THE TALE OF CAEDMON

  

                                                       

               

                          

                      Translated version of Caedmon's Hymn in modern English

                      

      

                                    

                                             Whitby Abbey, Norfolkshire

                       

           “Like tongueless Philomel or drunken sot

            With foolish brain and soul here I retire

             A proper place for me this stable

            Where jades and palfreys perk their fine-cut ears

             And hear in thrill the twang of lyre and harp

             Attuned to pleasant paeans and prayers meet;

             While I like a lamb with low-bent shame

             Came here to escape my turn in feast, to strum

             And sing among the Northumbrian friars

             And monks: how ignorance downright derides

             My human form? Thoughts! Come like ocean waves

             And dash my solid ignorance to pieces and light

             My heart with sparkling colors of harmony!

             Let my expression stretch like Aeolian lyre

             Upon which feelings dance with elfin ease;

             No hope; here let me rest alone with these beasts

             Till the ceremony ends with blessings great

             Till all guests go to their cells with serene looks.

             Peace! Close my eyes in soft-bedded slumber.”

             So spake Caedmon with passion-stricken tone

             And slept like a babe tired with weeping cries;

             An angel appeared with starry shining crown

             Beating her wings that shimmered with opal shades

             Her feet hovered in air with heavenly fragrance;

            “Caedmon! She whispered, “Sing me a song.”

             Music flowed from her lips as Caedmon’s eyes

              Like anxious crystal goblets caught them fresh

              As tears swelled with joy as from Pamphian wells;

              Dumb with surprise and wonder he stared; nothing

              He sensed, a living soul wrung from this mortal coil

              Absorbing the melodious voice with rapt attention.

             “Caedmon!” she said, “Be of good cheer, despair thou not

              Wake up thy soul, the gay lark of eternal melodies

              That slumbered long and feast thy heart with pious thoughts

              Sweeter than dryads' and the music of the spheres

              Thou wilt sing of God’s wonderful creation ;

              Sing of heaven and created beings on earth

              Sing of Adam and Eve whom God loved most

              Sing of devil’s temptation and gospels divine

              Sing of the prophet who trod on the Red sea

              Sing of Noah, Abraham, David and Jacob great

              Sing of Joseph’s son and his benevolent promise

              Sing of Lord’s divine healing acts and deeds

              Who walked through dry desert and fasted forty days

              Who journeyed through Jordan and Galilee

              And healed the sinners that sought his refuge

              From Judea, Jericho, Tyre and Sidon;

              Sing of the holy bread and wine and betrayal gross

              Sing of Lord’s passion and pity on Calvary cross;

              The Savior in blood-soaked robes with thorned crown

              Sing of Lord rising again with lightning-clothes

              Like a dove soaring towards His highest abode;

              Rise, Caedmon, rise! Distill thy thoughts

              To sweetest spicy celestial springs

              Still many more ages will take to see

              A seer like thee to sing of glories divine

              In people’s tongue with native melodies mixt

              In organic numbers to illumine noble truths.”

              Wonder-struck by this vision or celestial dream

              Clearly imprinted the angel’s voice and words

              Caedmon hastened to meet his patroness and guide

              The gentle Hilda to convey the blessed gift he got

              To be the singer of sacred verse and praise the Lord

              His ever flowing mercy, glorious acts and deeds.

                    ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

   Note : Caedmon was the earliest writer of Old English literature who lived in seventh century according to Bede’s “Ecclesiastical History of the English people” written in Latin. He translated “Caedmon’s Hymn” from Northumbrian into Latin and praised him as the most inspiring writer of the sacred verse. Unfortunately most of the poems written by Caedmon are not found. But according to Bede Caedmon wrote on Christian themes like creation of the world, origin of Man, Exodus, Jesus’ incarnation, Resurrection, preaching of apostles, terrors of future judgment, pains of hell and delights of heaven. Francis Junius published “Caedmon’s Manuscript”(1655) which contains many poems on themes mentioned above. Probably some of these poems might be the work of Caedmon. Caedmon became a lay member of the monastery in his later life and he was not well-educated. But in his vision an angel appeared and blessed him with the gift of composing songs. Caedmon later became a monk and spent the rest of his life in  Whitby monastery till he passed away peacefully in 680 A.D.

     

       

   Philomel = A princess of Athens who was raped by her sister’s husband, Tereus, king of Thrace. To prevent her from speaking about his act, he cut off her tongue. But Philomela took revenge on him and transformed herself into a nightingale by the intervention of gods.

   Sot= a habitual drunkard.

   Palfrey= a saddle horse

   Aeolian lyre= a harp whose strings produce music when wind

   passes over them.

   Pamphian wells = wells in the ancient region of Aetolia

   near Corinth.

   Noah= A devotee of Lord who built a ship and saved mankind and

   all living creatures from extinction during the floods.    

   Abraham= a Jewish prophet who led his countrymen from

   Mesopotamia to the promised land of Canaan.

   David= second king of ancient Israel. He was the father of

   King Solomon who expanded the empire that David built.  

   Jacob = son of Issac and father of the twelve patriarchs of Israel  

   Who trod on Red Sea= Moses who led Jews from Egypt through

    Red Sea.

   Joseph’s son= Jesus Christ   

  

  Sidon and Tyre= cities located in modern Lebanon. Crowds from

  Tyre and Sidon came to listen to Jesus’ preachings (Mark 3:7-8)  

  Passion= suffering of Christ on the cross.       

  Jericho= a Palestian city on the West Bank in the Jordan valley. 

  Judea= the Biblical name for the region of Bethlehem in the

  West bank.

  Calvary= the hill near Jerusalem on which Jesus was crucified.   

 

   Gentle Hilda = A Christian saint (614-680 A.D.) who founded the

   monastery at Whitby.

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   10th september, 2019                                                Somaseshu Gutala

          

A BRIEF NOTE ON CAEDMON, THE FIRST ANGLO-SAXON POET

Caedmon, the first Anglo-Saxon poet, reading

                                 

The carved figure of the poet on Caedmon's Cross at Whitby

                                                   (Caedmon's Hymn in Northumbrian dialect)

                         

England was invaded by Germanic tribes like Jutes, Angles and 

Saxons in fifth century and their rule continued up to 1066 A.D.

 when the Normans invaded England and defeated them. This

 period is called Anglo-Saxon or Old English period. These 

Germanic tribes spoke different dialects such as Northumbrian,

 Mercian, West Saxon and Kentish. In the medieval sources the

 names of twelve Anglo-Saxon poets were mentioned. Most of

 their poetry survived through oral tradition and so no evidence

 is available except that of four poets namely Caedmon, Bede,

 Alfred and Cynewulf. Their poems and works are seen in four

 types of manuscripts seen in different places. The Junius

 manuscript was probably written at Malmesbury at Christ Church, 

Canterbury and is now kept in the Bodelian Library, Oxford. It is an 

illustrated poetic anthology containing many religious poems. The 

second collection is available at Exeter cathedral and this 

anthology was donated to this cathedral by Leofric, the first Bishop

 of Exeter in 1071. This is the largest collection of Old English

 literature containing nearly 131 leaves out of which the first eight

 original leaves were lost and had been replaced with other leaves.

 It is a mix of prose and poetry. 


The third collection called “The Vercelli Book” is housed in

 Vercelli in Northern Italy. It contains six verse texts and twenty

 three prose homilies. The fourth collection is called “Nowell

 Codex”. It had two books bound together in one volume. It

 contains the unique copy of the epic poem “Beowulf”. It

 (the second older manuscript) was first acquired by

 the antiquarian, Laurence Nowell in mid-sixteenth century.

 Later it was combined with the first manuscript. It was

 acquired by Sir Robert Cotton and kept on the first shelf that

 had a bust of the Emperor Vitellius giving the collection its

 name as Cotton Vitellius Collection. In this collection also there

 is a mix of prose and poems. This collection is now located in 

the British Library along with the rest of the Cotton collection.

 Caedmon is the first and earliest poet of the Anglo-Saxon

 literature. Though he wrote many poems, only one poem called 

“Caedmon’s Hymn” (nine lines with four stresses and medial

 caesura) in manuscript is left and is considered as the oldest

 recorded poem. This is the oldest example of the Germanic

alliterative verse. According to Bede’s “Ecclesiastical History

 of the English people” ( Historia Eccelesiastica gentis Anglorum)

 written in Latin (731 A.D.),  Caedmon was an illiterate layman

 employed in Monastery at Whitby in North Yorkshire to take care

 of cattle and other animals. During a feast he was asked to sing 

but he left the place with a sense of shame as he was an illiterate

 person and did not know how to sing. He went to the cattle shed 

and fell asleep. He saw the vision of a stranger asking him to sing

 about creation. In the dream he sang praising the creator of 

heaven and earth. The next morning he remembered everything

 he had sung and added additional lines to his poem. When the

 Abbess, Hilda, and her counselors heard his poem, they realized 

that it was a gift from God. He was invited to take monastic

 vows. The Abbess asked her scholars to teach Caedmon the

 sacred history and Christian doctrine. 


According to Bede Caedmon wrote poetic texts on a variety of 

Christian topics such as Creation of the world, Origin of Man,

 departure of the children of Israel from Egypt to the Land of

 Promise, Incarnation of the Son of God, Passion, Resurrection

 and Ascension of Lord, passion,  Coming of Holy Ghost, Preaching

 of Apostles, Future judgment, pains of Hell and delights of

 Heaven.

  The name of the poet suggests that he was of Celtic race though

 he used Northumbrian dialect in his poems which were generally

 sung to the accompaniment of harp. The manuscript of Caedmon’s

 Hymn” in Bede’s Monastery of Wearmouth-Jarrow was partly 

damaged in a terrible fire in 1731. Luckily before this accident

 someone made a copy of it which is now seen in British Library

 Add Ms. 43703.

 The earliest surviving copies of  “Caedmon’s Hymn” are found

 in “The Moore Bede” in Cambridge University (Kk.5.16 often 

referred to as M) and in National Library of Russia,lat.Q.v.l.18(p).

 in St.Petersburg.

According to Bede, many English writers of sacred verse imitated

 Caedmon but none equaled him in portraying the sincere feelings

 of devotion and the existing conditions of English life and society

 of those times. Caedmon became a monk at an advanced age and

 died peacefully after a long and pious life. The year of his death

 is either 679 or according to Bede after 681 A.D. He lived at least

 in part during Hilda’s abbacy (657-680). The monastery at Whitby

was founded by St.Hilda in 657 A.D. It was attacked during Vikings

 (tribes from Norway, Sweden and Denmark) in 867 and was 

abandoned. In 1078 it was re-built and flourished till 1540 when

 it was destroyed by Henry VIII.

Many scholars translated the Bede’s Latin version of Caedmon into

 Old English. These are called glosses. These translators (glossators)

 tried to recover some of the beauty and originality of Caedmon’s

 poems. Nearly nineteen scripts of these glosses exist today.

In 1651 the Archbishop of Ussher presented a unique manuscript

 of Anglo-Saxon poems dating from 1000 A.D. to the Dutch scholar

 Francis Junius, who was serving as librarian to the Earl of Arundel.

 Junius studied them with attention and found that the poems

 in the manuscript tallied with Bede’s description of Caedmon’s 

work very well. Junius after returning to Holland published an

 edition of this manuscript which came to be known as “Caedmon 

Manuscript”. It is now in Bodelian library, Oxford, designated as 

Codex Junius 11. In this collection at least some of the poems

 might be the original work of Caedmon. To commemorate this

 earliest English (Northumbrian) poet, Caedmon's Cross carved

 from Northumbrian sandstone in a semi-Celtic style showing 

Christ, David, Abbess Hilda and the poet Caedmon on four panels

 was erected in his honor at the top of 199 steps in the grave yard

 of St.Mary's Churchyard, Whitby in 1898.


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           3rd September, 2019                             Somaseshu Gutala