A Most Anachronistic Letter and Poem on Seven Virtues
- Lady Teleri the Well-Prepared, June 20, 2009
Introduction
The Challenge of the Heart was to produce an Arts and
Sciences entry touching on seven virtues: Humility, Largess, Honor, Prowess,
Faith, Temperance, and Courage. I chose
to use the Anglo-Saxon verse form I am most well-versed in. However, several of the virtues (particularly
humility and temperance) are not particularly celebrated in that culture. To get around that, and to motivate the poem,
I framed it with a letter addressed to the bishop of
The letter and poem are online here.
The Letter
The letter was inspired by a letter written by Daniel,
bishop of
The Poem
The poem is in the alliterative Anglo-Saxon (or Old English) style. I have a standard reference on this form. In short, each line is composed of two half-lines. Each half-line has two stressed syllables, so that there are four in each line. Either Stress 1 OR Stress 2 must alliterate (begin with the same sound) as Stress 3. All three may alliterate. Stress 4 may foreshadow Stress 1 of the next line.
Old English poetry contains several examples of poems which are instructive lists. “The Gifts of Men” describes all the various talents men have, from singing to swordplay, but closes by noting that God in his wisdom has not given any one man all talents, to preserve him from vainglory. “The Fortunes of Men” lists a wide variety of fates for men, from being eaten by a wolf as a baby to great fortune in battle, and the reader is instructed to thank God for what He has ordained for humankind. The Maxims are little snippets of advice, often practical.
The Precepts, found in the 10th century Exeter Book, are most like this poem. A father is instructing his son on how he must behave to live well. Courage, temperance, word-watchfulness, and faith all make his list. Some of the advice, particularly loyalty to friends, might be considered to reflect some of the later medieval ideas of honor. A non-metrical translation of the Precepts is linked above, and the original Old English is here.
Courage
The Battle of Maldon took place in 991, well after the
conversion period was over. Byrhtnoth
was an Anglo-Saxon war-leader who stood against a much larger Viking force –
even letting them cross a land bridge and deploy more advantageously. He and his men were wiped out.
Wiglaf was a theign of Beowulf’s, when the great hero was an aged king. He was the only one of Beowulf’s warriors to fight the dragon with him (which resulted in Beowulf’s death). The Nowell Codex, which contains Beowulf, has been dated anywhere between the 8th and 11th centuries. The events are thought to take place in the late 5th century (much as any "historical Arthur" who inspired the later legends comes from that age). It is not entirely unreasonable to think that the story might have been extant in the early 8th century, but it’s hardly a proven fact.
Prowess
Prince Eadmund was victorious at the battle of Brunaburgh in 937 CE, well after the alleged date of this poem.
Hrothgar was the Danish king whom Grendel plagued in Beowulf. He was very grateful to Beowulf (“the Geat”) for killing the monster and bestowed many rich gifts on him. “That was good king!” is actually a line lifted directly from Beowulf, and refers to Scyld Scefing, the legendary founder of Hrothgar’s line.
Beowulf is the next hero mentioned. He boasted extensively the night he was welcomed into Heorot, Hrothgar’s hall, declaring that he would defeat Grendel (a fearsome monster which had destroyed all others who had faced him). But it’s not boasting if you can do it, and Beowulf did.
Unferth is one of Hrothgar’s retainers, and he calls Beowulf on his boasts. The poem does not actually say that Unferth is drunk, although it’s not impossible. Benjamin Bagby, in his recreation of this part of the poem, certainly portrays him thus.
The eleven men set out in Beowulf with Wiglaf and Beowulf to slay the dragon that appears in
the third part of the poem. They all promise to stand by the king, but all save
Wiglaf are overcome with terror and flee.
The Anachronisms: Why
I Left Them In
Anglo-Saxon poetry is full of allusions. In Beowulf, for instance, we hear at different times of Siegfried the dragon-slayer, Wayland Smith, a legendary evil queen named Modthyrth, and a great battle at Finnesburh. I wanted to invoke similar legends, but we are missing a great amount of oral tradition that tells the tales of these heroes. The non-Beowulfian heroes available to me were mainly chronicled in the later 10th century poems. Given that most of the poem’s readers will probably be sketchy on the dates anyway, I thought it was preferable to use real, literary examples even if they were “out of time” rather than make things up.
References
Medieval Sourcebook:
Correspondence of Saint Boniface.
Accessed at http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/basis/boniface-letters.html
on
Anonymous. Beowulf: A New Verse Translation.. trans
Seamus Healy. Norton:
Anonymous. The
“The Battle of Maldon.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Battle_of_Maldon,
accessed
“The
Michael Drout. "Anglo-Saxon Aloud." Wheaton College, MA. http://fred.wheatonma.edu/wordpressmu/mdrout, accessed 17 June 2009.
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