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Kristi Bell, Micah McCann
ANGLO-SAXON PROSODY
An accentual metrical system whose unit of verse is the line itself. Each line, consisting of an equal number of stresses, is divided into two hemstitches (half lines) by a caesura; the hemistiches have the same number of stresses each, and are linked by alliteration.
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Example #1 of Anglo-Saxon Prosody
[The Last Survivor's Speech]
Beowulf
...and one man remained
From the host of the people, the last wanderer there,
A watchman grieving over friends, to augur
For his own life the same: brief use, brief love
Of long-prized wealth. The barrow of the dead
Stood ready on the plain near the breaking sea,
New-made on the headland, built hard of access;
Into its interior the jewel-guardian took
That cherishable mass of the treasures of men,
Of the beaten gold, and uttered these words;
"Now earth hold fast, since heroes have failed to,
The riches of the race! Was it not from you
That good men once won it? Battle-death, evil
Mortal and terrible has taken every man
Of this folk of mine that has left life and time,
That has gazed its last on feast and gladness.
Scanned lines:
Of this folk of mine that has left life and time,
That has gazed its last on the feast and gladness.
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Example #2 of Anglo-Saxon Prosody
Caedmon's Hymn
Now we must praise heaven-kingdom's Guardian,
the Measurer's might and his mind-plans,
the work of the Glory-Father, when he of wonders of every one,
eternal Lord, the beginning established.
He first created for men's sons
heaven as a roof, holy Creator;
the middle-earth mankind's Guardian,
eternal Lord, afterwards made -
for men earth Master almighty.
Scanned lines:
He first created for men's sons
heaven as a roof holy creator.
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A familiar anecdote told of King Alfred by his contemporary biographer, Asser, Bishop of Sherborne (The Life of Alfred, ch.23), witnesses to the king's affection for the traditional poetry of his people, and celebrates his ability as a child to win an attractive book from his mother by memorizing and repeating to her the poems which it contained; for though, as Asser says (ch.22), Alfred remained illiterate until he was twelve years old or more, he was a zealous listener to the Saxon poems on those frequent occasions when he could hear them recited in the hall, and, being readily taught, he retained them in his memory with evident ease.
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Grendel's Dog
from
Beocat
Editor's Cat,
Modern English Version
Brave Beocat, brood-kit of Eagthmeow,
Hearth-pet of Hrothgar in whose high halls
He mauled without mercy many fat mice,
Night did not find napping nor snack-feasting.
The wary war-cat, whiskered paw-wielder,
Bearer of the burnished neck-belt, gold-braided collarband,
Feller of fleas fatal, too, to ticks,
The work of wonder-smiths, woven with witches' charms,
Sat on the throne-seat his ears like sword-points
Upraised, sharp-tipped, listening for peril-sounds,
When he heard from the moor-hill howls of the hell-hound,
Gruesome hunger-grunts of Grendel's Great Dane,
Deadly doom-mutt, dread demon-dog.
Then boasted Beocat, noble battle-kitten,
Bane of barrow-bunnies, bold seeker of nest-booty:
"If hand of man unhasped the heavy hall-door
And freed me to frolic forth to fight the fang-bearing fiend,
I would lay the whelpling low with lethal claw-blows;
Fur would fly and the foe would taste death-food.
But resounding snooze-noise, stern slumber-thunder,
Nose-music of men snoring mead-hammered in the wine-halls,
Fills me with sorrow-feeling for Fate does not see fit
To send some fingered folk to lift the firm fastened latch
That I might go grapple with the grim goul-pooch."
Thus spoke the mouse-shredder, hunter of hall-pests,
Short-haired Hrodent-slayer, greatest of the Pussy-Geats.
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