Cædmon's Hymn: a Modern English Translation of the Old English (Anglo-

Saxon) Poem

Hymn sung with music : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lg4mg7q4bSQ

"Cædmon's Hymn" was composed sometime between 658 and 680 AD and
appears to be the oldest extant poem in the English language. According to the
Venerable Bede (673-735), Cædmon was an illiterate herdsman who was given
the gift of poetic composition by an angel. In the original poem, hardly a word is
recognizable as English because Cædmon was writing in a somewhat anglicized
form of ancient German. The word "England" harkens back to Angle-land; the
Angles were a Germanic tribe, as were the Saxons and Jutes. Nevertheless, by
Cædmon's time the foundations of English poetry were being laid, particularly in
the areas of accentual meter and alliteration. Anglo-Saxon poets, called "scops,"
were considered to be "makers" (as in William Dunbar's poem "Lament for the
Makaris"), and poetry was considered to have a divine origin, so Cædmon's poem
may express a sort of affinity between the poet and his God.

Cædmon's Hymn (circa 658-680 AD)

loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Humbly now we honour heaven-kingdom's Guardian,

the Measurer's might and his mind-plans,
the goals of the Glory-Father. First he, the Everlasting Lord,
established earth's fearful foundations.
Then he, the First Scop, hoisted heaven as a roof
for the sons of men: Holy Creator,
mankind's great Maker! Then he, the Ever-Living Lord,
afterwards made men middle-earth: Master Almighty!

Translator's Notes: "Cædmon's Hymn" is one of the oldest surviving examples of

Anglo-Saxon alliterative verse. Below, I have indicated the alliteration in my
translation, with underscores:

Humbly now we honour heaven-kingdom's Guardian, [n, h, g, d]

the Measurer's might and his mind-plans, [m, a]
the goals of the Glory-Father. First he, the Everlasting Lord, [g, f, l]
established earth's fearful foundations. [d, e, s, f]
Then he, the First Scop, hoisted heaven as a roof [h, e, s, a]
for the sons of men, Holy Creator, [e, s, r]
mankind's great Maker! Then he, the Ever-Living Lord, [m, n, e, l]
afterwards made men middle-earth: Master Almighty! [m, t, r]

In defense of my interpretation that Caedmon may have regarded God as a fellow

Poet-Creator, I will point out that the original poem employs the
words scop and haleg scepen. Anglo-Saxon poets were called scops. The
term haleg scepen seems to mean something like "Holy Poet" or "Holy
Creator/Maker" because poets were considered to be creators and makers. Also
the verb tīadæ has been said to mean something like "creatively adorned." So I
don't think it's that much of a stretch to suggest that a Christian poet may have
seen his small act of creation as an imitation of the far greater acts of creation of
his Heavenly Father.

As in the original poem, each line of my translation has a caesura: a brief pause
denoted by white space. In each line, there are repeated vowel/consonant
sounds. This alliteration gives alliterative verse its name. The original poem is also
accentual verse, in that each line has four strong stresses, and the less-stressed
syllables are not counted as they are in most other forms of English meter (such
as iambic pentameter). My translation is not completely faithful to the original
rules. For instance, I have employed a considerable amount of internal alliteration
(which gives me more flexibility in the words I can employ). And some of my lines
contain more than four stresses, although I think there are still four dominant
stresses per line. For instance, in the first line: HONour, HEAVen, KINGdom's
GUARDian. In the second line: MEASurer's, MIGHT, MIND-PLANS. And so on. I
don't think the technique is all-important. The main questions are whether the
meaning is clear, and whether the words please the ear. Only you, the reader, can
decide that, and you don't need a high-falutin' critic to tell you what you like!

I believe the poem is "biblical" in its vision of creation. According to the Bible, the
earth was set on an immovable foundation by the hand of God. (Little did the
ancient writers know that the earth is actually a spinning globe whizzing through
space at phenomenal speeds!) We see this foundation in line four. Next, in line
five, we see the hand of God creating the heavens above, where according to the
Bible he then set the sun, moon and stars in place. (The ancient writers again got
things wrong, saying that the earth existed first, in darkness, and that the sun,
moon and stars were created later; we now know that the earth's heavier
elements were created in the hearts of stars, so the stars existed long before the
earth. The writers of Genesis even said that plants grew before the sun was
formed, but of course they had never heard of photosynthesis.) The poem's last
line sounds a bit more Germanic or Norse to me, since Middle Earth is a concept
we hear in tales of Odin and Thor (and later in the works of J. R. R. Tolkien). But
that makes sense because when Saint Augustine of Canterbury became the first
Christian missionary to evangelize native Britons, I believe it was the policy of the
Roman Catholic Church to incorporate local beliefs into the practice of
Christianity. For instance, because sun gods were worshiped in Rome, the
Sabbath day became Sun-day, and the birth of Christ became December the 25th
(the day the winter sun is "resurrected" and the days begin to lengthen, heralding
spring). So in northern climes we would expect to see some "fusion" of Norse and
Germanic myths with Christianity. For instance, there was never a mention of
"hell" in the Hebrew Bible; the Hebrew language did not even have a word that
meant "hell" at the time the books of the Old Testament were written. The closest
Hebrew word, Sheol, clearly means "the grave" and everyone went there when
they died, good and bad. The Greek word Hades also means the grave, and
likewise everyone went there when they died. Hades had heavenly regions like
the Elysian Fields and Blessed Isles and thus was obviously not hell! "Hell" is a
Norse term. If this subject interests you―for instance if someone has said you are
in danger of "hell" and need to be "saved" from it―you many want to read my
simple, logical proof that There Is No Hell in the Bible.

Here is the original Old English/Anglo-Saxon poem and a word-by-word literal

translation:

Nū scylun hergan hefaenrīcaes Uard,

Now let's honor heaven's Guardian

metudæs maecti end his mōdgidanc,

(the) measurer's might and his mode/method to-be-thanked-for/praised

uerc Uuldurfadur, suē hē uundra gihwaes,

(the) work (of the) Glory-Father and his wonders praiseworthy (which)

ēci dryctin ōr āstelidæ

(the) Eternal Lord established in the beginning.

hē ǣrist scōp aelda barnum

He first (poetically) created (for) people-children/the sons of men

heben til hrōfe, hāleg scepen.

heaven as roof (our) holy creator/poet!

Thā middungeard moncynnæs Uard,

Then middle-earth mankind's Guardian
eci Dryctin, æfter tīadæ
(our) eternal Lord afterwards creatively adorned (with)

firum foldu, Frēa allmectig.

firm earth (our) Father almighty!

Here's a slightly less literal translation that still seems faithful to the original
poem:

Cædmon's Hymn (circa 658-680 AD)

loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Humbly let us honour heaven-kingdom’s Guardian,

the Measurer's might and his mind-plans:
the goals of the Glory-Father. First he, the Eternal Lord,
eminently established earth’s fearful foundations.
Then he, the First Scop, hoisted heaven as a roof
for the sons of men: Holy Creator,
Maker of mankind. Then he, the Ever-Living Lord,
afterwards made men middle-earth: Master Almighty!

CAEDMON

Cædmon's Hymn is thought to be the earliest composed Old English poem, composed between 658
and 680. The sole source of original information about Cædmon's life and work is
Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People . According to Bede, Cædmon was an illiterate
herdsman who lived at the Whitby monastery on the northeast shore of North Yorkshire. There are
several variations of the tale, but a dominant version cites Cædmon , who never played the harp or
sang during festivities, was commanded to sing something by a man in his dream. Cædmon insisted
that he didn’t know how to sing, but the man in his dream insisted and Cædmon then sang about the
Creator and in praise of God. He had miraculously received the “gift of song” (religious song, that is)
and became hailed by the monks as a “lay brother.” According to Bede, Cædmon went on to compose
other religious stories and poems which proved his gift to the monks. The only one to survive today is
his Hymn.

This is an image of Cædmon's Hymn in the "Moore" manuscript (737), Cambridge, Kk.5.16, f. 128v,
written in Northumbrian. This is the earliest known version of this work.

The most notable difference between the manuscript and the West Saxon text is, of course, the
language. Bede wrote in Latin, and there are numerous recessions and dialects of the hymn.
These images contain the beginning lines of the poem, the entire nine lines of which read (in West
Saxon):

Nu sculon herigean heofonrices weard

meotodes meanthe ond his modgeþanc,
weorc wuldorfæder, swa he wundra gehwæs,
ece drihten, or .
heofon to hrofe, halig scyppend;
þa middengeard moncynnes weard,
ece drihten, æfter teode
firum foldan, frea ælmihtig.

This, in modern English translates to:

Now we must praise the Protector of the heavenly kingdom,

the might of the Measurer and his Mind's purpose,
the work of the father of Glory, as he for each of the wonders,
the eternal Lord, established a beginning.
He shaped first
heaven as a roof, the Holy Maker;
then , makind's Guardian,
the eternal Lord, made afterwards, solid ground for men, the almighty Lord.

Although the modern English version (there are alternate versions in Latin and Northumbrian) of the
hymn may not sound like beautiful poetry to our ears, the Old English dialect was more alliterative and
this is the earliest example of Old English poetry. The Hymn also has by far the most complicated
known textual history of any surviving Anglo-Saxon poem and has been found in two dialects and five
distinct recensions. Instead of pairs of lines joined by rhyme (similarity of sounds at the ends of words)
to which modern readers are accostomed, Anglo-Saxon poets typically used alliteration and created a
technique or stlyle in which the first half of the line (the a-verse) is linked to the second half (the b-
verse) through similarity in initial sound. Anglo-Saxon poets also used "Kennings," which are highly
poetic and can make oral performance difficult to understand. A line of Old English poetry usually has
three words that alliterate. The meter, or rhythm, of the poetry works together with the alliteration. The
large spaces in the middle of the lines represent the caesura. The alliterating lines that connect the
half-lines are:

Line 1: h in herigean, h in heofonrices

Line 2: m in meathe, m in modgeþanc
Line 3: w in weorc, w in wundra
Line 4: e in ece, o in or
Line 5: h in heofon, hrofe, and halig
Line 6: m in middengeard and moncynnes
Line 7: e in ece, æ in æfter
LIne 8: f in firum, folden, and frea

Although the language of Cædmon's Hymn is simple and meant as little more than a praise of the
Creator. In line 3 we have an example of the Old English kenning in the word “wuldorfæder,” meaning
the “glory father.” There are also numerous and varying epithets for God: Weard (1)
Guardian, Meotod (2) Measurer, Wuldorfæder (3) Glory-Father, Drihten (4) Lord, Scyppend (5)
Creator, Frea (8) Master . The last is especially interesting to note because of its allusion to a pagan
god.

All content written, researched, and compiled by Ashley Winans. I am responsible for the content of
this site. No one is to quote from this site or use my ideas without or use my ideas without proper
attribution. This wesite is an assignment for ENGL630ML: The Technology of Textuality with
Professor Scott Kleinman at California State University, Northridge during Fall 2007.

Denise Levertov - Caedmon

All others talked as if

talk were a dance.
Clodhopper I, with clumsy feet
would break the gliding ring.
Early I learned to
hunch myself
close by the door:
then when the talk began
I'd wipe my
mouth and wend
unnoticed back to the barn
to be with the warm beasts,
dumb among body sounds
of the simple ones.
I'd see by a twist
of lit rush the motes
of gold moving
from shadow to shadow
slow in the wake
of deep untroubled sighs.
The cows
munched or stirred or were still. I
was at home and lonely,
both in good measure. Until
the sudden angel affrighted me––light effacing
my feeble beam,
a forest of torches, feathers of flame, sparks upflying:
but the cows as before
were calm, and nothing was burning,
nothing but I, as that hand of fire
touched my lips and scorched by tongue
and pulled by voice
into the ring of the dance.
Here is one imitation I wrote for you:

Now we must praise the punisher of mice,

the mock of a tiger, his thoughtfulness and tact

in slouching with slow steps, the work of a sly mind, how

he droped in through the building door,

first climbing the stairs, most capable climber,

till he found in a cosy corner, that comfort seeker,

the lover of warmth , hater of winter,

a sponge-soft mat, suitable for sound sleep,

afterwards curled his elastic skeleton into a circle,

and immediately fell, cute, friendly fellow,

into a melodic murmur, the meeower of the morn.