Christ," lines 1084 and onwards, in the "Elene," lines 69-104, and in the separate poem "The Dream of the Rood," if, as seems most likely, he was the author of it. Professor Sweet in "Old English Texts," p. 125, commenting on the Runic inscriptions of the celebrated Ruthwell Cross in Dumfries, which are apparently quotations from this Latin poem, says: "As regards the authorship of the poem, I hold fast to the opinion that it is a portion of the epilogue to the 'Elene,' preserved entire in the Vercelli MS., and consequently is the work of Cynewulf. Also that the complete original text of the Cross poem is that from which the Vercelli recension was copied. The sculptor or designer (Caedmon' or 'Cadmon Made Me') of the Ruthwell Stone, having only a limited space at his command, selected from the poem such verses as he thought most appropriate, and engraved them wherever he had room for them." The following verse translation of the Poem is by Mr. Moorsom (1901): "Ho, Brethren, list the dream I tell, The best that e'er to man befell, How, when the world was hushed to rest, Amid the visions of the night Before me rose a wondrous sight; I dreamt a tree of golden light With radiant splendour glistening bright Methought the four arms glimmered bare, Flamed on the night a ruddy glare; And five gems clustered, whence they sprung, |