The student of our early literature and language is indebted to thezeal of Sir Thomas Phillipps, for the discovery of the followinginteresting Fragment, which appears to have formed part of a volume thatcontained Ælfric's Grammar and Glossary, probably of the TwelfthCentury. The fragments were discovered among the archives of WorcesterCathedral; and in 1836 Sir Thomas Phillipps printed the whole of them infolio. I know not whether the form or the typographical arrangement hasbeen the cause of the neglect of this publication; but it has escapedboth Mr. Wright and Mr. Thorpe. The former, in his interesting editionof "The Latin Poems of Walter de Mapes," where he has given the literaryhistory of this legend with extracts, has not even referred to ourfragment; nor has Mr. Thorpe adverted to it in his publication of the"Codex Exoniensis," which contains an Anglo-Saxon poem of the same kind,with which it is interesting to compare this later version of thelegend. There is a portion of another semi-Saxon poem, entitled "TheGrave," printed in Mr. Conybeare's "Illustrations," and by Mr. Thorpe inhis "Analecta Anglo-Saxonica," which appears to be by the same hand, orat any rate of the same school and age. Indeed some of the lines andthoughts are identical with passages of the following poem. Mr. Thorpehas justly called "The Grave" a singularly impressive and almostappalling fragment; expressions equally characteristic of that withwhich the reader is here presented.
This impressive character, coupled with the interest which the fragmentpossesses, as a specimen of the moral poetry of our ancestors, and asthrowing light upon the transition of our language from Saxon toEnglish, has been the motive for producing it in a more legible formthan that in which it first appeared.
In one of the smaller poems (No. V.), printed by Mr. Wright with theOwl and the Nightingale, from the Cottonian MS. Calig. A. ix. "The soriesowle maketh hire mone," in language not dissimilar to that used in thefollowing fragment; and the dreary imagery of the house appointed forall living, and the punishment which awaits a wicked life at its close,are painted in an equally fearful manner.
Mr. Thorpe points to an Anglo-Saxon prose Homily as the original of thepoem on the same theme in the Exeter MS., which is repeated, with somevariation, in the Vercelli Codex. In a rude and simple age this dramaticway of awakening the sinner to a sense of his perilous state, wasperhaps the most effective that could have been chosen, and it wasnaturally a favorite with the moral and religious teachers for somecenturies. M. Karajan, in a very pleasing little publication(Frülingsgabe für freunde Alterer Literatur, Wien 1839) has printed the"Visio Philiberti," a Latin poem in dialogue on this subject, with twoold German versions; and the notes contain some interesting informationrelating to similar compositions; but Mr. Wright's volume, beforereferred to, contains ample illustrations of the legend in alllanguages.
The fragment here given, it will be seen, is very defective. An attempthas been made to supply words which were wanting, from the mutilation ofthe MS. leaves; but what is engrafted on the original is scrupulouslydistinguished by the Italic character. A version has also been added,the imperfections of which those who are acquainted with thedifficulties of such renderings will best BU KİTABI OKUMAK İÇİN ÜYE OLUN VEYA GİRİŞ YAPIN!
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