The Anglo-Saxon poems of Beowulf, The travellers song, and The battle of Finnes-burh, ed. with a glossary by J.M. Kemble. [With] A translation, by J.M. Kemble. [with MS. notes by J. Bosworth. Bound in 3 vols.].1835 |
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Page xxi - All persons who have had much experience of AngloSaxon MSS. know how hopelessly incorrect they in general are ; when every allowance has been made for date and dialect, and even for the etymological ignorance of early times, we are yet met at every turn with faults of grammar, with omissions or redundancies of letters and words...
Page xxi - Danish, is at once to stamp oneself ignorant both of Old Saxon, Old Norse, and Anglo-Saxon, and to declare one's incompetency to pass a judgment upon the subject. I do not say that the poem which is now published was not written in England ; but I say that the older poem, of which this is a modernized form, was shaped upon Angle legends, celebrates an Angle hero, and was in all probability both written in Anglen, and brought hither by some of the earliest Anglo-Saxon chieftains who settled upon our...
Page xi - Heimskringla, come down to us, we should have had no difficulty in answering the question : as it is, much must be left to conjecture. I am, however, of opinion that he was an Angle of Jutland or Sleswic, for he was the friend and...
Page xx - A. xv, and of which as accurate a copy as I could make is now presented to the reader, is, no doubt, not in its present form referable to so high an antiquity. In spite of its generally heathen character there occur in it Christian allusions which fix this text at least at a period subsequent to AD 597.
Page xxx - to judge this poem not by the measure of our times and creeds, but by those of the times which it describee ; as a rude, but very faithful picture of an age, wanting indeed in scientific knowledge, in mechanical expertness, even in refinement ; but brave, generous, and right-principled ; assuring him of what I well know, that these echoes from the deserted temples of the past, if listened to in a sober and understanding spirit, bring with them matter both strengthening and purifying the heart...
Page xxii - ... (in itself confusing enough,) both lack of knowledge, and lack of care. A modern edition, made by a person really conversant with the language which he illustrates, will in all probability be much more like the original than the MS. copy, which, even in the earliest times, was made by an ignorant or indolent transcriber. But while he makes the necessary corrections, no man is justified in withholding the original readings : for although the laws of a language, ascertained by wide and careful...
Page xvii - Norse in a footnote], unite in taking our story entirely out of the circle of Northern Sagas. The opinion thus formed from observation of the dynasties, obtains confirmation from occasional geographical allusions in the poem. Thus the mention of the realm ruled by Beowulf and...
Page xv - Hygelác into the catalogue of Danish kings, without going back to the first century, and so giving the lie to the poems of Beowulf and the Traveller's Song, as well as the dates supposed by Matthew Paris and John of Brompton ; ' finally, if the consideration of these kings falsely so inserted in the Danish lists, to be contemporaries and not parts of the succession, warrant us in asserting them to have flourished in Sleswic and Jutland, during the reigns of...
Page xxi - I must content myself with recommending my reader to stndy the profound work of that great scholar to whom this book is dedicated ; and of which I do not hesitate to say, that the Deutsche Grammatik is one of the most wonderful specimens of industry and philological acumen that are preserved in the records of man. ******** '' The only complete edition of Beowulf hitherto published, is that of Grimus J.
Page xxiv - These two reasons would appear to justify the opinion that Thorpe relied upon Kemble for the text of 'Widsith'". But this is definitely disproved by the statement of Kemble himself, who continues: "[my text of the Traveller's Song] has moreover been most obligingly compared with his transcript from the original at Exeter by my friend B. Thorpe, Esq.