But It is Now sleep invades the thegns and the sea grew calm. Andrew and the steersman, still awake, renew their talk. much more full of change and reality than is usual in AngloSaxon dialogue, and the characters of the speakers are also clearly distinguished. Christ and Andrew are seated together, but Andrew does not recognise his master, and when he is urged to tell what he remembers of Jesus, it is to Jesus himself that he tells all. This I have said is a good dramatic situation, and it is bettered by the vivid way in which the poet keeps the boat and the sea before our eyes. Touch after touch makes us aware that we are flying along the sea to deliver St. Matthew. Andrew's curiosity is awakened first by the skill of the steersman. "A better seafarer I never met," he says. "Teach me the art whereby thou steerest the swimming of this horse of the sea, this wave-floater, foamed over by ocean. It was my hap to have been time after time on a sea-boat, sixteen times, pushing the deep, the streamings of Eagor, while froze my hands, and once more is this time—yet never have I seen a hero who like thee could steer o'er the stem. The sea-welter lingers on our sides, the foaming wave strikes the bulwark, the bark is at full speed. Foam-throated it fares; most like to a bird it glides o'er the ocean. More skilful art in any mariner I've never seen. It is as if the ship were standing still on a landstead where nor storm nor wind could move it, nor the water-floods shatter its foaming prow; but over seas it sweeps along, swift under sail. Yet thou art young, O refuge of warriors, not in winters old, and hast the answer of a sea-playing earl: and a wise wit as well." "Oft it befalleth," answers Almighty God, "that we on ocean's path break o'er the bathway with our ocean-stallions; and whiles it happeneth wretchedly to us on the sea, but God's will is more than the flood's rage, and it is plain thou art his man, for the deep sea straightway knew and ocean's round, that thou hadst grace of the Holy Ghost. The surging waves went back, a fear stilled the deep-bosomed wave." Andrew, hearing this, bursts into a song of praise and joy with which this part of the poem closes, for now the steersman changes the conversation; he asks Andrew to recall his life in Palestine with Jesus, -the same curious situation of Christ asking about himself is kept up,-and in these questions the teaching element in the Anglo-Saxon poems enters in. Poems were used as sermons, just as some homilies were written in rude verse. With this purpose the poet makes Andrew give a brief account of the chief miracles, and ends with a touch of personal recollection and love, which lifts the passage into art. "Now hearest thou, young hero, how the Lord of Glory loved us in life, and by his teaching drew us to fair joys." Further questions follow, and the last seems to Andrew to go so much to the heart of the matter that he is amazed. "What dost thou ask," he cries, "with wonderful words and seemest to know every hap by the sharpness of thy spirit." "Out of no lying craft or entrapping words," answers the steersman, "do I ask thee this-here on the path of the whale1-but because my heart is full of joy. Tell me more of the divine child." And Andrew is swept away by the passion of the steersman, and will tell him all he has known. In this way, and the whole dialogue is written by an artist, the strange legend is introduced of the stone images of the Cherubim in the Temple being quickened by Christ, stepping down from their place and bearing witness to Jesus before the elders; and then being sent over the green plains of Judæa to call Abraham and Isaac and Jacob from their graves, to bid them be young again and to come to Jerusalem to bear witness to Christ. Thus all day long Andrew spoke in many tales till suddenly sleep overtook him. And Christ bade his angels bear this loved and sea-wearied one to land, where they leave him and his comrades sleeping on the highway, near the city of the Mermedonians. And now begins what I may call the glory of St. Andrew, in which the half-epic battle of the "hero hard in war," - his purification through long martyrdom is accomplished. It consists of four parts the introduction, the delivery of St. Matthew, the martyrdom of Andrew, and the final triumph of the saint in the conversion of the Mermedonians. The introduction paints the Apostle waking in the morning. He slept 835. Until the Lord had bid in brightness shine Day's candle, and the shadows swooned away, And Heaven's clear radiance blickered o'er the halls. 1 This, and many other little touches keep our eyes fixed on the presence of the sea. 2 I do not know whence this legend is derived. Then Andrew awakened his comrades. "Twas Christ the Ætheling," he says, "that led us across the realm of the oar." "We too," they answer, "have had our adventure"; and this poet who has a special turn for various incident invents for them a dream in which they are brought into the heavenly Paradise. 862. "Us weary with the sea sleep overtook! Then came great earns above the yeasty waves, And there they saw the thegns of God, the patriarchs and martyrs and prophets, and the apostles and archangels praising the Lord. And Andrew gives thanks to Christ who now in form of a young Ætheling draws near. "Hail to thee, Andrew! he cries, "the grim snare-smiths shall not o'erwhelm thy soul." "How could I not know thee on the journey?" Andrew answers. "That was a sin." "Not so great," replies Christ, "as when in Achaia thou saidst thou could not go over the battling of the waves. But now arise, set Matthew free. Bear many pains, for war is destined to thee. Let no grim spear-battle make thee turn from me. Be ever eager of glory. Remember what pains I bore when the rood was upreared. Then shalt thou turn many in this burgh to the light of Heaven." Andrew, then, and here begins the Delivery of St. Matthew enters invisibly the town, like a chieftain going to the field of war. Seven watchmen keep the dungeon. As the saint drew near death swept them all away; hapless they died; the storm of death, beflecked with blood, seized on these warriors. The door fell in, and Andrew, the beast of battle, pressed in over the heathen who lay drunken with blood, ensanguining the death-plain. In that murder-coffer, under the locks of gloom, he found Matthew, the high-souled hero, singing the praises of God. They kissed and clipped each other. Holy and bright as heaven a light shone round about them, and their hearts welled with joys. Now when Andrew had delivered Matthew, he went to the city and sat him down by a pillar of brass on the march-path, full of pure love and thoughts of bliss eternal, and waited what should happen. And here begins the story of his suffering. The folk-moot is held, and the people demand the prisoners for meat. But the fierce bearers of the ashen-spears find the keepers dead, and the hammer-work unlocked. Fear of Hunger, that pale table-ghost, falls upon them, and the story of this cannibal crowd in an agony of famine is told with a grim humour which is very rare in Anglo-Saxon poetry. The first question is, Should they eat the dead guards of the prison? Then the burghers are called to council, and they come to the Thing-stead riding on their horses and haughty with their ashshafts, and cast lots whom they shall devour. And the lot falls on an old redesman, who redeems his own life by offering his young son. Is it a touch of savage humour that they thankfully accept the change? And the youth sang his Harmsong, but no compassion held from him the "edge of the sword, hardened in the rain of blows, many coloured with firesplotches." But Andrew has pity on the youth, and the edge of the sword becomes as wax and melts away. A rude, mocking description follows of the state of the town. "Howling of woe arose, the host burst into cries, the heralds shouted through the streets for famine. The hornèd halls, the winehouses were empty, men enjoyed no welfare in that bitter tide; the wisest thinkers met to take rede of their wretchedness in secret runing; and one warrior said to another, "Let no one who has good lore hide it, for an immeasurable plague is on us." Whereat a devil steps up before the chiefs; wan and colourless he was and his hue that of a cursed one. Andrew," he says, "a stranger Etheling, who has done you this wrong. There he stands." Andrew replies with the usual vigour of the saints; and a curious passage follows in. which the whole host, under its ensigns, with spears and shields, rushes to the gates to attack a single man. The scene is absurd, but after all it is the poet's way of heightening the aspect of the hero. To do this still more, God intervenes: "Andrew, thou shalt do a deed of valour; strengthen thy heart against the strong. Torments and cold bonds await thee, but I abide with thee." The saint is bound and dragged through mountain gorges and over stony hills, and over the streets, the ancient work of giants, paved with parti-coloured stones. So the whole day long was this sun-bright hero swinged, till the sun that blazed in the firmament sank to its seat of rest. Light was his thought and his courage unbroken. "It is Here follows an heroic picture in which the saint is set in a frame made by the description of a bitter night of frost. This also is done to enhance him in our eyes. Nature is used to heighten the lonely figure of the martyr. 1255. Then was the Holy One, the stark-souled Earl,1 Beset with wisdom's thoughts the whole night long, Snow bound the earth With whirling flakes of winter, and the storms With hard hail-showers grew chill, and Frost and Rime — The homes of heroes and the peoples' seats! Frozen the lands; and by keen icicles The water's might was shrunken on the streams The glittering Road of the sea. Fresh torment filled the next day, and in answer to Andrew's piteous prayer for help, only the Fiend appears, the fierce warlock who cries to the torturers, "Smite the sinner over his mouth, the foe of the folk. Now he speaketh too much." And the martyrdom goes on till "the Sun gliding to his tent, went under a headland of clouds, and Night, wan and brown, drew down her helm o'er earth and veiled the mountains steep." Then in the prison there was a wild scene. The murderous Lord of ill, with seven devils, came mocking, "What thinkest thou, Andrew, of thy hither-coming?" And he urged on his thegns, "Let the spear-point, the arrow poison-dipped, dive into the heart of this doomed man; run boldly in and bow the pride of this lord of battle." The rush of the devils is stopped by the Cross; and the great captive of hell is grieved. "What has befallen you, my warriors bold, my shield-companions, that so little is your luck?" Then one answered him, " Nought can we pain him. Go forward thyself. A bad, a frightful fight wilt thou have, if thou darest venture thy life against this lonely man. Dearest of Earls, we may give thee a better rede; take care how it may go with thee in the changing of blows. Better to twit him in his wretchedness; we have the words all ready." Then, at a distance, the devil mocked the saint, but the answer drove him to flight. The third day dawned, another day of torment; and at its end, while he lay weary of his life upon the plain, he cried piteously to Christ, "Thou, on the Cross, didst call, 'Father, 1 This also I have translated before, and I put it, therefore, into blank verse. |