C YNEWULF'S " CHRIST." *
Taus edition of Cynewulf's Christ appears very opportunely. Mr. Stopford Brooke, in hie recent History of Early English Literature, has made Cynewulf known to many readers, and the specimens translated from his poems by Mr. Brooke have probably awakened a curiosity to know more, especially of the Christ, which Mr. Brooke describes as a poem of very fine quality. This curiosity is now gratified by Mr. Gollancz, who has edited the whole poem, and. has added to the original text a modern rendering of considerable poetical merit. There is no early biography of Cynewulf, such as Binds gives of Cied- mon ; critics, however, have spelled out some of the events of his life, from the "Riddles," " Elene," and "The Dream of the Rood." He was a travelling gleeman ; for years he lived the careless life of his gay profession. His gift of song made him welcome alike in the hall of the IE theling and at assemblies of the people ; and many rich gifts were bestowed upon him by his patrons. The days of his careless happiness passed away "like heating waves ; " misfortunes fell thick upon him, and the poet became the prey of melancholy thoughts. Like Bunyan, he believed that the wrath of God lay heavy upon him on account of his past irreligious life. His gift of song left him, and he felt himself an outcast from God and man. He was rescued from the dungeon of Giant Despair by a vision of the Holy Rood. On the return of joy and hope, God, as he writes, again unlocked the power of poetry in his breast ; henceforth, his Muse was devoted exclusively to sacred song. Perhaps he became a monk ; but this is not certain; he may, like the poet of the "Reiland," have remained a layman.
The Christ, like many other early English poems, contains passages of exquisite beauty ; but we doubt whether it quite deserves the glowing eulogy of the editor, although it certainly possesses epic dignity, and the entire absence in it, and in other Saxon poems, of medireval grotesqueness, makes it pleasanter reading than many later poems on sacred subjects. No early national poetry, however, with the exception of Homer and the Psalms—and critics will not allow us to call the Psalms primitive poetry—has ever gained the verdict of those who care only for literature pure and simple. But where a taste for literature is united to a taste for history, primitive poetry will always prove a delightful hunting.
ground ; and none more so than our early poetry, in which we _
• Cynotoutf's Christ : Rightli,Ccntury English iIo,1, with ii Modorn non1rIrig 1 lUraol Gotlanoz, M A., of Oluist Oollogo, Cambridge. Loudon : David Nutt 1892.
can trace the beginnings of our own literature and religion. Mr. Gollancz finds in the Saxon poets the original of our English blank verse. Ten centuries before Marlowe, he writes, the Saxon poets unlocked the secret of blank verse, and played upon its hundred stops. That the former was a far-off progenitor of the latter is, we suppose, true ; but what Mr. Stopford Brooke calls the cantering movements of the alliterative line, suggests the stately measure of Marlowe, only as the jumping of a monkey resembles the gait of a Venetian Doge.
Much happier are the editor's remarks on the melancholy of Cynewult's poems. Melancholy, he truly says, is an abiding element in English poetry; and we need not, with Mr. Matthew Arnold, trace it to a Celtic source ; for it is essentially an English characteristic. He might have added that it was a characteristic of all poetry and of all prose in the early Middle Ages,—as prominent in the Latin works of Gregory of Tours and Alcuin, as in the Saxon poets. Saxon melancholy was not our modern pessimism, which is always an impatient complaint against God or Destiny because of the unhappy lot of man; it is rather a saddened acknowledgment that the human race is deservedly unhappy because it has departed form God. The mention of God calls forth no blasphemes, religious or irreligious, but only thankful praise ; for by his mercy alone has a haven of refuge been provided for the wretched wanderers of earth. It is in this spirit that Cynewulf describes the life of man :—
"Now 'tie most like as if we fare in ships On the ocean flood, over the water cold, Driving our vessels through the spacious seas With horses of the deep. A perilous way is this Of boundless waves, and there are stormy seas, On which we toss here in this feeble world, O'er the deep paths. Ours was a sorry plight, Until at last we sailed unto the land, Over the troubled main. Help came to us. That brought us to the haven of salvation, God's Spirit-Son, and granted grace to us, That we might know, e'en from the vessel's deck, Where we must bind with anchorage secure Our ocean steeds, old stallions of the waves.''
What will most strike modern readers of this earliest " Christiad " of Northern Europe, is the almost entire absence in the poems of any references to the teaching and to the earthly life of Our Lord. The subjects of the poem are the Birth, the Ascension, and the Last Judgment. In this respect it forms a complete contrast to modern presentations of Christ's life, which dwell almost entirely upon his earthly ministry. To the Saxon poet, Christ is a beneficent divine being who has fared from Heaven to help humanity. The guardian of the skies, God's self, is now with us. The divine glory seems to surround him even upon earth ; when the poet describes his words to his disciples before his Ascension, he speaks of him as "the Great Leader in Bethania, splendour's Lord." His parting charge is thus paraphrased :—
" Rejoice ye in spirit ; ne'er will I turn away,
But I will show my love toward you still.
And grant you might, and will abide with you To all eternity, and through my grace Ne'er shall you know the want of sustenance.
Go now o'er all the spacious tract of earth, O'er the wide waves, announce it unto men ; Preach and proclaim the glorious belief, And baptise folk beneath the firmament Turn them to Heaven ; shatter heathen idols, Cast them down and spurn them; extinguish enmity ; And sow ye peace within the minds of men, By virtue of your gifts."
The difference between primitive and modern ideas of reverence is well seen in the Christ, for the same poet, to whom Christ is a very God upon earth, does not scruple to place in his mouth long speeches of his own composition which are often not even paraphrases of Scripture. In Palmas (III.) there are two such speeches put into the mouth of our Lord; one addressed to the righteous, and a second, and much the longer, is a pathetic address to the wicked. This apparent preference on the part of the poet for the darker side of the subject, is an evidence, perhaps, that he was in design more preacher than poet; for preachers have always dwelt rather upon the woes of lost souls than on the glories of the redeemed, because, rightly or wrongly, they have imagined that the former were more likely than the latter to make an impression upon the minds of their hearers. We must not forget that much of the religious poetry of the early Middle Age is simply homily in verse. In the hands of a genuine poet like Cynewulf, it some- times reached a high standard of poetical merit, but the author seldom lost sight of his homiletic purpose. The early vernacular poetry of England and Germany was sung or recited to the people, in order that those who could not understand the Latin homily and prayers, might not be left without instruction. The practical purpose of Cynewulf's Christ, while it may have robbed the poem of some freedom and natural beauty, makes it all the more interesting to the student of the religious life of Saxon England.
Students will find Mr. Gollancz an accurate and painstaking editor. The Introduction and Notes deserve all praise for their self-restrained and helpful elucidation of the difficulties of the text, and for their indications of the sources upon which the poet drew.
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