Week 3/Tuesday, 5 october

Readings for the week

"October," from the Très Riches Heures of Jean, Duc de Berry (c. 1416; The Limbourg Brothers)

Anglo-Saxons, Vikings, . . and Klingons

On Anglo-Saxon (also known as Old English)

"Caedmon's Hymn" (c. 670) [OE and translation and ms, below]
. . . OE: Northumbrian Version
. . . OE: West Saxon Version

"The Conversion of Edwin,"
from Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People/
Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum, (Latin, 731) [translation, below]

OE: "The Wife's Lament" (c. 450-700, Exeter Book)

OE: "The Husband's Message" (c. 450-700, Exeter Book)

OE: "Dream of the Rood" (700-900, Vercelli Book)

OE: "Deor" (8th c.?, Exeter Book)

Video: Star Trek: The Next Generation, Episode #34-"A Matter of Honor"

On the Rus [Arabic for Vikings] (from the Travels of Ibn Fadlan, 10th c. Ibn Fadlan is the basis for the character that Michael Crichton created in Eaters of the Dead, now a film, The 13th Warrior, with Antonio Banderas) [below]

OE: "The Battle of Maldon" (fought 10 Aug. 991; poem written soon after)
OE and translation: "Finnsburh Fragment" (c.750) and "Finnsburh Episode" (c.750-1000; Beowulf, ll. 1063-1160a)

"Medievalism and Feminism," Judith Bennett

"Murdering the Narrator in The Wife's Lament," Berit Åström

Another of the king's chief men, approving of his words and exhortations, presently added: "The present life of man, O king, seems to me, in comparison of that time which is unknown to us, is like to the swift flight of a sparrow through the room wherein you sit at supper in winter, with your commanders and ministers, and a good fire in the midst, while the storms of rain and snow prevail abroad; the sparrow, I say, flying in at one door, and immediately out at another, whilst he is within, is safe from the wintry storm; but after a short space of fair weather, he immediately vanishes out of your sight, into the dark winter from which he had emerged. So this life of man appears for a short space, but of what went before, or what is to follow, we are utterly ignorant. If, therefore, this new doctrine contains something more certain, it seems justly to deserve to be followed."
 

Nu sculon herigean hefonfrices weard,
Meotodes meahte and his modgeþanc,
Weorc wuldorfæder swa he wundra
gehwæs,
Ece drihten, or onstealde.
He ærest sceop eorðan bearnum
Heofon to hrofe, halig scyppend;
Þa middangeard moncynnes weard,
Ece drihten, æfter teode
Firum foldan, frea ælmihtig

It is right that we worship the Warden of heaven,
The might of the Maker, His firmness of mind,
The Glory-Father's work when of all His
wonders,
Eternal God made a beginning.
He earliest established for earth's children
Heaven for a roof, the Holy Shaper;
The mankind's Warden created the world,
Eternal Monarch, making for men
Land to live on, Almighty Lord!