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The Juliana of Cynewulf

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The Juliana of Cynewulf This is a reproduction of a library book that was digitized by Google as part of an ongoing effort to preserve the information in books and make it universally accessible. http://books.google.com From the Library of PERCY BENTLEY BURNET A.B., 1884; A.M., 1887 Presented to Indiana University by MARY S. BURNET If* €&e fJ&eUe^aiettrejai Veriest SECTION I ENGLISH LITERATURE FROM ITS BEGINNING TO THE YEAR IIOO GENERAL EDITOR EDWARD MILES BROWN, Ph.D. pRorrsson or the Engl1sh langvage and l1teratvke IN THE UNIVERSITY OF CINCINNATI I THE JULIANA OF CYNEWULF EDITED BY WILLIAM STRUNK, JR., Ph.D. Paornao1t or Emuu 1n Coinxll Uh1tim1tt BOSTON, U. S. A., AND LONDON K C. HEATH AND CO., PUBLISHERS 305125 COPYRIGHT, 1904, BY D. C. HEATH & CO. Printed in United States of America 3HO Printed in U. S. A. 3Ittttolwrtfon I THE TEXT The Old English life of St. Juliana has been preserved in a single manuscript, the Codex Exoniensis or Exeter Book, written about two centuries after the composition of the poem. This volume formed part of a bequest made by Leof- ric, first Bishop of Exeter, to Exeter Cathedral. From his name, Leofric 1 seems to have been of English birth, but he was educated in Lotharingia. He became a chaplain to Edward the Confessor, and probably came to England with the king in 1042. In 1046 he was made Bishop of Crediton (comprising the sees of Devon and Cornwall); in 1050, with the consent of the king and of the Pope, he transferred his seat to Exeter, on the ground that the latter city was more secure from the attacks of pirates. He died in 1072. On coming to Exeter, Leofric found the congregation poor, and the Cathedral despoiled of its estates and almost unprovided with books, vestments, and sacred utensils. For a time, it is said, he fed the congregation at his own expense, and he came to the aid of the Cathe dral with splendid generosity. 2 Besides recovering many 1 For his life, sec Warren, The LtofrU Missal, pp. xix-xxvi, and the Diet. Nat. Biigr. 1 For the document recording Leofric's gifts, see Dugdale, Mnattietn, U. 257 (with Latin translation) ; Kemble, CW. Difl. iv. 274-276 (no 940) ; see also Warren, The LetfrU Missal, pp. xxi-xxlv vi 3|ntwDuctton of the alienated estates, he bestowed on it much land of his own. Further, he gave the Cathedral an ivory altar, ivory croziers, silver chalices, a silver censer, bells and banners, vestments and altar-cloths, and books to the number of sixty-one, thirty-one in English, and thirty in Latin. The list of these is still extant ; they consist mainly of service-books, portions of the Bible (including the Gospels in English) and theological works. Ten of these volumes are still preserved elsewhere in England ; one, and one only, remains in the possession of the Cathedral. This is the work designated in the list as i mycel engiue hoc be gehwylcum pingum on leoSwisan geworht, that is, "one great English book on various subjects composed in verse," and now known as the Exeter Book. Since Leofric's time leaves from both the beginning and end of the book have disappeared.1 There now re main 123 leaves, or 246 pages, numbered from 8* to I30b, of the original manuscript ; seven other leaves have been prefixed at a comparatively modern time. In the interior of the book one leaf has been cut out between 37 and 38. The first and last pages are nearly illegible, owing to damages sustained by the manuscript at some period when it was unbound ; the last twelve leaves are in varying degree marred by a hole, with charred edges, where some bit of ignited wood, or similar substance, has fallen on the open page. Otherwise the volume is in good condition. The manuscript, which is on vellum, is neatly written, apparently in a single hand, either of the latter part of the tenth,2 or the early part of the eleventh century.' 1 This description is abridged from that given by Schipper, Girm. xix JZ7-3I9. * Thorpe ; Mist L. T. Smith (article " Kynewulf " in Diet. Nat. Bitgr.) * Schipper ; W Hiker, Grundrits, p. 223. introDuctton vii Cook thinks that it may have been prepared under Leof- ric's own directions.1 After the manuscript had been written, it was corrected by a second hand, in paler ink. 3 The leaves are 14 cm. in height and 'iyi cm. in width (about 5 y£ by 7 yi inches). A facsimile of part of page 77* (the beginning of Gifts of Men) may be seen in Thorpe, opposite p. 293. Among the most notable poems contained in the vol ume may be mentioned Christ, Gut Mac, the Phoenix, Juliana, the Wanderer, the Seafarer, Widsith, the Rhyming Poem, the SouVs Address to the Body, the Ruin, and the Riddles.1 The first modern mention of the book was made by Wanley 4 in 1705, in his Librorum Veterum Septentriona- lium Catalogus, published as the second part of the The saurus of George Hickes (Hickesius). After a brief account of the size and condition of the manuscript, he analyzed the contents, as he understood them, making a purely arbitrary division into ten books. His seventh book is as follows : — Fol. 65b[-77b] . Liber VII. septem constant Capiti- but, Tractans de Passione S. Julians sub Maximiano Caesare, etc. Sic autem Incip. Hwaet we baet hyrdon haeltfS eahtian deman daedhwate. Exp. Uiber. to fieder on heofhum bser us eal seo faestnung stondeft.* Nothing further is heard of the Exeter Book until the year 1 8 1 2, when the Rev. J. J. Conybeare, Professor of Poetry at Oxford, submitted a paper dealing with it to 1 The Chritt */ Cjnewulf, p. xvi. 1 See the variants to lines 72, 286, 322, ete » For the complete list, see Wiilker, Grundriu, pp. 223-224. ' For a reprint of Wanley's account, see Wiilker, Grundriu, pp. 219- 221. 0 This is the conclusion of the Wanderer, which follows Juliana in the MS. viii 3lntroDuctfon the London Society of Antiquaries. This was reprinted in Archaeologia, vol. xvii (1814). In this paper, the Juliana is not discussed. Conybeare's Illustrations of Anglo-Saxon Poetry (1826), compiled from his papers, after his death, by his brother W. D. Conybeare, gives a fuller description of the manuscript,1 with numerous ex cerpts and translations. Although with justice censuring Wanley's account "as scanty and inaccurate," Cony beare seems to have used it as a guide, for he echoes Wanley's wholly unjustified division into "ten books," and of several of them, including that which contains the Juliana, he gives even less information than Wanley had offered. In 1831 Robert Chambers made a copy of the whole manuscript, and in 1836 Thorpe made the copy which formed the basis of the first printed edition, his Codex Exoniensis (1842). This was the first publication of the Juliana, except for the brief passage noted below (p. x). Thorpe' s text of the Juliana served as a basis for those of Ettmuller in his Scopas and Boceras (1850) and of Grein in his Bibliothek der angelsachsischen Poesie (1858). A careful collation of the entire Exeter Book was made by Schipper in 1870-71, and published in Germania, vol. xix (1874). The text of Gollancz (1895), who is re publishing the Exeter Book for the Early English Text Society, and that of Assmann (1897), in Wiilker's re- edition of Grein, are based on later independent examina tions of the manuscripts. The text, as given in the original manuscript, contains numerous errors and some lacunae. The detection and emendation of these is due to the successive editors, and to the other scholars who have discussed the Juliana ; see the appended bibliography, and the list of variants. ' Pp. 198-253. 3|ntroDuctton ix The runic passage of the Juliana was translated by Kemble in 1840 (see p. x). A modern version of the entire poem was given by Thorpe, and again by Gol- lancz. A German translation was published by Grein (1859) in his Dichtungen der Angelsachsen ii. 47-66. II THE AUTHOR Wanley,1 the first describer of the Exeter Manuscript, remarked the occurrence of runic letters in the "Poem on the Day of Judgment " (Christ 779-866), and Hickes, in his Thesaurus, which Wanley' s Catalogue accompa nied, had given a facsimile of the passage involved.4 But neither Wanley, nor Hickes, nor their readers, detected the hidden purpose of the mysterious characters. Cony- beare, in his Illustrations,* again mentioned these runic letters, and referred to Hickes' s facsimile. Each letter, Conybeare explained, denoted an entire word, either its name or some word of similar sound. He, also, had missed the cipher. \ ' 1 It was reserved foA^KembleJto discover the signature concealed in the " Poem on the Day of Judgment," and also those in Juliana and the Elene. His discovery was announced to the Society of Antiquaries of London in a paper entitled On Anglo-Saxon Runes, published in 1 840,4 but apparently presented in 18 39. 6 Kemble says:6 " In the Vercelli MS. is contained a poem on the find- •1 WUlkcr,P. 280; Wttlker, Grundriu, Grundriu, p. 219. p. 219. • P. 203. • Aribaiilogla xxvill. 327-172. ■The paper, as printed in Archatthgla, is undated ; it comes between a paper of Apr. 11, 1839, and one of Jan. 9, 1840. • P. 360. x Jntroimctfon ing of the Cross by the Empress Helena ; after the close of the poem, and apparently intended as a tail-piece to the whole book, comes a poetical passage consisting of one hundred and sixty lines, in which the author princi pally refers to himself, and after a reference to his own increasing age and the change from the strength and joy- ousness of youth, he breaks out into a moralizing strain> in which he concludes his work." After quoting El.
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