Genesis B and the Comedic Imperative 1611461677, 9781611461671

Table of contents :
Contents
Preface
Abbreviations
Acknowledgments
I Deposition of a Dame
II Comedy, Wit, Tropology, Allegory
III Adamic Resolve
IV Adamic Failure
V Father of Lies
VI “God Was Himself a Warlord”
VII ‘No Fiend Here in the Realm’
VIII Dom Is Darker and Deeper
IX The Boda and Gottschalk
X Adam and Eve and the Light
Notes
Bibliography
Index
About the Author

Citation preview

Genesis B and the Comedic Imperative

Genesis B and the Comedic Imperative

John F. Vickrey

LEHIGH UNIVERSITY PRESS Bethlehem

Published by Lehigh University Press Copublished by The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. 4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706 www.rowman.com Unit A, Whitacre Mews, 26-34 Stannary Street, London SE11 4AB Copyright © 2015 by John F. Vickrey All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data ISBN: 978-1-61146-167-1 (cloth) ISBN: 978-1-61146-168-8 (electronic)

™ The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992. Printed in the United States of America

Contents

Preface

vii

Abbreviations

ix

Acknowledgments

xi

I

1

Deposition of a Dame

II Comedy, Wit, Tropology, Allegory Comedy Wit Tropology Allegory

25 25 34 35 43

III

Adamic Resolve

51



Manuscript Illustrations (unpaged)

IV

Adamic Failure Allegorical Narrative The MS Illustrations of the Fall The Second Temptation of Adam

V

Father of Lies “Despaire Breeds Not . . . Where Faith Is Staid” Patriarchaism and Then Some

v

75 75 81 91 105 105 126

vi  •  Contents

VI

“God Was Himself a Warlord”

139

VII

‘No Fiend Here in the Realm’

167

VIII

Dom Is Darker and Deeper

195

IX The Boda and Gottschalk

217

X

235

Adam and Eve and the Light

Endnotes

267

Bibliography

303

Index

315



325

About the Author

Preface

My almost lifelong encounter with Genesis B began as a graduate student at Indiana University when I came to read and to like the poem. I liked it so much, in fact, that I chose it as my dissertational subject, “Genesis B: A New Analysis and Edition,” completed in 1960. In subsequent years I addressed, among other projects in Old English literature, a number of the vexing problems which the poem has posed for its modern students. These efforts can be noted in the Bibliography to the present study. In my later years of teaching at Lehigh University I saw what might be the implications of the phrase nergend user 536 and the suggestively nearby clause ne þu me oðiewdest ænig tacen 540— implications which are explored here in Chapter VII. For some while other concerns and interests supervened, but with the publication in 2009 of Beowulf and the Illusion of History, a study of the poem’s Finn Episode and the affair of Dæghrefn, I returned to nergend user and the matter of Adam’s curious tacen. As I came to realize, it was importantly a construction put on the ne þu me . . . clause which had led a goodly number of scholars to conclude that the poem’s intention was to exonerate, or largely to exonerate, Adam and Eve, showing them as essentially innocent of the Fall. I came to suspect that this argument was, philologically, seriously lacking, and I expended much effort in what I saw as a rediscovery of the poet’s intent. The result, of course, has been Genesis B and the Comedic Imperative. For a long time, however, I had little awareness of Genesis B as not tragic but rather, at least prospectively, as comedic, and I had no awareness as to some imperative or other; what I now see as a strong likelihood of both came only quite late in my study. Well, in these several respects readers will have to judge for themselves. vii

Abbreviations

ASE CCCC CSEL CCSL diss. EETS, OS ELN M MGH MP MRTS N&Q NM n.s OS PG PL PLL PMLA PQ QJS RES

Anglo-Saxon England Corpus Christi College, Cambridge Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina dissertation Early English Text Society, Original Series English Language Notes Monacensis (Munich) MS of the Heliand Monumenta Germaniae Historica Modern Philology Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies Notes and Queries Neuphilologische Mitteilungen new series Original Series Patrologia Graeca Patrologia Latina Papers on Language and Literature Publications of the Modern Language Association Philological Quarterly Quarterly Journal of Speech Review of English Studies

ix

x  •  Abbreviations

rept. SP S.P.C.K. TLS

reprint Studies in Philology Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge Times Literary Supplement

Acknowledgments

Some acknowledgments are very much in order. First, to A. N. Doane. My citations from the text mainly follow his Saxon Genesis, and I would add that his most important contribution certainly to my own book and perhaps to Genesis B studies as a whole has been, I believe, his perception of the tropological element in the poem’s narrative. I would note also D. H. Green’s The Carolingian Lord as generally of great value, especially for the perception of martiality as a motif throughout Genesis B. His book is a primary resource for Genesis B studies. The Bodleian Library, Oxford, caretakers of the manuscript, Junius 11, which contains Genesis B, generously made possible high-quality reproduction of four of the manuscript’s pages. Locally, I am grateful for the help of friends and (former) colleagues at Lehigh University, especially Professor Barbara Traister of the Department of English, Professor Scott Gordon of the Department of English and the Lehigh University Press, and Professors Monica Najar, Director of that press during the first stages of publication, and Professor Katherine Crassons, current Director; and LUP’s Coordinator, Tommy J. Moore. I also thank Lehigh University’s librarians, especially Christine Roysdon, friend and fellow-viola da gambist, and Pat Ward in Interlibrary Loan; and, too, the librarians at Reeves Library of Moravian College. Rowman & Littlefield staff have been steadfastly patient and helpful: thank you, Amie Brown (Assistant Editor), Brooke Burres, (Associate Editor), and Catherine Mudge (Assistant Production Editor). xi

xii  •  Acknowledgments

My greatest indebtedness and my deepest thanks, however, are to my wife, Carol. She has been a strong support and a friendly critic and editor throughout the whole period of composition and a mainstay whose dedication saw us through the final preparation of the manuscript.

CHAPTER I

Deposition of a Dame

The Old English poem Genesis B has undergone more than a century of assessment by scholars, and throughout that time their perception has been that in one way or another the poem is an anomaly. The first and best known of these perceptions was philological. Originally not written in Old English, Genesis B was apparently, as Eduard Sievers proposed in 1875, a translation into Old English (mainly West Saxon) from an Old Saxon poem probably of the mid-ninth century. The translation was interpolated as lines 235–851 into a much longer Old English poem in MS Junius 11 which Sievers named Genesis A. Sievers’ hypothesis was confirmed by Karl Zangemeister’s discovery in 1894 of fragments of an Old Saxon Genesis poem in the Vatican Library, one fragment of which, a passage of a little over twenty-five lines, corresponded very largely to lines 791–817a of Genesis B.1 Since Sievers’ time a good many perceptions as to the poem’s anomalousness have been of a literary-critical rather than a philological nature. It need hardly be said that in recent years many scholars have come with enthusiasm and philological capability to the poem’s elucidation, most notably, of course, A. N. Doane, whose edition of the poem will often be referred to below, though now and again, I should note, in disagreement. Susan Burchmore, Janet Schrunk Ericksen, R. E. Finnegan, J. R. Hall, Thomas Hill, Eric Jager, Ute Schwab, and Rosemary Woolf all deserve mention here; the present author too has in earlier papers addressed some of the numerous problems which the text of Genesis B presents to the modern reader. Most of these scholars, and others, have concluded that the poem reflects the prevailing 1

2  •  Chapter I

Carolingian and Anglo-Saxon theological judgments and beliefs. I would, accordingly, term this group of studies the orthodox school of Genesis B. However, another and certainly prominent school of interpretation has concluded that the poem reflects a theological position and an attitude quite surprisingly different from what one finds otherwise in the corpus of Old English and Old Saxon religious poems and from what one might have expected from a supposedly Christian and evidently Frankish poet composing on the subject of Adam and Eve and a tempter in the Garden of Eden. The principal inference of many of these studies is that in Genesis B Adam and Eve are presented as transgressive, but only innocently so: certainly they disobeyed God’s command, but they were tricked into doing so in such a way that their offense ought not be seen as sinful. I shall term this group of studies the exonerative school. It is fairly safe to say that these schools, the orthodox and the exonerative, are not in active critical converse. On the whole, each ignores the other’s position. For example, J. M. Evans seems to ignore the codicological circumstance which underlies what, in due course, would be the understanding of J. R. Hall, namely, that Genesis B, reposing as it does among theologically orthodox neighbors in MS Junius 11, shares this unity with these neighbors.2 For his part, J. R. Hall, speaking of Genesis B “and its famous version of the Fall of Man,” passes over the circumstance that if the poem’s presentation of Adam and Eve is as unorthodox as Evans takes it to be, his own argument as to the “theological unity of MS Junius 11” is seriously compromised.3 A major effort of our study, then, will have to be to examine what appears to be a central point of disagreement: the contention of the exonerative school that the poem, among its anomalies, is most exceptional in that it finds Adam and Eve morally blameless. The present study will try to show that this view is untenable, that the poem overall is not only as orthodox theologically as Hall accepts but is indeed exemplary of a large corpus of Christian literature. Yet the insufficiencies of the exonerative school are only secondarily the concern of the present study. Its larger scope is implied by my titular phrase “comedic imperative.” For although mainly orthodox, the poem at its very end displays, as I shall argue, a measure of heterodoxy. This measure, entailing as it does the implication that Adam and Eve are spiritually able to receive forgiveness for their offence, identifies the term “comedic.” My other and probably somewhat more unexpected term is “imperative.” At most it has only seldom been glimpsed, let alone argued, not only that the very end of the poem as we have it is comedic but that the element of comedy is, if not strictly ineluctable, nevertheless not easy to avoid as an effect of the poem. The end of the poem with its recovery of Adam and Eve is hardly

Deposition of a Dame   •  3

unprepared; rather it proceeds plausibly and almost inevitably from factors both external and internal to the text. The former are the military tradition of the Germanic comitatus and the aforenoted “prevailing Carolingian and Anglo-Saxon theological judgments and beliefs” as well as the overall comedic tenor of Christian narrative literature. As to these factors it must, for the moment, suffice merely to note Doane’s observation that “God, said Hrabanus, created the world not for perdition, but for salvation.”4 The internal factors to no little extent reflect these external traditions and beliefs. The poem’s basic poetical disposition is to present the characters of the narrative, and now in particular Adam and Eve, as tropological, i.e., as entailing an existential duality, both pre- and post-redemptive. As post-redemptive persons Adam and Eve can therefore seek salvation. Contemporaneous allegory, in particular the tribus modis understanding of sinful action, conduces to support this tropology. Moreover, the poem is suffused throughout by, as I shall term it, “martiality”; the hierarchies which the poem displays, whether inviolate or profaned, are those of the Germanic comitatus, whereby, as far as the end of the poem is concerned, Adam is the soldier, the þegn, of God. It is in consequence of these several factors that Adam’s disposition, engulfed though he becomes by calamity, is nevertheless resolute to persevere in faith and loyalty. These factors and their bearing on the end of the poem will of course be enlarged upon in one or another of the chapters to follow. We can begin our present study by tracing critical opinion of Genesis B as it has evolved in the exonerative school over some years. The readings of Genesis B which I think have been seriously off the mark began before the mid-twentieth century, but it is convenient to begin with critics circa 1950 who took an admiring but also a rather exclusionary notice of the poem’s eloquence, citing especially the eloquence that the chief rebel displays in the course of his rebellion. We could start with Kemp Malone, who adjudged that Genesis B has “great poetic power; indeed, the speech of Satan to the fallen angels bears comparison with Paradise Lost in vigor if not in finish.”5 Such great poetic power, as I hope to show, is only one of the poem’s many excellences, which include, it may turn out, much more of “finish” than Malone might have supposed. And in so remarking, Malone touches on only about the first third of the poem—what a falling off, if its height of poetic power comes so early on. What of the remaining two thirds of the poem, what of Adam and Eve and Satan’s boda ‘messenger,’ what of their fateful encounters and the mortal taste? Malone does not address the issue of exoneration, but his admiration of the “great poetic power” in certain passages might, however wrongly, create an impression that the speaker of such powerful lines is an admirable figure.

4  •  Chapter I

Possibly C. L. Wrenn was thus mistaken: where Malone was omissive merely or noncommittal, Wrenn fell, it might seem, into the error of carrying over an admiration of Satan’s rhetoric into an admiration of Satan’s morality. Genesis B, Wrenn said, “is a true Germanic heroic poem, glorifying the comitatus spirit exemplified here in Satan and his followers.”6 An astonishing judgment: how could Satan’s rebellion against his own lord glorify the comitatus spirit, an essential part of which must surely have been a retainer’s, a thane’s, devotion and loyalty to the cause and person of his lord? It is as if Wrenn’s notion of the comitatus spirit acknowledged the chieftain’s ambition but not the follower’s duty; “the chief,” Tacitus explains, “fights for victory, but the retainers for the chief.”7 Could Satan in Genesis B and Byrhtwold in Maldon both “glorif[y] the comitatus spirit”? The Anglo-Saxons and their language got it right: a term commonly applied to the Devil was wærloga ‘covenant-breaker’; thus Genesis A, speaking of Satan, says that yrre god . . . sceop þam werlogan / wræclicne ham weorce to leane ‘angry God . . . appointed for the covenant-breaker a miserable dwelling in requital for his deed’ 34–37.8 And in Genesis B Satan’s treason, one would think, is hard to miss. Early in the poem as we have it, the poet gives not a few lines to the gifts—life, intelligence, beauty, blessed establishment, power—which the Lord had bestowed upon his angels and upon one of them in particular, and what thanks and loyalty that one had returned. It is clear that as a subject Satan owes loyalty, and so heinous is his offense against his lord and the “comitatus spirit” that he has to be seen not as the hero but as the archvillain in Genesis B. Another, and on the whole a somewhat more recent, group has tended more closely than did Malone and Wrenn to assess the poem’s inner dynamic. And here we encounter the criticism of those who, though not describing the poem as anomalous, have nevertheless found it so, particularly in regard to the responsibility of Adam and Eve. The classic judgment, from Genesis 3 onwards, has found them guilty. But much modern criticism of Genesis B has revoked this ancient and general opinion and instead has found them innocent, or virtually so. Geoffrey Shepherd’s summary of the poem’s narrative is so brief as to take almost no notice of motivation, and therefore is only doubtfully an instance of the exonerative school. But it adumbrates a corollary view that in Genesis B God is seen as remote from or indifferent to humankind, and it shares with the exonerative view of the poem the understanding that the poem ends on a dismal note. Shepherd concludes with the statement that for Adam and Eve, after they have disobeyed, “[t]here will be nowhere to hide, not even in the sea.”9 The inference that Adam would go into the sea in order to escape

Deposition of a Dame   •  5

the Lord’s wrath is a misreading of the passage ac ic to þam grunde genge gif ic godes meahte / willan gewyrcean ‘but I would even go to the very bottom if I could do God’s will’ 834–35.10 And Shepherd’s intimation that a vengeful God pursues Adam comports ill with other passages which imply God’s benevolence and which I shall identify and discuss in the chapters that follow. We shall look further into Adam’s speech in Chapter X. Mainly the exonerative critics have endeavored to show that the poem presents Adam and Eve as essentially blameless. This school of thought is venerable, going back, to my knowledge, just about one hundred and fifty years.11 We can begin with the more recent judgment of Charles W. Kennedy that “the ancient legend [of the Fall] becomes in Genesis B a tragic example of puzzled loyalties, a tragic defeat of willing obedience vastly torn between observance of the ban and acceptance of its announced repeal. Virtue, tested in ‘worlds not realized,’ is deceived but not seduced.”12 The fault in Kennedy’s formulation lies in the word “announced”; the passive form leaves unannounced just who announced the “repeal” of the Lord’s command that the fruit of a certain tree was not to be eaten. Far from explaining the acceptance, the circumstance that the announcer is obviously the Tempter himself raises the issue as to whether the acceptance was warranted. In his literary history Stanley B. Greenfield elaborates Kennedy’s point somewhat, though with a certain tentativeness.13 He noted what he took to be features of the narrative which seemed “to lead to the conclusion that the Old Saxon poet endeavored to depict the Fall not to show man’s moral disobedience but to stress the deception of innocence by malevolence and fraud, to remind us of the forces of destruction that lurk behind human choices of action, however good our motivations.” The assumption that underlies this pronouncement, typically held by those who would exonerate the Adam and Eve of Genesis B, is the assumption that disobedience even of God’s clear and explicit command can be excused or forgiven—an understanding distinctly at odds with what can reasonably be thought to have been the view of early medieval, and, more narrowly, ninth-century Frankish Christianity on this particular point. Greenfield observes that malevolence and fraud play their dire role in the Fall. But as we shall see, mainly in Chapter IV, to speak of the “innocence” especially of Adam and of the goodness of his motivation is to mistake the sense of the text. Perhaps the principal feature which Greenfield regards as justifying their disobedience and so implying the exoneration of Adam and Eve is “the regard both Adam and Eve display for a ‘sign.’” The later edition, that of Greenfield and Calder, makes the “sign” even more important: “Adam and Eve’s insistence on a ‘sign’ from God.”14 As to Adam’s “insistence”—well, we

6  •  Chapter I

will look closely at his expression tacen oðiewan 540 in Chapter VII. But as to Eve’s, just as a preliminary objection: although the boda himself promises her a sign (lines 564–67), to speak of Eve’s, as apart from Adam’s, “insistence on a ‘sign’ from God” is somewhat to overstate the case. It is not a question of an innocent mind stipulating a reasonable condition. No spoken discourse of Eve is recorded from the time of Adam’s first temptation until after she is said, in line 599, to have eaten of the fruit, nor does the narrator make mention in this space of any such insistence on Eve’s part. Any subsequent affirmations as to the genuineness of her vision, as in lines 671–78, are those of an intelligence already distressed and fallen. Moreover, neither Kennedy nor Greenfield and Calder even try to show how what they regard as the missteps of Adam and Eve in Genesis B are to be reconciled with the fairly clear disposition in the Old Saxon Genesis fragments to regard missteps as sins. Their formulations come close to the inference that morally, at any rate, Adam and Eve were blameless in their defeat. Did the Old English translation, i.e., Genesis B as we have it, diverge so strongly from the Old Saxon original as to present a markedly different attitude towards sinfulness? Greenfield and Calder do not say. The most assertive and detailed judgment that Adam and Eve are guiltless has been that of Evans. In his “‘Genesis B’ and Its Background” he argues, essentially, that since in Genesis B God’s will was hard for Adam and Eve to discover they surely cannot be strongly blamed for not finding it. The situation in which they find themselves caught cannot have been their situation initially. What we have of the poem begins with God’s command that although Adam and Eve are free to use or enjoy all else, they must forgo that one tree’s fruit: ac niotað inc þæs oðres ealles, forlætað þone ænne beam, / wariað inc wið þone wæstm, ne wyrð inc wilna gæd ‘but enjoy for yourselves all the rest; forgo the one tree, guard yourselves against that fruit; nor will there be for you a lack of desired things’ 235–36. The imperative plurals and the repeated dual pronoun inc here and certainly the clause hnigon þa mid heafdum heofoncyninge / georne togenes and sædon ealles þanc, / lista and þara lara ‘(they) earnestly made obeisance towards the heaven-king with (their) heads and said thanks (for) all, (for) wisdom and instruction’ 237–39 indicate that in Genesis B not only Adam but also Eve hears and accepts God’s prohibition— a point of no little importance in the interpretation of the poem. And what they heard and accepted almost certainly went beyond what God said in lines 235–36, the beginning of Genesis B as we have it. The first clause, ‘but enjoy for yourselves all the rest,’ could hardly have been the beginning of God’s speech. Adam later on describes God’s speech by the verb mæðlan 524, which would imply a formal address, longer than two lines merely, and says

Deposition of a Dame   •  7

in lines 529–31 that in his speech God had spoken of Hell as punishment for disobedience. So it is fairly clear that lines 235–36 are only the end of God’s speech as it stood before the loss of text in the MS as we have it.15 It seems unlikely, moreover, that þone ænne beam . . . þone wæstm was the first reference in God’s speech to the prohibited tree: how would Adam and Eve have known which one tree þone ænne beam referred to? It is of course true that the lifes beam and the deaðes beam are introduced, or reintroduced, in a passage of some length later on (lines 460–89), and so it might be argued that þone ænne beam . . . þone wæstm sufficed in the earlier passage. But there is a good reason for the later lengthy passage: it establishes what was not necessary for the earlier mention to establish and what we shall take notice of in the next chapter: the tropological presence in the poem.16 Thus the condition in which, allegedly, Adam and Eve find themselves caught has to come about later on in the poem, almost certainly on the occasion, first, of Adam’s observation in line 540 that the messenger purportedly from God showed him no tacen ‘sign’ and later on when the messenger gave Eve, as a reward for compliance, a tacen in the form of a vision of Heaven, which she describes to Adam in lines 666–71. The critical inference has been that Adam’s observation that the boda showed no tacen (ne þu me oðiewdest ænig tacen 540) was equivalent to a request that a tacen be shown, and that therefore, when Eve was vouchsafed as a tacen her vision of Heaven, Adam’s supposed request was legitimately met: a tacen, it is inferred, had been demanded, and a tacen was supplied. In consequence, as Evans explains it, “Eve’s vision of heaven has convinced [Adam] that the self-styled angel really is a messenger of God” and “if Eve can be persuaded to eat the forbidden fruit by offering her some concrete assurance that she is fulfilling the will of God, it should not be difficult for her to convince Adam that the emissary is all he claims to be” and “[should she succumb] Eve will be able to offer her husband the one thing which might sway him: the ‘tacen’ which he had demanded,” and finally, “Eve’s vision has assured [Adam] of the messenger’s authenticity.”17 So when his (supposed) request was, as it seemed, complied with, how could Adam be at fault for complying with the messenger’s request, conveyed through Eve, that he too eat of the fruit? Very clearly, our study will have to ask if the poem’s tacens might be understood other than as Evans and others have understood them. Any exposition of “the comedic imperative”—an idea which will have to be developed gradually—in Genesis B must consider whether the poem’s two tacen passages (at lines 539–42 and 666–76) really served to make God’s will hard to discover for Adam and Eve, whether, even, the text itself warrants references to a tacen as something “which [Adam] had demanded” (Evans) or upon which Adam and Eve had insisted (Greenfield and Calder).

8  •  Chapter I

From this seemingly obvious meaning of the tacens it is Evans, in “‘Genesis B’ and Its Background,” who has drawn the strongest inference theologically. He concludes that in Genesis B the errors of Adam and Eve “are errors of judgment, not sins, and the nemesis which overtakes them is determined by a causal rather than a moral law.” And he elaborates his inference in the starkest terms: Good tragedy . . . is very rarely good theology, and in the context of Christian doctrine the implications of Genesis B are far more alarming than those of Paradise Lost. The deed, it insists, was evil, and the deed is all that matters; the motives, the moral guilt or innocence of the agents, are totally irrelevant, for the law is implacable and a certain action will be followed by certain consequences regardless of the circumstances and characters of its perpetrators. The path to Hell is paved with good intentions.18

It is now getting close to fifty years since the publication of “‘Genesis B’ and Its Background.” Clearly it is time, high time, that Evans, if he can be answered, be answered. A good many later critics, clearly convinced that his analysis is valid, have come forth with further inferences from his conclusion as to the innocence of Adam and Eve. Malcolm Godden accepts Evans’ view as to the meaning of the tacens, but extends the argument so as to consider also the rebel angels: “[t]wo kinds of tragic fall are . . . dramatized in Genesis B: the angels act in full knowledge that they are in conflict with God, but are impelled by ‘heroic’ qualities of vengeance, loyalty, defiance, aspiration to freedom, rejection of a subordinate position; Adam and Eve, on the other hand, wish to serve the divine will but find themselves caught in a situation where that will is hard to discover.”19 Godden’s understanding of the second kind of fall—a fairly clear endorsement, it seems to me, of Evans’ view— takes up the matter of Adam and Eve’s regard for a “sign,” but we should consider the first kind also: any kind of “fall,” especially when it is a “tragic” fall, is not invariably consonant with what I shall shortly term “the comedic.” Evans stops short of applying to Genesis B as a whole what he takes to be the import of its tacens. Instead, he finds what in effect amounts to a big inconsistency in the poet’s treatment of his narrative. Noting the disposition among fathers of the Western Church “to take a more optimistic view of man’s ability to contribute to his own salvation,” Evans remarks that “Genesis B may be seen to be typical of its age in accepting the letter while excluding the spirit of Augustinianism. A minimizing account of the Fall would have been by no means out of place in ninth-century Saxony, particularly when it was interspersed with more strictly orthodox declarations concerning

Deposition of a Dame   •  9

the disasters attendant on Adam’s disobedience.”20 This phrasing would seem to mean that “the minimizing account”—the term “minimizing” meaning, evidently, the suppressing of Augustinian severity—represented the view of the Western Church, whereas the “more strictly orthodox declarations” represented Augustinian theology, though not its spirit. So the poem, with its fondness for mitigating the guilt especially of Eve, is “a minimizing account of the Fall,” but the tacen passages, when considered together, would constitute at least one of those “more strictly orthodox declarations.” To my mind this interpretation is suspect. In the first place (though this is a quibble), the tacen passages, so understood, seem at best to amount only to an implication and hardly a declaration. In the second place, although the poem abounds with declarations “concerning the disasters attendant on Adam’s disobedience,” such declarations are in no way inconsistent with the view of the Western Church that Adam’s disobedience was calamitous for humankind. There is a considerable difference between, for example, the narrator’s exclamation on the one hand that their eating the fruit was deaðes swefn and deofles gespon, / hell and hinnsið and hæleða forlor ‘the sleep of death and the Devil’s deceit, hell and departure and mankind’s loss’ 720–21, a passage whose thought is echoed at many points in other Old English and Old Saxon poems, and on the other hand Evans’ understanding that in Genesis B “the deed is all that matters; the motives, the moral guilt or innocence of the agents, are totally irrelevant.” Thirdly, if the Western Church took predominantly that more optimistic view, why did the poet admit a minority opinion in his otherwise “minimizing account”? Fourthly, what other Old English or Old Saxon narrative poems might show this disposition to reflect both sides of a theological question? Especially, of course, the Old Saxon cousins of Genesis B: how does the supposed implication of the tacen passages in Genesis B—that “a certain action will be followed by certain consequences,” and so on—square away with passages in the Old Saxon Heliand in which Christ again and again speaks and acts in behalf of sinners and commends repentance and forgiveness? And fifthly, and quite disconcertingly, it seems to me that inconsistency also obtains in Evans’ argument. At one point, as we have seen, he indicates that Genesis B is by and large “a minimizing account,” into which, allegedly, more strictly orthodox declarations were interspersed. But on the next page, echoing his view earlier that “the deed . . . was evil,” he says that “set against this kind of background, Genesis B’s account of the Fall as an evil deed rather than a moral failure seems not only natural but inevitable.”21 So the minimizing account has now become the poem’s “account of the Fall as an evil

10  •  Chapter I

deed rather than a moral failure.” What was only an interspersion has now widened to become the poem’s “account of the Fall.” As to “this kind of background,” i.e., “the poet’s literary environment,” one can agree with Evans but only up to the point that much of the terminology of the poems which Evans cites is Germanic, as is that of Genesis B. But so far as I can see, none of these other poems or passages therein endorse the view that Adam’s was only an “evil deed rather than a moral failure.” That is the issue in question. The more overtly Christian poems among those he cites—Genesis A, Christ and Satan, Guthlac, The Phoenix, to which might well be added the Old Saxon Heliand and Genesis—quite certainly represent in their theology the view of the Western Church that the disobedience of Adam and Eve was a moral failure. Godden’s analysis of the angels’ fall is open to objection. There would seem to be a question of definition: can the fall of evil ones be styled “tragic”? Or is it that in Genesis B the evil ones are after all not so evil? It looks as if Godden thinks so. If we transform his passive “are impelled” to active we learn that “vengeance, loyalty,” and so on, impelled the angels to rebellion. The angels, poor devils, were caught in a bind not of their own doing. But the narrative voice in Genesis B acknowledges no such mitigation. He insists that Satan’s motive, and that of his followers, was pride (oferhygd 328; ofermede 293; ofermetto 332, 337, 351; ofermod 272; also adjective ofermod ‘proud’ 262, 338); also gal (probably) ‘elatio mentis, ‘foolish elation’ 327 and galscipe ‘state of elation’ 341 are given as the sin of the followers.22 But pride and foolish elation are hardly the sole stuff of tragedy, and so Godden, in order perhaps to demonstrate an element thereof, softens “pride” into “vengeance, loyalty,” and so on, a catalogue of motives in which “pride” is notably unmentioned but which, being “heroic,” has an aura of tragedy and suggests that the rebel angels were really not so evil. We need hardly credit such exculpations as Satan claims: næfð he þeah riht gedon ‘he [God] has not done [what is] right’ 360 and swa he us ne mæg ænige synne gestælan ‘[a] lthough he cannot impute any sin to us’ 391.23 For the bind was the angels’ own doing. By the nature of geongordom ‘service, thaneship,’ “aspiration to freedom” and “rejection of a subordinate position” could not be admitted as legitimate reasons for rebellion against one’s lord; such aspiration and rejection had utterly to be renounced. One might, of course, rejoin that the angels were created in geongordom and so, having had no choice in the matter, were justified in withdrawing their service. But such is not the view of the narrator, who indicates prior to Satan’s speech of incitation that Satan owed God thanks and praise for the gifts of beauty and power (lines 252–58) but that despite these favors and out of vainglory Satan forsook geongerdom 267 and

Deposition of a Dame   •  11

chose rebellion (lines 263–77)—so that, in sum, his cause is without merit. “Vengeance,” by the way, though it was to become a basis for their proceedings against Adam, could hardly have been a reason for their rebellion in the first place. And “loyalty” as a supposed and certainly a commonly admirable motive is left loftily vague as to whom it was owing. Difficult it is to see the angels’ fall as tragic. Godden’s second kind of tragic fall, that of Adam and Eve, takes note less of their motives than of their circumstances. It is again the seeming evidence of the tacens, with the inference, which is that of Evans and Greenfield, that at the end of the poem, Adam and Eve must go forth innocent, or largely so, into abjectness and exile. Seeing what he takes as their innocence, Godden adds that their Fall is “tragic”; his doing so contrasts a little oddly with his finding that the fall of the obviously guilty angels is also, mutatis mutandis, “tragic.” Taking the alleged exoneration a step further, Godden says that “elegiac laments invite our sympathy with both sets of fallen, while God becomes an almost impersonal figure of nemesis, the Almighty who by definition cannot have a rival and whose condemnation of Adam and Eve to mortality and exile is in a sense predetermined by the nature of the two trees.”24 “[A]n almost impersonal figure of nemesis”: does Godden know something that Adam doesn’t know—Adam, who says “I have fast belief in the almighty God . . . [who] is able from his high realm to present me with each of good things” 543–46? And if lamentation might elicit, common sense might preclude any sympathy for Satan and company (for they would have to constitute one set of those who fell). And “predetermin[ing]” can mean no more than that all humankind, gumena æghwilc 465, i.e., not only Adam and Eve in their innocent as well as in their fallen selves but also posterity fallen in Adam, must choose of the trees. This the poet’s account of the two trees and their nature in lines 460–89 makes clear. A charge that Genesis B, or rather, its Old Saxon original, represents God as “an almost impersonal figure of nemesis” would, I should think, be a serious charge for ninth century Franks, and certainly for us a charge which would touch very obviously on any presence of “the comedic” in the poem. But no small part of modern criticism comes near to a inference that its poet was theologically unorthodox. R. D. Fulk and Christopher M. Cain might seem to approach Godden’s charge when they write of Genesis B that “it remains remarkable that the poet chose to narrate [the fall of the angels] from Satan’s point of view, placing God in the inscrutable distance.”25 This assessment of God’s location is not totally incorrect; we shall note in Chapter V the poet’s inclination to locate God at one place or another.

12  •  Chapter I

But “inscrutable” is sadly amiss. In the first place, there is nothing inscrutable about God’s response. We are left in no doubt: the poet assures us, in lines 292–321, that God heard all that the rebel chieftain said (þa hit se allwalda eall gehyrde 292) and took forthwith his just though dreadful requital. Also, for the poet to tell of the angelic fall from Satan’s point of view need not mean that his sympathy, and ours by invitation, lies with Satan. The poetical motive here, I think, was not sympathetic allegiance but dramatic necessity; it was not to place God as Adam’s lord in the distant background but to place Satan in the foreground as Adam’s foe: Adam and Satan, the latter through his deputy, become for audience or reader the principal antagonists. This emphasis on Adam, rather than God, is fully consistent with what will be recalled in the next chapter as to Adam’s tropological nature in Genesis B. It is therefore to advantage that God speaks only at the beginning of what we have of the poem. God as a speaking presence in the course of Satan’s harangues first on rebellion (lines 277–91) and then on his torment and his scheme of vengeance (lines 356–441) would reduce Satan to puniness and thereby destroy any impression of a more or less equal contest. For Satan has no chance against God except, as it seemed to Satan, through Adam, and it becomes clear in the second of his speeches that Satan’s wrath is directed now at Adam: lines 364–66, 386–88, 397–400, and finally, and in by far the greatest detail, virtually the whole of lines 403–41. But the absence of God as a vocal presence (after he speaks to Adam and Eve) hardly means that he is “an almost impersonal figure of nemesis” who dwells “in the inscrutable distance.” His absence in the temptations of Adam and Eve is also fully consistent with the orthodox Christian understanding that God let, and left, Adam and Eve to choose for themselves, but that his doing so did not follow from remoteness or indifference. And we shall see in later chapters how God is otherwise brought into the poem. The exonerative reading has also been accepted by some feminist critics. The acceptance should probably have surprised no one: Evans’ analysis, inferring as it did that Eve as well as Adam, though no doubt both were sadly mistaken, was nevertheless essentially innocent in a moral sense, seemed to clear the way to further prospecting for her virtues. Thus whereas the exonerative critics mentioned earlier have inferred especially the remoteness or indifference of God in Genesis B, feminist critics have notably inferred not just the innocence but the excellence of Eve. Gillian R. Overing, in an endnote, follows Evans on exoneration—”When [Eve] has eaten the fruit she has a vision of heaven which convinces her that the ‘angel’ was all he claimed to be. Adam, too, is assured of the messenger’s good faith and eats the fruit believing that he is obeying the instructions of God”26—but Over-

Deposition of a Dame   •  13

ing fails to address any more narrowly the particular circumstances, much misunderstood, under which Adam “is assured of the messenger’s good faith.” We shall examine these and other inferences. Overing, in ending her paper, finds Eve something of a puzzle (“Eve . . . becomes the riddle”), but Susannah B. Mintz from start to finish has no doubts about Eve’s excellence in Genesis B. She ends her abstract thus: “I suggest that Eve emerges as a woman of intelligence and personal responsibility, one who demonstrates both honesty and intellectual and spiritual freedom.”27 I would agree that Eve’s declaration in lines 824–26, near the end of the poem, demonstrates both responsibility and honesty, although I do not know of any critic who has denied that this is so. But in respect to “intellectual and spiritual freedom,” Mintz makes, I think, a rash assessment, a matter we shall take up in the chapters to follow. Both Overing and Mintz address in not overly temperate terms the criticism of those who have found Eve less admirable or more imperfect than they themselves have adjudged. Mintz avers that “Rosemary Woolf and John Vickrey stand out as the most egregiously accusatory, unapologetic in their condemnations of Eve.”28 On the same page she broadens her indictment to include A. N. Doane: “despite the many subtle philological nuances brought to bear on the text, Doane also reprises the heavily moralized rhetoric of earlier critics like Vickrey and Woolf.” Though grieved a little by my relegation to the echelon of the poem’s earlier critics, I am nevertheless honored, even if unintentionally, by her inclusions; one could do worse, far worse, than to have to stand in the critical dock with Rosemary Woolf and A. N. Doane. But I wonder: could it be that Doane saw fit to find Eve wanting because, or partly because, of his subtle nuances? Further: if to condemn Eve is to commit “moralized rhetoric,” might not that rhetoric be equally “moralized” which finds her innocent? We shall have to weigh Mintz’s charges as to egregiously accusatory and unapologetic condemnations. It appears to me that critics of the Mintz and Overing persuasion accept the criterion which Alain Renoir advanced in one of his papers on Genesis B which appeared some years ago in a collection of essays on Old English poetry. Noting the hypothetical objection “that the internal motivation that I have tried to isolate”—he refers to his suggestion that Satan and his crew are self-deceived—”could not possibly have been intended and developed by an Old English or Saxon poet,” Renoir responds that my purpose has been to analyze the poem from the point of view of my own time; if Old English poetry cannot be appreciated from the point of view of

14  •  Chapter I

our own time, teachers of English literature ought to abandon it with all dispatch and turn it over to the linguists and antiquarians. Nor must we forget that a work of art may legitimately mean to a later period something that it never meant to its original audience; in fact, it almost necessarily does, and it is perhaps the mark of a great poet that he is able to produce something that will adapt itself to the understanding of subsequent ages.

The passage is quoted, not in disapprobation, in the editor’s preface to the volume.29 My own response to this manifesto is severalfold. To some degree the distinction between “teachers of English literature” and “linguists and antiquarians” entails, or ought to entail, a false dichotomy. Surely a teacher of English literature writing for publication in a volume of essays on Old English poetry is also, to some degree, a linguist and antiquarian? Surely the granting of a Ph.D. degree in early English literature and/or medieval studies should presuppose no little proficiency in pertinent languages and what amounts to an antiquarian interest? More importantly, given the stubborn disposition of hills to peep o’er hills, how does one know when the proficiency one has attained to suffices to deal with the subject at hand and that further proficiency through venturing to the next height, mounting “the arduous steeps of knowledge,” would not result in further perception? We shall see later on that in another paper on Genesis B Renoir invokes the lore of the dual pronoun to make what I think is a quite valid point, but why stop with the dual pronoun? And by “antiquarians” Renoir would mainly have to mean, as I suppose, historians, including historians of religion. Any light, then, that such historians might shed would not, need not, be of interest to the literati of our own time? And what, specifically, is meant by “appreciated” in the insistence that Old English poetry must “be appreciated from the point of view of our own time,” if it is not to be relinquished to ped- . . . to linguists and antiquarians? Does “appreciation” mean that we must find the worldview of the medieval poet to be compatible, or largely so, with our own, and that, if it is found otherwise, we are at liberty to read our own values into the text? And would appreciation “from the point of view of our own time” admit appreciation from a present-day Christian point of view? We shall be reminded, in pages to follow, that the viewpoint of Frankish Christianity differed considerably from that of many modern western Christians. Nevertheless, certain core values and beliefs have persisted, and I suspect that many such Christians might not endorse many of Renoir’s conclusions about Genesis B. Renoir accepts, apparently, the abandonment of nihil humanum esse alienum. It is obviously true, of course, that later periods may “legitimately” have

Deposition of a Dame   •  15

found in some earlier work “something that it never meant to its original audience.” The legitimacy of their doing so has consisted in the circumstance that they had not the knowledge or perhaps the imagination to do otherwise. The obvious case in point is Genesis 3 itself: it knows nothing of Satan or his boda but only a very smart serpent. The psalms of the Old Testament, as we shall be reminded more than once in the chapters to follow, are another classic example. But the Christian exegetes had not the advantage of modern philological and historical study. Perhaps not many Old English poems have experienced such different and mutually incompatible modern interpretations as Genesis B has known. Hitherto the usual, the “standard,” approach to resolving, or trying to resolve, such differences has included philological and historical inquiry. Is it legitimate not to pursue one’s own or to ignore others’ further inquiry? Renoir, it seems clear, suspects that Genesis B is a clear instance “that a work of art may legitimately mean to a later period something that it never meant to its original audience.” I suspect, in turn, that “legitimately” here is illegitimate. Illegitimate, because our later audience, in no small part, has failed to see what, in my opinion, the original audience of Genesis B could fairly readily have come to see. The failure is twofold: we do not have their worldview, and we have not sufficiently applied our own philological and historical capabilities to redress, if only imperfectly, our ignorance of that worldview and come to glimpse its bearing on Genesis B. Nihil humanum esse alienum is meaningless without imagination. An instructive example of such failure might be Wrenn’s view, noted earlier, that Genesis B “glorif[ies] the comitatus spirit exemplified here in Satan and his followers.” It may be a testimony to the survival of Romantic thought that despite the poet’s reminder as to Satan’s obligations to his Chieftain, the critical supplantation of a Satan perceived as wærloga ‘covenant-breaker’ by a Satan seen as admirably rebellious—in other words, as Byronically noble— can still be effected. In my view Overing, Mintz, and certainly Wrenn and Renoir would have shown themselves more wise were they to have exerted themselves to ascertain, to some greater degree, the Carolingian worldview. In accepting Eve’s culpability their critical peers have acknowledged what it would seem has been the judgment of age upon age, and indeed of Genesis B itself; as we shall see, it is far from certain that the Old Saxon Genesis poet departed from the verdict of his and former ages. We shall be reminded at many points in our discussion to follow that the beliefs, the values, the mindset of the Saxon poet differed vastly from the beliefs, values, mindset of many modern western people. He had, I think—I am assuming, with no evidential certitude, that

16  •  Chapter I

the poet was a man—a very different idea of what humankind’s obedience to God entailed, a circumstance which has impinged hugely on how modern criticism has often adjudged the disobedience of Adam and Eve in Genesis B. He very probably had an understanding as to the nature of God and of the nexus between divine and human governance which differed greatly from modern Christian understandings and even (as an “Old Saxon” person) from the Anglo-Saxon understanding. The separation of Church and State was far from his thought. His poem is imbued with what on a later page I shall term “martiality,” a quality of immense bearing on a good many passages in the poem but one which, I think, has been only imperfectly glimpsed by most modern students. He had vastly unmodern ideas about “signs.” He would not have believed in social or legal equality. And even though perhaps he should have, he did not believe in the equality of the sexes. He would not have accepted Mintz’s “intellectual and spiritual freedom” as a desideratum, especially for women. In all these respects as probably in a good many others he was, so far as I have been able to surmise, a person of his own time and place, and his Eve therefore reflects the limitations and weaknesses which the Carolingian people or, at least, their spiritual leadership found in womankind. In striking contrast to the Saxon poet’s view as to the place of women, our society, or at any rate an important segment thereof, now considers women to be no more fallible than men. The decision in favor of women illustrates that much modern western perception runs very strongly counter to the perceptions underlying the ideology of Genesis B. But for modern critics to recognize and point out all this would simply be to restate the obvious. So a different approach was in order. There were two alternatives. One was to rewrite—literally—the poem and “Remold it nearer to the Heart’s Desire.” So makers have done for millenia, so John Gardner did with Beowulf, so, as some have argued, the Beowulf poet did with a version or versions of the Bear’s Son folktale. So, obviously, did the Saxon poet with the ancient and layered story of Genesis 3. The second alternative was to reinterpret, to reconstrue and so constrain the poem till it disgorged acceptable values. And no doubt it is possible in Genesis B to admire Satan as a Byronic hero or to esteem Eve as a model of and for modern western women. But this reversal can only be done if one abstains from nosing officiously into the poem’s language and its religious and historical context. It might seem to support the view of Godden and of Fulk and Cain that at the end of what we have of Genesis B the laments of Adam and Eve, especially Adam’s remorse and his readiness to accept God’s judgment, do not seem to compensate for the preceding long vaunt of Satan’s boda ‘mes-

Deposition of a Dame   •  17

senger’ who has wrought their overthrow. He is the victor, they are the vanquished, and Satan’s ruin is avenged by the ruin of mankind. Also, their view that in Genesis B God’s will is hard to discover and especially that God is placed in the inscrutable distance might reflect a question as to the poet’s theology: does his poem reflect the theological position of the Saxon monk Gottschalk, who, in a notable ninth-century controversy, adapted the views of Augustine so as to postulate a dual predestination, whereby at their birth some were predestined to salvation, but others to damnation? Or does the poem express rather the position of Hrabanus and Hincmar, who, as the defenders of free will, were Gottschalk’s principal opponents? A. N. Doane’s discussion of the controversy in his edition of “the Saxon Genesis” obviates any need for detailed recapitulation here of its background and history.30 It suffices to note that for Hrabanus and Hincmar, as Doane says, “Gottschalk’s words, taken in an oversimplified, abstract way, seemed to impugn God’s benignity. God, said Hrabanus, created the world not for perdition, but for salvation. . . . From a pastoral point of view, the idea of fixed eternal fates would seem to lead people to despair of their own salvation.”31 If, as seems quite likely, the Old Saxon Genesis was a ninth-century composition, it was perhaps inevitable that in recent times students either of the ninth-century theological background or of the poem itself have seen its poet’s alleged representation of God as inscrutably distant as sympathetic to or as echoing Gottschalk’s impugning of God’s benignity. This possible connection, then, the present study will also have to consider, since the presence or absence of the predestinarian view in the poem bears hugely on the question of a comedic element there. If the exonerative reading of Genesis B defies what would appear to be the dominant strain of ninth-century Catholic pastoral care, it also defies the dominant soteriology of late antiquity and the early Middle Ages. For not surprisingly, the dominant strain of ninth-century soteriology had much in common with the dominant strain of ninth-century pastoral theology.32 In an article some years ago I offered a précis of that soteriology: Augustine’s view was that man sinned originally at the suggestion of Satan and was delivered through God’s permission into Satan’s power. This punishment was just and Satan held man justly. Man was also redeemed through justice. The Redeemer had to be man as well as God; since man had sinned, a man must atone, and unless Christ had been a man He could not have been slain. But though a man, Christ is without sin, and the devil might justly afflict only the sinful. Therefore the devil, in slaying Christ, is now unjust; being now unjust he is justly deprived of his captives. With like injustice he strives to recover those he has lost.33

18  •  Chapter I

The understanding found what was perhaps its principal scriptural basis in Colossians 2:14, where Paul says that Christ destroyed “quod adversus nos erat chirographum decreti, quod erat contrarium nobis, et ipsum tulit de medio, affigens illud cruci,” i.e., ‘he has cancelled the bond which was outstanding against us with its legal demands; he has set it aside, nailing it to the cross.’34 Just as does its scriptural basis, the economy of the atonement, like the prevailing strain of pastoral theology, clearly presupposes not only that Adam’s deed constituted Original Sin but also articulates that God, and Christ as God and man, very actively involved himself in human history. Thus the exonerative reading of Genesis B takes no more notice of the poem’s broad soteriological context than of its pastoral context: the poem ends, or has seemed to end, with the triumph of the boda over Adam and Eve in circumstances which have led more critics than one to suppose that Genesis B is a poem in which Adam’s deed is seen “as an evil deed rather than a moral failure,” in which God’s will is “hard to discover,” and in which “God becomes an almost impersonal figure of nemesis” or is placed “in the inscrutable distance”—in which, in short, God is represented as virtually indifferent to the fate of Adam and Eve. Clearly, we will have to reassess the ending of the poem in order to ascertain the play there of God’s will. The Western Fathers, though their observations are seldom marked by risibility, remark frequently on the irony and the hollowness of the Devil’s triumph. Gregory the Great, commenting on Job 26:12 “Prudentia ejus percussit superbum,” adds “ antiquus hostis per excessum praesumptionis suae eum etiam perdidit quem iniquae persuasionis lege possedit; et dum audacter eum in quo nihil sibi competebat appetiit, jure illum quem quasi juste tenebat amisit” ‘through the excess of his pride the ancient foe ruined him whom he possessed by the law of inimical persuasion; and while he rashly assaulted him in whom nothing was appropriate to himself, he lost the one whom, as it were, he held justly.’35 Leo the Great explains deftly how the Devil overreached himself: “Sed malitia nocendi avida, dum irruit, ruit; dum capit, capta est, dum persequitur mortalem, incidit in Salvatorem,” ‘But a malice avid to injure, in assaulting, falls to ruin; in seizing, is seized; in pursuing the mortal, rushes headlong into the Savior.’36 The sentiment of the Fathers was duly taken notice of in the western vernaculars. Passages in the Blickling Homilies and the Old English Gospel of Nicodemus express the wit of the Devil’s being suddenly and unexpectedly deprived of humankind, his precious possession.37 The Devil’s vexation is neatly expressed in the Elene, where Satan, having been all unaware that Christ was without sin and confident that his victim, as a man, was ipso facto a sinner, complains that

Deposition of a Dame   •  19

               [n]u cwom elþeodig, þone ic ær on firenum fæstne talde, hafað mec bereafod rihta gehwylces, feohgestreona. Nis ðæt fæger sið. (lines 907–10) ‘now a stranger has come along, one whom I figured fast in sins; (he) has robbed me of each of rights, of possessions. That’s not justice!’

The motif of the Devil’s overreaching through ignorance as well as vainglory finds expression in a number of other Old English poems, most cunningly, perhaps, in the Exodus, which presents extraordinary contrasts in technique to Genesis B. We will say more in Chapter V of the poet’s use of dramatic irony to show this same overreaching in Genesis B. Certainly, the circumstance that by its exonerative reading the poem defies the broad pastoral and soteriological currents of Francia and of AngloSaxon England—currents eminently a part of the background of Genesis B—does not, in itself, constitute an adequate refutation of that reading. But the circumstance does suffice, I think, to impose upon exonerative critics the necessity of addressing the issue: how might it have come about that a poem as deviant as they claim Genesis B to be was included among the varied but doctrinally orthodox poems of MS Junius 11? It is worth noting that many whose views of Genesis B I have ventured to criticize in the present chapter have written either as authors of literary histories or as contributors to literary histories. Evans, of course, is a notable exception. But the exonerative view of Genesis B and the understanding therewith that the poem presents God as inscrutable or remote from humankind find ample expression in the histories of Old English literature. The circumstance, in my view, is hardly conducive to enlightened discussion of the poem. Literary histories of Old English are especially apt—perhaps “liable” is not inappropriate—to be consulted by students who are beginning their study of Old English literature and are seeking a broad general acquaintance with Old English poetry. It is this one-sidedness which concerns me; certainly, in dispraise of fugitive and cloistered virtues, it is fair and wise that students encounter all manner of tractates. But given the infrequency of contrary opinion in the literary histories in English, the students I speak of have a strong chance of encountering no other than the exonerative view of Genesis B even, it may be, before the text of the poem is encountered. The present study intends primarily, through a reconsideration of a good many aspects of the poem, to make the case for Genesis B as an orthodox Christian poem of the ninth century—orthodox, that is, from both a doctrinal and,

20  •  Chapter I

since Christian narratives of that time have certain features in common, a literary point of view. A secondary intention is to bring about a more varied and balanced set of interpretations of the poem in the literary histories of Old English. But its fulfillment will entail a stern chase.38 We will be reminded, in Chapters VI and X to follow, of peregrinatio become missio, of the missionary gift of Anglo-Saxon England to the Germany of Carolingian times. We have no way of knowing how Genesis B was received among the Anglo-Saxons themselves except to note, of course, that besides translation it attained to publication in at least one manuscript— presumptive evidence that among some Anglo-Saxons it found a measure of esteem. That is to say that the great gift of England to Germany was, in some measure and however unintentionally, reciprocated by Germany’s poetical gift to England in Genesis B. That gift has been slighted among all too many modern Anglo-Saxonists, especially, it is my conviction, by those whose native tongue is English. For though there have been noteworthy and honorable exceptions, German and English have not unnaturally been the principal languages of Anglo-Saxon studies, and this rule, along with the exceptions, certainly holds true for Genesis B. German scholarship, I think, has on the whole done better by the poem, in no small part because German scholars are much more likely to have, philologically, the immense benefit of familiarity with the Old Saxon Heliand and, historically, perhaps closer knowledge of Carolingian times and culture. The slighting of Genesis B among some English and Americans has entailed, I believe, a neglect both of historical background and, especially sad to note, of philological inquiry. It may be, of course, that my own philological study as reflected in the chapters to follow will at some time be shown in one respect or another to be wanting and that my inferences therefrom are invalid. That is a risk of philological endeavor. But not the only risk. Another risk—how shall I put this?—is that one might all too quickly vex one’s audience. Philological inquiry means close attention to a multitude of linguistic details, but such attention, it would seem, is increasingly neglected or even begrudged. Those early days of literary studies in which the word philology, reflecting the disciplinal importance of the concept, often came to figure in the titles of new scholarly journals—Journal of English and Germanic Philology, Modern Philology, Philological Quarterly, Studies in Philology—are long since behind us.39 William M. Chace, addressing the somewhat difficult state of American departments of English, notes that “[i]n this country and in England, the study of English literature began in the latter part of the 19th century as an exercise in the scientific pursuit of philological research, and those who taught it subscribed to the notion that

Deposition of a Dame   •  21

literature was best understood as a product of language.”40 Recent decades have witnessed markedly fewer of the philologically disposed among us than formerly. In this general trend there have, of course, been notable exceptions. But Seth Lerer remarks with candor that “philology has long remained a mystery, if not a terror, to students of English,”41 an observation which, despite Lerer’s somewhat tepid optimism otherwise, would seem not to augur especially well for philology’s future, given the ascendency of “appreciat[ion] from the point of view of our own time.” For such students the morpheme phil- has here become something of a misnomer, and one reason, at any rate, is fairly apparent. Whosoever will reach philology’s as well as religion’s truth “about must, and about must go,” or (to suit the figure to critical warfare) must delve more yards than one. Such going about or delving takes time, and time, especially for the tenure-hungry, is precious. Let those in a hurry try browsing in Old English Syntax.42 Yet to scant philology is not uncommonly, in effect, to rewrite the subject of one’s study, and this conclusion holds solidly for the exonerative reading of Genesis B. We come again to the matter of the poem’s language. Evans, if not the begetter, then probably the champion of an exonerative reading, says that “in answer to the devil’s arguments Adam had objected that” and then he quotes ne þu me oðiewdest ænig tacen 540. He does not translate the line just here, although the verb oðiewdest might be taken one way which tends to support his inference but another way which tends distinctly otherwise. We shall see in Chapter VII that as a translation from Old Saxon the predicate oðiewdest ænig tacen raises other questions of a philological and pettifogging ilk. Obviously too that chapter must inquire even as to the meaning and “background” of tacen ‘sign.’ And shortly after he deals with line 540 Evans cites Eve’s presentation to Adam, heo þam were swelce / tacen oðiewde 713–14, again without translating.43 We shall see in Chapter VIII that this passage too merits far more inquiry than Evans undertakes. Yet a good many students since “Genesis B and Its Background” have accepted his inference: Adam spoke of a sign and presently a sign was presented—well, sort of presented— so Adam, in eating of the fruit, was essentially guiltless. Voilà. Evans’ lead in taking Adam’s mention of a sign as a request—in lieu of a translation he remarks that “Adam had demanded a ‘tacen’”44—has been creatively embellished by some of his heirs. Greenfield and Calder, as we saw, have Eve join in the request: “Adam and Eve’s insistence on a ‘sign’ from God,” etc. Overing reports that “in her transfigured state, Eve comes to finally represent the ‘tacen’ Adam had required from the beginning of the poem,” meaning, apparently, the tacen which Adam referred to just about midway in the poem as we have it. But not quite finally; finally finally,

22  •  Chapter I

Overing’s Eve transmogrifies from “tacen” into riddle: Eve “becomes the riddle.”45 Presumably this means that as to character and significance Eve was deliberately contrived to challenge, to tease and mystify, the understanding of audience or reader, a sort of Carolingian Miss Jessel. If so, she becomes not only a riddle but one more anomaly in Genesis B: the Saxon poet dismissed the age-old interpretation which found Eve outright disobedient merely and gave us instead something we could really get our teeth into. Obviously we shall have to reassess Eve and the nature of her disobedience. Philology has also been scanted, and again disastrously so, in regard to other passages, for example lines 549–51 and, somewhat less obviously, lines 623–25, passages which illustrate, I think, the Old Saxon poet’s extraordinary wit, an aspect of his talent which on the whole has gone sadly unnoticed in modern criticism. Or there is the matter of the pronoun (MS) þe 598—a little fellow, to be sure, but of no little moment, I shall argue, in its import for the poem—in the clause þe for þam larum com. There is further the larger matter of what immediately precedes þe, the curious and much-discussed but still, in my view, unsatisfactorily explained passage in which the poet avers that eternal God’s enduring the seduction of his thanes was micel wundor ‘(a) great wonder (or) marvel.’ Here especially the Carolingian background of the Old Saxon Genesis will assist greatly in throwing light, but philology too will be an essential tool. In sum, all too commonly in the study of Genesis B the dedicatory and poetical rallying cry (as a certain Festschrift has it, though not in any particular reference to Genesis B) “Dame Philology is our Queen still” has, out of either haste or the aspiration to critical novelty or sheer dismay at philology’s challenge, been ignored or forgotten; if the phrase “our Queen still” entails some hint of victory the hint is sadly premature. For too many among us “our Queen” is now deposed, the sway of the Dame safely confined to the Sanjak of Subtle-Nuance. What I shall attempt in the present study, at least as far as the poem Genesis B is concerned, is the Dame’s restoration. It seems to me that philological inquiry, with very considerable help from inquiry into the religious and cultural background, narrowly of the Old Saxon Heliand and Genesis and broadly of the Frankish church and empire, can reverse the critical judgment which all too often finds that Genesis B exonerates Adam and Eve. But such reversal will be only the first fruit of the Dame’s restoration. From our inquiry much more will emerge as to the meaning of this unusual narrative. As I shall try to show in the pages to follow, the story of Adam and Eve in this sadly mutilated, rather inelegantly and far too inexactly titled and much misunderstood poem entails, even though it names Christ not so much as once in the text as we have it, nothing other, nothing less, than the Christianizing of the

Deposition of a Dame   •  23

Fall. That is to say that the poem brings Adam and Eve, the human culprits of the Fall, within the Christian sphere of penitence and salvation; after the Fall they are to become, presumptively and fictively, members of the Body of Christ, though of course that phrase is never used. It is in this Christianizing, or proto-Christianizing, of Adam and Eve that the poem departs from orthodoxy. It is this treatment of the subject, whereby mankind’s loss of Heaven admits its regaining, and not the supposed exoneration of Adam and Eve, which constitutes the astonishing anomaly of Genesis B, its transformation from the tragic to the comedic.

CHAPTER II

Comedy, Wit, Tropology, Allegory

The present chapter will mainly address four elements which inform the narrative of Genesis B: comedy, wit, tropology, allegory. Comedy, wit, and allegory are readily compatible with the poem’s imperative, i.e., the nearinevitability of Adam’s recovery in the final lines of the poem as we have it. But it is tropology and a fifth element, one which later on we shall come to recognize as the poem’s martiality, which together virtually mandate that recovery.

Comedy It is appropriate first to take notice of an imperative, indeed a comedic imperative, in the broad context of early medieval Christian narrative literature. “A comedic element” might head the list of what modern criticism has largely missed in Genesis B. It is not merely that critics have found the poem serious; it is also that they have commonly not found its seriousness to be relieved by joy. And perhaps this impression is not so strange; the adjoining account of the divine maledictions in Genesis A (lines 851–964) entails no mirth. Thereby these poetical accounts of the Fall have seemed to differ markedly from a good many other Old English Christian narrative poems in their mood or tone as poems on a Christian subject. In such poems as The Dream of the Rood or Fates of the Apostles, for example, and in the very numerous Old English saints’ lives, the victories of Christ or his saints or their Old Testament types are celebrated, even when their lives on earth end through 25

26  •  Chapter II

death at the hands of their enemies. Such narratives display, certainly in their endings, a tone or mood of joy and exultation. The Dream of the Rood, celebrating the cross and the crucifixion of Christ, ends with the speaker bereft of friends and of worldly joys but nevertheless radiant in the prospect of an eternal home and happiness. Fates of the Apostles ends similarly: the speaker, having related the wretched but glorious deaths of the apostles, declares his intention to seek a life of exile and homelessness—an elles forð eardes neosan, / sið asettan, nat ic sylfa hwær, / of þisse worulde 110–12—but is expectant nevertheless of an ultimate home in Heaven. The personified cross in the former poem, the apostles in the latter, are exemplars whom the speakers will emulate. In The Seafarer the speaker seeks an exilic life at sea, but it is clear that for him such exile is joyous: forþon me hatran sind / dryhtnes dreamas þonne þis deade lif, / læne on lande 64–66. The Rhyming Poem, for all the many difficulties it presents to the modern reader, has something in common with The Dream of the Rood and much in common with The Seafarer; it belongs here as well.1 It is these poems, and others of like tenor, which I understand as illustrating a “comedic imperative.” The hero or heroine passes from the less happy state of suffering or indeed torture to the state of eternal bliss, whether realized or just anticipated, and the narrator or speaker rejoices in the outcome of the struggle and aspires to share that outcome. Bede, in his account of the poet Cædmon, puts the matter succinctly: Cuius carminibus multorum saepe animi ad contemtum saeculi et appetitum sunt uitae caelestis accensi ‘By his songs the minds of many were often inspired to despise the world and to long for the heavenly life.’2 Or, should the hero miraculously survive the ordeal, those who behold rejoice in his and Christ’s triumph: the now converted Mermedonians rejoice in Andreas, and in the Heliand (M) the risen Christ, ascending to Heaven, leaves his companions jubilant—uuas im frâhmod hugi ‘their spirits rejoiced’ 5982.3 Alternatively, the comedic effect is attained by noting the evil ones’ final and utterly hopeless misery. Either way, the comedic mood is thoroughly in keeping with the Christian message, the Gospel ‘Good News,’ which proclaims that in Christ sin and death are vanquished and humankind may find salvation from hellfire. The result, of course, is the manifestation of that joy in early Christian literature. It is this strong disposition in early Christian narrative to pluck joy from material or physical disaster or to find relief in the certainty that evildoing is justly requited which I term the comedic imperative. The triumphant deaths of the apostles, the sufferings of the personified cross of Christ, have that within them to excite others to seek to emulate, whereas the dismal defeat of Adam and Eve, as told in Genesis A and in Gen-

Comedy, Wit, Tropology, Allegory   •  27

esis B as it is often read, has not. And yet, given the perverse but Christian predilection for plucking joy out of sorrow, hope out of despair, the rationale that it is hard to find cause for jubilation in the defeat of Adam and Eve fails to explain why critical studies have found the poem non-comedic. Although it ends with Adam and Eve acknowledging their guilt and falling in prayer to ask God’s forgiveness, Genesis B is commonly taken to show no sign of that spiritual joy which informs many contemporaneous Christian narratives. The exultation near the end of the poem has been seen to be that of Satan’s boda and not of Adam or Eve. For many critics, as we have noted, Adam and Eve are taken as guiltless—theirs are “errors of judgement, not sins”—but since catastrophe befalls them anyway not much merriment obtains in their exoneration. And so Genesis B is seen to stand gloomily outside the happy throng of the other Old English Christian narratives. In the apparently unmitigated defeat of humankind which its ending has seemed to recount, Genesis B doesn’t seem to fit among the other poems in MS Junius 11. The account of the Fall in Genesis 3 affords its several maledictions but no benediction as part of the larger divine response. The question before us, then, is one of thematic scope: whether Genesis B also takes no more than the narrow and literal view—in essence, the view of Genesis 3—and discloses nothing of the later Christian comedic tradition. As the strictures of Shepherd, Evans, and Greenfield, of Godden and of Fulk and Cain and others over the years might suggest, a strong voice in the critical response has said that it does not. So further questions arise. Why or how does it come about that, of all Old English poems on a Christian subject, Genesis B is the anomaly, with its representation of God in his relationship with humankind alleged to be “an almost impersonal figure of nemesis,” a being far off “in the inscrutable distance”? And more importantly, can it be demonstrated that such views of the poem are quite in error? Is it conceivable that much modern criticism has stumbled in its assessment of the poem? So far we have considered, albeit briefly, just one context of Genesis B: its doctrinal and aesthetic standing among Old English religious poems as a whole. Two other contexts, one rather narrow, the other very broad indeed, are no less important. The first is that of the poem’s codex, MS Junius 11. J. R. Hall has argued, to my mind very cogently, that the poems of this manuscript, three Old Testament narratives (Genesis [A and B], Exodus, and Daniel) and one, by a sort of polite extension, New Testament narrative (Christ and Satan), were intended to be taken as parts of a larger, unified work, “an epic of redemption.” Of the first three Hall observes that “the sections, or fitts, of the Old Testament poems are numbered in a continuous series: Genesis, [I]–XLI; Exodus, XLII–XLVIII; and Daniel, L–LV. Because such

28  •  Chapter II

continuous enumeration otherwise occurs only in single poems—Beowulf, Elene, and the extant part of Judith—the implication is clear that the Old Testament works in Junius 11 were in a particular sense considered as a single entity.”4 Hall notes that the unity of subject of the four poems was observed many years ago, though only in passing, by Hardin Craig: “The contents of Junius XI show just the features needed to make of the drama as developed within the church a complete cyclical presentation of man’s fall and redemption.”5 Accordingly, the bulk of Hall’s study is meant to show “that the course of sacred history is the organizing principle behind the compilation [of the ms]”; further, “to confirm this hypothesis, it is necessary to show that the contents of Junius 11 can actually be read as an epic of redemption. . . . The treatment of salvation history in Augustine’s De catechizandis rudibus provides an interpretation of the redemption which goes far in explaining the unity of the manuscript.”6 Concerning the possible bearing of Augustine’s treatise on Genesis B in particular, Hall notes that “Augustine . . . turns directly from the Creation of the World to that of Man, and considers the rebellion of the wicked angels in discussing Adam’s Fall (18.29–30). Augustine’s narrative order is comparable to that of Genesis B, where the two Falls are directly related.” The possible bearing of Augustine’s account of the Falls in De catchizandis rudibus on the narrative of the Falls in Genesis B gives further urgency to the question posed above. How do we get from Augustine’s theological position to the theological position alleged for Genesis B, namely, that it displays an impersonal God inscrutably removed from humankind? If in Genesis B God is represented thus, what becomes of the Old English “epic of redemption”? For even though only one fitt in the poem is numbered (Fitt VII), it is fairly clear, as Hall points out, that Genesis B participates in what evidently was thought of as a continuous numbering of fitts through Liber I (Genesis, Exodus, Daniel) of the MS.7 Surely the idea of God’s impersonality and inscrutability does not come from Augustine in 18.29–30 of De catechizandis rudibus. [D]eus omnipotens, et bonus et iustus et misericors, he begins, ‘God almighty and good and just and merciful,’ and other passages following similarly insist on God’s benevolence and attentiveness to humankind: Cur ergo non faceret deus hominem . . . et surgentem adiuuaret, semper et ubique ipse gloriosus bonitate, iustitia, clementia? ‘Why, then, should God not have made man . . . and helped him if he repented, being Himself at all times and in all places glorious in goodness, justice, and mercy?’8 The second and very much wider of these two other contexts is that of the bearing of Genesis B in relation not now to other Old English but rather to Old Saxon and Old High German religious poems. Doane explains the

Comedy, Wit, Tropology, Allegory   •  29

derivation of Genesis B as a transliteration in stages from an Old Saxon Genesis, now preserved only fragmentarily, to West Saxon (“Old English”): the poem was “changed word for word, phoneme by phoneme, from a more or less strange and hard-to-read dialect into the standardized dialectal spellings of the scribes receiving the text.”9 What we have of the Old Saxon text of Genesis (and here I have in mind the fragments treating of stories other than that of the Fall) not only shows no trace of God’s alleged aloofness but closely resembles its sister poem, the vastly longer Heliand, in its emphasis on the obedience which the Christian soul owes to a loving God. But there is more to the Old Saxon connection than that God’s alleged impersonal remove in Genesis B makes the poem as different from continental religious poetry as it is from Old English. In his The Carolingian Lord, a study only rarely mentioned in Genesis B studies but which in my view is essential for the understanding of the poem, D. H. Green remarks the semantic shift in the words triuwa, trost, hold, milti, and era as inferred from their earlier semantic range into the Old Saxon Heliand and then to the Old High German Evangelienbuch and observes that this shift is paralleled by the shift identified by F. Willems in another range, that of the heroic or comitatus terms for ‘man, warrior,’ namely, Old Saxon seg, helið, rink, wer, thegan, man, gumo, and erl (respectively, Old English secg, hæleð, rinc, wer, þegn, man, guma, and eorl)10: What is likely . . . is that this development from OS to Otfrid with its progressive abandonment of reciprocity in the christian use of these terms and increasing stress on unilateralism represents a close parallel to the development investigated by Willems from OE to OS to Otfrid, whereby the heroic and warlike associations of the words he was concerned with were gradually whittled away so that, in the end, for all practical purposes only two remained (man, thegan) that were at all acceptable to Otfrid’s conception of christianity. In other words, the process by which the christian terms derived from the comitatus were gradually deprived of their reciprocity is closely paralleled by the way in which the heroic, warlike vocabulary investigated by Willems was rendered fit for christian use. In both cases the development is from OE to OS and then to Otfrid, with whom each process reaches its proper conclusion: strict unilateralism and a stress on service, rather than warfare.11

It is important to note that in Green’s understanding of the development Old Saxon represents only the middle stage of the shift; the final stage is Otfrid’s Old High German. We shall look at this matter at much greater length in Chapter V; just now it may suffice to point out that in the Heliand, certainly the principal text of Old Saxon as the middle stage, Christ is

30  •  Chapter II

commonly spoken of as a warrior chieftain and his disciples as his warrior band. We must note two implications here. First, while it is true that chieftain and band never strike a blow in anger (except in the affair of Malchus’ ear) and that there is “a stress on service, rather than warfare,” it does not follow that in the Heliand the “heroic and warlike associations” of the words in question had all been whittled away. However pacific is the warrior band of Christ and his disciples in the Heliand, the huldi ‘favor’ of the Chief, the theganskepi ‘service, vassalage’ of his followers, and their mutual esteem and affection—all have a martial resonance. We shall argue in Chapters IV and VI that the bond between God and Adam in Genesis B also entails these martial virtues, that here too this martiality—to revive an old word—is not far beneath the surface.12 For Adam is, incipiently, the comitatus of God, as far, that is, as humankind should comprise it. And second, whereas the earthly comitatus, as also we shall be reminded in Chapter VI, is normally a very imperfect affair, in Genesis B as in the Heliand, the Chieftain and his comitatus are perfect in their martiality: the Chieftain is Christ or God and the comitatus is either the disciples of Christ or the unfallen Adam. By “OS” in the second paragraph above Green is referring to the Heliand, but it is also clear from his citations of passages in the Old Saxon Genesis that this poem too is included in the development “from OE to OS and then to Otfrid.” The best evidence that Genesis B reflects this shift, and in so doing follows the Heliand, is afforded by the word hold (adj.)/hyldo (noun), Old Saxon hold/huldi.13 In the sense ‘gracious, favorable’ the adjective is used once in Genesis B (654) to describe the bearing of the superior being to the inferior; in the sense ‘faithful, loyal’ it is used twice (288, 586) to describe the bearing of the inferior to the superior; once (708), according to Doane, it is used in both senses.14 This usage, very roughly half and half, accords more or less to that of hold in the Heliand. The noun hyldo ‘favor, grace,’ occurs eighteen times (plus unhyldo 729), invariably to describe the attitude of the superior to the inferior; again, the usage is close to that of the Heliand. How does one reconcile that on the one hand our poem reflects this semantic shift toward unilateralism in place of reciprocity but on the other hand represents God as impersonal or inscrutable? For the poem obviously accepts hyldo ‘favor, grace’ as either bestowed or refused by a deity acutely aware of the fidelity or infidelity of his creatures, whether angelic or human. Nor, since the narrator also speaks abundantly of hyldo, is it the case that hyldo occurs only in the speeches of one or another character and that although characters may speak of God’s hyldo, they dwell, unbeknownst to themselves, in a moral darkling plain. Even to Satan and his boda God’s hyldo is a stark reality. Given the meaning, the frequency, and the distribution of the term

Comedy, Wit, Tropology, Allegory   •  31

hyldo in Genesis B it is astonishing to read that God in the poem is to be seen as “an almost impersonal figure of nemesis.” So it is pronounced—even though the eighteen or nineteen instances of (-)hyldo ‘favor, grace’ in this one poem Genesis B, always in reference to God and his servants, constitute almost half of all the recorded instances of the word in Old English poetry.15 It would appear even that ‘favor, grace’ is a principal concept in the poem. J. R. Hall points out that the term hyldo and with it the term geongordom ‘service, vassalage’ are cornerstone images in the narrative framework and value structure of Genesis B. Applied first to the revolt on high and then to the fall of Adam and Eve, the terms highlight the contrast between Lucifer’s arrogant and outright rejection of God and man’s pathetic, though ironic, blunder into sin. So fundamental are the terms to the poem that their employment probably originated in the Old Saxon source rather than in the Old English translation.16

If Hall’s assessment is correct, it would seem more than likely that the Old Saxon poet was alert to the implications of the word huldi (Old English hyldo) in a religious context. Green observes that, rather than being used to express mutual obligations between lord and follower in a secular context, “in [Old Saxon] . . . the noun huldi has already inclined more towards unilateralism since it is employed 18 times of God’s attitude to man, but only four times in the converse sense.”17 If hyldo in Genesis B represents huldi in the lost Old Saxon text, it would seem that in its unilateralism hyldo in our poem outdoes huldi in the Old Saxon Heliand and Genesis, for hyldo in Genesis B denotes exclusively the disposition of lord to follower.18 The term hyldo ‘favor, grace’ in our poem denotes a superior’s disposition vis-à-vis a subordinate wherein kindness is discretionary, not obligatory. The subordinate’s role—loyalty, obedience—is unilaterally obligatory. And apart from this matter of shift and the abandonment of obligation on the part of the lord, how does one reconcile God’s supposed impersonality or inscrutable distance in Genesis B with his quite active presence in the Old Saxon Genesis—his disposition of Cain, say, or his manifestation to Abraham, in which Abraham pleads successively, and successfully, for greater and greater mercies of the Lord on behalf of the dwellers in Sodom? Such reconciliation would appear to have to mean that the Old English poem was a much more free translation from and a far more radical revision of the Old Saxon than has generally been thought. Perhaps it might mean that in the Anglo-Saxon church (as different from the church in Frankish realms) good reason obtained why God should be so represented.

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Two explanations are possible of the view of Evans, Godden, and Fulk and Cain that Genesis B is, in a word, uncomedic. One of course is that their critical assessment is just: no comedy, nothing of the comedic, has been found because no comedy is there; the poet himself (or just possibly, whoever took the poem from Old Saxon into Old English), although he departed in many ways from the account in Genesis 3, nevertheless chose in his poem to say or to intimate nothing as to God’s ultimate restoration of humankind. The other possibility is that the comedic is there, but that it takes a somewhat different form from the comedic as we find it in The Dream of the Rood, say, or Fates of the Apostles. And it seems to me that the latter possibility is indeed the case: Genesis B displays, as I hope to show, such learning and orthodox Christian attitudes as to make it unlikely, to say the least, that its poet was one of Gottschalk’s disciples, a poetically endowed subversive on the bandwagon of ninth-century orthodoxy, or that some Gottschalkian adherent eventually brought it about that a poem placing God in the inscrutable distance was anglicized and somehow and at some time chosen for inclusion in a manuscript collection with which, if the exonerative school is right in its reading of the poem, it was rather out of keeping. Nor did the gauntlet of orthodoxy necessarily cease with the bishops and abbots whose theology prevailed in the Frankish and Anglo-Saxon churches. In the conclusion to her study Visible Song Katherine O’Brien O’Keefe writes that surviving Old English verse texts, whatever the circumstances of their composition, are collaborative products whose scribes have not merely transmitted the texts but have actually taken part in shaping them. Knowledge of the circumstances of transmission should make us wary about inferring authorial intention from a text affected to an unknown degree by participatory reading and copying.19

It is reasonable, on the one hand, to suppose that since scribes were almost always monks they were commonly orthodox, and therefore, to whatever degree the scribe of Liber I of Junius 11 (or the scribe or scribes of its antecedent texts) read and copied participatorily, he had or may have had not only a literal hand but also perhaps a certain censorial role in the transmission of its text. On the other hand, there is a way in which scribal participation is other than collaborative, and perhaps this circumstance is to be inferred at one point or another in the text of Genesis B. It is clear, of course, that what O’Keefe goes on to say impinges upon whatever I impute, in the pages that follow, to “the Saxon poet”: “Indeed,

Comedy, Wit, Tropology, Allegory   •  33

the modern, critical reflex to recover an authorial text devalues the historical significance and meaning of the actual, realized texts which show us the poem working in the world.”20 But in the first place, the difficulty in applying O’Keefe’s stricture in the present instance is that her phrase “to an unknown degree” applies surely no less to Genesis B, with its long and only slightly ascertained, though much conjectured, derivation from Old Saxon into Old English, than it does to other Old English poems, so that no exclusively scribal collaborative element in the text as we have it can be identified with any certainty. It is difficult even to identify, in the whole of Genesis B, any particular alteration or deviation from either the inferred or the known Old Saxon Genesis other than the changes that grammatical or lexical differences between the two dialects imposed on whoever it was who translated the poem into Old English. In the second place, the elements which, as I believe, constitute much of the poem’s “comedic imperative” and suffuse much of its narrative show a fondness for irony, and it is easier, more plausible, to suppose that this felicity resulted from the mentality of one person, namely “the Saxon poet,” rather than of several. I hope to demonstrate that Genesis B exhibits, alongside its sequence of ever more dire temptations, a comedic counter-theme which has gone in some measure, though certainly not entirely, unnoticed in critical assessments of the poem. The counter-theme is quite other than a subplot, an interspersing of perhaps humorous but at any rate narratively related interludes among the scenes of the principal drama. Such subplots may impinge upon, but commonly do not affect, the outcome of the main plot. In Genesis B the counter-theme does not prevent the outcome of the main narrative, that is to say, the Fall of Adam and Eve. But it does affect, and hugely so, the outcome, as it were, of the outcome: the counter-theme is a succession of reminders to the audience or reader that the calamity of the Fall has been set right, that a salvific economy divinely interposed has reversed the loss of Eden and that even for Adam and Eve the way to redemption lies open. What we should look for, then, are such indications that the poem provides as to the divine response to the Fall. I would suggest that many critics of the poem have not noticed what is as much to be admired as that which they have found to admire and, concomitantly, that they have found in the poem what is not there—the exoneration of Adam and Eve, sympathy elicited through elegiac lament for both sets of characters (for Satan and his messenger, apparently, as well as for Adam and Eve) with God in the inscrutable distance. It may, in other words, reasonably be argued that even in Genesis B the comedic obtains, that the poem may join, or rejoin, the largely comedic throng of Old English Christian narratives. To demonstrate this counter-theme—to

34  •  Chapter II

set forth as it were an Apologia for Genesis B—is the concern of the present study. So far and so largely has criticism failed to perceive and acknowledge the counter-theme that there is presently, so far as I know, no adequate refutation of the gloomy verdict that in Genesis B God becomes an almost impersonal figure. The present paper will argue, however, that motifs present throughout the poem anticipate and justify a surprisingly joyous ending. Hence not only “comedic” but “imperative,” the latter term reflecting the circumstance that just as a final state of affairs is not only a plausible but a virtually necessary result of antecedent disclosures, so in Genesis B the ending is generated, with plausibility and great likelihood, through the presence and interaction of those several motifs attested well before its last few lines. These motifs will be identified in the course of the following chapters.

Wit The comedic ending, then, is present in Genesis B just as it is present in other Christian poems. But the manifestation of the theme takes a particular and characteristic form in Genesis B: its wit. By “wit” I mean now not necessarily the risible, though this excellence may sometimes be present. I mean rather an imaginativeness, an intellectual audacity on the part of the poet, a disposition to treat the ancient Christian view of mankind’s Fall in a way that is, so far as I can see, theologically traditional—or almost so—but also original to the poet. The wit of Genesis B presents itself in many ways; it appears at many points, and here I borrow from Maynard Mack, as “inspiration, fire, rapture, ecstasy, serendipity.” Of these qualities the chiefest in Genesis B is not, I think, an inspiration which might be described in the first place as invention of the sort which is “the mind’s power not to associate”—the phrase is again Maynard Mack’s—but rather the mind’s power to associate, always felicitously, but sometimes also ominously.21 Christian narratives, in treating of the Fall, may refer to personages or events of a later time, even to the Incarnation or events of the Christian era. The Anglo-Norman play Mystère d’Adam, of which more will be said later, attains the comedic imperative through a plethora of prophets. Genesis B attains the comedic imperative through a radical departure from the story of Genesis 3 and also through the subtlety and irony of its wit. It is fairly clear that the mind’s power to associate might often result in irony. In Genesis B such irony may appear in a brief passage or even in a single verse or phrase, even, here and there, in a single word, or it may appear in some much larger feature of the narrative. Often it appears in the speeches

Comedy, Wit, Tropology, Allegory   •  35

of the characters, so that dramatic irony results, sometimes with the result that the poem’s audience or readers are invited to perceive more in what the characters are saying than the characters themselves are aware of. Such passages testify to the presence of wit, even of risibility, in the poem and therefore markedly and positively affect the nature of reader or audience response. Just as the presence of the counter-theme in Genesis B has largely gone unremarked, so scholars generally have not acknowledged the many instances of the poet’s wit in his management of the narrative. So far as I know, the principal identification of the numerous instances of wit in Genesis B has been that of Eric Jager, one of whose papers on Genesis B not only carefully elucidates the “invoking” of God’s word to Adam and Eve and the “revoking” of that word by the Tempter but in doing so points out a number of passages which entail irony—which illustrate, that is, the mind’s power to associate. Thus Eve, having beheld what she thinks is a vision of Heaven, is presently told to behold the reality of Hell.22 And the vision itself, as I will try to show in Chapter VIII, signifies far other than what she thinks it signifies. Above all, I think, the poet’s wit, more specifically, his inventiveness, consists of his introducing into the often-told story of the Fall allusions to beliefs and practices widely known in the ninth century (as well as before and after)—beliefs and practices which greatly affected audience response and certainly conduced to an understanding that Genesis B in no way intended to represent Adam and Eve as, in Kennedy’s phrase, “deceived but not seduced.” Such allusions are commonly made in the speeches of one or another character and so entail dramatic irony. The failure hitherto of modern criticism to recognize such allusions underlies, I think, much modern misunderstanding of the poem.

Tropology A useful point of departure for the argument that the poem is rich in wit and in the comedic tradition is found in Erhard Hentschel’s study of Genesis B in 1935. Discussing the point that not Satan but rather a messenger of Satan, a Teufelsbote, arrives as the tempter of Adam and Eve, Hentschel concludes that Zudem trat dem Menschen damals der Teufel nicht in persona gegenüber, sondern—dies ist sehr wichtig zu bemerken—nur seine “Werkzeuge” kehrten bei den Christen ein, sei es in Gestalt eines verführten Menschen, sei es in Gestalt eines “teuflischen Dämonen.” Auch unser Erzähler kannte also wahrscheinlich den Abgesandten des Teufels aus eigener Anschauung besser als Satan selbst.23

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This is all to say that to understand the temptations in Genesis B we must see temptation from the point of view of early medieval Christians. Sound counsel. It remained, however, for A. N. Doane, in his generally excellent edition of “The Saxon Genesis,” i.e., the Old English Genesis B and the Old Saxon Genesis fragments, to see the much larger point that not merely as regards the Tempter but as regards the poem as a whole the audience encounters a story that is both familiar and strange. The disjunctions force the audience to see the old story of the Fall with new eyes, as if it had never been seen before, and to see it in terms of what their own reactions to the situation would be. That is, the narrative is cast in the tropological mode.

Whereas Hentschel’s point thus limited itself to the narrator’s own perception, “aus eigener Anschauung,” of devils or evildoers, Doane sees a far greater purpose underlying the management of the narrative: “on the literal level, [the poem] points forward to the moment of history when Christ appeared, and by a kind of ‘historical inertia’ it suggests a tropological continuation to the present.”24 The study to follow, and especially, perhaps, Chapter III, will offer further evidence in support of the thesis by identifying several passages, other than those which Doane has taken notice of, which, on the bases both of philology and of literary and cultural history, not only support Doane’s interpretation but also demonstrate a strong sense of the comedic. To see better what the poet is doing in Genesis B, it might be helpful to consider that what Doane calls “the disjunctions” are the result of a system of tropes. For “trope,” obviously, underlies “tropology.” Bede, in his tract De Schematibus et Tropis, defines the term: Tropus est dictio translata a propria significatione ad non propriam similitudinem ornatus necessitatisve causa ‘a trope is a figure in which a word, either from need or for the purpose of embellishment, is shifted from its proper meaning to one similar but not proper to it.’ The first of the thirteen sorts of tropes is metaphor: Metafora est rerum verborumque translatio ‘Metaphor is a transference of qualities and words.’25 In Genesis B all the principal characters, Satan, his boda, Adam and Eve, might be seen as instances of metaphor, or rather of a metaphorical system. For whereas Bede instances the first sort of metaphor, ab animali ad animale ‘from one animate creature to another animate creature,’ by citing psalm verses merely, Psalm 2:1 Quare fremuerunt gentes ‘Why do the nations rage?’ and also Psalm 139:9 as well as a verse from I Samuel, the poet of Genesis B enlarges his principals so as to present them not only as the actors of the biblical Genesis 3 as it was understood in early medieval times but more or less

Comedy, Wit, Tropology, Allegory   •  37

simultaneously also as devils or as Christian persons of the present age. “More or less,” because as we shall see, the poet from time to time dramatically alters his metaphor either to accommodate his narrative base in the biblical Genesis 3 or to suit his own narrative purpose. Thus in Chapter VII we shall see Adam as expressing, but not obviously aware of, Christian belief, whereas in Chapter X we shall see him undertaking, as Doane observes, “the beginning of penitence.”26 Such manipulation of tropology has immense consequences for audience response and the comedic imperative. It is clear that in one mode or another such tropology is not uncommon in early medieval literature and art. A good instance might be the Utrecht Psalter, which as a creation probably of the monastery of Hautvilliers, near Rheims, sometime in the second quarter of the ninth century, was not greatly distant either in place or time from the composition of the Old Saxon Genesis. Koert van der Horst observes that [a]nother way of illustrating the psalter is based not so much on the life of the author of the psalms, or on the psalm text itself, as on the extensive patristic commentaries and glosses on the psalms, which contain numerous Christological interpretations. Many New Testament scenes were introduced into psalter illustration by depicting these so-called typologies—the places in the psalms which supposedly prefigure future events, most especially the coming and the life of Christ.27

Genesis B affords numerous instances of tropological presentation. The binding of Satan before the Fall (instead of in the course of the Harrowing of Hell), acknowledged in lines 371–85, means, as Doane says, that “the notion of Satan which governs this poem is not the Satan who fell, not an Old Testament adversary of Adam and Eve, but the Satan of the sixth age, the Satan who exists now.”28 It is worth our while to consider this passage, because the disclosure as to Satan’s binding is an early disclosure of the poet’s rhetorical adroitness. In part of a long speech Satan rages and grieves:                  þæt me is sorga mæst 365   þæt adam sceal, þe wæs of eorðan geworht, minne stronglican stol behealdan, wesan him on wynne and we þis wite þolien, hearm on þisse helle. wala, ahte ic minne handa geweald and moste ane tid ute weorðan, 370   wesan ane winterstunde þonne ic mid þys werode— —ac licgað me ymbe irenbenda, rideð racentan sal.

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‘To me, that is the greatest of sorrows, that Adam, who was made of earth, shall hold my strong seat and be in bliss; and we endure this torment, harm in this hell. Alas, if I possessed the rule of my hands and might be out one while, (370) be [out] one winter’s hour, then I, with this host—but iron bands encompass me, (a) rope of chain rides (me).’

The passage preceding the speech took notice of his revolt, his expulsion from Heaven along with his crew, his renaming as “Satan,” and the condition of Hell—its darkness, its cold, its fire. It is a traditional, though certainly vivid, account. But until now the poem has made no mention of Satan’s binding in Hell. The poet now allows Satan himself to acknowledge his incapacitation in a way that highly contrasts ambition and feebleness. Truth bursts into the mens cordis sui: suddenly power (ic mid þys werode 370) knows itself powerless (ac licgað me ymbe irenbenda 371). Some editors have suspected a lacuna after werode, but Doane and others are I think correct in regarding the þonne clause as anacoluthon, indicative of Satan’s anguish, the expression of which a reciter’s appropriate gestures and modulations of voice would have made still more apparent to an audience. Possibly the dramatic construction here inaugurates the tropological mode in the poem. Certainly the passage alerts us to the coincidence of wit and tropology further on. We begin to see how strongly tropology infuses the poet’s management of his narrative, for the binding of Satan (lines 368–74, 377–85, 433–34, 761– 62, 764–65) is one very obvious way in which the poem departs from the biblical account of the Fall. The frequency of these references helps to convey their tropological import. In turn the binding of Satan makes necessary Satan’s messenger, the boda, who represents the serpent of Genesis 3 and also a devil in the time of post-redemptive man. Thus the boda, about to address Eve in line 609, is called not ‘the one who forswears’ but rather se forhatena ‘the forsworn (one),’ i.e., as Doane explains, “the one the narrator and audience have renounced (as in a baptismal formula)”29; the use of the phrase se forhatena is itself an instance of the counter-theme. It is one of Doane’s “philological nuances” which have had a far more than merely subtle effect on the poem’s explication. The account of the boda’s donning his hæleðhelm, either (or both?) ‘hero-helmet’ or ‘helmet of deceit,’ to employ his stratagems against Adam and Eve, which is ironically suggestive of Paul’s exhortation in Ephesians 6 (especially Ephesians 6:17), might mean the author’s familiarity, Scott Gwara believes, “with a common biblical trope: . . . Arma, nequitiae diaboli . . . weaponry, [i.e.] vilenesses of the devil.”30 Doane plausibly suggests that in the passage he þeoda gehwam . . . forlec hie þa mid ligenum 641–47 the

Comedy, Wit, Tropology, Allegory   •  39

antecedent of hie is þeoda gehwam: “We are in the midst of one of the narrator’s tropological comments, which begins at about 640, relating the Fall of mankind in general in terms of its results and only coming back to the proximate cause of the Fall, Eve, at the end.”31 The long reference to the tree of life in lines 467–76 is also suggestive; Doane notes that the passage on the Tree of Life is “one of the poet’s ‘tropological’ comments: it applies not to the narrative of Adam, but to Adam as the representative of man in general, and applies morally to any man who might eat of the ‘Tree of Life,’ which was taken as a figure of Christ and the eucharist.”32 Significantly, as we shall see, the poet places the two trees near Adam and Eve, and him bi twegen beamas stodon 460, and makes no distinction between Adam and Eve and persons of the post-redemptive age: all persons, yldo bearn . . . gumena æghwilc 464–65, must choose between the fruit of the two. The comprehensiveness of gumena æghwilc is perhaps the first clue in the poem that Adam is to be understood as now the Adam of Genesis 3, now a post-redemptive Christian, now as both. The implication of the clause is surely that each person must exercise moral choice, rather than, as Evans says, that “the motives, the moral guilt or innocence of the agents, are totally irrelevant.”33 The tropological presentation greatly affects the aesthetic of the poem. Doane comments that the allegory of the poem parallels and informs the mind and moral life of the audience. . . . [T]he audience is expected to make judgments, side with one set of characters and actions against a clear set of opposites. . . . The target of the action is the audience’s moral life, the purpose not the exploration of biblical text or meaning per se, but the relation of the history of the First Times to the inner and outer lives of the audience now living near the Final Time. Thus, . . . the audience is a main player in the meaning of the biblically based action and is expected to complete and fulfill it in its own life—in other words, the main thrust of the poem is tropological in its aims.34

It is clear that Doane’s analysis of the tropological element in Genesis B far more than merely adumbrates what I have called the counter-theme in the poem. Indeed, his perception that a tropological mode obtains in Genesis B (as well as in the Old Saxon Genesis) is, I think, the most important critical judgment that has been made about the poem. It is more important even, and certainly more strongly demonstrated, than the suggestion of Wilhelm Bruckner, shortly to be acknowledged, as to the presence of allegory in Genesis B. And since the Final Time is the post-redemptive time, the perception that the poem entails a tropological element is ipso facto the perception that it entails a comedic element.

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I think, however, that on several specific and important occasions Doane’s introduction and commentary fail to see the bearing and force of his own perception. Thus at one point, Doane is disposed to see the poem as “emanating from the circle around Gottschalk”—an origin, or an influence, hardly conducive and sympathetic to the comedic counter-theme of Genesis B.35 Thereby he falls short in acknowledging the pervasiveness and importance of that theme. It is a little like an army commander seizing the high ground but then failing to take full advantage of the position he has gained. A form of evidence to this effect—imperfect, to be sure—is the circumstance that even the aforementioned literary historians of Old English whose analyses of Genesis B have appeared after Doane’s edition apparently have not seen how the tropology which his analysis demonstrates endangers their own interpretations. In short, Doane identifies the considerable presence though not the full import of tropology in the poem; that a counter-theme greatly affecting the overall mood or tone of Genesis B accompanies and reflects this tropology he does not expressly remark. And Doane does not, in my view, deal adequately with Evans’ argument that the poem’s tacens ‘signs’ must imply the exoneration of Adam and Eve. Let us try to take full advantage of the tactical position which Doane has afforded us. Failure to see the presence of the counter-theme in the poem arises, perhaps, from two circumstances. In the first place, some passages which are not in themselves tropological nevertheless exemplify the counter-theme. In the second place, the concerns of an editor other than those of literary criticism are so numerous and varied that almost inevitably some difficult passages are going to remain inadequately dealt with. In Doane’s and in some other editions, I have in mind as especially needful of reconsideration lines 547–51, lines 623–25, and the perplexing micel wundor passage in lines 595–98, but this list is hardly exhaustive. These passages, it seems to me, contribute importantly to the poem’s comedic imperative. And, as regards a perception of the counter-theme, Doane also does not draw attention to what I take to be the richness of the poet’s wit and invention. Accordingly, no small part of the present argument, especially in Chapters V and VI, will address Doane’s readings of certain passages and present alternative readings. A number of these difficult passages I have addressed in earlier papers, and it seems clear to me now that, just as tropology has been a useful and valid tool for Doane in approaching a perception of the counter-theme, so lexical, grammatical, or syntactical analysis of difficult passages has been a useful and valid tool for me in approaching, haltingly and over a good many years, the same perception. The present study tries to combine these approaches. The effort has required the citation just now from Doane on tropological analysis;

Comedy, Wit, Tropology, Allegory   •  41

it will also require, in the pages below, the summary of material from several of my earlier papers. An important element of the counter-theme is what I take to be the wit of the poet, and in those papers this wit was but barely acknowledged. Its acknowledgment now will help to elucidate the countertheme and so to effect, at least in some part, the restoration of Genesis B to what I think is its deserved place in the ranks of early Germanic Christian poems. One of the notable departures in Genesis B from the biblical account of the Fall is the prior and unsuccessful temptation of Adam. It is no coincidence that the poem entails both such a temptation of Adam and the representation of his fictive nature as tropological in the very course of that temptation. That the conjunction is no accident is suggested by the presence of both features in the Anglo-Norman play Mystère d’Adam (Ordo Repraesentationis Adae). When, in the play, Adam does fall, having earlier resisted the tempter, he says that he will not be saved from the depth into which he has fallen “por home né, / Si Deu nen est de majesté” ‘by no mortal, / None save God in His majesty’ 377–78, also “Ne me ferat ja nul aïe, / Fors le Filz que istra de Marie,” ‘None will ever aid me / except the Son who will come forth from Mary’ 381–83.36 Adam’s nature here is again represented as tropological—as simulaneously the Adam of Genesis 3 and as post-redemptive man; as the Adam of Genesis 3 he is also empowered to speak as would post-redemptive man. Erich Auerbach, noting that the play represents Adam and Eve as “a French peasant or burgher” and his wife, points out what is in effect its tropological nature and intention: the ancient and sublime occurrence is to become immediate and present; it is to be a current event which could happen any time, which every listener can imagine and is familiar with; it is to strike deep roots in the mind and the emotions of any random French contemporary.37

Although the Mystère d’Adam seems to reflect the tribus modis rationale, it eschews allegory and presents the Fall in a natural and homely manner. David Bevington quotes a passage from Auerbach which notes the “simple, low style”: Adam talks and acts in a manner any member of the audience is accustomed to from his own or his neighbor’s house; things would go exactly the same way in any townsman’s home or on any farm where an upright but not very brilliant husband was tempted into a foolish and fateful act by his vain and ambitious wife who had been deceived by an unscrupulous swindler. The dialogue

42  •  Chapter II

between Adam and Eve—this first man-woman dialogue of universal historical import—is turned into a scene of simplest everyday reality. Sublime as it is, it becomes a scene in simple, low style.38

In Genesis B, in contrast, the treatment of the Fall, as we shall see, is distinctly allegorical. This means that the Adam of Genesis B “talks and acts in a manner” very different from what “any member of the audience is accustomed to” and very different from the Adam of the Mystère d’Adam. In my view, in Genesis B no more than in the Mystère d’Adam is Adam to be understood as exonerated. Yet his exoneration has, in effect, also been proposed by Eric Jager, who in his book The Tempter’s Voice posits, with considerable ingenuity, that a failure of oral transmission exculpates Adam and Eve in Genesis B—a quite fresh approach to the question. Jager infers that “Genesis B equates the Fall with fallible oral-mnemonic tradition by dramatizing that such a tradition is vulnerable to error and misrepresentation.”39 The successive oral temptations, the first unsuccessful, the second successful, are taken to demonstrate this vulnerability. As if to say, God should have put it in writing. Jager notes Alcuin’s awareness that “written tradition, too, is fallible.”40 Texts, for instance, are liable to miscopying; also, translations of texts (Genesis B, for example) are liable to any failures of the translator. And if, in a narrative, the spoken word might come to the attention of the wrong party— the boda in Genesis B evidently knows of a certain prohibition—so too might the written, with results neither intended nor desired by an author. Hence cryptography and, in turn, cryptanalysis. Nevertheless, Eve’s failure after Adam’s success cannot, either in Genesis B or for that matter in the Mystère d’Adam, be laid to oral tradition. Yes, the more frequently any one message must be received and retransmitted before it reaches its destination, the greater the likelihood that an error will be made at one point or another. But such is not the case in Genesis B. Jager says that “the poem goes on to suggest that when oral tradition is extended through a mnemonic chain, it is only as strong as its weakest link.”41 Yet Adam and Eve were not successive links in one chain. Each was a link in two different chains. The boda tried Adam and failed. Then he tried Eve and succeeded. The reception of the boda’s message first by Adam and then by Eve was without error; both heard correctly what he had to say. The difference is that whereas Adam, having heard correctly, refused to accede to the boda’s wish, Eve, also having heard correctly, acceded to his wish, because she believed that the lie which she had heard correctly was the truth. No doubt the boda’s message to Eve was more subtly, more insistently, and (initially,

Comedy, Wit, Tropology, Allegory   •  43

at least) more threateningly phrased than his message to Adam. But this circumstance leads to questions about Eve’s vulnerability, not about orality and a mnemonic chain. And when Eve approaches Adam and undertakes the third temptation in the poem, essentially she repeats correctly the boda’s message—“eat of this fruit!” And Adam hears it correctly. Which circumstance leads to questions about Adam’s vulnerability, not about orality and a mnemonic chain.

Allegory To me the vulnerabilities of Adam and Eve in Genesis B and also of Adam in the Mystère d’Adam are much more plausibly understood in terms of a psychology of temptation widely known in late antiquity and the early Middle Ages. Some years ago I noted Bruckner’s suggestion that the prior temptation of Adam in Genesis B reflected the understanding that reason (ratio), which should govern action, is incapacitated by the animal bodily sense (sensus corporis animalis), when its prompting is strong.42 Bruckner’s comment was no more than a suggestion, but even so, in my view it approaches in critical importance Doane’s observation as to the poem’s tropology. Early medieval writers frequently invoked Adam, Eve, and the Tempter to illustrate what I shall term the tribus modis ‘in three ways’ rationale. Perhaps not very surprisingly, the “three” in tribus modis was not definitive. Thomas D. Hill notes that Gregory the Great, in his Moralia in Iob, understood four stages: “suggestion, delectation, consent, and defensionis audacia [the presumption of resistance; i.e., hardened wickedness], a model of the psychological and spiritual process of sin in general.”43 But for convenience I shall refer to the “tribus modis rationale” or just “the rationale.” Hrabanus, fairly near to our Saxon poet in time and place, illustrates the rationale. He asks, “Sed quid est quod ipse per mulierem decepit et non per virum?” and answers himself, “quia non potest ratio nostra seduci ad peccandum, nisi præcedente delectatione carnali infirmitatis affectu” and adds, by way of example, “mulier comedit ante et non vir, ideo, quia facilius carnales persuadentur ad peccatum, nec velociter spirituales decipiuntur.” So Isidor, Claudius of Turin, Bede [?].44 Bruckner remarks of Hrabanus that “er brauchte nur den Gedanken auszuführen, daß der Mann nicht verführt werden konnte,” and indeed the manifestation in both Genesis B and the Mystère d’Adam of the inference “daß der Mann nicht verführt werden konnte” is the prior and unsuccessful temptation of Adam.45 Thus the tribus modis rationale long antedates the early Middle Ages and the Old Saxon poet of Genesis B. It may, in fact, be traced to as early as

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Philo.46 The fondness of these ages for allegory and the allegorical reading of texts or even their widespread disposition to draw moral instruction from scriptural passages might readily have conduced to an allegorical presentation of the Genesis 3 story in the Old Saxon poem. The Tempter, simply by his function, especially readily invited the allegorical guise of suggestio. This circumstance, together with contemporaneous understanding of sexual roles and capabilities, invited Adam and Eve to be accepted as figures of ratio and sensus. The interaction of these three is witnessed, of course, in the three temptation scenes, first of Adam, unsuccessfully, then of Eve, successfully, and finally of Adam again, this time successfully. But well before the temptations ensue, the poem affords hints through its drastic alterations in the biblical account of Genesis 2 and 3 that the tribus modis rationale obtains in Genesis B. Witness to the rationale in other Old Saxon texts is lacking, but it abounds in Latin, including Anglo-Latin, and also Anglo-Saxon. In Bede’s Historia Ecclesiastica, I, xxvii, Gregory’s reply to Augustine’s ninth question entails the point that Tribus enim modis impletur omne peccatum, uidelicet suggestione, delectatione, consensu. Suggestio quippe fit per diabolum, delectatio per carnem, consensus per spiritum; quia et primam culpam serpens suggessit, Eua velut caro delectata est, Adam uero uelut spiritus consensit. ‘For all sin is committed in three ways, namely by suggestion, pleasure, and consent. The devil makes the suggestion, the flesh delights in it and the spirit consents. It was the serpent who suggested the first sin, Eve representing the flesh was delighted by it, and Adam representing the spirit consented to it.’47

The Old English translation of Bede’s Historia puts the matter thus: Forþon þrim gemetum bið gefylled ghwilc syn, þæt is, ærest þurh scynnesse, 7 þurh lustfullnesse, 7 þurh geðafunge. Seo scynis bið þurh deoful, seo lustfulnes bið þurh lichoman, seo geðafung þurh gast. Forðon þa ærestan synne se weriga gast scyde þurh þa næddran, ond Euae þa swa swa lichoma wæs lustfulliende, ond Ádam heo þonne, swa swa gast geþafode: ða wæs seo synn gefylled.48

and the Old English translation of the Cura Pastoralis has it thus: We habbað geascod from urum ærestan mæge Adame ðæt us is from him gecynde ðæt we ælc yfel on ðrio wisan ðurhtion: ðurh gespan, & ðurh lustfulnesse, & ðurh geðafunga. Ðæt gespan bið ðurh dioful. Sio lustbærnes bið ðurh ðone lichoman. Sio geðafung bið ðurhtogen ðurh ðone gæst. . . . Swa swa

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sio nædre on neorxna wonge, ærest hio lærde Euan on woh, & Eue hi hire underðiod(d)e mid lustfulnesse, swa swa lichoma. Ða wæs Adam, swa swa se gæst, ðurh gespan ðære næddran & ðurh Euan lustbærnesse oferswiðed, ðæt he geðafode ða synne.49

and a homily of Ælfric says thus: On ðreo wisan bið deofles costnung: þæt is on tihtinge, on lustfullunge, on geðafunge. Deofol tiht us to yfele, ac we sceolon hit onscunian, and ne geniman nane lustfullunge to ðære tihtinge: gif þonne ure mod nimð gelustfullunge, þonne sceole we huru wiðstandan, þæt ðær ne beo nan geðafung to ðam yfelan weorce.50

That Gregory and Bede and their successors and translators set forth the rationale without any defense of its soundness or suggestion that its doctrine is other than a commonplace of belief is perhaps in itself evidence of widespread acceptance. And that Gregory was pope at the time suggests that the understanding was hardly heretical. We see at once in these passages how closely tropology and the tribus modis rationale are related: Adam, Eve, and the Tempter are, as characters, either largely or to some degree the allegorical exemplars of the stages through which all human beings fall into sin. No distinction is made between between Adam’s lapse and the lapses of his and Eve’s posterity: ðæt us is from him gecynde ‘that from him it is our nature’; as these passages show and as Doane remarks, the rationale explains the lapse into sinfulness of all humankind, post- as well as pre-redemptive. The phrases ratio nostra, omne peccatum, and ælc yfel and the pronouns us, ure, and we alone show that the reference is not merely to Adam and Eve in their calamitous Fall; the rationale, even though in terms of Adam, Eve, and the Tempter, addresses sinfulness in contemporary humankind and posits the ability of reason to stand when unaffected by the bodily senses. It seems fairly clear, however, that although the texts speak of omne peccatum and ælc yfel the common choice of Adam and Eve as exemplars of sinful behavior bespeaks a certain view of gender relationships and hints at probable sexual prejudices on the part of those who propounded or shared the rationale. It is precisely this medieval psychology of temptation which is so accommodative of the tropology which Doane has identified: Adam’s tropological dimension in Genesis B as well as in the Mystère d’Adam is the natural and easy concomitant of the circumstance that in both texts he is tempted first and unsuccessfully, for his tropological dimension identifies Adam as contemporary with us and identifies his sin, whether imminent or already com-

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mitted, as “equivalent to anyone’s.” The “common source” which Rosemary Woolf posited for Genesis B and the Mystère d’Adam is probably, I strongly suspect, not some single text but rather the widely acknowledged tribus modis rationale of sinful action exemplified in Adam, Eve, and the Tempter.51 It is important to note that if we broaden delectatio per carnem to include what the flesh fears and seeks to avoid as well as what it seeks to enjoy, we can employ the tribus modis rationale to explain, at least in part, Eve’s disobedience in Genesis B as well as Adam’s. Authorities who take note of the rationale do not, so far as I can learn, acknowledge that delectatio very often entails a desire to avoid, say, danger or bodily harm, rather than to embrace something attractive to the senses. Yet their language seems to imply the inclusion of all manner of sinfulness: omne peccatum; on ðrea wisan bið deofles costnung; ælc yfel. And the connection between obedience and fortitude, as we shall see in Chapter IV, must have been as clear to early medieval folk as it is, or ought to be, to us. Allegory is not absent otherwise in MS Junius 11. The poem Exodus entails numerous allegorical motifs, whereby, as J. E. Cross and S. I. Tucker have noted, events “are not presented to be recognized as one consistent allegory, but symbolic pictures would occur naturally to a learned Christian’s mind.”52 Thus “the battle in the sea” is one symbolic picture of salvation, and, as it seems to me, the end of Exodus, with its allusions to MS afrisc meowle ‘African woman’ and MS Iosepes gestreon ‘Joseph’s acquisition,’ is another such picture.53 The allegory in Genesis B differs from that in Exodus because, focussing as it does on the Fall, with its three temptations in close succession, it is, I think, “one consistent allegory” in its narrative presentation of the tribus modis rationale. It would seem quite likely that the Old Saxon Genesis poet could have found the tribus modis rationale as exemplified in the story of the Fall fairly widely diffused in Christian literature and teaching. The understanding of the rationale in terms of the Fall—that is, the “interpretive allegory”—was already at hand. The poet’s task, then, was one of “compositional allegory”: to turn the briefly outlined rationale into sustained narrative.54 In outline, of course, the narrative was also given. But this outline, whereby reason (Adam) is to be overthrown in the presence of the animal sense of the body (Eve) and suggestion (Devil) falls far short when it comes to narrative realization. Three major amplifications have to be made, one as regards Adam, another as regards Eve, still another as regards the Tempter. The third amplification, that of the boda, we will consider in much greater detail in Chapters V and IX. The first we have noted in part: the very bold adjustment of the biblical Genesis narrative whereby Adam, in the absence or virtual absence of Eve,

Comedy, Wit, Tropology, Allegory   •  47

can be shown to be immune to temptation. But this qualification imposes at once a limitation on Adam as an allegorical personage. He is not, cannot be, like Avaritia in the Psychomachia of Prudentius, whom we shall encounter in Chapter IV. She is of course Avarice throughout, whereas Adam is the figure of ratio only as long as he can obey God’s command, or when, as at the end of the poem, he recovers his will and judgment. As regards Eve, the tribus modis précis, the skeletal quia et primam culpam serpens suggessit, Eua velut caro delectata est, Adam uero uelut spiritus consensit indicates little more of Eve than that she is the instrument through which Adam is undone. In the overthrow of his reason Adam changes, but the clauses facilius carnales persuadentur ad peccatum ‘the animally disposed are more readily persuaded to sin’ and Eua velut caro delectata est ‘Eve, as flesh, was alluring,’ though they point the way, obviously require amplification. Or take the translation from Gregory, Ða wæs Adam, swa swa se gæst, ðurh gespan ðære næddran & ðurh Euan lustbærnesse oferswiðed, ðæt he geðafode ða synne: the subject, in more ways than one, is Adam, but Eve is marginalized in a prepositional phrase and the nature of her lustbærnes ‘pleasure, desire’ is again unspecified. Therefore the narrative must be adapted and augmented so as to show that Eve too is affected in some specific and dire way. Caro has to be fleshed out. In, say, Gregory’s formulation of the tribus modis rationale, Eve as delectatio per carnem and Adam as consensus per spiritum are evidently thought of as the flesh and spirit of one person. The narrative of Genesis B required a divorce of flesh and spirit so that the one person became two. Adam as ratio or spiritus we shall consider in the next chapter. The poet’s fleshing out of Eve in Genesis B resulted in a character more complex and rather less obviously allegorical than that of Adam and therefore a character about whom modern criticism has found much to dispute. As to caro or sensus the poet shows that Eve comes to experience the fallibility, the liability to deception, of that very essence of which she herself is the personification; the poet’s wit settled, as Susan Burchmore points out, on “the . . . theme of visual deception.”55 It seems likely that Genesis 3:5 aperientur oculi vestri ‘your eyes will be opened’ lies behind the visual deception through which Eve perceives the boda as angelic in form and sees her vision of God, which presently will come to naught. And the deception is not just of visuality. The bitterness of the tree of death (se bær bitres fela ‘ it bore much of [what was] bitter’ 479) might well have included its fruit, yet Eve assures Adam that þis ofet is swa swete ‘this fruit is so sweet’ 655. But there is far more than sensuous fallibility in the Eve of Genesis B. Obedience, as we noted in Chapter I, was commanded of her as well as of

48  •  Chapter II

Adam. Alain Renoir has argued that by wacran in hæfde hire wacran hige / metod gemearcod 590–91, the poet implied a contrast not between Adam and Eve but rather between the Tempter and Eve. For two reasons I infer otherwise. A first, and perhaps less telling, reason is that I don’t see much point in the poet’s informing us that “Eve’s mind was weaker than the Tempter’s.” Since, as Renoir’s further remark puts it, “we could hardly expect anything else,” why should the poet bother to tell us?56 A second reason is that the contrast to which wacran refers is not primarily, I suspect, between minds or intelligence. Later on I shall support an argument (which others have advanced) that in a narrow sense the contrast is between fortitudes, between the morale of Adam and that of Eve; in a broad sense it is between the two temptations, i.e., the first temptation of Adam and the temptation of Eve. Therefore it is of little moment that, as Renoir observes, “Adam has been out of the picture for forty-four lines” but the Tempter only two and one-half lines before wacran occurs in the text. The point rather is that Adam, persevering in obedience, resisted, but Eve, failing in obedience, succumbed. The text says presently that Eve took the deadly fruit ofer drihtnes word ‘against the word of the Lord’ 593. The poet did not and probably could not, without considerable alteration of the narrative, sustain a more or less strict allegorical presentation of Adam as ratio and Eve as sensus throughout his poem. The tribus modis rationale in no way obliged him to do so; the several formulations we have cited take notice of Adam and Eve only as the obvious example of how sin brings us to ruin and avoid pointless reference to their subsequent condition. The argument in the chapters to follow is therefore in part to be seen as effecting a sort of compromise between an allegorical and a non-allegorical interpretation of the poem. The evidence, as I will note in Chapter IV and again in Chapters IX and X, suggests that allegorical presentation is abandoned or weakened, not very surprisingly, at about the moment when Adam succumbs. Hitherto the prior temptation of Adam has been understood in and of itself as a principal, though not the only, reason for inferring the presence of the tribus modis rationale. But that both are allegorical shows in their perceptions and their deeds—what they do, but also what Adam in particular doesn’t do—after his prior temptation. From the time Adam succumbs, he ceases as a fairly obvious figure of ratio and Eve as a rather less obvious figure of sensus. To a limited degree the difference shows in their speech. One might suppose that the prelapsarian speech of sensus would be very much like the speech of fallen humankind. In Genesis B this supposition cannot be tested, since in the poem as we have it Eve is given no direct discourse whatsoever before her address to Adam in lines 655–83, well after the notice

Comedy, Wit, Tropology, Allegory   •  49

that Heo þa þæs ofætes æt ‘then she ate of the fruit’ 599. It is therefore more in Adam’s than in Eve’s words and behavior that we can witness the force of Dr. Johnson’s observation concerning Paradise Lost: “[t]he man and woman who act and suffer are in a state which no other man or woman can ever know.” Adam’s prelapsarian speech and behavior we will consider, respectively, in Chapters III and IV. But of his speech it may be suggested, preliminarily, that both as the speech of ratio and of one “in a state which no other man or woman can ever know” Adam’s words are at one point or another bound to seem somewhat unnatural, unfamiliar, more strained and removed from their context. We shall examine in the course of Chapter V some specimens of their critical reception.

CHAPTER III

Adamic Resolve

The first temptation of Adam affords clear and certain evidence of his resolve. Satan, bound in Hell through his own tropological identity as a postredemptive being, must send a messenger for the temptation of Adam and Eve. As we have noted, Satan’s boda tempts Adam first, but Adam refuses the fruit. In his refusal Adam points out that God himself had commanded that he not eat of the fruit and gives several reasons otherwise for refusing the boda’s behest: Adam maðelode þær he on eorðan stod, selfsceafte guma: “þonne ic sigedrihten, mihtigne god mæðlan gehyrde 525   strangre stemne and me her standan het, his bebodu healdan and me þas bryd forgeaf, wlitesciene wif, and me warnian het þæt ic on þone deaðes beam bedroren ne wurde, beswicen to swiðe, he cwæð þæt þa sweartan helle 530   healdan sceolde se ðe bi his heortan wuht laðes gelæde. nat þeah þu mid ligenum fare þurh dyrne geþanc þe þu drihtnes eart boda of heofonum. hwæt, ic þinra bysna ne mæg, worda ne wisna, wuht oncnawan, 535   siðes ne sagona. ic wat hwæt he me self bebead, nergend user, þa ic hine nehst geseah. he het me his word weorðian and wel healdan, læstan his lare. þu gelic ne bist 51

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ænegum his engla þe ic ær geseah 540   ne þu me oðiewdest ænig tacen þe he me þurh treowe to onsende, min hearra þurh hyldo. þy ic þe hyran ne cann, ac þu meaht þe forð faran. ic hæbbe me fæstne geleafan up to þam ælmihtegan gode þe me mid his earmum worhte, 545   her mid handum sinum. he mæg me of his hean rice geofian mid goda gehwilcum þeah he his gingran ne sende.” ‘Adam spoke, (there) where he stood on (the) earth, a man of selffate: “when I heard the victory-lord, mighty God, speak (525) with strong voice and (he) bade me stand here,1 keep his commands and gave me this bride/woman, beautiful wife/woman, and bid me take heed that I not become felled (bedroren ne wurde2) through the tree of death, too much deceived, he said that (he) the dark Hell (530) should hold who in his heart produced anything of evil. I know not whether you come with lies through malicious intent or (whether) you are the Chieftain’s messenger from Heaven. Indeed, I cannot recognize anything of your commands, of words or aspect, (535) of journey or sayings. I know what he himself commanded, our savior, when I saw him in person. He bid me honor his word and keep (it) well, carry out his teaching. You are unlike any of his angels whom I saw earlier, (540) nor did you show me any sign which through good faith he sent to me, my Lord through favor. Therefore I cannot obey you, so you can go forth. I have fast belief in the almighty God who wrought me with his arms, (545) here with his hands. He is able from his high realm to present me with each of good things, although he sends not his servant.”’

This speech, as the first of three speeches given to Adam in the poem as we have it, is hugely important.3 It is Adam’s only speech before he accedes to Eve’s behest much later in the poem. We can see in Adam’s first sentence the tenor of his speech as a whole: his determination to obey God’s command. Adam declares first of all that he has already spoken directly with God and so does not now need an intermediary. That God’s speech was in the nature of a formal utterance, as the verb mæðlan 524 implies, and that God spoke to him strangre stemne ‘with strong voice’ 525 serve to authenticate Adam’s declaration.4 The adverb nehst 536 reinforces the authentication strongly. Usually taken as ‘last’ or ‘most recently,’ nehst is better taken as ‘in proximo.’ It is locative rather than temporal; Adam is not giving to understand that he has seen God more than once; rather he is remarking the difference

Adamic Resolve   •  53

between what the boda has just now told him and what God himself, he . . . self 535, told him when, along with Eve, he saw him ‘in proximo,’ in effect, ‘in person.’5 The difference here is not inconsequential. In the next line Adam goes on to repeat at greater length the sense of his bebodu healdan 526: his word weorðian and wel healdan 537. Adam’s concern here is that the boda’s present command is utterly at variance with God’s earlier command and that if the boda is truthful, God has changed his mind—an unlikelihood, and one so extraordinary as in itself to warrant a presumption of the boda’s mendacity. Adam’s response to the Tempter acknowledges God’s power and authority: He is sigedrihten 523, mihtig god 524. But it acknowledges God’s power and will in less obvious ways. Eric Jager observes of the response that “Adam’s commemoration of God’s voice reflects the phonocentrism characteristic of Christian attitudes towards language. . . . Adam’s invocation of God’s voice also accords with Augustine’s doctrine that the words of faith (‘verba fidei’) held in memory must also be recollected and willed. Adam rehearses Augustine’s three stages for the apprehension of the words of faith: memory [ic gehyrde 523–24], recollection [Ic wat 535], and will [he het me his word weorðian and wel healdan, / læstan his lare 537–38].”6 Adam’s sentence is periodic; the beginning þonne clause and the following clauses through beswicen to swiðe 529 are dependent on the clause he cwæð . . . 529, God’s declaration as to the consequence of disobedience. The whole sentence, that is, is shaped so as to emphasize the dire consequence of disobedience. For obedience, as we shall see, is the theme of Genesis B.7 Obedience is part of Adam’s character. His obedience, like that of Abraham, implies humility, and the speech introduction acknowledges this virtue as well: the clause þær he on eorðan stod 522 is perhaps a reminder of what was to come: the Lord’s malediction “Dust thou art . . .” of Genesis 3:19. Then too it might entail a play on Adam’s name (‘earth’), thereby suggesting humility, a quality of mind and spirit essential to obedience. But the phrase on eorðrice euan stondan 548 suggests that there is more still to the phrase, and in Chapter IV we will note a further implication of on eorðan and on eorðrice. The witness which this speech offers as to Adam’s obedience to God is of great importance to our understanding of the poem; the speech is rich in intimations which bear strongly on the interpretation of Genesis B. It suggests that the Fall of Adam and Eve is to be seen rather more simply as a matter of their disobedience to God’s command than of their finding themselves in a situation where that command was difficult to know. They had God’s command as a dimension of the poem’s aforementioned martiality, and so they should have obeyed.

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The speech, which is not without subtlety and rhetorical power, sets forth the depth and fullness of Adam’s obedience to God. We can see how adroitly it foreshadows the way in which Adam’s disobedience was to come about. For Adam appears to show here a certain guilelessness; needlessly, it might be thought, he hands to the boda the clue to what will shortly effect his undoing. His introductory þonne clause entails a threefold and me . . . anaphora. The first and third terms report the sigedrihten’s admonitions, the former being general and inclusive (her stondan het, / his bebodu healdan 525–26), the latter quite specific (warnian het / þæt ic on þone deaðes beam 528–30). The middle term reports the sigedrihten’s benefaction (þas bryd forgeaf, / wlitesciene wif 526–27). The implication of the first term, his bebodu healdan, will be noted below; just now it suffices to observe that (not without a certain irony) the admonitions envelop the benefaction, and, to be sure, the benefaction is to become the explosive by which, through disobedience, the admonitions will be blown away. We encounter different Adams when we see him either as an allegorical figure (as I think he was meant to be seen) or as a non-allegorical figure, whereby we shall note other failures—indeed, absurdities of behavior—on Adam’s part. As the speech of a non-allegorical Adam, the passage seems to disclose a facet of Adamic bungling immediate in its consequence: our hero intimates to the boda what is, in effect, a chink in Adam’s armor—a way, that is, to Eve’s and then to his own undoing. The phrase wlitesciene wif ‘glänzend, schön; beauty-bright woman/wife’ 527 is Adam’s sole remark as to Eve’s loveliness. And this remark, this equivalent to an item of military intelligence, he conveys, along with its implication, to one so suspect and possibly so very dangerous. But as the speech of the figure of ratio, and therefore of wisdom, the passage indicates only that reason dictates obedience to God’s will: God has endowed as well as commanded him, and so, sensus corporis animalis being absent, compliance to God’s will shall follow; i.e., the boda’s behest will be refused. Following the third term of the anaphora come lines 529–31: ‘he [God] said that he who brought anything of evil beside his heart must possess black Hell.’8 The passage adumbrates an understanding which is more fully expressed later on, the understanding that sinful acts are preceded by the will’s consenting to sin.9 Thus bi his heortan wuht / laðes would mean the will’s consenting to sin, not its consequence, the perpetration itself. Several factors work to give emphasis to the statement. First, not only is its expression the main clause of its sentence but also the expression is an amplification, hence a sort of repetition, of the admonitions already noted in the long subordinate þonne clause: “Hell” is the consequence of being beswicen to swiðe. Also, and

Adamic Resolve   •  55

notably, the phrasing repeats a quite surprising inversion. It had earlier been said of Satan, . . . se ðe helle forð healdan sceolde ‘he who was henceforth to possess Hell’ 348. It is not said that Hell should possess the sinner but rather that the sinner should possess Hell. At least syntactically, the inversion reverses (though it does not deny) the obvious truth for the sake of a truth which here is spiritually higher. Adam’s formulation is hyperbole: for him to say that to bring wuht / laðes ‘anything of evil’ in or near one’s heart is to possess Hell is to magnify the enormity of bringing any evil near one’s heart and therefore to emphasize the importance of persevering in obedience.10 The intimation is that in this matter of Hell’s possession the sinner is active rather than passive, the holder, not the held. In his paper on “the self-deception of temptation” in Genesis B Alain Renoir infers that a medieval Christian audience of the poem “would probably have seen in it an illustration of the internal hell that awaits those who revolt against God.”11 Lines 529–31 would, I think, have helped an audience to that conclusion; their further intimation is that the possession of hell is simultaneous with the bringing of wuht laðes into one’s heart; hell is a commodity, a turf, to be held right here and now. Adam’s words follow a speech introduction describing Adam as selfsceafte guma ‘man of self-fate’ 523. In an earlier study of selfsceaft I noted that (a posited) “[Old Saxon] *self-giskaft must have been . . . a very arresting term, being highly contrastive, direct, essentially very clear in its meaning, and particularly significant in its immediate context, the point in the poem at which Adam, whose Fall brought all men woe, chooses for the first time . . . between good and evil.”12 Still a valid comment, I think, but perhaps “arresting term” needs explanation. Old Saxon (-)giskaft and (-)giskapu are not attested in adjectival use; their meaning, so far as we can tell, was ‘(-)fate,’ not ‘(-)fated.’ Also, the final –e of selfsceafte is anomalous if the word is taken as an adjective (whether strongly or even weakly declined) with masculine Old English guma, Old Saxon gumo, but it is unexceptional for long-syllabled i-stems as feminine genitive singular if selfsceaft is taken as a noun.13 And Old Saxon (-)giskaft and (-)giskapu are found as nominatives or accusatives but not as genitives. So a translation ‘self-fate’s man’ seems more accurate than ‘self-fated man’ to convey the likely syntax of MS selfsceafte guma. Also, the reading ‘man of self-fate’ seems more portentous than ‘self-fated man’; “fate” is elevated from a merely attributed circumstance to an entity in itself. Mitchell cites “Genitives which describe or define,”14 but selfsceafte with guma seems to me to entail something also of agentive meaning, of Adam as the doer, so that the verse is equivalent to ‘the man (who) “fates” himself,’ i.e., governs his own fate. Perhaps the phrase ‘man of self-fate’ (as in “man of action”) conveys this idea. Just as the inversion in lines 529–31 presents “the

56  •  Chapter III

sinner [as] active rather than passive,” so selfsceafte guma ‘man of self-fate’ implies that Adam acts, rather than that he is acted upon. C. S. Lewis observes that “nearly all moralists before the eighteenth century regarded Reason as the organ of morality,” and further, that “nearly all of them believed the fundamental moral maxims were intellectually grasped.”15 It will be seen at once how the observation bears on the tribus modis rationale: the presupposition of the rationale is very clearly that ratio perseveres, or tends to persevere, in or toward goodness unless distracted or turned away from that pursuit by the combination of suggestio and delectatio. That some formulations, as we saw in Chapter II, identify or associate the devil with suggestio make even clearer that the natural direction of ratio is understood to be toward the good and therefore toward God. The ethical component of ratio is therefore as important as what the modern age would consider the purely intellectual. It is essential to see that this is so when we look at Adam’s speech as an instance of reasoning. There is misapprehension as well as a certain justice in Alain Renoir’s strictures concerning this speech. In his paper on “Eve’s I.Q. Rating,” he says that Adam’s “peremptory refusal to listen [to the boda] ought certainly not to be construed as a sign of superior intelligence.”16 His comment entails not only factual error as well as a certain disparagement of Adam but also, I think, a failure to grasp what the speech is about. Adam refuses to obey, but certainly not to listen; he hears the boda through. Renoir’s reading of þy ic þe hyran ne cann 542, that “[Adam’s] refusal to listen . . . may also be construed as an admission that he would not know how to listen” is simply off the mark; hyran here would mean ‘obey’ (Old Saxon hôrian 4 ‘gehorchen, folgen’17). What he calls Adam’s “puzzlement” at the situation is merely an acknowledgement that so far Adam lacks certain information he would like to have. Worst, though, is his remark that Adam “brings his discourse to an end with a mindless but very smug assertion of his faith in God: Ic hæbbe me fæstne geleafan.” 543. This is a disastrous misreading. In the first place, the clause is neither mindless nor smug, especially, as we shall presently see, in the context of ninth-century Saxon Christianity. It is a sort of protoplastic credo. As such it is crucially important, as Chapter V will show, in explaining why it is that Adam resists, whereas Eve does not resist, the Tempter’s wiles. Renoir’s suggestion, on a later page, “that Adam may have withstood temptation because he was too stupid to understand it” merits dismissal out of hand.18 Renoir is not unjust, of course, in remarking that Adam’s thought here is not necessarily evidence of a powerful intellect. But again he is wrong, seriously wrong, I think, in apparently supposing that a self-respecting proto-

Adamic Resolve   •  57

plast, in responding to the likes of the boda, ought somehow to demonstrate profundity of intellect, whereas all Adam’s speech does demonstrate, and, in my view, all it was intended to demonstrate, is merely prudence, obedience, and faith. It is the equivalent, in what we shall come to see as the poem’s quasi-martial nature, of a dutiful sentry’s response: this critter looks funny, and he didn’t show a sign. Beware! That Adam is described as ‘man of self-fate’ is precisely indicative of his roles both as ratio in the tribus modis rationale and as exemplar of obedience. For the function of reason is not only to assist its possessor to ward off danger but also to bring its possessor closer to God. We noted in Chapter II the several passages and details of the narrative which conduce to the perception that the boda stands for suggestio and Eve for the sensus corporis animalis. Broadly, it is the unsuccessful temptation of Adam which indicates that he stands for spiritus or ratio. But we can see in his response to the boda the particular qualities of spirit and mind which defeat the boda. In his humility and unquestioning acceptance of God’s command Adam represents spirituality; in his straightforward and reasoned refusal he represents rationality. Moreover, Old English guma (lines 465, 515, 523) and gumo in the Old Saxon Genesis (lines 31, 34, 115–116, 149, 208, 221) seem to entail the most favorable connotation; in both poems they occur only in a positive sense by intimating moral excellence. In the Heliand the term shares this sense, gumo there being frequently used of Christ, Peter, John the Baptist, and others of excellence. The phrase gôduuilligun gumun 421 there gives Luke 2:14 hominibus bonae voluntatis. It seems clear that the phrase selfsceafte guma implies high praise of Adam. Just as what we have of the poem begins with God’s command to Adam and Eve, so, in lines 522–46, obedience is the theme of Adam’s response to the boda. It is evident both in his iteration of God’s command and in his clear intention to obey. In sum, his speech, along with its speech introduction, displays wisdom, which includes both ratio and obedience. That it reflects little if anything else is consistent with the presentation of Adam as an allegorical figure. Speaking of “Wisdom” as a concept to be allegorized, Jon Whitman observes that “Wisdom itself, after all, has no shape, no clothing, and no activity. The more personal attributes we give our personification, the more we turn it first into a mere character type of wisdom and finally into a wise individual.”19 So Adam, “Wisdom” in Genesis B until flesh and devil impinge, is virtually without personal attributes: we know of him little other than that he is obedient to God—and thereby that he is ratio. The necessity of obedience to God’s commands is proclaimed by many of the Fathers in late antiquity and the early Middle Ages. For obedience

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was the handmaiden of humility and the antithesis of pride. Augustine says trenchantly that sicut enim diabolus superbus hominem superbientem perduxit ad mortem; ita Christus humilis hominem obedientem reduxit ad vitam ‘for as the proud devil brought an abundantly proud man to death, so Christ in his humility restored the obedient man to life.’20 Augustine provides a fuller statement in De Genesi ad Litteram, concerning Genesis 2:17, God’s command that the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil not be eaten. He says that when a thing is touched which would not harm him who touched it unless it were forbidden, nor anyone else no matter how often he touched it, why was it forbidden except to show the good of obedience in itself and the evil of disobedience in itself? Finally, nothing else is sought by the sinner except to be free of the sovereignty of God when he does a deed that is sinful only in so far as God forbids it. If this alone were attended to, what else but the will of God would be attended to? What else but the will of God would be loved? What else but the will of God would be preferred to man’s will? Leave the reason for the command in the Lord’s hands. He who is His servant must do His bidding, and then perhaps by the merit of his obedience he will have grounds for seeing the reason of God’s command.21

This passage offers a strong clue to understanding Genesis B in the way in which, to the best of my knowledge, it was probably understood in the early medieval period rather than the way in which the exonerative view now undertakes to explain the poem. The difference is between an utter and unconditional obedience and an obedience subject to conditionality and private judgment and interpretation, liable even, it may be, to disavowal if the private conscience and rationality—or rationalizing—so dictate. For obedience of the former sort any reservation and conditionality are out of the question and unnecessary, and not only unnecessary but even, it may be, blasphemous; for the authority to whom obedience is now due is not a human person or human institution, but rather a Being understood to be omnipotent, omniscient, and perfect in truth and justice (cf. Augustine’s deus omnipotens, et bonus et iustus et misericors). Not to persevere in the commandments of such a Being is to refuse obedience, and to refuse obedience is to seek “to be free of the sovereignty of God.” The command to Adam in Genesis B has come not from the prophets, through whom God spoke, nor from the Church, nor from private conscience, but directly from God himself. Adam had the fortitude, whereas Eve did not, to persevere for a time in obedience to God’s command.

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In and of itself the principle of an unquestioning and complete obedience to what is understood to be God’s command invalidates, I think, the exonerative interpretation of Genesis B. It will turn out that the tacens in Genesis B will be seen to serve quite other functions than to make God’s will hard to discover. But the issue is not one of Adam’s finding God’s will hard to discover; from his beginning Adam had God’s command, and that was all he needed. It seems possible that the poet of Genesis B was familiar, if not with this particular passage in Augustine, then with the idea which it conveys. But whether or not this was so, it is highly likely that there was another dimension to Adam’s perception of obedience: that the mode of command to which he was subject was not only divine but was one also of military discipline. The text of Genesis B does not leave this matter inexplicit. Even if Old Saxon huldi was, as Green says, shaped to mean “strict unilateralism and a stress on service, rather than warfare,” its signification of martial obedience was not thereby diminished. Adam in Genesis B is locked, as it were, into military discipline through the very word hyldo. The hyldo of God in which Adam rejoices is contingent upon his obedience to God, even though that obedience takes now the form of “service” and not of warfare in any actually physical sense. As we shall see further on, for the Carolingians “God was himself a warlord,” and as we first see him, Adam in Genesis B is the good soldier, God’s soldier, while never taking up actual sword and shield. What we encounter in Genesis B is the theme of martiality. It should not, of course, be supposed that its presence is limited to our poem and to the Heliand. Just as psalm illustration discloses a tropological mode of presentation, so too it may disclose more than a trace of martiality. Again the Utrecht Psalter provides examples. Van der Horst observes that one of the “Fixed Formulae” in its illustrations are “the ‘enemies,’ ‘impious’ and ‘persecutors’ and so on, who are depicted at numerous points . . . by a group of armed soldiers who confront the ‘just,’ the ‘pious or the chosen people,’ who are usually represented by a more or less canonical group of unarmed figures.”22 So, in the illustration for Psalm 24 (25), verse 4, a troop bearing shields and lances backs up two bowmen who vainly menace the psalmist. On the other hand, in the illustration for Psalm 23 (24), verses 7–10, God, or rather Christ, is depicted as warlord-like; leading a band of warriors bearing shields and lances and wearing helmets, the “king of glory” approaches the open gates. Martial and sacral are one.23 Nor, of course, is it only in Adam that we meet the theme of martiality in Genesis B. As we noted early in Chapter I, “Wrenn’s notion of the comitatus spirit acknowledged the chieftain’s ambition but not the follower’s

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duty.” In Tacitus, if Germanic warriors “have left the field and survived one’s chief, this means lifelong infamy and shame,” which is another way of saying that the Germanic follower’s duty was not negotiable.24 What I spoke of earlier as “utter and unconditional obedience” even unto death was for Adam and for the followers of Byrhtnoth in Maldon the course of duty, as it should have been for Satan. It is quite clear that Satan, once the brightest of God’s warrior angels, but thinking now to set himself up as an independent warlord, has mustered his own comitatus and essayed defiance. Clear also that Satan, in his ruin, sees Adam and his posterity as God’s intended replacement for the defeated rebels; Adam and his comitatus, and not Satan and his, will dwell in Heaven. Hence the plot to forestall God’s intentions. The MS illustration on p. 20, which shows the boda, about to depart from Hell, clasping Satan’s fettered hands, perhaps represents a ceremony expressive of martial fealty. The success of their plot is contingent on causing Adam to fail—as Satan had failed—in obedience. The extraordinary length of Satan’s speeches early in the poem, speeches which Wrenn sees as “glorifying the comitatus spirit,” had, I suggest, the rather contrary intention of impressing on an audience the depth of Satan’s arrogance and insubordination. In stark contrast to Satan’s arrogance, Adam shows forth his obedience in lines 523–46. The Seafarer, we recall, declared that me hatran sind / drihtnes dreamas ‘the joys of the drihten are more vital to me’; but for Adam the drihten he speaks of, in sigedrihten 523, is very much his military chief as well as his God. Again, martial and sacral are one. The depth of Adam’s loyalty as it is displayed here is the basis for his declaration after the Fall that he will persevere in obedience and loyalty. The poem’s tropology affords him opportunity, since as post-redemptive he can expiate his offense. Opportunity is thus a necessary but not a sufficient condition, because opportunity is not always grasped. Only Adam’s character as loyal thane enables him to recover and to fulfill the comedic imperative of Genesis B. We hardly suppose that disciplinal rigor in early medieval warbands was identical in all respects to that in modern armies. The discipline of drill, for example, has its own history, and we are long since the heirs of Maurice of Nassau.25 We do, however, need to see that martiality, whether early medieval or modern (or of any age), implies discipline. Discipline and subordination imply obedience. Doubtless Adam’s sort of discipline in Genesis B differed greatly from that of modernity in that the idea of the comitatus entailed, certainly in theory and not infrequently in practice, a close personal bond between the chieftain and his follower. But such a bond did not exempt the follower from obedience; presumably, rather, it furthered and intensified

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the disposition to obey. Thus the obligation of unfallen Adam as God’s warrior was to obey God unconditionally, as in fact he did obey in his first encounter with the boda, the while pointing out to the boda the several reasons for denying the latter’s behest. Adam gives at the very outset of his speech the principal and in itself sufficient reason for refusing that behest; it reflects perfectly Augustine’s point: the ‘victory–lord, mighty God’ me her standan het, / his bebodu healdan ‘bid me stand here, hold (keep) his command(ments) 525–26—to one of which, of course, the boda’s behest is utterly counter. And the following principal clause, he cwæð þæt þa sweartan helle / healdan sceolde se ðe bi his heortan wuht / laðes gelæde, is another way of saying that disobedience means death. That Adam had spoken of a tacen and that presently a tacen—or rather, a sort of tacen—was manifested is immaterial. God’s command to him was not to eat of the fruit. This command Adam defied. It follows, then, that he wished, or, to put it more mildly, that he was willing, “to be free of the sovereignty of God.” Martiality in Genesis B, as in life otherwise, has a dimension besides fidelity in the hour of trial, and this dimension is not immaterial to our assessment of Adam’s response to the boda’s invitation. But “martiality” here continues to imply not a generalized and abstract concept of military authority but rather a very specific form of such authority to which the Adam of Genesis B is duly obedient but also from which he can be supposed to be justly expectant of reward: the Germanic comitatus. Tacitus notes the openhandedness of Germanic chieftains: “it is to the free-handed chief that [warriors] look for that war-horse,” etc.26 The presence of the comitatus and the open-handedness of its chieftain is, of course, a frequent motif in the extant poetry. The Heliand alludes more than once to such open-handedness. Herod, the Jewish king, is the bôg-geb¯o ‘ring-giver’ 2738 of his bôg-wini ‘ring-receiving friends’ 2756. More pertinent to our interest is the characterization of Christ in the Heliand as med¯om-gib ¯ o ‘largitor thesaurorum, treasure-giver’ 1200, wherein—significantly—the Germanic relationship is Christianized. When, therefore, in Genesis B the boda, his speech larded with comitatus terms, assures Adam, among other commendations, that nu þu willan hæfst, / hyldo geworhte heofoncyninges, / to þance geþenod þinum hearan, / hæfst þe wið drihten dyrne geworhtne ‘now have you wrought the will, the favor, of the heaven-king, served to the satisfaction of your lord, you have made yourself precious to (the) Chieftain’ 504–07,27 the intimation is that, although there is still one small matter for Adam to attend to, upon its completion some kind of ceremonial reward for him is imminent: either his initiation into the Chieftain’s comitatus or, more probably, his reception of treasure, as to one who is already an especially deserving member of

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that comitatus. Adam’s partaking of the proffered ofæt ‘fruit’ 518 is the deed which would earn for him the equivalent of Tacitus’ war-horse. Perhaps it does not greatly matter which ceremony is hinted at. Modern accounts of the initiation ceremony are afforded by R. F. Leslie and Michael J. Enright.28 There appear to be two allusions, more probably to the gift-giving than to the initiation ceremony, in Old English poetry, Maxims I, 67–68: Hond sceal heofod inwyrcan, hord in streonum bidan, gifstol gegierwed stondan, hwonne him guman gedælen. ‘The hand must rest on the head, the treasure wait where it is laid, the giftthrone stand prepared, until men share out the hoard.’29

and The Wanderer 41–44: Þinceð him on mode þæt he his mondryhten clyppe ond cysse, ond on cneo lecge honda ond heafod, swa he hwilum ær in geardagum giefstolas breac. ‘He imagines in his mind that he his liege lord clasps and kisses, and on his knees lays hands and head, just like the time when, long ago in days of yore, he approached the gift-seat.’

The Wanderer passage gives the impression that the recipient is as desirous of the embrace as he is of the gift itself; the dreamer’s vision, Stephen Glosecki remarks, is one “of the gift-giving ceremony revolving around the chief at the hub of the cycle of exchange.”30 What we must see in both ceremonies is the directness and intimacy of the exchange between chief and follower; no person is said to interpose in any way, conveying either the chief’s benefaction to the thane or the thane’s pledge to the chief. Thus Beowulf 2865–68: Wiglaf says that Beowulf se eow ða maðmas geaf, . . . þonne he . . . oft gesealde . . . helm ond byrnan ‘who gave you treasures then, . . . when he . . . often presented . . . helmet and byrnie,’ but makes no reference to intermediaries. Charles R. Sleeth, supporting at some length his observation that in Old English poetry “the generous dispensing of treasure by the lord to his thanes is an essential feature of the life of a dryht,” never even once notes the possibility of an intermediary’s so dispensing.31 That he takes no notice of Genesis B, in which there is only a promise of bestowal, is quite understandable, since this bestowal cannot be directly “by the lord to his thanes.” Instead,

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the boda preposterously tells Adam that God, the gumena drihten ‘Chieftain of men’ 515 (so the boda describes him, perhaps pointedly32), won’t take the earfeðe ‘Mühsal, trouble’ 513 to come hither and so has delegated the task to his boda. In assuring Adam that he is God’s Ersatz-med¯om-gib ¯ o the boda is arrogating to himself the Lord’s prerogative. That God couldn’t come, i.e., was unable to do so, is patently unbelievable, so the boda has to say that he won’t come. So much for the tie that binds. The boda has, of course, no choice but to speak as he does—how else might he convey to Adam, in his ignorance as to any such present intention on God’s part, that God intends to reward him? But in so proclaiming, he is proceeding in gross and obvious violation of Germanic ritual, almost, even, of liturgy. For the rituals probably had a distinct sacral element; as we shall be reminded especially in Chapter VI, the Germanic chieftain or king has also priestly functions, and in his laying on of the hand a certain mana passes from chief to follower. Enright characterizes the initiation ritual as “the most sacred of the comitatus.”33 But the mediatory role which the boda proclaims for himself, obliterating as it does the direct and intimate chieftain-thane relationship, is only half the story. The other half is the will and the non-will, both of which, the boda indicates, are the Chieftain’s. The play on the noun willa 504 and verb willan, i.e., nele 513 (= present 3rd sing. of ne + wile) is refreshing: first the boda exults that nu þu willan hæfst, / hyldo geworht ‘now have you wrought the will, the favor,’ then he reports that nele þa earfeðu / sylfa habban ‘(God) is himself not willing to have the trouble’ 513–14 (to come hither). In the Old Saxon Genesis the play here on the noun willio and the verb willian might have been more obvious, whether visually or aurally; at any rate, in that dialect contractions of negative ni and verb willian are not attested.34 The play on willio and willian is an instance of the poem’s seriousness being relieved by wit and, almost, by humor; it seems possible that an audience, especially an audience including Frankish warrior nobles, might have sounded a snicker, a snort, even, of scorn, at this blatant lie. For Adam, the jumble of claims is fatal to the boda’s intent. The extrapolation from Germanic rituals of initiation or gift-giving to the sphere of divinity whereby the Chieftain, were he to bestow his favor in person, would do so directly and not intermediately means that the assertion that God could not take the ‘Mühsal, trouble’ to come himself and has sent a gingra instead must certainly entail a falsehood. The circumstance is not lost upon Adam. To the boda‘s assurance that he [God] his gingran sent / to þinre spræce ‘he sends his servant to (have) speech with you’ 515–16, Adam observes pointedly that

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545                           he mæg me of his hean rice geofian mid goda gehwilcum þeah he his gingran ne sende. ‘He is able from his high realm to present me with each of good things, although he does not send his servant.’

The þeah clause here, with its repetitions of he, his gingra, and sendan, looks very much like a deliberate echo of the boda’s words, though now with a telling negation. Martiality, in particular the intimacy of chieftain and thane in the comitatus, underlies the exchange; the whole of the passage he mæg me of his hean rice / geofian mid goda gehwilcum þeah he his gingran ne sende is nothing other than the transcendentalizing into a paradisiacal context of the secular comitatus gift-bestowing, and the circumstance that the passage comes at the very end of Adam’s retort means that his implied rejection of the boda’s behest is not mere afterthought but rather a serious issue in Adam’s mind. In observing both that God ‘wrought me with his arms, here with his hands’ (544–45) and that now God can bestow gifts upon him ‘although he sends not his servant’ 546, Adam both is reminding the boda that God in person and without an intermediary created him and is informing him that he expects the same directness in any future bestowal. And surely, since he, Adam, knows God’s modus operandi in this matter, should not any legitimate messenger from God also know his modus operandi? If necessity and hatred oblige the boda to ignore the traditional relationship, wisdom and love move Adam to respect and honor it and therewith to demolish the boda’s argument, the whole of which rests upon the boda’s claim that he himself, as God’s agent, is empowered to reward Adam. If the claim is seen through, his case vanishes. It would seem that the boda realized this weakness in his argument; later on, he hints at the divine origin of Eve’s vision only after she has eaten of the fruit (þæt ic from gode brohte 615). Adam’s perception that the boda’s claim violates the direct and intimate chieftain-thane ritual is surely one good reason why he refuses the boda’s behest. It stands with other sound reasons for refusal which pertain to other aspects of the boda’s representation. There is, as we have noted, Adam’s indication to the boda that God—in whom, as Adam says, he has ‘fast belief’ (fæstne geleafan 543)—had earlier instructed him otherwise. Other reasons we shall take note of in chapters to follow: the boda’s extraordinary guise as a professed messenger of God, and the very great likelihood that Adam’s reference in line 540 to a tacen bears a significance far different from that which

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the exonerative school has found in it. The several reasons for refusal do not stand disconnectedly in relation to one another: that Adam sees through and rebuffs the mediator claim supports the inference that he is not, in line 540, requesting a tacen. Because Adam in Genesis B is a tropological figure, having as it were a dual presence whereby he is the Adam of Genesis 3 but also a representative of post-redemptive man, he is very possibly, at least in some measure, representative of the poet’s time and place. Genesis B is in accord with the concept of obedience that prevailed in the Frankish realm in the ninth century and may well have been composed in response to what was seen in mid-ninth century Saxony as a need for greater obedience in political as well as religious life. The broad insistence of the Church on the necessity of humility and obedience which was common to the age was markedly intensified in the realm of the Franks. D. H. Green writes that “if we are satisfactorily to explain the rapid growth of this phenomenon [authoritarianism] we must recall that it was the infusion into the Frankish state of theocratic ideas of christian origin and the far-going equation of the subject’s duties towards his ruler with those of the christian towards God that account for the widespread acceptance of such ideas of unilateral authoritarianism.” It may be true, as Green goes on to say, that authoritarianism was more deeply entrenched in Otfrid’s time than in the time of the Heliand poet.35 But it is generally thought that the Old Saxon Genesis was composed at some time after the Heliand was composed. In a note Green explains the rise of authoritarianism in somewhat more detail: For our concern it is important to stress the role of the specifically christian concept of obedience, whether in religious matters or in the social and political sphere. Thus, early medieval theocracy rests on the need for the subject to show his ruler obedience, no matter whether this is due to the simple accumulation of political power in the hands of the sovereign or whether it derives from a christian sanction being given to political authority. But even if the king himself is felt to owe obedience to God as the source and justification of his own authority, then how much more necessary will it be to emphasise the supreme importance of obedience to God on the part of every christian. Lastly, of course, the christian stress on obedience derived further support from the way in which Christ himself was so frequently conceived as showing obedience to his parents or to God the Father. This is made amply clear by the author of the Heliand (837 ff., 4767 f., 4780 f.). Here again the argument runs that if even Christ had this obligation, how much more necessary must it be in the case of other men.36

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And on an earlier page he observes that if this [a more unilateral and authoritarian relationship] was the case in social and political life, we can be quite sure that such a development was bound to be even more marked in the religious sphere, for if the Frankish kings can now claim obedience (and no longer merely loyalty) from their subjects because they are the vicarius Dei and because a rebellion against them is tantamount to a rebellion against God, then it is quite clear that in the religious sphere obedience to God will come to be even more emphatically stressed than obedience to the king in the secular realm.37

It should be obvious that “the role of the specifically christian concept of obedience” would be important in any poem whose subject was that of Genesis B. From the ancient story itself and from early on in the poem we see what potency the Devil was understood to have in humankind’s undoing, and Chapter VII especially will make clear (if there is doubt on the point) that to contemporaneous Christianity this potency was a dire and everyday reality. Against this danger the Church made war, and war necessitates the obedience of warriors to their chiefs. It might follow that for contemporaneous listeners to a poem such as this, listeners who were themselves of necessity in the midst of battle, the “concept of obedience” was valued at a very high premium. It is not unreasonable to suppose that the necessity and duty of obedience would be one of the virtues the emperor would wish to impress most strongly upon his subjects. The enjoining of obedience in the poem is eminently in keeping with the Carolingian correctio, i.e., as Peter Brown phrases it, “correcting, shaping up, getting things in order again”: Words of command and admonition, uttered by holy persons and caught for all ages in the Holy Scriptures, were what Carolingians thought of when they upheld the “Christian Law.” Nor was it a mere collection of texts meant for private reading. It was a sound. It was a rolling “thunder” of authoritative voices, demanding obedience and demanding it in Latin.38

Brown’s inference touches on Genesis B and the Old Saxon Genesis inasmuch as the demand for obedience was of course not only “in Latin” but also, as the Heliand and Otfrid’s Evangelienbuch too would witness, in the vernaculars. And it touches on Genesis B in particular, being consistent with the inference of the present study that the theme of the poem is obedience. It is reasonable too to suppose that the more fractious a district was, the more

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might a central authority enjoin and attempt to enforce obedience there. And in mid-ninth century Saxony fractiousness obtained; to judge from the Praefatio and Versus (of which more will be said shortly) it was among his Saxon subjects and not, say, among his Bavarian subjects that the emperor, whether he was Louis the Pious (814–40) or his son Louis the German (843–76), perceived a need for commending obedience and therefore enjoined a Saxon poet to compose poems in that dialect. Brown notes briefly the principal disturbance, the Stellinga uprising in 841–42, and concludes that “the establishment of a Christian order in large parts of Germany could not be taken for granted. It required constant vigilance.”39 Eric J. Goldberg’s detailed analysis of the causes of the uprising gives us some understanding of just how deep and how complex were the fractures in Saxon society and therefore how needful it was, from the point of view of the central authority, to inculcate in the governed a strong sense of obedience. The Saxons, he notes, “were divided into three rigid social castes”; so rigid were these strata that “Saxon law decreed that intermarriage among the three castes was forbidden under penalty of death.” Such a system must have valued strict obedience among its people as necessary to its survival.40 Goldberg observes also that “the picture one gets from Bede and the Vita Lebuini antiqua suggests that there were considerable social tensions in preconquest Saxony” between the nobles and the folk of the two lower classes. He notes that “this friction was especially apparent with regard to Christianization”: “these rare glimpses into preconquest Saxony suggest volatile social tensions between the Saxon edhilingui [nobles], at least some of whom were sympathetic toward Christian missionaries and the new religion, and the frilingi and the lazzi [the lower classes], who stridently opposed abandoning the religion of their ancestors.”41 Goldberg remarks further on the restrictions imposed by Frankish rule on what liberties the lower strata of Saxon society had known. There were furthermore bitter memories of the subjugation of once-independent Saxony, the most bitter of which were perhaps those of the massacre at Verden. Goldberg notes that in the oft-quoted words of Einhard: “No war ever undertaken by the Frankish people was more prolonged, more full of atrocities, or more demanding in effort.” This was a war of conquest and conversion. Charlemagne equated Saxon submission to Frankish rule with the acceptance of Christianity; according to one Frankish author, Charlemagne resolved “to persevere until the Saxons had either been overcome and subjected to the Christian religion or totally exterminated.”42

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Goldberg also notes the dissension among the nobles themselves: As we have seen in Bede’s account of the two Hewalds and in the Vita Lebuini antiqua, at least some members of the Saxon nobility were sympathetic toward missionaries and the Christian religion. This is confirmed by the fact that, after the conquest, the edhilingui enthusiastically supported the church in Saxony, making pious donations to monasteries, dedicating sons and daughters to the monastic life, and producing some of the most daring theologians of the ninth century, including the Heliand poet and the heretic Gottschalk.43

The inference might go some way toward explaining how it was that the Old Saxon Genesis as well as the Heliand came into being. But for present purposes the more relevant point to note is that dissension among the Saxon nobles would, if anything, have strengthened, rather than lessened, perceptions that obedience was a secular as well as religious necessity. Besides the broad Christian view of the western world, which, as we saw in the passage from Augustine, enjoined obedience to God and to the Church, there were, then, at least three ninth-century conditions which might have underlain the emphasis which Genesis B gives to the importance of Adam’s—that is, humankind’s—obedience to God: the rise of authoritarianism in Frankish society (as noted by Green), the movement toward correctio (as noted by Brown), and the fractiousness of Saxon society in the period after its forced incorporation into the Frankish realm (as noted by Goldberg). It seems possible that some light might be thrown on this matter of obedience, as regards not only the Heliand but also the Old Saxon Genesis and therefore Genesis B, by a consideration of two apparently early documents now lost and known at present only through printed texts first published in the sixteenth century, and which have often been taken as referring to these Old Saxon poems. Francis P. Magoun, Jr., indicates the rather shadowy background of these documents: “Among documents prefatory to vernacular works of the mediaeval Germanic world are two Latin texts, one in prose and one in verse, apparently though not absolutely necessarily a foreword or forewords to some manuscript or manuscripts containing Old-Low-German (Old Saxon) poems dealing with Biblical subjects.” These texts are of course the Praefatio (A and B) and Versus.44 It is curious, though in the light of Green’s observations it should not be very surprising, to see a respect for obedience imputed to the Old Saxon poet whom either the Frankish emperor (according to the Praefatio A45) or divine command (according to Praefatio B and the Versus) enjoined to translate the Old and New Testaments into German verse. The Praefatio A, implying

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almost an obsequiousness on the poet’s part, says that “gladly complying with the imperial commands . . . [he] at once applied himself to this difficult and laborious task, trusting, however, rather in the help of obedience [confidens de adiutorio obtemperantiae] than in his own humble talent.” This is laying it on a bit: the poet immediately complied and he trusted more “in the help of obedience,” with of course the implication that obedience has practical utility. The Praefatio B, more brief and less rapturous on the subject, says only that the poet “was urged in his sleep to adapt the teachings of the Sacred Law to a poem” and notes “the zeal of the author and his breathless desire.”46 The Versus ‘Verses’ clearly imitate the story of Cædmon in Bede, as often noted, but they out-Bede Bede as regards obedience, and a desire not merely to imitate but to go one better might have been a reason for the obvious allusion, so that in their relation to Bede’s story of Cædmon the Praefatio and Versus become a sort of literary counterpart to the semantic shift which Green detailed in the vocabulary of comitatus terms: the abandonment of reciprocity in favor of unilateral obedience. That the husbandman, the neoCædmon of the Versus, was content with life and “happy beyond measure!” but nevertheless carried out “his cheerfully performed duties” indicates his readiness to obey; that the description of his improbably blissful condition takes up the greater part of the poem would seem meant to impress upon us that the husbandman would lose a great deal by a change of occupation, so that his readiness nevertheless to accept such change would testify to his obedience. And indeed, though Bede says that after he left secular life Cædmon “humbly submitted to regular discipline,” the husbandman of the Versus leaps with alacrity to obey the call, with not even a mild remonstrance like that of Cædmon (Nescio, inquit, cantare, Ne con ic noht singan ‘I cannot sing anything’), he “forthwith became a poet, too.” “[S]uddenly a Divine Voice comes resounding down from the high heavens: ‘O! what art thou doing, O poet? Why dost thou waste the opportunity to compose a poem? Begin to recite in order the Divine Laws.” “Nor was there any delay after the miracle of this great uttrance [sic].”47 In sum, it looks to me as if the Praefatio A and especially the Versus exhibit at least a very strong intention to insist that Christian obedience moved the poet or poets they refer to, with a further intention of insinuating that for any listener such obedience was the proper course of action. The Praefatio and Versus pay about as much attention to the author’s, or authors’, readiness to comply with the request to compose as they pay to his, or their, compositions. The Heliand, too, duly acknowledges obedience to authority. In Fitt I, underlying the account of the composing of the Gospels by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, is the sense of command and of response to command: that sie

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than êuangelium ênan scoldun / an buok scrîb¯an ‘they alone were to write down the evangelium in a book’ 13–14. That scoldin sea fiori thuo fingran scrîb¯an, / settian endi singan ‘these four were to write it down with their own fingers; they were to compose, sing, and proclaim.’ 32–33. The sense of the auxiliary skulan, ‘sollen, müssen, verpflichtet, bestimmt sein; (to) be obliged to, have to, bound to, destined to’ comes through a little wanly in English ‘were to.’48 Fitt I makes no overt connection between the evangelists’ composing of the Gospels and the Saxon poet’s composing of the Heliand, but the connection is fairly obvious: “Go thou and do likewise”; it is a logical application of the idea that, as Green phrased it, “if even Christ had this obligation, how much more necessary must it be in the case of other men.” The view that obedience, indeed a kind of military obedience, is the central idea in Genesis B has been, on the whole, very much undervalued in the criticism of the poem. Yet the poem lays great emphasis on the concept of obedience. True, the word hyran ‘to obey’ occurs only four times; it is given to other words to emphasize that concept. We noted in Chapter I the emphasis on hyldo and on the circumstance that the retention of hyldo depended on the continued obedience to the will of the Lord. Almost at the beginning of what we have of the poem, disobedience and with it the loss of hyldo is associated with devilry. We can further see the relevance to Genesis B of Green’s phrase “the supreme importance of obedience to God on the part of every christian” in the light of Adam’s tropological duality as the Adam of Genesis and as a Christian person of the sixth age. The words þegn (of which we have already taken some notice), (ge-) þegnian, and þegnscipe also convey the importance of obedience in the poem. Especially þegn is deftly so employed. In the course of Eve’s temptation of Adam the narrator says that heo spræc ða to adame, idesa sceonost, ful þiclice oð þam þegne ongan his hige hweorfan (lines 704–06) ‘the most beautiful of women, she spoke then full insistently to Adam, until in the servant his spirit began to shift.’

For the word þegn Green infers a change of meaning from earlier Germanic to that of the ninth century: “since Germanic terms for service seem in part to have been derived from terms for childhood, we must also postulate that this development of meaning took place here, for our sources suggest the meaning ‘servant’ for thegan much more frequently than ‘young man’”; he

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observes further that “the word occurs in OS, . . . used of the inferior in a relationship, whether in a secular context or as a religious metaphor.”49 In the Old Saxon Genesis thegan occurs as ‘servant’ in lines 100, 104, 118, 214, 220, and 329; the adjective theganlik ‘obedient’ 130 describes Enoch’s understanding of his station and duty. These instances are all positive. In Genesis B the word þegn ‘servant’ takes a darker tone. In his scheme of vengeance Satan speaks twice, ænegum þegne ‘(to) any thane’ 409 and minra þegna hwilc ‘whosoever of my thanes’ 414, of whosoever might, in his stead, essay the subversion of Adam and Eve; having proclaimed ic mæg wesan god swa he ‘I can be god as well as he’ 283, he arrogates the term þegn ‘servant.’ And thrice the word has a more poignant tone: the context is the servant or servants of the Lord becoming or having become, through disobedience, non-servants; having become, þæt wurde þegn swa monig ‘that so many a thane became’ 597; in danger of becoming, þæt þæt micle morð menn ne þorfton, / þegnas þolian ‘that men, thanes, needed not to endure might death’ 640–41; or just now succumbing, þam þegne 705. The poignancy lies in the use of a term at a point in which the term becomes, or is liable to become, inappropriate.50 These instances of þegn would seem to entail antiphrasis, “irony expressed in one word.”51 We noted in Chapter I the inference of D. H. Green as to the shift in meaning of subsets of terms brought about by Carolingian authors: “the process by which the christian terms derived from the comitatus were gradually deprived of their reciprocity is closely paralleled by the way in which the heroic, warlike vocabulary . . . was rendered fit for christian use.” We can now note that an aspect of this “christian use” is especially important for the interpretation of Genesis B. The loss of reciprocity meant, in Green’s further explanation, “strict unilateralism.” That is to say that the religious and political background of the Old Saxon Genesis and therefore, by a kind of extension, of Genesis B, in short, its whole social background, including its literary milieu, was obedience—obedience, in fact, of a rather uncompromising nature. That Genesis B, as a reflex of the Old Saxon Genesis, is in keeping with its parent poem as representing obedience as a supreme virtue becomes clear in Green’s observation: Exactly how far the christian concept of obedience has gained possession of the OS Genesis may best be seen . . . in Abraham’s words to God (v. 224ff.), where his approach is one of complete humility, stressing that he is utterly unworthy even to speak and that he does so only in so far as God allows it in his goodness.52

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An even better instance of submission to authority in the Old Saxon Genesis is afforded by another passage in which Abraham addresses God:       huuarod uuilthu nu, uualdand, frô mîn, alomahtig fader? ik biun thîn êgan scalc, 170   hold endi gihôrig; thu bist mi hêrro sô guod, mêðmo sô mildi: uuilthu mînas uuiht, drohtin, hebbian? huat! it all an thînum duoma stêd, ik libbio bi thînum lêhene, endi ik gilôb¯i an thi, frô mîn the guoda: muot ik thi frâgon nu, 175   huuarod thu sigidrohtin sîðon uuilleas? ‘To what place will you now go, my lord and ruler, almighty father? I am your own servant, loyal and obedient; you, lord, are so good to me, so generous of treasures: would you, lord, have anything that is mine? Lo! it all stands in your judgment; I live by your gift,53 and I have faith in you, good my lord: may I be allowed to ask you now, to what place do you, victory-lord, will to go?’

The passage is an envelope pattern: two clauses to the same point (‘where are you going?’) frame Abraham’s admissions of helpless dependency and of utter faith in God’s benevolence. To a secularly-minded modern reader his words seem abjectly grovelling: seven vocative words or phrases, most of them alliterating! But the admissions are tokens also of obedience, as Green sees at other points in the passage: [T]he phrase hold endi gihôrig [170], combining the older word hold (stressing a reciprical relationship) with the more modern and strictly unilateral concept of obedience, can only be interpreted in this passage as meaning “obedient” (so that hold has been attracted to the meaning of gihôrig).54

If obedience is emphasized in the Old Saxon Genesis, it is, if anything, emphasized even more in Genesis B. The term huldi occurs but three times in the Old Saxon poem, whereas hyldo occurs no fewer than eighteen times in the Old English, which is not quite twice as long. The reason for this considerable disparity is that in the Old English poem the principals, especially Adam and the boda, are seen very specifically in comitatus relationships in which, in exchange for their chieftains’ hyldo, they owe loyalty and obedience. When Adam fails, he cries out, nu ic mines þeodnes hafa / hyldo forworhte ‘now have I forfeited my Lord’s favor’ 836–37; when the boda succeeds, he exclaims that nu hæbbe ic þine hyldo me / witode geworhte ‘now have I wrought for myself your appointed favor’ 726–27.55 The neat contrast of the two passages (another instance of the poet’s wit) is obscured somewhat in transla-

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tion, especially in geworhte / forworhte ‘wrought’/‘un-wrought.’ But whereas the boda confidently apostrophizes Satan in þine hyldo, in mines þeodnes Adam, poignantly, does not apostrophize the Lord. We will look further at both speeches in Chapters IX and X. None of these circumstances in particular nor all taken together can prove beyond dispute that obedience must have been thought of as the central idea of Genesis B. But the circumstances do testify to the extent and degree to which obedience to authority was esteemed as both a religious and a secular value in the Frankish realm out of which the Old Saxon Genesis and ultimately Genesis B arose. And that Adam, as representative of postredemptive man, is in effect also to be seen as a mid-ninth century Saxon enhances the likelihood that obedience is to be so regarded in the poem. In Chapter I we noted an unlikelihood: namely, that a poem exonerating Adam and Eve would have much chance of finding its way into any manuscript, let alone such a manuscript as Junius 11, with its inventory of Christian poems solidly orthodox though otherwise remarkably diverse. As external evidence these circumstances—the likelihood on the one hand, on the other hand the unlikelihood—have no little weight. Either one would support an inference from internal evidence that the exonerative view is invalid. Their weight together is strong indeed.

CHAPTER IV

Adamic Failure

Allegorical Narrative A close consideration of the narrative of the Fall in Genesis B demonstrates that the narrative cannot be taken as a realistic, i.e., a behaviorally plausible, account. It is not “real life,” whether modern or medieval. We have noted the strong allegorical element in Adam’s reply to the boda. We must now observe the same element again in the first but especially in the second and third temptations. The boda, coming from Hell, geferde þurh feondes cræft oð ðæt he adam on eorðrice, 455   godes handgesceaft, gearone funde, wislice geworht and his wif somed, freo fægrost swa hie fela cuðon godes gegearwian þa him to gingran self metot mancynnes mearcode selfa 460   and him bi twegin beamas stodon. ‘went, through fiend(ish) skill, until he might find Adam, God’s hand-creation, skillfully wrought, ready in the earth-realm, and his woman/wife together, (the) fairest lady, just as they knew how to do many a good thing, (those two) whom mankind’s creator himself made for himself; and beside them two trees stood.’1

75

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The boda, then, finds Adam and Eve somed ‘together’ 456 by the two trees, the Tree of Life and the Tree of Death. Their presence together is fitting because as progenitors of yldo bearn . . . gumena æghwilc ‘the son of men . . . each of persons’ 464–65 they too, along with their posterity, must choose between the fruit of the trees. The choice, of course, is either obedience to God’s command not to eat of that one tree’s fruit, or else disobedience; therefore the trees, or fruit thereof, must be present. The clear indication is that all persons are to choose the fruit either of the one tree or of the other. Besides its two trees the landscape is not described, a circumstance perfectly consistent not only with what we noted in Chapter II as the poet’s disinclination to supply Adam with “personal attributes” but also with what I take to be the allegorical significance of the several encounters to follow. After the mention of the trees it is said that the Tempter took of the Death Tree’s fruit and wende hine eft þanon / þær he wiste handgeweorc heofoncyninges ‘turned back from there (to) where he knew (the) heaven-king’s hand-work (to be)’ 493–94. This means, I think, that he addressed Adam in particular, or that he turned in order so to do; it is a concession to realism. Now Eve is not said to have departed after it was said that the two were together. (Adam’s þas ‘this’ in his remark to the boda that the Lord me þas bryd forgeaf ‘gave me this bride/woman’ 526 is not necessarily evidence as to Eve’s propinquity.2) But where, meanwhile, is she? She is there and she is not there. As “there” her behavior is strange: one would suppose that Eve, being nearby, would have heard both Adam’s refusal and his reasons why, and so would have been put on her guard. But even though normal human curiosity might have prompted Eve, Mrs. Cluppins-like, to linger nearby and listen, the text offers no evidence one way or another. But this temptation is of Adam and not of Eve. To suppose that Eve has moved out of earshot would be charitable but unwarranted. After Adam’s rebuke the Tempter wende hine wraðmod þær he þæt wif geseah / on eorðrice euan standan ‘turned in fury (to) where he saw the woman Eve standing in (the) earth-realm’ 547–48. And Eve, when she has eaten, gien[g] to adame ‘went to Adam’ 626. We might accept that Eve had not heard Adam’s response to the boda. Even so, one would suppose that Adam, having rebuffed the messenger and being quite understandably suspicious, would thereupon not only not have let þas bryd out of sight but would have insisted on being present were the boda to address her. It is a simple case of defending one’s spouse against a possible danger. In the biblical account, of course, with no prior temptation of Adam, and so without his fears or suspicions being aroused, the situation is very different. But we can begin to suspect either that the account in Genesis B does not intend to imitate prob-

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able human behavior or else that certainly Adam, perhaps Eve also, is rather less admirable—but as to this let us hold off a space. As to the former possibility, we might begin to suspect that the presentation is contrived so as to show the characters reflecting appropriately the tribus modis rationale. For if this rationale governs the order and outcome of temptations in the poem, it requires that Adam and Eve must be kept separated in both Adam’s first temptation and in Eve’s. “Separated” here means, for the poetical medium, either that the character is physically absent or, if physically present, is silent of speech—not being heard means not being minded. So Eve, though apparently either present or not far off, must not speak, for her verbal presence at Adam’s first temptation would mean the presence of sensus corporis animalis and therefore the boda’s success and not his frustration. As for Adam’s physical presence or his speech at Eve’s temptation, it is disallowed by definition—it is her temptation, not his. So Adam here is not a husband concerned about his wife’s welfare. Neither Adam nor Eve is sited with any pretence of terrestrial specificity; that the boda, the Tempter, found Adam on eorðan ‘on (the) earth’ 522 and Eve on eorðrice ‘in (the) earth-realm’ 548 is simply to locate them in terms of the tribus modis rationale. And earlier, both Satan and the boda locate Adam and Eve no more narrowly than on eorðrice 419, 454. In the poem as we have it their precise locale is nameless. For as we saw in Chapter II, the rationale is formulated in universal terms, omne peccatum, ælc yfel; therefore anywhere on earth where humankind is found can be the locale of temptation. Tropology has a hand here too, for Adam and Eve, not only in consequence of the Fall but in their dimension as persons of the sixth age, the time from the Incarnation, are not confined to Eden. What we have noted so far at least suggests the poet’s willingness to disregard the behavioral probabilities of real persons: it does not seem especially likely that Eve was either disinclined or unable to overhear Adam’s response to the boda; it seems distinctly unlikely that Adam, having refused the boda’s behest, was apparently disposed to allow the boda unhindered access to Eve. But these unlikelihoods are as nothing compared to the further evidence that in Genesis B the tribus modis allegory governs the narrative: Eve’s perception of Satan’s boda, and the boda’s incitation of Adam. The boda claims first to Adam and then to Eve that he has come bearing a message from God, and succeeds in the imposture, not at first with Adam but presently with Eve.3 The far more likely reading is that all this while, the Tempter is in the form of a serpent rather than, as is often thought, the form of an angel. The narrator says, just prior to his encounter with Adam, that the Tempter wearp hine þa on wyrmes lic ‘cast him(self) then into (a) serpent’s

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shape’ 491, and thereafter the narrator makes no mention as to his taking another form. Nor is there evidence thereafter of loss of text in the MS. It is true, of course, that also no mention is made of the boda’s resuming his former devil’s shape after he achieved his temptations. An alteration from angelic to devilish might well have entailed less magic than an alteration from serpentine to devilish, but still, some power would have been necessary. The text indicates of Satan that when thrown down into Hell he to deofle wearð, / se feond mid his geferum eallum ‘he became a devil, the fiend with all his comrades’ 305–06, and again that heo ealle forsceop / drihten to deoflum ‘the Lord deformed/transformed them all to devils’ 308–09. The MS illustrations show the devils as naked and sometimes wingless; their hair is curiously fiery—quite unangelic. Moreover, in a later passage which we shall note shortly, the narrator refers again to the boda as wyrm 590. And it would have been, in part, because of his serpent’s form that Adam rebuffs him: þu gelic ne bist / ænegum his engla þe ic ær geseah ‘you are unlike any of [God’s] angels whom I have seen before’ 538–39. But Eve proclaims to Adam that the boda is angelic in form and is indeed God’s angel: þes boda sciene, / godes engel god; ic on his gearwan geseo / þæt he is ærendsecg uncres hearran ‘ this beautiful messenger, God’s good angel; I see from his clothing (or, perhaps, ‘trappings’) that he is our Lord’s messenger’ 656–58. The devil’s taking serpent form in the course of the Fall is a traditional view, very possibly familiar to an audience. That might explain why at the outset of the temptations the poet referred but briefly to the boda’s doing so. But his claim to have come from God is quite possibly the invention of the Saxon poet. The reason for supposing that the boda is in angelic form, as certain of the MS illustrations might have led one to believe, is given by Charles Kennedy: “The metamorphosis [into serpent form], however, was not, and could not be, maintained. From this point in the narrative the motivation of the temptation scene demands that the fallen angel speak in his natural form that there may be plausibility in his statement that he is a herald sent from God.”4 Evans too has little doubt as to the form in which the boda presented himself: “the temptation is undertaken . . . by a subordinate devil who masquerades as an angel of God, not a serpent.” A footnote to this assertion does acknowledge the problem but papers it over: It is true that he transforms himself into a serpent in order to climb the tree of knowledge and that there is no mention of his changing back into his original form. . . . However, in the light of his subsequent strategy it seems reasonable to suppose that he did revert to his earlier shape before tempting Adam.5

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Susan Burchmore, setting forth the allegorical reading very vigorously and inferring that “the confusion about the tempter’s appearance is an integral part of the poet’s theme of visual deception,” argues that the “demand” that Kennedy posits does not exist.6 She makes substantial reference to Augustine’s De Genesi ad Litteram to demonstrate her point. In his lengthy discussion of visions Augustine observes that “by the influence of some disorder . . . or by the agency of some other spirit, whether good or evil, the images of bodies are produced in the spirit just as if bodies were present to the senses of the body.” And further on he remarks trenchantly and almost as if he has in mind Eve in Genesis B, So also when the Devil deceives us with corporeal visions, no harm is done by the fact that he has played tricks with our eyes, so long as we do not deviate from the true faith or lose the integrity of intelligence, by which God instructs those who are obedient to Him.7

The text of Genesis B itself affords further evidence to support Burchmore’s inference as to “the poem’s theme of visual deception.” The boda intimates in his own words that his form is not angelic and therefore is probably serpentine. Burchmore points out how the boda deftly employs truth itself to his advantage: “everything he says is literally the truth. Once he was an angel, and therefore he does know how they live in heaven. Before his fall, he did sit by God Himself. And a serpent certainly looks nothing like a devil.”8 What she is alluding to here are lines 583–87, the last lines of the boda’s first speech to Eve. The passage mostly is an assortment of truths, the general inference from which is nevertheless a non sequitur; it is intended to confute, in Eve’s mind, what the boda claims is Adam’s insistence that he is nales godes engel ‘not at all God’s angel’ 582.9 In this, of course, the Tempter lies; Adam had said no such thing. The reason for the lie is presumably the boda’s wish to conceal the discrepancy between his appearance and his claim to have come from God; if he really appeared as an angel before Eve there would have been no need to address the matter. But it is the last verse in the passage to which Burchmore refers that especially is the giveaway: ne eom ic deofle gelic ‘nor am I like (to a) devil.’ True, the boda doesn’t really say that a serpent doesn’t look like a devil. But also—though again the boda doesn’t say so—a serpent doesn’t look like an angel. What the Tempter’s ne . . . gelic concedes but conceals is that although his shape is not devilish it is also not angelic; if it were angelic he wouldn’t have had to say that it wasn’t devilish. Why arouse suspicion? Probably, then, the passage supports the view that for Eve’s temptation and for her temptation of Adam the boda retained the

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serpent shape which almost certainly he had used in the prior temptation of Adam. The verse ne eom ic deofle gelic is suggestive not only in its content but in its placement in the boda’s speech. The credibility and effectiveness of this first speech to Eve depend entirely on her believing, or coming to believe, that the boda really is God’s angel and messenger. Yet it is only at the end of a speech which, with its introduction, amounts to about forty lines that the boda tries, by insisting that he is not like a devil, to allay any suspicion that he is nales godes engel. His withholding until the last moment of what after all should constitute his accreditation suggests that the boda is worried about his appearance and therefore counts on both a threat to frighten and promises to lure Eve into credulity before he touches on this delicate matter. The threat, which we shall consider in Chapter V, is in lines 551–59, the blandishments follow in lines 559–80. So the location of ne eom ic deofle gelic at the end of his speech suggests in itself that the boda is in a serpent’s shape. And, as if perhaps to correct any possible false impression on the point, the narrator, in remarking the success of the boda’s imposture, refers to him as wyrm several verses later: oþ þæt hire on innan ongan / weallan wyrmes geþeaht ‘until (the) serpent’s counsel began to well (up) within her’ 589–90. Wyrm here would seem to mean that the Tempter was in a serpent’s, and not in an angel’s, form; if (as the non-allegorists contend) the Tempter had not assumed a serpent’s form, the narrator would not have referred to him as a serpent.10 Somewhat further along, the narrator comments that Eve believed, or came to believe, that the Tempter had brought a bysene ‘command’ 651 from God þe he hire swa wærlice wordum sægde ‘which he said so wærlice to her in words’ 652. There has been some uncertainty as to the meaning of wærlice.11 I infer that the adverb here is wærlice ‘warily’ and not wærlice ‘truly.’ That is, the word probably gives Old Saxon war(a)lîko ‘aufmerksam, behutsam, sorgfältig; attentive, careful’ and not Old Saxon wârlîko ‘der Wahrheit gemäß, in Wahrheit; in truth,’ so that the line should probably be read as ‘which [command] he so warily said to her in words’ and not ‘so truthfully’12 It is hard to see why the poet should say ‘truthfully’ here—yes, the Tempter did say that he had brought the command from God, but why emphasize that he said so? And certainly there was no truth in his words. And it is easy to see that the narrator’s wærlice ‘warily’ nicely acknowledges what we have just noted as the boda’s concession but also concealment. In Heliand 300 and 4352 as well, I think, as in the passage in question war(a)lîko (wærlice) implies a certain defensiveness of outlook: Mary had so guarded herself against ill report; so one should guard against Doomsday; so the Tempter took care in addressing the difference between his appearance and his claim to be an angel of God.

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It is apropos of all three passages that An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, in defining wærlice (I) as ‘warily, cautiously, circumspectly,’ should remark as to context, “where there is danger of receiving hurt.” It might seem as if the several paragraphs just above loiter over minutiae. But the inference that his shape was that of a serpent is important for the understanding of the poem. In the first place, it is, I think, important to see as much evidence as possible regarding the Tempter’s verbal adroitness, evidence not only in his speeches themselves but in the narrator’s assessment of them. This evidence is important not only because it shows how readily Eve was deceived. Genesis B is, I think, a clear instance of showing the villain to fall the farther because he is shown to fall from some higher point. Well towards the end of the poem, and contrary perhaps to what might seem to be the course of events, the boda, I would posit, is being set up; he is being readied for a revelation as to his own deception. The readying must entail his being shown to combine evil intention and superlative skill in rhetorical manipulation. The revelation, with its implications for the working of a comedic imperative, we will consider in Chapter IX. In the second place, and as we have noted, the exonerative school has taken the poem’s mention of tacens ‘signs’ to mean that Adam and Eve are represented as guiltless morally. It is convenient to defer our principal tacen inquiry until later chapters, but just now it can at least be noted that Adam’s mention of a tacen in line 540 has not been carefully considered in light of the circumstance that the Tempter probably appeared in the form of a serpent. The inference that his shape was that of a serpent goes a long way, as we shall see in Chapter VII, towards invalidating the exonerative view of the poem, which supposes that in line 540 Adam was implying that were the boda still to present some sign, he. Adam, would comply with the boda’s behest. Conversely, an inference that in some way the boda’s shape was angel-like, by conducing to an impression of Eve’s innocence, supports the exonerative view. We must therefore address further the question of his appearance.

The MS Illustrations of the Fall [shown on inserts between pp. 73 and 75] On the question of the boda’s appearance we shall have to stay some while, because the view that the Tempter in Genesis B in actuality took angelic form is mightily reinforced by the way in which the manuscript’s temptation drawings are commonly understood. In several of these the Tempter

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very obviously appears as angel-like. We must therefore turn to Barbara Raw’s important paper on the illustrations in MS Junius 11.13 I would disagree with two statements Raw makes concerning the temptation drawings. The disagreement, it is important to note, is not as to what Eve thinks is the nature and identity of the being before her. It is strongly likely that in Genesis B Eve does think—or comes to think—that she sees an angel. The only textual references to the boda’s appearance in his temptation of Eve and then of Adam are Eve’s þes boda sciene ‘this beauteous messenger’ and ic on his gearwan geseo / þæt he is ærendsecg uncres hearran. ‘I see by his raiment [‘gear’] that he is our Lord’s messenger’ 656 and 657–58. Eve’s most telling word here is ærendsecg ‘messenger,’ but literally ‘message-man’; secg ‘man’ indicates fairly clearly a being of human appearance, and gearwan would presumably refer to the creature’s vesture or wings. The disagreements concern 1) Raw’s inference as to the actuality of form or shape which the Tempter maintained in his three successive temptations and 2) what I take to be a somewhat misleading but not inconsequential statement otherwise in her account of the temptation drawings in Genesis B. As to the first point, Raw does not mention the evidence of which we have already taken some notice and which, although not redundant on the subject, makes it reasonably clear (at least to my mind and the minds of some others) that the Tempter, however he seems to appear to Eve, is in actuality in serpent form. She says that the temptation drawings in Genesis B “show Adam and Eve tempted by an angel instead of by the biblical serpent, a detail found also in the text”—the “detail” being, it would seem, þes boda sciene, etc.14 And she goes on to say that the Tempter, “apparently dressed as an angel,” comes to Adam. Both statements seem fairly clearly to imply that that the boda’s visible form was in actuality that of an angel, in other words, a disguise, like that of Avaritia ‘Avarice,’ who, in MS Cotton Cleopatra C. VIII, a Psychomachia of Prudentius, is shown as having taken the shape and garb of Frugi ‘Frugality’ in order to deceive her victims.15 The present argument, of course, is that the Tempter wearp hine þa on wyrmes lic ‘threw himself into (a) serpent’s body’ 491 and in that body approached first Adam and then Eve, and that her impression as to þes boda sciene, etc., signified the delusion of her senses.16 As to the second point. There is no graphic evidence in the MS as to the prior temptation of Adam, and so Raw’s inference as to the Tempter’s appearance before Adam is evidently based on three of the four MS drawings of the second and third temptations, i.e., those showing first Eve (MS, p. 24) and then both Adam and Eve (MS, p. 28; and MS, p. 31, top) in the presence of a being angelic in appearance. But the first temptation scene il-

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lustrated (MS, p. 20, top-left), showing the second temptation, differs. The lower half of page 20 shows the boda in Hell, covenanting with Satan; at the top left of the scene the boda, depicted as a devil, leaves by the Hell-mouth; and just above that, in the left side of the upper half of the page, the boda addresses Eve. But the boda in this drawing is depicted in serpent form, and so Raw’s statement that the drawings “show Adam and Eve tempted by an angel instead of by the biblical serpent” requires qualification. The difference here might, perhaps, seem slight, but it is not inconsequential; the switch from serpent to angel in the subsequent drawings (MS, pp. 24, 28, 31) raises questions. Why, if the boda were really in a serpent’s body all through the temptations, did the illustrator show him mostly in angelic form? Or, conversely, why, if Adam and Eve were tempted by one actually in angel form, does the first drawing show him in serpent form? If we can assume that these drawings are ordered according to the sequence of events in the text and if we assume that the Tempter’s forms as depicted represent what a perceptive and impartial observer would have seen, why is it that the Tempter’s form is shown both as serpentine and as angel-like? Given the assumptions, the answer might seem to have to be that the boda changed his form before or in the course of tempting Eve. But the text of the poem affords no indication, so far as I can see, of such a change. And yet, if the temptation drawings are to be reconciled with the text, an explanation is in order. I would pursue the suggestion of Susan Burchmore that the change represented is not in the boda’s actual form but rather first Eve’s and then, later, Adam’s perception of his form. The temptation drawings, that is to say, are consistent with the inference, notably, again, that of Burchmore, that delusion of the senses, and certainly those of Eve as the figure of sensus, is thematically important in Genesis B. It seems possible that in the second, third, and fourth drawings of the temptation scenes the illustrator was depicting the Tempter as he, the illustrator, understood how the Tempter, in the course of tempting Eve, caused himself to appear to her and then to Adam, as he too succumbed, rather than that the illustrator (or, for that matter, the poet himself) thought that the Tempter actually took angelic form. The only way for the artist graphically to indicate that Eve thought she was seeing an angel was by depicting the being which confronts her as angelic-looking.17 How ancient viewers of such depictions would interpret the angel-figures, whether, that is, they would be construed as what Eve only thought she saw or as what in reality she did see, would depend very much on such viewers’ contexts, i.e., not only, of course, on the evidence of drawings and the narrative of Genesis B in Junius 11 but also on the broad cultural and religious

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mindset of the viewers’ own time. Late Antiquity and the early Middle Ages, as we have noted, widely regarded woman as a symbol of the senses. Ambrose is quite in line with the tribus modis rationale in asserting, in De Paradiso, that mulier symbolum sensus est nostri, where mulier must include Eve; and, as we will see in Chapter VIII, the Carolingian church was by no means hostile to such a conviction.18 And Augustine’s “when the Devil deceives us with corporeal visions” might suggest that such visions as that by which, in the present interpretation, the boda deceived Eve, were regarded as more commonly occurring, perhaps far more so, than western society now might suppose to be the case. Burchmore suggests that especially passages in the De divisione naturae of Joannes Scottus Eriugena (mid-ninth century) might underlie Eve’s failure, in Genesis B, to perceive the real identity of þes boda sciene. She suggests that [i]n the context of Augustine’s analysis, as it is followed by Eriugena, in Genesis B Eve’s vision [of God on his throne, lines 666–76] falls into the category of images formed not “in rerum natura” but “in sensibus.” And in the context of Eriugena’s development of Augustine’s ideas, when Eve transmits her images of vision and the tempter [656–58] to Adam, she operates according to the senses’ moonlike function: she presents images not as they are found in nature, but as they have, with the tempter’s help, been perverted and even fabricated by the senses themselves. I would suggest, therefore, that the inspiration for Eve’s perception of an “angelic” tempter in Genesis B is Augustine’s, and especially Eriugena’s, discussions of corporeal vision.19

Although Burchmore does not say so in so many words, it is clear that Eve’s vision, as a vision fairly obviously formed “in sensibus,” supports collaterally the inference that the Tempter’s appearing to Eve as angelic is also a vision formed “in sensibus.”20 If the boda could conjure such a vision for Eve as she took to be the sight of God on his throne, he would also be able, one would suppose, to affect her perception of his own shape. It seems possible, then, that a viewer of MS Junius 11, seeing one drawing of the Tempter in serpent form and the next three in angelic form and aware from many testimonials external to the manuscript both that the Tempter came in serpentine form and that Eve, mulier, was a symbol of our physical sense(s), would suspect that the subsequent depictions of the Tempter represented him not as he appeared in actuality—i.e., to uncorrupted vision—but rather as he might have caused himself to seem to appear to a succumbing Eve and later to Adam. When he came to the aforenoted textual evidence that the Tempter came in serpentine form his surmise would be confirmed. Possibly, even, the figure of Eve in the drawings could have signaled sensus to

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the mind of a viewer, especially a clerical viewer, even before he encountered the textual wende hine wraðmod ‘(the boda) turned, angry-minded’ 547 to the temptation of Eve. Much, in short, can be said by way of impugning Eve’s credibility as a witness and therefore as to her declaration about þes boda sciene. But her indictment might go further, from the physical to the spiritual plane. Doane comments of ic on his gearwan geseo. that “the naive phrase seems to point up the externality and falseness of her perception,” and his term “externality” addresses the circumstance that Eve’s description and understanding of the boda never indicate her ability to distinguish at all satisfactorily between appearance and a reality behind the appearance.21 His point is well taken. One can enlarge the point by noting that a person in Eve’s or some similar situation would learn the nature of one’s visitor by calling upon God for revelation as to the reality; in other words, by not departing from the aforenoted words of Augustine, who, in speaking of corporeal visions, invoked “the integrity of intelligence, by which God instructs those who are obedient to Him.” Eve’s disobedience, that is, is not merely in eating of the forbidden fruit; it is also in her prior failure to avail herself of recourse to God, and so, after she has demolished her credibility, her description of the presence before Adam and herself attests falsely to þes boda sciene and an ærendsecg uncres hearran. The assumption that the artist, following Genesis 3, depicted the Tempter in serpent form but then, perceiving the apparent lead of the text as given by Eve’s boda sciene and ærendsecg, depicted him as angelic is tenuous at best. Given the general belief, lay as well as clerical, that the Tempter entered into a serpent and thereby assumed serpentine shape, it is surprising, to say the least, that the narrator of the text, as opposed to Eve as a character, says nothing as to an alteration in the traditional account. What we have only, contradictorily, is the narrator’s wearp hine þa on wyrmes lic before the temptations and then, significantly after her own temptation, Eve’s boda sciene and ærendsecg. Whose word do we take? Raw infers, and not unreasonably, that Junius 11 “is likely to have been a presentation copy.”22 Its recipient or recipients, then, would have seen the MS illustrations. But those who knew the poem as listeners only, and not as beholders, whose word were they to take? It is not as if Eve’s speech apart from its avowals as to boda and ærendsecg were to be acclaimed as a model of insight and veracity. The modern reader and scholar, for his or her part, must assume that the illustrator was not only careless but unsupervised and moreover that he or his superviser was unaware as to the typical course of temptation. That is to say that for the boda to bring Eve around to his will might not have taken a

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great while, but, as is not unusual, it would have taken at least a little while, and only in its course would she have come to believe that a being other than a serpent stood before her. It was not right off and all at once, but only at some point in the course of the boda’s longish speech that Eve came to see him as, in her later words to Adam, þes boda sciene ‘this beauteous messenger.’ The boda’s avowal ne eom ic deofle gelic ‘nor am I like a devil’ at the end of his speech, would have been the more telling were Eve already convinced that an angel stood before her. The narrative entails more than one indication of a change in Eve’s perception during, rather than before, the boda’s address to her. Consider lines 588–90: lædde hie swa mid ligenum and mid listum speon idese on þæt unriht oð þæt hire on innan ongan weallan wyrmes geþeaht. ‘(he) (mis)led her so with lies and with artifice enticed the lady into the wrong, until the serpent’s thought began to well up within her.’

The principal clue here is of course oð þæt ‘until’ 589 which indicates clearly that Eve did not succumb instantly to the boda’s wiles.23 We note also that it is not the lar ‘instruction, counsel’ of the serpent but rather its geþeaht ‘thought’ which surged within Eve. And somewhat later on, when Eve has eaten of the fruit, the narrator explains that her now seemingly much-enhanced perceptions of the world and Heaven did not derive þurh monnes geþeaht ‘through man’s (i.e., human) thought’ 605. Apparently, geþeaht ‘thought’ could mean one being’s power of will and intelligence to induce some belief or conviction in the mind of another.24 So geþeaht ‘thought’ 590 and 605 meant the boda’s inducing Eve to believe that what she was beholding was indeed þes boda sciene ‘this beauteous messenger.’ The first two temptation drawings in the MS, those of Eve alone with the Tempter, suggest fairly clearly some lapse in time. The first of these (p. 20, top-left), depicting the Tempter as Eve saw him in serpent form, shows Eve turned away from the serpent and looking back at him as if startled, as if just now aware of his presence. No fruit such as the largish, apple-like object shown elsewhere is apparent. The second drawing (p. 24) shows Eve and an angelic-looking being; she is holding a largish fruit which, it would seem, the “angel,” whose hands are extended, has just given her. His long right forefinger still touches the fruit. The scene could very well illustrate the boda’s demand æt þisses ofetes ‘eat (of) this fruit!’ 564.

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Another drawing (MS, p. 20, top-right) very possibly depicts Adam and Eve trying to decide: they stand between two trees and gesture with hands, as if in doubt and therefore in hesitation. This scene finds perhaps its textual correlate in lines 460–90, the long account of the two trees, between which Adam and Eve, and everyone else, are said to have to choose. At any rate, it accords with the textual indications otherwise that the individual capitulations of Eve and especially of Adam were not sequent upon either the boda’s or Eve’s initial arguments. Or, the top-right drawing could depict Eve trying to persuade Adam to try the fruit from the one particular tree they are looking at, which would relate the scenes in a natural temporal sequence in a semi-circular line from Devil and boda in Hell through the boda’s departure from Hell and his temptation of Eve to Eve’s persuasion of Adam. Like a comic-strip sequence—except that it starts at the bottom, where Hell is. Perhaps to some students of Genesis B the view that the Tempter, in the form of a serpent, compells Eve to see him as an angel, with the result that she accedes to his will, verges on the grotesque. But as we saw in Chapter II, the tribus modis rationale, with woman and often, specifically, Eve herself as sensus, attained a certain measure of acceptance and repute in late Antiquity and early medieval times, and we have noted in the present chapter the view of Augustine on the derangement of the senses. If the boda actually assumed angelic form and shape in appearing to Eve, her senses would not have been deceived. No doubt she would terribly have mistaken his real identity, but her eyes would really have seen an angelic form. So the argument that the boda deceived the senses first of Eve and then, through Eve, the senses of Adam is integral to the understanding that the poem reflects the tribus modis rationale. Burchmore says that the credulity by which Eve comes to accept that the snake-like boda has angelic form and so really is an angel of God demonstrates “the poet’s rather esoteric emphasis on the senses’ capacity for error.”25 I agree with Burchmore, though I think that in noting the senses’ liability to deception and error she fails to acknowledge the role of suggestio, the first mode of the rationale. For equally to be noted as a factor in the whole sad transaction is the medieval perception, and appreciation, of the Devil’s (and therefore his boda’s) malice and cunning and power. The placement and the subjects of those temptation drawings which show either Eve or Adam and Eve in the presence of the Tempter, suggest, it seems to me, the illustrator’s, or perhaps the codex designer’s, intentions. We are able to guess at one or two principles which may have governed the placement of these drawings. One rather apparent principle was that of about

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equal spacing of the drawings throughout this section of the text. They occur on pages 20, 24, 28, and 31, every four or, in the last instance, three, pages. Another and, I suspect, more important principle may have concerned the relation of the illustrations to the neighboring textual passages. The first drawing in what we have of Genesis B, on page 13 of the manuscript, depicts Adam and Eve standing between two tree-like growths, Adam pointing toward the one of these, Eve toward the other. The scene might illustrate God’s speech to the human pair, some good part of which, as we noted in Chapter I, has been lost but, as we have it, begins on page 13 with God’s command which, as Doane notes, paraphrases Genesis 2:16–17: ac niotað inc þæs oðres ealles, forlætað þone ænne beam ‘enjoy of all the other, forgo that one tree’ 235. The first of the temptation drawings, on page 20, showing the boda, in serpent form, beginning his address to Eve, adjoins the text on the facing page, Satan meditating how to effect his revenge through Adam and Eve. The next drawing, on page 24, just below the narrator’s statement that the boda knew very well what would follow any partaking of the forbidden fruit, shows Eve accepting the fruit from the angel-like boda. The third drawing, page 28, just below the lines acknowledging the ruination of þegn swa monig ‘so many a thane’ 597, has the boda, again angel-like, showing the fruit to Adam to his left, while to his right Eve already eats. The fourth drawing, in the upper panel of page 31, shows Eve, in the presence of the Tempter, giving the fruit to Adam. The lower panel of that page depicts the boda now in his own devilish shape, winged but scantily clad, and with fiery (?) hair. The first and the last of the drawings in question depict the Tempter in his actual appearances away from Hell, first as serpent, finally as devil. Thus the textual narrative, from Satan’s deliberation through Eve’s þes boda sciene, includes far more of time and event and therefore unfolds far more slowly than does the interspersed pictorial narrative, which from pages 20 to 31 displays, in proper sequence, only two temptations, first of Eve and then of Adam. In due course and at or about page 30 the textual account has nearly drawn abreast of the pictorial, so that on page 30 (verso) we have Eve’s þes boda sciene, etc., while on page 31 (recto) Eve, backed by the boda, is shown bestowing the fruit. All the temptation drawings, then, are appropriate to their placement in the text insofar as they depict several of the stages of the two calamitous interviews—together, the Fall—which the adjoining text has been leading up to and proceeds to relate. Doane notes correctly that “[t]he placement of the pictures on their pages does not correspond exactly to the occurrences in the text page for page.”26 But as far as the temptation drawings are concerned there may have been an artistic reason for this. At intervals in the telling of the story of the Fall we behold visu-

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ally the success—or rather, as we shall see much later on, the apparent success—of Satan’s scheme. The effect of written text and the illustrations here resembles that of the entirely textual ring-composition in lines 551–59, of which we shall take further note in Chapter V: with something approaching simultaneity, result and cause are held up for consideration, and the effect is emphasized by repetition. In the course of the longish narrative leading up to the fatal transaction, we behold that transaction visually and repeatedly. The positioning as well as the number of the drawings is thus hortative, and the drawings, or most of them, do much more than to convey to the viewer the fact that tempters come, or appear to come, in pretty shapes. The circumstance that, except in the first drawing, the Tempter is depicted as angelic-looking is consistent with, and appropriate to, this hortative intent: such depiction implies the point that the senses are fallible and readily deceived. In effect, the illustrations of at least this part of the Genesis narrative (whether in Junius 11 or its exemplar) collaborate with the poetical text to bring it about that, as Doane observes, “the audience is a main player in the meaning of the biblically based action and is expected to complete and fulfill it in its own life—in other words, the main thrust of the poem is tropological in its aims.”27 The drawings help such an audience, or, at any rate, those who were able to view the manuscript itself, to see that the tribus modis rationale is operative in the poem’s presentation of the Fall. The absence of an illustration depicting the prior temptation of Adam means, of course, that we have no graphic representation of a narrative departure from the biblical account strongly inviting the inference that the temptations in Genesis B reflect this rationale. The omission also means that no illustration depicts Adam alone being tempted by a being in angelic form and dress. But we can now see reasons why the manuscript lacks a drawing of the prior temptation of Adam. That temptation was a phase, but an unsuccessful phase, in the success of Satan’s scheme. It was not one of the two calamitous interviews. And true, the tribus modis rationale thereby fails to find graphic demonstration as an adjunct to the text—but only as showing the invulnerability of ratio in the absence of sensus when together with suggestio. We go on to witness the collapse of ratio in the presence of both. Indeed, the subsequent depiction of the Tempter as angelic in form in itself compensates, in part at least, for the absent depiction of Adam’s prior temptation; it participates in showing not the invulnerability of ratio but the vulnerability of sensus. Taking the angel-like figure of the Tempter as indicating Eve’s delusion as to his shape and identity appears quite compatible with Raw’s inference that “[t]he Old Testament poems of Junius 11 . . . seem to have been intended

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for the use of educated laymen.” The inference, along with the presumption that such persons looked at and read Genesis B in the manuscript we have of its text, raises an interesting point about one in particular of the temptation drawings. An ancient such audience, one supposes, might well have had some acquaintance with the tribus modis rationale and its disposition to regard Eve as notoriously liable to sensuous fallibility.28 Perhaps not a few among such an audience would have been puzzled by the drawing on page 24. Everyone knows that Eve was tempted by a devil in a serpent’s body, so what is that angel-figure doing there? And perhaps also: why are we now shown an angel-figure with Eve, whereas earlier we were shown a serpentfigure? And the drawing on page 24 is especially provoking, not only because an angel-figure appears now for the first time but because the drawing is so proximate to a certain verse in the text. The drawing is in the lower half of the verso page 24, so that its angel-figure is juxtaposed about as closely as possible to wearp hine þa on wyrmes lic 491 beginning the text on the recto page 25. The juxtaposition is, to say the least, strikingly discrepant, the more so because the predicate wearp hine, . . . literally, ‘threw himself then into (a) serpent’s body,’ is so memorably vigorous.29 The textual environments of later drawings of the boda as angel figure entail no such discrepancy, and it is possible, of course, that the juxtaposition on pages 24 and 25 was no more than coincidence. But it is contradictious even if inadvertent. Even if the drawing were situated either a little earlier or later, the discrepancy between drawing and textual wyrmes lic would remain. One might, however, surmise instead that neither the drawing itself nor its placement just before wearp hine . . . was accidental, and that the emphasis which the juxtaposition entails was meant to prompt educated persons, clerical as well as lay, to ask: how does one reconcile the discrepancy not only between the angel-figure on page 24 and the serpent-figure on page 20 but also between the angel-figure on page 24 and wearp hine þa on wyrmes lic on page 25? These drawings, as well as those on pages 28 and 31, pose something of a graphic riddle. The riddle is to be resolved, I suggest, by recourse to the tribus modis rationale and its aforesaid disposition in regard to Eve: the angel-figure replaces the serpent-figure because the former represents not what Eve was seeing but what, in the course of the boda’s speech, she came to think she was seeing. It need not be supposed that the puzzle, the riddle, would be resolved shortly; after all, as we have noted, the temptation drawings, except the last, anticipate, though by decreasing intervals, the two temptations, that of Eve and the second temptation of Adam, as they are reported in the text itself. The surmise finds support in what we have already noted as to the placement of the temptation drawings as a whole: that at intervals in the telling

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of the larger story of the Fall we behold visually the final stages in the success of Satan’s scheme and that such placement and also the depiction of the Tempter as an angel-figure conduce to a viewer’s perception that the senses are fallible and readily deceived. The placement of the second drawing, entailing as it does the contradictious juxtaposition of drawing and text, seems especially conducive to such perception, and is thus consistent with the hortative intent behind the placing of the temptation drawings as a whole.

The Second Temptation of Adam The behavioral unlikelihoods which we noted earlier in the responses of Adam and Eve to the solicitations of the boda culminate as we move from the second temptation and Eve’s perception of the boda into the final temptation and the boda’s incitation of Adam. The boda is again present in this temptation. His presence was obviously necessary in the first two. But in the final, verbally, at least, Eve, and not the boda, is making the pitch. It might seem to us more likely, less implausible, that with the boda standing there, whom he had so recently rebuffed and dismissed, Adam would, out of embarrassment, vexation, and anger, be even less disposed to yield to what was, up to a point, Eve’s version of the boda’s earlier behest. So for the boda discreetly to have withdrawn would seem prudent, if not polite. But no, he is hard by: stod se wraða boda 686, where standan is to be taken in the sense ‘vorhanden sein; (to) be present,’ and wæs se feond full neah ‘the enemy was very nigh’ 688.30 Again our notions of likely behavior clash with the requirements of the tribus modis allegory, which, in the presence of Eve as sensus corporis animalis, requires also the presence of the Tempter. His presence, though no more than merely implied at most in Genesis 3:6 deditque viro suo, is commonplace in manusccript illumination of the time. But certainly in Genesis B such presence much more than merely accommodates tradition. The boda is instrumental to calamity. He is suggestio. I cannot find that Doane remarks what I think is the considerable bearing of the verse legde him lustas on 687 on the view that the poem reflects the tribus modis rationale in its management of narrative and treatment of character. But I would argue that his translation of the verse is correct: ‘(he) [the fiend] put desires into him,’ i.e., into Adam. It might just be added that legde ‘laid,’ by intimating an almost physical imposition, emphasizes the compulsive force of these lustas.31 The objection to Doane’s reading would, of course, be that in itself the dative form him is indeterminate as to number. R. K. Gordon translates the verse as ‘incited desires in them,’ i.e., Eve as well as Adam, and Susannah

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Mintz translates, with emphasis, ‘placed desires upon them.’32 Doane’s reading is, I think, by far to be preferred. Mintz’s inference that since the pronoun “him means ‘him’ but also ‘them,’” therefore him 687 entails an “unresolvable doubleness” entails a false implication and is therefore philologically weak. That him is, formally, both dative singular (masculine and neuter) and dative plural doesn’t mean that in any given passage “him means ‘him’ [or ‘it’] but also ‘them’”; it normally means one or the other, but not both.33 Number, if it is important though not indicated pronominally, is generally indicated otherwise. Here it is indicated by the context. The context now is that the boda has Eve in his snaky pocket; she has already eaten of the fruit. She is already doing his bidding as regards Adam. That such is the case is shown very clearly in the preceding lines: Hio spræc him þicce to and speon hine ealne dæg 685   on þa dimman dæd þæt hie drihtnes heora willan bræcon. ‘She spoke to him pressingly and enticed him all day into the evil deed, that they should violate their Lord’s will’

—where hie ‘they’ must mean Adam as well as Eve, who has already violated God’s will.34 Mintz remarks further that to take him as singular only, referring to Adam, is to “establish a kind of triangular formation, emphasizing the devil’s role in the temptation of Adam.”35 Precisely! It is your tribus modis rationale at work again, and, more than that, the whole conviction of learning and teaching that the Devil had no small role in Adam’s ruin. Adam is the target now, and what the boda would wish is some way of making Adam need Eve, and be the more disposed to accede to her behest, more dependent on Eve’s favor. The verse conflates the sexual innuendo of the tribus modis rationale and the ancient understanding that Adam chose to disobey God rather than to abandon Eve. And Mintz’s assertion that in the boda’s mind Eve requires further seducing (and therefore he imposes desires upon her as well as upon Adam) does not hold up. Her evidence, namely, the boda’s assurance to Eve they will both address Adam: swa wit him butu / an sped sprecað ‘so we (two) both address him successfully’ 574–75, does not exclude another and quite obvious reading: Eve has so far enmeshed herself that the boda can use her with confidence as a way to ensnare Adam. Of course he is amused that she damns herself even further.

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Although Mintz says that him 687 is plural, she does not indicate, so far as I can see, what desires she thinks the boda might have instilled in Eve. We can suppose that Adam’s lustas 687 are hardly his desires to throw a punch at the boda. But it seems unlikely that his lustas were an impulse of conjugal affection, the desire to remain with Eve and protect her from harm. In De Genesi ad litteram XI.42 Augustine infers that such were Adam’s intentions, adding that “[Adam] was not overcome by the concupiscence of the flesh.”36 Yet one would not suppose that the boda would prompt conjugal impulses, and we have noted Adam’s apparent unconcern lest Eve be exposed to the boda’s addresses. Other Old Saxon texts, as well as Old English, might give us some idea as to desires of another sort. For lust in the Heliand Sehrt gives ‘Lust, Begierde, Freude; desire, carnal appetite, joy.’ Usually the word occurs there in the phrase an lustun ‘freudig, voll Freude,’ but twice we can see it used to mean those sorts of pleasure or delight from which the Church would counsel abstinence but to which the boda would urge surrender. Heliand 1661 gives lusta thes lîchamon ‘the delights of the body’ in its expansion of Matthew 6:24 non potestis deo servire et mammonae. Heliand 3453 offers a passage more explicitly critical: one early given to sanctity uueroldsaca mîðit, / farlâtit is lusta; ni mag ina is lîkhamo / an unspuod forspanan ‘avoids the affairs of the world and does not pursue its delights, and his body cannot lure him into immorality.’37 The Old Saxon Beichtspiegel (early tenth century?) affords further evidence: endi mik seluon . . . mid uuilon githankon [endi] mid vuilon luston mer unsuuroda than ik scoldi ‘and I (the) more defiled myself . . . with many thoughts [and] with many desires than I should (have done).’38 ‘Freude’ of any licit sort I daresay is impossible in Genesis 687, and all of these Old Saxon lusta ‘delights’ are identified no more specifically as other than illicit. Therefore ‘Lust,’ in its sexual sense, and certainly ‘Begierde,’ i.e., ‘carnal appetite,’ in which sense Old English lust also occurs, though appropriate here, are not necessarily exclusively referred to.39 Such impulses at this turn in the narrative are, for Eve, unlikely, to say the least; she is beset with anxiety lest Adam refuse what is now her obsession. Just possibly the text of the poem elsewhere hints that the lustas include dalliance. Eve’s beauty is remarked once by Adam himself, in wlitesciene wif 527. It is quite numerously remarked by the narrator: freo fægroste 457; sceone gesceapene 549; idesa sceonost 704; idesa scenost / wifa wlitegost 626–27, also 821–22; idese sciene, / wifa wlitegost 700–01. Five of these nine verses occur in the account of Eve’s temptation of Adam. As Eve’s belief that the snake-like boda has come in beauteous form and as God’s messenger draws nigh the grotesque, so too, at this dire juncture,

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do Adam’s lustas, if, as seems likely, these amounted to an amorous intent. And “the more outré and grotesque an incident is,” Mr. Sherlock Holmes cogently remarks, “the more carefully it deserves to be examined.”40 Carefully examined, and when we see that him should be taken as singular, the verse legde him lustas on and its intensifying verses and mid listum speon, / fylgde him frecne ‘and skillfully enticed, / pursued him audaciously’ 687–88, are quite literal evidence that the tribus modis rationale obtains in Genesis B: suggestio in the presence of sensus. Especially this is so in light of the circumstance that shortly before, when Eve’s presence is not acknowledged, the boda had failed in his attempt on Adam. The verse legde him lustas on signals, it seems to me, the beginning of the end, for although we have Eve’s long speech to Adam in lines 655–83 and the narrator’s critical estimation of the speech in Hio spræc him þicce to and speon hine ealne dæg / on þa dimman dæd 684–85, there is no sign before legde him lustas on (other than, it may be, some of the allusions to Eve’s loveliness) that Adam would capitulate. Eve has, of course, by this time told Adam of her vision, but as Chapter VII will, I trust, demonstrate, the clause ne þu me oðiewdest ænig tacen ‘nor did you show me any sign’ 540 does not signify Adam’s understanding that the boda might offer a sign later on. The reason for Adam’s surrender is thus vastly different in its nature and in moral implication from that offered by the exonerative school: that a precondition has now been met. So far as I know, legde him lustas on, apart from the very different readings of Doane and Mintz, has gone unremarked in the criticism of the poem. Yet Adam’s lustas go no little way toward addressing issues which Burchmore raises. She asks, “why does Adam later [i.e., after having rebuffed the boda in his first temptation] accept Eve’s statement that the tempter is dressed like an angel?” She says also that “[Adam] ignores what he knows to be the truth about the tempter’s appearance and accepts Eve’s false perception instead of his own clear view.” And “allegorically,” she goes on to say, “Adam as the intellectual sense allows himself to be swayed by the untrustworthy corporeal sense.”41 And later in her paper, in explaining “why Adam finally accepts Eve’s arguments,” Burchmore goes on to say that “of the most common exegetical answer—that he did not want to be separated from Eve—there is no trace.”42 As to Adam’s accepting Eve’s argument, the text itself is silent. The narrator’s reference to a gehat ‘promise’ 706 could just as well be Eve’s insistence in lines 679–83 that the fruit has come from God. I infer that Adam did in fact come round to her view. I think the comment as to Adam’s accepting Eve’s false perception is valid, though also that it requires both amplification and

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qualification. The swaying of the intellectual sense must of course come from the presence not only of the sensus corporis animalis, i.e., Eve, but also of suggestio, i.e., the Tempter. And the sole term “allegorically” does not indicate how the text turns allegory into narrative and thereby makes the swaying clear. It is legde him lustas on and its attendant verses in lines 686–88 which signal that now the tribus modis rationale is at work, the verses that note the presence of the Tempter together with Eve and indicate the overthrow of reason, or the beginning thereof, and thereby address the issues which Burchmore raises. Her phrase “his [Adam’s] own clear view” might admit the understanding that in being swayed Adam has merely gone against his own better judgment, that all along he knows he’s making a mistake. But it isn’t, I think, a case of acceding to something against one’s better judgment; rather, better judgment, for the moment, at least, has quite been lost. Adam’s lustas mean that his ship of the mind, though she will presently right herself, is now on her beam ends. And we can now see that in the verse legde him lustas on the tribus modis rationale as underlying the temptation account in Genesis B might indeed entail a trace of “the most common exegetical answer.” This sequence of unlikelihoods throws a certain light on Eve’s submission to the boda’s behest. The narrator, remarking in a somewhat retrospective passage the consequence of Eve’s coming round to the boda’s counsels, observes               þæt heo ongan his wordum truwian, 650   læstan his lare and geleafan nom þæt he þa bysene from gode brungen hæfde þe he hire swa wærlice wordum sægde ‘that she began to confide in his words, carry out his teaching, and took belief that he had brought the command from God which he said so warily to her in words’

The observation comes in fact after the boda’s second address to Eve. That Eve should not have overheard Adam’s speech to the boda seems unlikely; that Adam, after dismissing the boda, should have allowed him access to Eve seems unlikelier still. Unlikely also, but hardly impossible, is that despite a present danger a man’s thought should turn to dalliance. That a person should confound serpentine with angelic appearance is unlikely too. But when we see that the account of Eve’s temptation and then of Adam’s abounds otherwise with unlikelihoods it becomes easier to accept Eve’s delusion as to the boda’s nature. We need not suppose that Eve’s conviction as to his nature came upon her suddenly and at the outset of his first address to

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her. Her credulity also becomes the more believable when we bear in mind, as Burchmore does, the boda’s rhetorical virtuosity.43 It seems evident too that the rationale and the tropological presentation of Adam and Eve have worked together here to effect a departure from Augustine’s understanding as to the origin of ‘Begierde, Lust.’ In De Genesi ad Litteram Augustine indicated that such desires came about as one consequence of the Fall: “When Adam and Eve, therefore, lost their privileged state, their bodies became subject to disease and death, like the bodies of animals, and consequently subject to the same drive by which there is in animals a desire to copulate and thus provide for offspring to take the place of those who die.”44 But in Genesis B Adam’s illicit desire is seen either as anterior to, and causal of, or perhaps as coincident with, the Fall. The poet manages his presentation of the rationale so as to venture increasingly far from psychological probability: first the unlikely inattentiveness of Eve to Adam and even more unlikely, that of Adam to Eve, then Eve’s credulity, finally Adam’s lustas. The poet has, of course, the traditional narrative on his side, and, knowing the story as we probably do, we go along with him. But since his version of the story entails some notable departures from the traditional account he deploys the old rhetorical device of engaging one’s audience gradually, and so with no little wit the poet draws the audience of Genesis B gradually further and further into a willing suspension of disbelief and from a psychological into an allegorical semblance of reality. The reason for declining to see Adam and Eve as allegorical is perhaps that at one point or another either the words of the characters themselves or what the narrator says of them do not, or do not very clearly, illustrate either ratio or sensus. Yet the tribus modis personae, though three rather than two, ambulant along like fas and nefas, passu fere pari (‘right and wrong, they go along with almost equal pace’), though Adam is perhaps more obviously an allegorical figure than Eve. The distinction between ratio and sensus seems to separate and set Adam and Eve in opposition, but they, along with suggestio, are fundamentally inseparable. One cannot stand as an allegorical figure without the others; either all entail an allegorical presence, or none. For the boda the distinction would seem to be almost a formality; his role in the poem is so obviously that of suggestio that merely the simultaneous presence of Eve, sensus, guarantees his status as a bona fide member of the allegory. But if the tribus modis allegory is refused, as commonly it has been, for Eve, it must also be refused for Adam. My understanding is that both are allegorical figures at least, as I suggested in Chapter II, through the second temptation of Adam. The critical study of Eve in Genesis B as both non-allegorical and also admirable or innocent is a cottage industry. We noted in Chapter II Alain

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Renoir’s suggestion that the Eve’s I.Q. rating is higher than commonly supposed. Mintz, following Evans, waxes strong on the theme of innocence: “as Evans states, the accumulation of phrases praising Eve establishes a ‘theme of Eve’s innocence’ that ‘echo[es] through the poem like a Wagnerian leitmotif.’”45 Let us hear more of this leitmotif. Evans’ phrases turn out to be of three sorts. The first includes three of those noted earlier, idesa scenost, / wifa wlitegost 626–27 and 821–22, also idese sciene, / wifa wlitegost 700–01. But these phrases, all of which, as it happens, occur after Eve has succumbed and eaten of the fruit, celebrate her fair appearance and not her innocence, which of course she has just lost. A second sort alleged to show her purity includes the boda’s assurance in his first speech to Eve that he serves God þurh holdne hyge ‘through loyal spirit’ 586. But the boda’s protestation of innocence demonstrates Eve’s gullibility, not her innocence. To support his argument Evans adds that “when she has heard him out she begins to trust him, for he has given her the vision as proof”—which, were this account true, would mitigate her offense by providing at least a semblance of reason for her trust. But it is not true. The boda promises her a vision if she eats: æt þisses ofetes. þonne wurðað þin eagan swa leoht 564. She eats of the fruit at line 599 and then he gives her the vision: þa meahte heo wide geseon ‘then she was able to see widely’ 600. That she came to trust him and so to eat before she received the vision is evidence of even greater folly than if she had eaten after receiving it. The third, and, as Evans rightly says, “in many ways the most crucial phrase” includes the poem’s several references in lines 540, 714, and 774 to one or another tacens ‘signs.’46 Of the tacen passages and their relationship to each other, and of the comedic dimension which in one way or another, as I will suggest, both of the tacens entail, a good deal more will be said in later chapters. But perhaps it can already be seen that this “accumulation of phrases” purporting to attest to Eve’s innocence is hardly as solidly evidential and relevant as Mintz takes it to be. The critical study of Adam as non-allegorical is next to non-existent. It is curious: exalting the Eve of Genesis B, even, as we have seen, into an embodiment of “intellectual and spiritual freedom,” has been attempted left and right, but few critics other than Renoir, perhaps, have essayed bringing down Adam. I think that at several points Renoir’s argument is seriously flawed. But nothing is easier than bringing strong charges against a nonallegorical Adam. If the de-allegorizing of Eve means her exaltation if not to Mintz’s Minerva then to the lesser degree that we do not regard her as the figure of sensus, the de-allegorizing of Adam means not just his displacement as the figure of ratio but even his disgrace and debasement into an ordinary

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fellow—or worse, as an ignoble, a hollow man. The much-discussed “problem” of Eve in Genesis B is matched by the almost undiscussed “problem” of Adam. If perceived as allegorical, Adam, what Adam says, and what Adam does or doesn’t do, makes sense. But denied such status, de-allegorized and with the tribus modis rationale lost and gone, Adam becomes, as by this time the reader may well have come to suspect, a fool. It is an immense but ineluctable irony: the presentation of Adam in the poem is such that Adam, denied the nobility which allegory bestows as the figure of ratio and seen instead as a real person, is hopelessly wanting not only in fortitude but also in what must certainly be a constituent of ratio, namely, common sense. Surely, if, as Anne L. Klinck remarks, “the poet’s treatment of Eve shows his interest in the psychological probabilities of the situation,” we can ask what were the the psychological probabilities as regards Adam in the situation.47 In the preceding chapter we remarked on what, when Adam is seen as de-allegorized, amounts to a dangerous indiscretion in his response to the boda. But Adam’s response invites reproach on other grounds. Having said, not unsagaciously, to the Tempter nat þeah þu mid lygenum fare / þurh dyrne geþanc þe . . . ‘I know not whether you come with lies through malicious intent or (whether) . . .’ 531–32 Adam then does nothing to prevent what he plainly sees as a quite possibly lethal creature from accosting, and quite possibly corrupting, Eve.48 In Genesis 3, of course, there is no prior temptation of Adam; while Eve is tempted, Adam is off somewhere, cultivating, we suppose, his garden. But just as his rebuff to the boda in Genesis B helps to identify an allegorical meaning, as Bruckner observed, so his failure thereafter to intervene in Eve’s behalf helps to invalidate a non-allegorical reading. To make matters worse for such a reading, Adam had told his visitor ac þu meaht þe forð faran ‘but you can go forth’ 543, where forð faran ‘go, move, travel forth’ has to mean more in the way of distance and remove than ‘step round to my wife.’ But the boda, wraðmod and not to be put off, steps right round to the missus. Finally—and perhaps this is the worst of it, although Adam’s postlapsarian fate is not addressed in the formulations of the tribus modis rationale—how can we credit, at the end of the poem, the recovery and resolve of an Adam thus de-allegorized and weakened? His bold resolve there to venture forth into exile (that God will expel them, as in Genesis 3:23–24, is not mentioned explicitly) needs to be taken no more seriously than his earlier and unheeded injunction to the Tempter: ac þu meaht þe forð faran. Who but must weep if such a Protoplast there be? The difference between Adam’s response in Genesis B and his response in the Mystère d’Adam at this point in the narrative illustrates the difference between an allegorical and a non-allegorical treatment. In the Mystère

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d’Adam Adam, according to the stage direction “acting annoyed [moleste ferens] because the devil has spoken with her,” remonstrates with Eve at some length.49 But in Genesis B Adam keeps silent, without a word, it seems, of protest or argument. Though in his earlier response to the Tempter the image of rectitude and obedience (as we saw in Chapter III), Adam, in the presence now of suggestio and sensus, succumbs to enticement. In Genesis B Adam gets, quite unnaturally, an urge which is somehow foisted upon him by one whom up to now he has had good reason strongly to distrust. In the Mystère d’Adam, although the Devil (in the shape of a serpent) is present when Eve tempts Adam, there is no textual equivalent to legde him lustas on. The situation is not improved when the exonerative school sees Adam’s disobedience, as well as Eve’s, as only an error of judgment. The tribus modis rationale is explicitly an analysis of sinful acts (tribus modis enim impletur omne peccatum), so if Adam and Eve fell because of bad judgment and not sin, what would be the point of its presence in the poem? Thus the exonerative school naturally tends not to find evidence of the tribus modis rationale in the prior temptation of Adam. Rather, the rationale has largely been discounted as a basis for the account of the Fall in Genesis B because of the evidence, or the seeming evidence, of the two tacens: Adam had spoken of a sign, a sign was later bestowed, and so, in innocence, he partook. The two explanations are incompatible: the allegory purports to explain peccatum through Adam’s peccatum; but much recent reading of the tacens has been that since through them God’s will supposedly became hard for Adam to discover, there was no peccatum—a far simpler explanation, it might seem, although, as I have noted, an explanation remarkably at odds with what would appear to have been the prevailing view of both the Frankish and the English churches. But the exonerative reading, necessarily the reading of Adam as non-allegorical, which purports to see Adam as having disobeyed unwittingly and therefore as being undeservedly punished, not only disturbs the conclusion of Genesis B but turns out to sully the character of Adam. Such a reading has seemed hitherto to offer a grim sort of consolation (anyway, it wasn’t his fault!). But it is one thing to find your man, as Evans does, mistakenly though nevertheless innocently disobedient, but still really a decent sort of chap, “one of us.” It is another and rather more disconcerting thing to have to find him a fool and coward: foolish, to allow the boda unhindered access to Eve, craven, to make no remonstrance either to Eve or the boda during all the while, ealne dæg, Eve besought him to join her in disobedience. Did Adam say nothing before the Tempter legde him lustas on? And why should he, how could he, as matters stood, have surrendered to these lustas? Few dally or even ogle when the house is afire. Some, however, do, and Adam did. But if we attend to

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the narrative apart from its tacen passages it becomes reasonably clear that an exonerative reading, perforce therefore a non-allegorical reading, reduces Adam to mere feckless anti-hero. The situation for a de-allegorized Eve is hardly better. Even seen as deallegorized, Eve has challenged many. It is no doubt admirable that she thinks she is protecting Adam, but since in fact she is not protecting him the virtue here seems somewhat beside the point. There is, no doubt, much that is admirable in her recovery at the end of the poem (and of which we shall take ampler notice in Chapter X), but even in regard to recovery Adam commands more attention and probably more respect. It is he who indicates the plan of action. But in Genesis B allegorical function is Eve’s essence just as it is Adam’s. Without that function, and without its critical acknowledgment, there is little that can validly be said of Eve. Except for her brief protestation near the end she has one speech, her expostulation to Adam in lines 654–83. It is insistent and impassioned but hopelessly misinformed. The great liability in taking Eve as non-allegorical is that it imposes on the reader or audience something of a dilemma. We can see her as astonishingly witless in mistaking a snake for an angel of God—whereas, of course, in her allegorical identity as fallible sensus such an error is the whole point. If we take this route, farewell the big Eves of Mintz and Renoir and Overing. Or we can take the aforenoted textually implausible route of assuming that the boda, in his temptations, had a beauteous rather than serpentine form. That, I suppose, is why Overing says that Eve’s vision of Heaven “convinces her that the ‘angel’ was all he claimed to be”—although, as we noted, the boda had not said that he looked like an angel but only that he didn’t look like a devil.50 But seeing Eve as beguiled is mostly quite unpalatable for an exculpatory reading; what joy lies in exonerating your heroine if doing so means finding her a fool? When denied allegorical status, so irresolute and weak is Adam, so deceived as to the boda’s appearance and provenance is Eve, that we might wonder, for a moment, if their presentation thus was deliberate, in order to ensure that they be seen as allegorical. I suggest, however, that what is involved is a rather different conception of speech than apparently has been expected. Adam and Eve, when they speak, are not speaking only to the person or being in their narrative and with only that person or being in mind but also to the narrative’s readers or listeners. Insofar as they do so, they speak in their respective allegorical identities. When, in line 522, for example, Adam is said to have maðelode ‘made a (formal) speech’ in responding to the boda’s demand, it may be that an element of the formality was that the reader or listener was thought of as included in the audience. The speech itself, or a

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good part of it, is pure reason: you offer a gift which it is the Lord’s, and only the Lord’s, prerogative and custom to offer, you don’t look like an angel, you countermand God’s command, therefore I don’t trust you, go away. And (as we shall see) you offer no credentials. On this mode of presentation, though not with specific reference to Adam’s speech to the boda, Doane cites Judson Allen: “the psychomachic dialogue does not constitute an individuality so much as deliver a self from its improper individuality.”51 It should be clear, then, why the speech in Genesis B entails none of the “low, simple style” of speech in the Mystère d’Adam and why also it entails almost no dialogue. Only near the end of what we have of the poem, when Adam and Eve have fallen to low estate, is there something like dialogue in the exchange between the two. That Adam is conceived here so purely as ratio is also, I suspect, one reason why his speech is so free of the vagaries or accommodations which normally are part of human dialogue. (Another reason we will note in Chapter VII.) Adam goes through sixteen verses (lines 523–31, in the quotation at the beginning of Chapter III) before acknowledging, by pronoun, his visitor. Also his speech is dispassionate; not just my paraphrase a few lines above, but Adam’s own words can be read as quite free of feeling, at least, that is, until Ic hæbbe me fæstne geleafan . . . ‘I have firm belief . . .’ 543 and what follows, where Adam responds cogently and directly to the boda’s invitation and indicates for us quite lucidly why it is that he is able, whereas Eve is not, to resist the Tempter’s behest. This dispassionate tone produces a sense of disconnectedness in the speech; the absence of feeling leads us to believe that Adam, unexpectedly in such a situation as this, is almost without emotion, perhaps indifferent. But what it really means is that he is to be seen here as ratio. It is such qualities as these, I suspect, which prompted Renoir’s complaint that Adam’s speech begins with “lines devoted essentially to repeating the circumstances under which he received God’s original command.”52 But Adam’s words now are much more in the way of amplification than of repetition. And the “circumstances under which . . . ” turn out to be the fundamental circumstances of his being. That God had created, endowed, and commanded him are the circumstances which underlie and govern his refusal. These qualities of transcendence and dispassionateness are, I suspect, the reason why, in the judgment of some, Adam is not found to be an especially interesting character. Doane reports, though he does not accept, this appraisal: “Satan is the best character; Eve seems more interesting than Adam” and so on. Hence, perhaps, Malone’s and Wrenn’s estimate of Satan, and the critical delving for as yet undemonstrated excellences in Eve. In all

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this there is a certain irony as regards Adam. His one speech before the Fall has been declared so insipid that judgment has been passed: Adam is a dull fellow!—so dull, it seems, as not to merit much critical attention. And so, when he is taken non-allegorically, his follies sequent to the speech have been overlooked. Doane assesses such judgments moralistically: “The movement of the poem is distantly illustrated by Augustine’s Confessions: as the soul moves closer to the truth, it moves further from the individual fallen personality.”53 Quite so. The judgments can also be assessed from a critical point of view: perhaps a literary character can, or ought to be, interesting because he—or she, since Eve belongs here too—is not natural. We accept literary characters that are as strange and contrary to reality as Adam as a figure of ratio— Chauntecleer the rooster, for example, speaking elegant (Middle) English. It is a question of genre and of allowances and expectations therefrom. What Adam’s ordered and composed discourse proceeds from is not mediocrity of intellect but rather reason and faith. His composure instances a not uncommon theme in Christian literature and art: the devout and constant soul’s imperturbability in the presence of World, fleshe, yea Devill. It is Rilke’s Mary in calm and unintimidated response to the looming and pendent temple: Sie aber kam und hob den Blick, um dieses alles anzuschauen. (Ein kleines Mädchen zwischen Frauen.) Dann stieg sie ruhig, voller Selbstvertrauen, dem Aufwand zu, der sich verwöhnt verschob: So sehr war alles, was die Menschen bauen, schon überwogen von dem Lob in ihrem Herzen.54

or Spenser’s Guyon, for the nonce in the Bower of Bliss: Much wondred Guyon at the faire aspect Of that sweet place, yet suffred no delight To sincke into his sence, nor mind affect, But passed forth, and lookt still forward right, Bridling his will and maistering his might.

or, in a graphic equivalent, Dürer’s Knight and horse and loping hound, all three, like Guyon, looking “still forward right,” but passing now, unfazed and serene, not fleshly baits but the hideous one himself.

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That Adam says ‘but you can go forth,’ although the boda turns forthwith not to Hell but to Eve, means only that he refuses to disobey God’s command. Therefore it signifies no weakness in Adam that later he takes neither offense nor action because his congé has been defied. Eve speaks as (one of) the fallible senses: you look like an angel; I believe you and credit your request. To de-allegorize their speech is to have to accept, at several points in the narrative, incongruities or behavioral improbabilities which sully Adam and Eve as “natural,” i.e., non-allegorical, characters. Or else, in Eve’s case, it means changing the text of the poem. But with Adam’s Fall, allegory is, in Adam’s case, abandoned and in Eve’s, considerably attenuated. For Adam the principal evidence to this effect is his long and bitter outcry, in no small degree against Eve, in lines 791–820. We shall look at this speech further in Chapter X; just now it suffices to note that its speaker can hardly be taken as a figure of ratio. For Eve the question is more difficult. The poet withholds until about the moment when Adam eats of the fruit the observation that heo dyde hit þeah þurh holdne hyge ‘she did it nevertheless through (a) loyal spirit’ 708 and that she wende þæt heo hyldo heofoncyninges / worhte ‘thought that she wrought the heaven-king’s favor’ 713. These sentiments can still be taken as consistent with an allegorical presentation of Eve as sensus, since they reflect her deception as to the boda’s appearance and nature. Nevertheless, by giving Eve what Whitman might call a “personal attribute,” namely, a sense of loyalty, they imply a dimension which detracts from strict allegorical presentation.55 And later, in Eve’s response in lines 821–26 to Adam’s outcry, there is no sign of Eve as sensus.

CHAPTER V

Father of Lies

“Despaire Breeds Not . . . Where Faith Is Staid” We noted in Chapter II that by his very nature and by his role as Satanequivalent the Tempter could readily be discerned in the allegorical guise of suggestio. It is now appropriate to assess the boda as the servant of his master, asking to what degree does he become the alter ego of Satan and attain therewith to the prowess of the Father of Lies? The inquiry will lead us, I think, to a better understanding of why it is that Adam, at least in his first temptation, can resist the Tempter whereas Eve cannot. Two passages which display the boda’s talent and capability have, it seems to me, been seriously misread. The first is a passage which has been very differently construed by Doane and myself, lines 549–51, to which, in order to establish the context a little more clearly, I give as well the two lines preceding. Dismissed by Adam (ac þu meaht þe forð faran 543), the Tempter Wende hine wraðmod þær he þæt wif geseah on eorðrice euan stondan sceone gesceapene, cwæð þæt sceaðena mæst 550   eallum heora eaforum æfter siððan wurde on worulde.

Doane is right, I think, in rejecting the reading of sceaðena mæst 549 as ‘greatest of evils’ but wrong in rejecting my own reading of its clause as one of indirect discourse: 105

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Vickrey ingeniously tries to avoid sceaða in this pale and questionable sense [‘evil’] by taking sceaðena mæst as a reference by the devil to God: ‘he said that the greatest of enemies to all her sons would be ever after’; this stretches the semantic field of the word (perhaps we might expect such if these words were actually in the devil’s mouth) and seems unidiomatic.1

Doane therefore suggests reading 549b–51a either as ‘spoke that greatest of enemies to all their sons ever after to be in the world’ or as ‘spoke that one, the greatest of enemies.’ The objections to either of Doane’s readings on syntactical, grammatical, and stylistic grounds are numerous.2 To specify these on syntactical and grammatical grounds: to translate as Doane proposes obliges us to take eallum heora eaforum ‘to all their sons/posterity’ as the conceptual subject of wurde, although the former is a dative phrase and the latter is a finite, and not an infinitive form, and although eallum heora eaforum is plural whereas wurde, as a finite form, is singular. Moreover, taking mæst with þæt as demonstrative (rather than as subordinating conjunction) violates the rule that with a demonstrative, Old Saxon mêst / Old English mæst is weakly declined.3 A final such circumstance is in and of itself nigh conclusive evidence that þæt 549 is conjunctive and not demonstrative: elsewhere in the text the boda’s gender is not neuter, as þæt 549 taken as demonstrative would indicate, but masculine, as numerous pronouns show: besides Satan’s hope þæt he up heonon ute mihte 415 (etc.) and the narrator’s wende hine . . . þær he 547 there is angan hine þa gyrwan 443 on through sceolde he þa bradan ligas 763. And if—and now the objection is on grounds of common sense and not of grammar or syntax—the verb cwæð does not introduce a subordinate þæt clause but is rather a verb with dative modifier ‘to all their sons,’ why does the speech introduction speak of addressing these many persons whereas the direct discourse which follows obviously addresses only Eve though with Adam also in mind: ic wat inc . . . ? In sum, I think, there can be little question that the subject of cwæð 549 is carried over from wraðmod . . . he 547 and that what follows cwæð through on worulde 551a and precedes the direct discourse beginning in line 551b is a clause of indirect discourse. The verb in such clauses as the object of cweðan/qued¯an is usually subjunctive in Old English and generally so in Old Saxon, and wurde 551 is subjunctive.4 The reading of þæt . . . 549–51 as other than a clause of indirect discourse cannot, then, be admitted. But if sceaðena mæst 549 cannot refer to the boda, who then, besides God, might it refer to? Well, a case might be made for Adam. That eallum heora eaforum designates posterity instead of Adam suggests the generalizing disposition of gnomic speech. But also these eafor[an]

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could be seen, and not inappropriately, as the victims of Adam’s supposed transgression. H. Munro Chadwick observes that “[t]he chief forces which governed the social system of [the heroic] age were the bonds of kinship and allegiance,” and modern scholarship, as well as ancient texts, acknowledges broadly the not infrequent conflict of the two bonds.5 With Adam’s supposed transgression, allegiance, or the absence thereof, is ipso facto a present issue. With posterity (eaforum 550) kinship enters the picture. The eaforan are both the posterity of Adam and Eve and the servants of the Lord, i.e., those who, if now and again errant, can, at any rate, regain his favor. The passage thereby might seem to disclose a dilemma which, as the kinfolk of Adam and Eve, posterity will seemingly have to face: will they hold with the Lord or with an Adam who is recusant and subject to the Lord’s vengeance? To be sure, the dilemma is unformulated in so many words. One surmises, however, that it might not have required formulation; if the poet’s contemporaries, whether Old or Anglo-Saxon, understood, as Dorothy Whitelock observes, that “every individual depended on the support of the kindred in all the affairs of life”—and not just of “life” but of life or death—they would see the question readily enough: what will happen when, as kinsmen obligated, posterity must stand with Adam against such a foe?6 In such a hopeless contest, the malefactor Adam, in the boda’s twist on “In Adam’s fall we sinned all,” perforce becomes sceaðena mæst / eallum heora eaforum ‘greatest of injurers to all their posterity.’ For Eve, the reminder of posterity’s obligation would heighten the urgency of goading Adam as soon as possible into abject apology and obedience. Nevertheless, that sceaðena mæst refers to God remains, I think, by far the likelier reading. The adverbial phrase æfter siððan ‘ever afterwards’ 550 and the verb phrase wurde on worulde 551 are clues. God’s knowledge earlier of what Satan was up to suggests that the boda lies when he indicates, in lines 552–54, that God does not know yet and will have to be told of Adam’s response to the boda’s injunction. However, it is true, as especially we will see in Chapter VI, that the conception of God in Genesis B is intensely humanlike. If (as will be noted below) God moves with incredible speed, he nevertheless is understood as moving, as having to move, from one place to another. And whereas Adam is presently on worulde ‘in (the) world,’ God is not presently on worulde. The verb ‘would come to be’ and the adverb phrase ‘ever afterwards’ would imply the probably imminent arrival of God as sceaðena mæst permanently hostile to posterity. To construe þæt . . . 549–51 as a clause of indirect discourse is hardly unidiomatic, seemingly or otherwise. Long ago Andreas Heusler noted the fondness of Old Saxon biblical verse for indirect discourse: “reich an

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indirecter rede ist nur die geistliche dichtung der Sachsen; sie lässt die der Engländer weit zurück.”7 Very relevant too is Heusler’s point that “von den westgermanischen denkmälern scheiden die deutschen ganz aus: sie kennen kein queðan, quedan vor directer rede, die einzige ausnahme [Genesis 355], he þa worde cwæð, kommt somit auf rechnung des englischen übersetzers. Im Heliand ist queðan das übliche verbum einerseits in der bloss graphischen einschaltung . . . anderseits vor oratio obliqua.”8 Even more importantly, Heusler observed that “das kwaþ belehrt über anlass, inhalt, oder art der nachfolgenden rede; über ihre beziehung zur denkweise oder stimmung des redners” ‘the kwaþ instructs concerning the occasion, content, or the nature of the ensuing speech, or concerning its relation to the thought or mood of the speaker.’9 Certainly the beginning of “die nachfolgende rede” develops the sense of the indirect discourse here: the boda declares in lines 551–59 that no mere messenger but God himself will come in anger. It is important to note the correlation between the brevity of the speech-introduction here and the outrageousness of its falsehood. The speech-introduction to Satan’s first speech, his decision to desert God and set up on his own as chief of a warband (lines 278–91), amounts to some twentysix verses (lines 265–77), whereas that to the boda’s is only four verses. The disparity reflects the difference between Satan’s decision to act and the boda’s undertaking action itself; one is deliberate, the other is rapid. The boda’s act is verbal Blitzkrieg; it combines suddenness of onset, outrageous deceit, an astute guess as to the victim’s probable dearest concern, her children (we shall note shortly that, anciently, “fecundity was the . . . primary female characteristic”). That wende and cwæð stand not as verbs of two independent clauses but rather as two asyndetic verbs with the same implied subject (that of wende) helps to convey a sense of the boda’s urgency. When sceaðena mæst is understood to be the boda’s reference to God, indirect and ensuing direct discourse here illustrate very well Heusler’s point that “das kwaþ belehrt über anlass, inhalt, oder art der nachfolgenden rede.” Immediately following the indirect discourse with sceaðena mæst is direct discourse of some sixteen verses in chiastic form, the obvious point of which is to emphasize to Eve God’s imminent wrath and vengeance. The chiasmus entails two, or possibly three, concentric rings. In Genesis B (as I have noted in an earlier article): “[t]he outer ring is lines 551b–52a and 558b–59a; the inner ring is lines 552b–54a and 556b–58a. Elements of verbal or morphemic repetition in each half enhance the sense of unity of each of the rings as a whole: abolgen wyrð 552 and 558 in the outer ring; bodscipe 552 and boda beodan 558, selfa 553 and sylf 556 in the inner.”10 Immediately following the indirect discourse the boda declares that Adam too has grievously

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offended—ic wat inc waldendgod / abolgen wyrð ‘I know (that) ruling-God will be enraged (against) you (both).’ 551–52. This suggests that sceaðena mæst of the indirect discourse is identified as the waldendgod of the direct discourse; the fact that wurde ‘would come to be’ 551 and wyrð ‘will be’ 552 are but conjugational variants of the same word facilitates the identification. The chiasmus both begins and ends with the terrifying exclamations, almost identically worded, that God is inc ( . . . ) abolgen ‘enraged with you (two)’ which must confirm that sceaðena mæst refers to God. The boda’s meiosis, at the heart of the pattern, þæt git ne læstan wel / hwilc ærende swa he easten hider / on þysne sið sendeð ‘that you (two) do not well carry out whatever message he sends hither from the east on this journey’ 554–56, with its intimation in ‘whatever message’ of some wider disobedience than the one refusal so far claimed as such, lends a further ominousness.11 What I suspect is Doane’s primal objection to my reading is that it “stretches the semantic field” of the word sceaða. But “das kwaþ belehrt über . . . inhalt.” In the present case, the indirect discourse summarily indicates what the poet, as narrator, understood the boda to be going on to imply in the ensuing direct discourse. And to acknowledge a stretch in semantic field through identifying the sceaðena mæst as God is exactly, in my view, to identify the poetical point. The demon, to redirect Lord Steyne’s phrase, is “unsurpassable in lies,” and what we have in his insinuation that unless Eve comes round, God will never æfter siððan ‘ever afterwards’ 550 love the world is for poet and audience alike a surpassing mendacity.12 The breach in semantic decorum no more than accommodates the enormity of the lie. In the ensuing direct discourse in lines 551–59 the boda is declaring in effect that Adam, by refusing to obey God, has committed the Original Sin; when God learns of it, as learn he must, his wrath is therefore certain. The boda, in other words, moves from effect, or supposed effect, to its cause, the pretended refusal. The mendacity now, though its focus is on Adam and Eve and not posterity, is equivalent in magnitude to that in the sceaðena mæst verses. This may be the poet’s reason for the chiastic form of the passage, especially in light of the circumstance that with line 559b the boda’s argument, as we shall see, takes a significant turn. Calvert Watkins observes that “[r]ing-composition is a signal of demarcation: a series of sentences is thereby symbolically transformed into a finite set, a closed text or text segment,” and he shortly goes on to add that “[r]ing-composition is of enormous importance in oral literature for isolating unities within a larger discourse.”13 The chiasmus in Genesis 551–59 formally isolates a segment of argument and so accentuates the enormity of the lie it entails.14

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In averring to Eve that to disobey God is to obey God, the boda frightens and confuses her and so contributes not a little to the disobedience which ensues. Obedience is easy if the temptation is easy to bear, disobedience the more tempting the stronger the temptation. And temptation is often something that is fearful and repellent, and not pleasant and attractive, to contemplate. The text at this point in the narrative gives no explicit notice that Eve is frightened by the boda’s words. One surmises, though, that any speaker of the text here with some sense of its dramatic possibilities could exploit wraðmod and the clause cwæð þæt sceaðena mæst . . . to convey both anger and deceit. Especially the boda’s assurance that nu sceal he sylf faran / to incre andsware and the two following clauses would, it would seem, have terrified her. Moreover, in remarking the moments in which Eve came to accept the boda’s counsels the narrator observes that hæfde hire wacran hige / metod gemearcod ‘(the) Lord had appointed for her (a) weaker hige’ 590–91, where hige, as we shall see, probably means ‘courage.’ And Eve’s fear of God’s anger, which the boda has put into her, is evident in her plea later on to Adam that they must placate the boda in order to secure his intercession with God on their behalf: unc is his hyldo þearf; / he mæg unc ærendian to þam alwaldan ‘for us two his favor is a necessity; he can intercede for us with the Almighty’ 664–65. The poet’s wit in this passage is twofold. It lies first in the poet’s seizing upon dramatic irony. Presumably the audience would know what neither Eve nor the boda could know, that in consequence of first her and then Adam’s acquiescence God would come to redeem their loss. Such knowledge was, and is, basic to Christian belief. If the tropological presentation of Adam, Eve, and the boda helped the audience to see the story, as Doane says, “in terms of what their own reactions to the situation would be,” the characters’ words might put the audience in mind of one facet or another of their greater knowledge over that of the characters themselves. At certain points in Genesis B as redemptive comedy the speeches of one character or another entail significations which neither the speaker nor auditor in the poem are aware of and which only the audience of the poem might perceive. And at lines 549–51 the audience would presumably have seen beyond the boda’s implication to know just who would become for posterity—which includes themselves, after all—the sceaðena mæst. The wit lies secondly in the poet’s presenting a “notable image of vice,” the image of Satan’s messenger, a devil in serpent’s form, claiming, in audacity and malice, not only to have brought a message from God but also proclaiming that—should Eve, like Adam, not accede to his behest—God would become ‘the greatest of enemies’ to their posterity. The boda’s so

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proclaiming is of great consequence in the narrative. Grammar and syntax dictate this meaning. The possibility of dramatic irony inherent in indirect discourse admits a certain piquancy here; the poet allows the boda to condemn himself in the mind of the audience. To allow the adversary so to expose and condemn himself entails a somewhat less obvious wit than forthrightly to denounce him in one’s own voice. As we saw in Chapter I, late Antiquity and the Middle Ages found a species of delight in the contrast between the Devil’s confidence of victory and his inevitable defeat and ruin; it was, after all, an aspect all but inevitable of Christian belief and its comedic (i.e., hopeful) outlook. What we have, both in cwæð þæt sceaðena mæst . . . when taken as indirect discourse and, as we shall see, in lines 623–25, is a variation on a theme. It is a deft extension of the idea of “the deception of the devil,” of which we shall take some further note in Chapter IX. Gustaf Aulén observes that it is the idea of the deception of the devil that provides occasion for the use of the most realistic imagery. The theme on which the variations are made is that Christ appears as it were incognito, His Godhead being hidden under His human nature; hence the devil thinks that He will be an easy prey.

And he adds that this idea of the deception of the devil occurs frequently, both in the East and in the West. Augustine uses the simile of a mouse-trap; as the mice are enticed into the trap by the bait, so Christ is the bait by which the devil is caught. Gregory the Great frequently enlarges on this theme, and his imagery leaves nothing to be desired in the way of grotesque realism.15

Commonly, the idea of the Devil’s deception is focused on the Incarnation and especially on Christ’s death. But if at those times Satan knew not of Christ’s divinity and power it is reasonable to posit that earlier still he would also have been in the dark. In other words, the idea of “the deception of the devil” might fairly be retrogressed by poetic imagination from the Resurrection to the Fall of Man, both as to what preceded the Fall and what immediately followed. Especially this might readily be done in a poem availing itself of tropological dualities: Adam as both the Adam of Genesis 3 and as post-redemptive man; Satan as the Tempter (or the presence behind the Tempter) of Genesis 3 and as the Devil of the sixth age. Since in Genesis B Satan’s fall and the Harrowing of Hell, along with the binding of Satan, are

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in effect telescoped into one, it would follow that in Genesis B the deception of the Devil also began from the time of his fall. Concurrently the idea of the Devil’s deception might readily be understood, or extended, to mean, almost inevitably, his self-deception. Objective genitive becomes subjective, for the fundamental condition of the Devil— aspiration still despite fruitless revolt and hopeless ruin—would suggest self-deception as the only rational explanation behind such persistence. In Chapter III we noted Alain Renoir’s insight in this matter. The representation of the Devil and his Tempter elsewhere in the poem as beings of the sixth age precluded, in the context of the Tempter’s speech to Eve, the use of imagery like that of the mousetrap or the fishhook. For the narrator to go on to say that at the Incarnation Satan would find himself caught as in a mousetrap or as on a fishhook might seem both to compromise the tropological duality and to amount to something of an anticlimax, since Satan has been understood from almost the beginning of the poem as enveloped in chains. What was available to the poet was dramatic irony, through which the Devil, via his boda, could be allowed to display his ignorance. For even the listener who was but a novice in Christian faith might reflect that the boda’s triumph is but short-lived, that captivity will be led captive. To adapt Aulén’s remark, the power of evil is already doomed “at the moment when it seems to be victorious.”16 This means that Satan’s dual identity in the poem, by which he is the arch-schemer of the Fall but also bound in Hell in consequence of the Harrowing, is quite circumscribed in its implications. Neither Satan nor his boda, as an everyday devil of the sixth age, show any awareness that their scheme is doomed to failure. Following his several intimidations the boda dangles some perks. Eve as tactician will come up with a plan; Eve it will be who, with the boda’s counsel, wards off disaster: þæt þu inc bam twam meaht / wite bewarigan swa ic þe wisie ‘that you can for both of you (two) ward off punishment as I direct you’ 562–63, where singular þu stands in contrast to dual inc bam twam. Dull would he be who would miss here the intimation that by herself Eve can fend off ruin. And there follows the assertion meaht þu adame eft gestyran ‘you can guide (or, steer) Adam eft 568. For eft Doane gives ‘afterwards’; there is also the distinct possibility that eft here might mean ‘in return’ and so imply a little more obviously than does ‘afterwards’ that whereas Adam has ruled her, presently she can rule Adam. Such an intimation might well not have been agreeable to any contemporary male audience. We shall presently see another instance of the poet’s appeal to contemporary belief in the inequality of the sexes.17 These several passages testify to the very strong probability that Eve acceded to the boda’s behest in large part out of fright though also out of vanity.

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Michael Benskin and Brian Murdoch provide further evidence to this effect: “[t]o the poet [Eve] is freo fægroste [‘lady most fair’] (457a) and idesa sceonost [‘most beautiful of women’] (626b), to Adam wlitesciene wif [‘beauty-bright woman’] (527a). These epithets are purely physical: the devil addresses her as idesa seo betste [‘the best of women’] (578b) and Eve seo gode [‘the good Eve’] (612a). The moral significance is clear.”18 Susannah Mintz would apparently have no difficulty with the question of Eve’s intelligence. She assures us in her abstract that Eve in Genesis B demonstrates “intellectual and spiritual freedom.” Her reading of Adam’s rejection of the boda’s behest exalts Eve at Adam’s expense. His speech, she says, sounds less like sophisticated logical reasoning than a flat refusal even to attempt reasoning on the basis of the tempter’s “foreignness.” Adam cannot understand the tempter not only because he has never before seen anything like this “angel,” nor because he can only operate on “signs,” but because he cannot think outside of divine dictum, cannot process the rhetoric of artful logic.19

This judgment abounds in the eminently refutable. Mintz’s first point, that the Adam of Genesis B “can only operate on ‘signs’” (and does not Eve, as much as Adam, “operate on ‘signs’”?) means no more that that the poet is of an age which, as we shall see in a later chapter, put great store in signs. Consequently, Adam’s mention of a sign in line 540 has, as I will try to show, a significance far different from that which hitherto has all too commonly been perceived. Mintz’s more contentious theory, that “[Adam] cannot think outside of divine dictum,” alludes, I take it, to Adam’s obedience to God’s prior and explicit command, a matter we took note of in Chapter III. The corollary to this idea is evidently that, in contrast, Eve, as the possessor, in Mintz’s view, of “intellectual and spiritual freedom,” does “think outside of divine dictum.” Not Eve but Adam, according to Mintz, is the one who is frightened. Adam, afraid to dip his toe in the water, is the sissy, whereas Eve boldly goes. But as we have just seen, Eve doesn’t boldly go. She goes partly, perhaps, out of vanity and aspiration, partly in the hope of sparing Adam, but largely out of fear. To exercise intellectual freedom is not uncommonly to have to resist, to defy, intimidation. Eve succumbs to intimidation. And such freedom usually means an independence of mind, a reaching out on one’s own to that which has not generally been perceived or understood. Eve follows, to disaster, the insistence of the boda; that she disobey is his idea, not hers. The boda’s assertion to Eve that þu meaht his þonne rume ræd geþencan ‘then you may amply

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devise a plan for it (to remedy God’s anger)’ 561 is pure insinuation; the scheme is entirely the boda’s.20 Mintz says that Eve’s journey, intellectual and spiritual, reminds her “of Milton’s notion of ‘perpetual progression,’ a phrase from Areopagitica that denotes intellectual, spiritual freedom, rooted in a capacity for revising the received opinions of ‘conformity and tradition’ and accepting the uncertainty of continually ‘exercis[ing]’ one’s ‘faith and knowledge.’” But one wonders whether Milton would have commended either Eve’s disobeying God’s express and direct command or Mintz’s commending Eve’s disobeying—Milton, who wrote that Earth felt the wound, and nature from her seat Sighing through all her works gave signs of woe, That all was lost. (Paradise Lost, IX, 782–84)

We have noted that a Christian “comedic imperative” implies the certainty of eternal life in Heaven through obedience to God. This meant, for the Christian ninth and many another century, to show fortitude. What Eve does in acceding to the boda’s behest is to abandon in fear such pursuit and the attainment of the comedic imperative in the hope of present safety. In going thus she certainly does “think outside of divine dictum,” i.e., she disobeys God. If, in the Saxon poet’s account, disobedience results ultimately, though circuitously, in her well-being, it is only through another’s deliverance, unforeseen, unthought of, unintended by herself. From what I understand to be the standpoint of ninth-century Christianity it is not Eve but Adam who, until his Fall, shows strength. The question now is not whether ninth-century Christianity or modernity is right; it is rather whose values and mindset are represented in the poem. We noted in Chapter III the different understandings, then and now, as to obedience to divine command: “the difference is between an utter and unconditional obedience and an obedience subject to conditionality and private judgment and interpretation, liable even, it may be, to disavowal if the private conscience and rationality so dictate.” Mintz is free to reject the ninth-century Christian idea of obedience to God. But it is unsound, to say the least, to denounce Adam in Genesis B as hidebound and timid and to proclaim Eve captain of her mind and soul. Alain Renoir too presents an argument in behalf of Eve in Genesis B, positing now, in his “Eve’s I.Q.” article, that Eve might plausibly be viewed as more intelligent than Adam. His argument, rather more modest in scope and advanced more tentatively than Mintz’s, derives mainly from the cir-

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cumstance that the boda’s representation to Eve is much more subtle than his representation to Adam. Perhaps it was almost inevitable that such would be the case. Given the aura of Germanic martiality suffusing the poem, the boda had no choice but to appear as an intermediary, and therefore as an interloper in the ceremony of gift-giving, in assuring Adam that God was endowing him still further. Moreover, Adam’s refusal meant that Eve was the boda’s last chance. Since therefore he had now either to succeed or fail, he summoned all his reserves of guile. Moreover (as critics have noted) Adam’s reply provided the boda with a basis, phony no doubt but nevertheless useful, for addressing Eve. At any rate, Renoir’s line of reasoning appears to be that the boda’s approach to Adam, against whom he failed, was less subtle than his approach to Eve, against whom he succeeded, and therefore that Eve was probably smarter than Adam. This proposition falls far enough short of the manifestly veridical that it behooves us to consider it in some detail. Renoir’s formulation is “that Adam may have withstood temptation because he was too stupid to understand it, while Eve may have fallen because she was intelligent enough to follow a logical argument.”21 The point of the first “because” clause I have addressed in Chapter IV; Adam’s response to the boda indicates clearly that although he did not know all the particular facts, he understood full well the essence of the boda’s message. That is why he refused it. But there is far more to his response than that he understood, intellectually, what the boda meant. The response includes, as we have noted, a sort of proto-credo, namely, his declaration ic hæbbe me fæstne geleafan / up to þam ælmihtegan gode ‘I have firm faith in almighty God.’ 543–44, an avowal in respect to which Renoir waxes derisive: “a mindless but very smug assertion of his faith in God.”22 But, as we shall see, the avowal is neither mindless nor smug. And this one clause, as a statement of belief, is every bit as important in explaining Adam’s repulse of the boda’s assault as the other reasons he gives for refusing the boda’s behest, reasons which of course are not only perfectly sound but are also, as we noted in Chapter IV, expressive of Adam’s dimension as the figure of ratio. Its importance lies in the circumstance that in Adam’s fæst geleafa once again the motif of martiality confronts us. Speaking of armies as masses of men, John Keegan explains that crowds are implicit in armies. Inside every army is a crowd struggling to get out, and the strongest fear with which every commander lives—stronger than his fear of defeat or even of mutiny—is that of his army reverting to a crowd through some error of his making. For a crowd is the antithesis of an army, a human assembly animated not by discipline but by mood, by the play of

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inconstant and potentially infectious emotion which, if it spreads, is fatal to an army’s subordination.23

And speaking of the individual soldier amongst the mass, C. S. Lewis observes that “in battle it is not syllogisms that will keep the reluctant nerves and muscles to their post in the third hour of the bombardment.” His phrase “third hour . . .” no doubt recalls the conditions of the western front in World War I. But mutatis mutandis, sergeants the world over would, I expect, agree and, in a multitude of tongues, would term the result of this non-syllogistic something what in English we call morale. Adam’s morale resides in his personal and intimate fæst geleafa to God. This may not be very apparent to the modern western mind, disposed as we may be to regard not simply poetry but much besides “from the point of view of our own time” and therewith to associate morale with ethical issues of national or international scope with appropriate slogans or shibboleths. In contrast, Adam’s fæst geleafa to God reflects the comitatus martiality (“the chief fights for victory, but the retainers for the chief”) but of course transcendentalized: his fæst geleafa is the reciprocation due God’s benefactions. That is why fæst geleafa is followed immediately by references to what God has done and can do for Adam. So Lewis’s point is relevant to Adam and, as we shall see, to Eve. For Adam it is on the one hand the sense of loyalty to God and of obedience due his command, on the other hand an awareness of “knowledge and faith and life eternal” as gifts of God which would constitute, in Lewis’s phrase, “emotions organized by trained habit into stable sentiments,” sentiments, that is, which through their stability enable one to endure the trial.24 In Dürer’s “Knight, Death, and the Devil,” of which we earlier took note, the hound symbolizes, as Charles Cuttler says, “the three virtues of untiring zeal, learning, and truthful reasoning.”25 These are the foundation of the Knight’s morale. We see in consequence that the hound is, appropriately, between the Knight and the Devil. Zeal, learning, and reasoning are the foundation of Adam’s fæst geleafa, his stable sentiment of faith. His fæst geleafa would include his obedience to God’s instruction, given what presently follows the phrase: he mæg me of his hean rice / geofian mid goda gehwilcum þeah he his gingran ne sende ‘he can endow me with each of good things from his high realm, although he does not send his servant’ 545–46. Adam’s explanation here is not only evidence (as we noted in Chapter III) that Adam is highly suspicious of the boda and his motives but also further evidence that in Genesis B God is hardly seen as indifferent and remote. Though vastly at a remove spiritually, his explanation is distantly and curiously echoic of the

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Germanic warrior’s hope and expectation; as Tacitus says, “for it is to the free-handed chief that they look for that war-horse, for that murderous and masterful spear.”26 Let us attend a little further to these sentences of Adam. They are full of quiet intimation. The phrases up to þam ælmihtegan gode and of his hean rice complement each other with their notions the one of going thither, the other of coming thence. They imply thereby the contrast between Adam’s low estate and the high estate of God, indeed between Adam as the created one and God as the Creator. And the verb in line 546 is not the strong verb gifan (Old Saxon geb¯an) but the weak geofian (Old Saxon geb¯on, geb¯ogean). It is something a little extra special, not your ordinary ‘(to) give’ merely but a rather more formal and exalted ‘(to) endow.’27 The gifts implied in geb¯on, geb¯ogean (Heliand 1545, 1689, 2065, 3762) are understood to be permanent (rather than loaned merely) and of some, even immense, value, and the giver in some sense superior to any personal recipient. In lines 545–46 Adam responds with quiet confidence to the boda’s assurances that God sends his servant (line 515) and that (should Adam comply with his behest) God will bestow even more of preciousnesses upon him (lines 503–04). This is not to imply that Adam views God merely as a sort of supernal beaggyfa ‘ring-giver,’ able, from afar, to reward his followers. The relative clause which I have omitted so far, þe me mid his earmum worhte, . . . her mid handum sinum ‘who wrought me with his arms, here, with his hands’ 544–45, dependent as it is on gode 544, tells us of the breadth and depth of Adam’s belief and sense of obligation to God. As to Renoir’s second “because” clause (“Eve may have fallen because she was intelligent enough to follow a logical argument”), several comments need to be made. Renoir makes much of the boda’s subtlety in addressing Eve; he elucidates quite nicely, for instance, the boda’s deft employment of second-person dual pronoun forms in bringing Eve around. But his argument overall misses the point on two counts and quite overlooks a third. The subtlety of the boda’s presentation played to Eve’s guilelessness and her fears, not to her intelligence. It was not the logic of the boda’s argument but its lies which overwhelmed her, lædde hie swa mid ligenum and mid listum speon . . . ‘(he) led her so with lies and slyly ensnared . . .’ 588. And that his argument, in and of itself, is “logical” is not the point. There is the little matter of its premises. The argument rests—as Renoir clearly recognizes elsewhere in his paper—on deceits, the half-truths which Burchmore identified for us in Chapter IV. It is no commendation of Eve’s intelligence or her faith that apparently she never questions the premises of the boda’s argument and never, as we noted in Chapter IV, calls upon God to reveal to her the boda’s nature

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and intention. Indeed, in the light of Augustine’s observation concerning “the integrity of intelligence, by which God instructs those who are obedient to Him,” Eve’s failure to ask for God’s help, as Juliana did not fail to ask, can perhaps be seen as disobedience.28 Moreover, apart even from the matter of premises, and perhaps most importantly, merely for Eve “to follow a logical argument” is not necessary in order for her to endorse and accept it. Neither Renoir nor Mintz takes into account anything other than intelligence or intellect or “intellectual and spiritual freedom” in attempting to identify the factors which were operative in Eve’s defection. But as we have just noted, intelligence is no more than one element and probably not the principal element which affects behavior in moments of severe trial. If we are to see Eve as entirely non-allegorical, the way that Mintz and presumably Renoir would have us see her, we are entitled to assess her as we would ordinary persons. Eve’s ordeal is not a three-hour bombardment, but it is a kind of battle, and especially given the Carolingian Christian context of Genesis B it is necessary to recall that, as we have noted, Eve as well as Adam had received God’s command and that first and foremost Eve as well as Adam owed obedience to God. We hear from Eve something as to her desire to protect Adam. This is admirable, but it is not enough; it plays, in fact, to her undoing. Let us look further into this undoing. Jane Chance, were it not for her principal assumption, which in my view is not demonstrated, could be said to make a more plausible and reasoned case for Eve than does Renoir and far more so than does Mintz. Chance makes no claim as does Mintz or Renoir as to Eve’s intelligence. Instead, she suggests that Eve’s submission to the boda would reflect the training of upper-class Anglo-Saxon women to assume the role of “peace-weaver.” Thus Eve fails here not because she is unintelligent or inferior to Adam but because she has not been trained to resist, to fight, to remain strong against an adversary, and because this “best of women” in an Anglo-Saxon society would have been trained instead to concede, to ameliorate, and to harmonize.29

Chance’s view as to the importance of the “peace-weaver” concept allies her to the exonerative critics we have already faulted: to find Eve simply untrained rather than merely tricked is certainly to find her innocent morally. So we must look closely at her argument. Chance’s reading of Eve posits that the role of the peace-weaver was commonly to mediate between polities that were either hostile or potentially

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so: the maiden or lady left her family and tribe and moved to her husband’s camp, there to concede, ameliorate, harmonize. The view that “this ‘best of women’ in an Anglo-Saxon society would have been trained instead to concede . . .” accords, up to a point, with what Chance says on page 1 of her book: “Child-bearing became a specific means of making peace between two tribes by literally mingling their blood . . .”; also, on p. 73, she speaks of “the peace-weaver whose primary concern involves the establishment of peace between two different tribes or members of a single tribe.” The phrases “making peace between two tribes” and “establishment of peace between two different tribes,” etc., seems to imply that the polities or persons in question are understood to have been, to be, or to be about to be, mutually hostile. No doubt the boda in Genesis B declares that hostility exists between God and the human pair. But it is far from clear that reconciling hostile tribes or persons was the freoþuwebbe’s principal business. Chance appears to take this role of the peace-weaver as established and historical; she cites no instance of such peace-weaving among either the Old or the Anglo-Saxons. I cannot find that her text takes notice of Larry M. Sklute’s conclusion that As far as we can discern from an examination of the texts and contexts in which the compound occurs, “freoðuwebbe . . . friðuwebbe”—and, relatedly, “friðusibbe”—does not necessarily reflect a Germanic custom of giving a person in marriage to a hostile tribe in order to secure peace. Rather, it is a poetic metaphor referring to the person whose function it seems to be to perform openly the action of making peace by weaving to the best of her art a tapestry of friendship and amnesty.30

There was, of course, a route other than marriage to the camp of a hostile tribe. Tacitus makes no mention in his Germania of the Germanic peaceweaver. But he says in Chapter 8 “that the loyalty of those tribes is more effectually guaranteed from whom, among other hostages, maids of high birth have been exacted.” To my mind it is rather a stretch to suppose that the usual procedure of Germanic chieftains or kings was to solicit the advice of, or to bargain with, such hostages on matters of diplomacy; they were hostages for quite another reason. And the remarks otherwise of Tacitus on women and Germanic martiality do not suggest that the puellae nobiles were especially trained to concede, etc. He follows his observation on hostages by noting, to be sure, that “Further, [Germanic peoples] conceive that in woman is a certain uncanny and prophetic sense; they neither scorn to consult them nor slight their answers.” But he does not indicate that these women

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included brides in dynastic marriages or what, typically, their replies entailed or whether they counselled concession. He indicates too that a certain bellicosity might obtain among womenfolk; he begins the same chapter by remarking that “tradition relates that some lost or losing battles have been restored by the women,” and in Chapter 18 he says “that the wife may not imagine herself released from the practice of heroism, released from the chances of war, she is thus warned by the very rites with which her marriage begins that she comes to share hard work and peril.” In Chapter 14 he intimates that among Germanic folk truculence was gender-inclusive: “rest is unwelcome to the race,” adding, not irrelevantly to our present study, that “they distinguish themselves more readily in the midst of uncertainties; besides, you cannot keep up a great retinue except by war and violence.”31 Perhaps none of this evidence precludes female peace-weavers among the continental Germanic peoples, but none of it suggests that such peaceweaving had much of a role among them. Chance’s understanding of Eve, however, posits as a familiar norm that the peace-weaver’s diplomatic role was well known and accepted, so that Eve’s actions could be more or less clearly recognized as contrary to the actions of the usual peace-weaver. Moreover, the word freoþuwebbe / friðowebba ‘peace-weaver’ does little to support the conciliatory function which Chance sees as the “primary concern” of the peace-weaver. The term occurs but thrice and only in poems. It is disconcerting that it is not found in any prose texts—one or another of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles, say—which might report or refer to dynastic marriages. In two of the three poetical passages the context is notoriously difficult—Widsith 6 and Beowulf 1942. In the third passage, Elene 88, the friðowebba is the angel who delivers to Constantine a message from God, albeit one of vast consequence. It might be supposed that Constantine, heretofore a heathen, would have been thought of as hostile to the God of the Christians, and therefore that the angel came as a peaceweaver. But that his message is not of concession nor even of negotiation, but of exhortation, in effect, of command—hæs ‘command’ 86 and þu to heofonum beseoh . . . ‘look to heaven . . .’ 83 make this clear—might suggest that the peace-weaver’s role was not necessarily one of concession. And that the angel is apparently masculine—þæs halgan 86 as well as the form friðowebba would so testify—suggests that a peace-weaver’s gender was not necessarily feminine. It is prudent briefly to consider, then, what, in the lack of evidence as to conceding, ameliorating, and harmonizing by noble women, might have been the meaning of the term freoþuwebbe. In the first place, there is the word itself: what did it point to, if it did not refer to a concessive role?

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Michael Enright says of the period in question that “dynastic marriages usually served political ends and almost invariably signified an alliance between ruling families.”32 His inference, declining as it does to confirm that mutual hostility commonly underlay such marriages, does not intimate that the primary role of the women in question was as Chance maintains. Enright’s paper argues that the alliance in 856 between Æðelwulf of Wessex and Charles the Bald, whereby Æðelwulf married Judith, Charles’ daughter, was aimed not against the Vikings (as often inferred) but rather against the ambitions of Æðelwulf’s son Æðelbald. Whether the intention was the one or the other (though to my mind Enright makes a good case), we have a clear instance in which a marriage signified a combination against a third party rather than a reconciliation between hostile or potentially hostile parties. One function of the freoþuwebbe was then to bear children. Enright, remarking that “martial vigor was the most important and respected male characteristic for many long centuries,” adds that “fecundity was the corresponding primary female characteristic.”33 It was in bringing children that she brought peace against malice domestic or foreign levy. The circumstance that apparently weaving was typically an occupation of women probably suggested the metaphoric extension of –webbe ‘(female) weaver’ to mean ‘weaver of peace.’34 Enright observes that “to prevent civil war on the king’s death and to maintain the realm itself, it was absolutely essential that the queen produce royal heirs.”35 Given this understanding of a woman’s role, we can see why the Tempter’s sceaðena mæst . . . eallum heora eaforum was an obvious point d’appui. The peace-weaver might further domestic tranquility in a second way. Chance is certainly aware of this role. But perhaps it needs further emphasis. In another paper Enright reminds us that “a warband is rarely a decorous organization and always potentially violent. As in Beowulf, a man might be proud that he never knifed a drinking companion.”36 So the wife of a chieftain might conduce to peace among the warband by, as Sklute says, “weaving to the best of her art a tapestry of friendship and amnesty.” Such peace would again be of a domestic sort, rather than conciliation between hostile tribes. It may be granted that Eve’s fright was not only on her own behalf but also on behalf of Adam and all their posterity ever after, eallum heora eaferum æfter siððan. Nevertheless, a very strange construction has been put on Eve’s assent to the boda’s behest. Along of course with their joint and successful temptation of Adam later on, it constitutes virtually the only thing she does in the poem. It is certainly far and away the chief thing she does. But do we see in all this that Eve demonstrates, as more than one critic has inferred, either intelligence of a high order, superior perhaps to that of Adam, or else,

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if not high intelligence, then at least an understandable conformity to an established and admired pattern of diplomatic behavior among upper-class Anglo-Saxon women? That, supposedly, Eve was trained to concede, ameliorate, and harmonize would not have to mean that she was thereby trained to surrender. But surrender she does. Chance, of course, recognizes Eve’s failure; she argues that the Eve in Genesis B represents the Germanic woman as a “peace-weaver,” though now as an anti-type: “in accord with the Anglo-Saxon context . . ., this ‘weaker mind’ must be read not only as a virgin mind but as the mind of the peace-weaver, who occupied a less aggressive and warlike role than that of the lord.”37 This formulation, it seems to me, is a little demeaning to putative peace-weavers; it acknowledges their limitations but not such strengths as might have obtained by virtue of their role as mediators. One is almost prompted to wonder whether peace-weavers, as less aggressive and warlike, ever succeeded in making peace. In any case, we are left with the question of why Eve failed. Unlike Mintz and Renoir, Chance does identify a factor other than intelligence or intellect as operative in Eve’s defection. I think, however, that although Chance does in effect indicate the causative factor she does not identify it as such. Her idea that Eve functions as a peace-weaver is, I think, rather beside the point. It would, I expect, be difficult to serve as a peace-weaver when oneself has already been emphatically defined not as mediator but as one of the enemy. That Eve thinks that the boda regards her so becomes clear in Renoir’s analysis of the boda’s address to Eve, in, for example, his observation that the second person dual pronouns serve to accuse, to incriminate, Eve as well as Adam: þæt git ne læstan wel . . . ! Her speech to Adam indicates clearly her acceptance—partly in euphoria but mostly, I think, in panic—of the boda’s insinuation that she too is the enemy: he [the boda] mæg unc ærendian to þam alwaldan ‘he can intercede for us (two) with the All-ruler’ 665. Though it is surely the negotiant’s task both to present and even to exaggerate the case for one’s own side and at least to intimate (if only ever so gently) the weaknesses of the opposing side, the text gives no sign, so far as I can see, that Eve, unlike Adam in his first temptation, ever verbally responds to the boda, let alone that she tries to negotiate. It is hardly clear that she ever acts as “peace-weaver.” Not she herself but the boda, she thinks, will be the intermediary and even intercessor. Chance is, however, of great help in defining Eve’s surrender when she considers the meaning of wacran 590: “the use of the word wacran in other contexts indicates it can in one sense denote ‘more yielding’ or ‘more pliant,’ or in another, ‘more wanting in courage, or mental or moral strength,’ as in

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manly strength.”38 Fred C. Robinson, adducing considerable philological detail, concurs strongly with her inference. Robinson argues that wacra meant not ‘more weak’ but rather ‘soft, pliant, yielding’ and that wacran hige would mean ‘more wanting in courage.’ And Michael Phillips shows that hyge can imply intentionality, which is surely a dimension of resolve.39 So, in Maldon, the retainer Byhrtwold exhorts his comrades: hyge sceal þe heardra . . . þe ure mægen lytlað ‘resolve shall (be) the stronger . . . as our might lessens’ 312–13. So too geþoht in wifes wacgeþoht, which varies hyge euan 648, might entail ‘thought, intention, purpose’ as part of its meaning.40 Genesis B, then, presents Eve’s hige as not sufficiently strong to resist the boda’s guile and intimidation. To infer that Eve was “more wanting in courage” or in “moral strength” is virtually, it seems to me, to say that in this time of trial her morale was lacking. It is clear, if only from lines 235–36, God’s injunction to Adam and Eve, that Eve too is subject by God’s direct command to martial discipline. The boda’s address to Eve and her response make clear that her fear overwhelms her. It is therefore as relevant to Eve’s situation as it was to Adam’s to recall the observations of John Keegan about struggling crowds and of C. S. Lewis about nerves and muscles. We surmised from Chapter III that Adam held strongly to his obedience to God and from the present Chapter V that by way of “stable sentiments” Adam had his fæst geleafa. But we hear nothing, at least in any explicit way, as to any comparable fæst geleafa on Eve’s part which would, as constituting her morale, have given her strength to endure. It is reasonably clear from phrases in his reply to the boda that Adam not only fears but loves God. It is reasonably clear from Eve’s address to Adam only that she fears God. Her demoralization deprives her also of presence of mind; as we have noted, she apparently never sees the weakness of the boda’s argument. The fragility of Eve’s morale ensures her failure. Adam and Eve are God’s soldiers, and it is through their morale that they endure or fail to endure. Thus the poet identifies Eve’s failure not as a failure of intellect (“it is not syllogisms”) but of morale. In Eve’s temptation and in her wacran hige as well as in Adam’s temptation we see the martiality of Genesis B. But by no means does this identification constitute an exoneration of Eve. Her fragility helps also to explain what we saw in Chapter IV, that Eve comes to perceive the boda as an angel rather than as a serpent. We noted there Burchmore’s view as to “the poet’s theme of visual deception,” and textual evidence both in the boda’s own speech, i.e., his direct discourse, and in the narrator’s adverb wærlice 652. Still, Eve could neither be expected to perceive the true state of affairs from the placement of ne eom ic deofle gelic nor, obviously, to have heard the narrator’s wærlice. What circumstance,

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then, besides the witness of Genesis 3 itself, along with the general conviction of subsequent ages as to its veracity, explains the inference that in Genesis B Eve perceives the boda, or comes to perceive him, not as a serpent but rather as an angel and speaks of him as þes boda sciene, / godes engel god ‘this beautiful messenger, God’s good angel’ 656–57? To translate cwæð þæt sceaðena mæst as ‘spoke that greatest of enemies’ or ‘spoke that one, the greatest of enemies’ is of course to accommodate the fact that the boda himself is, more or less, just that. “More or less,” because quite arguably Satan himself is the stronger candidate. Howsoever, such an accommodation is for reader or audience only. But when the passage is taken as indirect discourse it becomes something said or indicated or even just intimated to Eve in order to weaken her morale. Not only the boda’s direct discourse but the speech-introduction indicates the probable effect on Eve. To take cwæð þæt sceaðena mæst . . . 549b–51a as verb and object of indirect discourse is to see that the passage anticipates and summarizes the following sixteen verses (lines 551b–59a) in which the boda tries Eve’s fortitude by announcing, not oversubtly, that she and hers are in gravest danger, that God is now her most dire enemy, that her posterity even is included as an object of God’s displeasure. In sum, the boda’s words terrify Eve. But there is a naturalistic and purely psychological explanation as well. Persons in far less terror than Eve seek an ally against some danger and embrace that ally when he presents himself as such, or professes to do so. In so doing they can readily misconstrue the ally’s motives or his nature and misrepresent them to themselves. So Eve embraces the boda as þes boda sciene, / godes engel god 656–57 as he presents himself as a sympathetic mediator between Eve and God. Nor should it be supposed that the boda himself, as Eve comes to see him (þes boda sciene, / godes engel god 656–57), is a merely mild and unintimidating figure. The frequent and valid observations that he is a master rhetorician entail, I suspect, a corollary but unexpressed supposition that his success results only from his words. Such a view would not be tenable. The text affords adequate witness not only to the Tempter’s verbal skill but to his diabolical strength as well as his hostile resolve. His preparations for the departure from Hell, as Evans observes, are those of a warrior readying for battle.41 And as to the departure itself:                          wand him up þanon, hwearf him þurh þa helldora, hæfde hyge strangne, leolc on lyfte laðwende mod, swang þæt fyr on twa feondes cræfte. (446–49)

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‘(he) flew up from there, / went swiftly through the hell-doors, (he) had resolute spirit, / flew hostile-minded, (he) struck the fire in two by fiendish craft.’

My translation does not do justice to the Old English. Reading hwearf as ‘went swiftly’ is especially unevocative. Jacob Grimm, in Deutsche Mythologie, remarks the speed with which the gods were thought to move and thereto their habit of appearing and disappearing suddenly: “unsre alte sprache mag sich dafür des ausdrucks hvairban, ahd. huerban, ags. hveorfan . . . bedient haben.”42 He cites Genesis 240 hwærf him þa to heofonum, God’s departure after his command to Adam and Eve, but I can see no reason why both hwearf 447 and hwearf 764, the latter the boda’s departure from Eden, should not have been cited also, as evidence of the Tempter’s far more than human powers. Note also hwerb¯an ‘to go (quickly)’ in the Old Saxon Genesis 144, 148, 306, to describe the movement of departed souls or of angels.43 Even the boda’s taking of serpent’s form suggests violent motion: wearp hine þa on wyrmes lic 491 says, literally, that he ‘threw’ him(self) then into (a) ‘serpent’s body.’ The memorable vigor of the image is itself suggestive, especially in the absence of textual witness to the contrary, that the Tempter appeared as a serpent.44 Eve, of course, does not behold the Tempter’s departure from Hell, though presumably she does glimpse his departure from Eden. We noted in Chapter IV the illustrations of the temptation scenes in the manuscript. Perhaps only tenuously might these drawings be associated with the Old Saxon poet. But if, as I suggested, the illustrator was showing how in Genesis B the Tempter came to appear to Eve and then to Adam, the drawings would indicate that what Eve thought she saw and what Adam came to believe he saw was a majestic and commanding figure. Without a fæst geleafa of her own and against such a figure as well as against his weaponry of words Eve has no discourse, let alone rational discourse. It can reasonably be asked, does not the inference that wacran hige alludes to Eve’s resolve and not her intellect invalidate the inference that the tribus modis rationale governs the temptations and their outcome in Genesis B? For the rationale posits Adam as ratio, and the discrediting of the view that wacran hige imputes a lesser intellect to Eve would seem to deprive the rationale of strong support. My own answer is that the rationale is valid still. Again we are reminded of C. S. Lewis’s observation that “nearly all moralists before the eighteenth century regarded Reason as the organ of morality,” and further, that “nearly all of them believed the fundamental moral maxims were intellectually grasped.” As we noted in Chapter III, it is consistent with this observation that Adam’s speech as ratio demonstrates “merely prudence, obedience, and faith” but nothing that amounts to a stunning display of

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intellect. Correspondingly, Eve’s response to the boda, non-verbal though it was, demonstrates a lack not of intellect but rather of resolve, of morale. She is frightened almost out of her wits. But also correspondingly, the clause hæfde hire wacran hige / metod gemearcod, it is important to note, addresses only Eve’s resolve. It implies nothing by way of comparison or contrast between her intellect and Adam’s. We shall touch further on this issue in Chapter VIII.

Patriarchaism and Then Some Another instance of dramatic irony in which the presence of poetical wit has hardly been suspected is this passage: swa hire eaforan sculon æfter lybban: þonne hie lað gedoð hie sculon lufe wyrcean, 625   betan heora hearran hearmcwide ond habban his hyldo forð. ‘So (or ‘in like manner’) her posterity ought (here)after to live: when they do a hateful thing they must work (bring about) love: (625) amend malicious speech (towards) their lord and have his favor (thence)forth.’45

For years a critical dispute has been whether this passage, which offers no real problems as to lexicon, grammar, or syntax, continues the boda’s speech beginning in line 611, or whether it resumes the narrator’s account. In other words, is the passage the narrator’s gnome, or is it the boda’s pseudo-gnome, part of his armory of lies? I have tried to show in earlier papers that the lines continue, and conclude, the boda’s speech; the present discussion, then, will recapitulate the old and adduce some new evidence, especially of the kind which notes the bearing of the passage in question on elements in the boda’s speech beginning at line 611 but also in his speech in lines 547–87.46 A very strong reason for taking the passage as the words of the narrator has seemed to be the pronoun MS hire 623. It is obvious, of course, that if we accept MS hire as third-person feminine singular and then try to take the lines as the boda’s, we must ask why he said ‘her’ when, as it seems, in addressing Eve, he ought to have said either *þine ‘your (singular)’ or *incre ‘your (dual)’ or perhaps *his. It should surprise no one to learn that editors, in desperation, often emend here.47 But in the first place, we must note that much the same question can be asked as to the narrator. True, grammatical person is now no problem, nor is number. But gender is: would, could the narrator have said ‘her posterity’?

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So far as I know, hire ‘her’ in hire eaforan 623 has occasioned no disquietude in the breasts of modern readers; we rest easy with ‘her posterity.’ But an ancient audience might well have sat up in, to say the least, surprise. ‘Her posterity’ forsooth! For patriarchal habits of mind profoundly governed the speech of the Old and Anglo-Saxons, and only in rare circumstances did they qualify a term for “descendants” with a feminine possessive, as in hire eaforan.48 Thus Satan is quite conventionally sexist in his wish þæt we on adame . . . and on his eafrum swa some andan gebetan ‘that we make good (our) vengeance on Adam and on his posterity as well’ 398–99. It must be acknowledged that Genesis B is unapologetically sexist. In that respect it was but of its time. Rosemary Woolf remarks the bias of early Christianity as well as of Germanic society: The tradition of the Church was quite plain, with its basis in the famous comment of St. Paul, “Mulieres viris suis subditae sint sicut Domino” [Ephesians 5:22] and in the influential image of the relationship of husband to wife as that of Christ to the Church. In the Commentary on Genesis, St. Augustine extracted this Pauline didactic idea precisely from the situation of Adam and Eve, “sicut vir debet feminam regere, nec eam permittere dominari in virum.” Nor was there any element in Germanic society or literary conventions which could have made the Church’s teaching strange or uncongenial or which could have led to the idea of female mastery losing its traditional unnaturalness.49

She might have added both that the ancient author of Genesis 3 was hardly free of this bias and that the Frankish church, as will be noted in more detail in Chapter VIII, maintained the misogynic strain of the earlier church. Nor were the ancient authors of the tribus modis rationale of sin, with its sexual focus and its accommodation to the account of the Fall in Genesis 3, immune to patriarchal bias, nor is it unreasonable to infer that for his narrative of the Fall an Old Saxon poet availing himself of the tribus modis rationale might exploit, in hire ‘her’ 623, the misogyny of the Frankish church. Nor, it would seem, was the ancient Indo-European cultural background of Germanic peoples, including the Saxons, disposed to extend equality to womankind. Although, as will also be noted in Chapter VIII, Germanic peoples accorded their womenfolk esteem and certain privileges, nevertheless the large number of reconstructed Indo-European kinship terms, as Calvert Watkins explains, “are agreed in pointing to a society that was patriarchal, patrilocal (the bride leaving her household to join that of her husband’s family), and patrilineal (descent reckoned by the male line).” Edgar Polomé concurs: “Indo-European society, as far as we can judge, was agnatic and ethnocentric, its basic unit being the patriarchal, patrilinear, and

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essentially patrilocal extended family.”50 Watkins and Polomé are referring, of course, to prehistoric Indo-European society. But both Old English and Old Saxon poetical texts show the retention of ancient cultural preference whereby descent is reckoned patrilineally rather than matrilineally. I noted in an earlier paper that in . . . contexts, including those in which the concern is to indicate personal or family or tribal lineage or to indicate more remote as well as immediate descendants, the overwhelming preference is to indicate the male parent or progenitor. Specifically, in Old Saxon and Old English poetry, with the nouns barn/bearn, sunu, and ab¯aro/eafora there are few genitives of parentage which refer to a female, with barn/bearn and sunu not even a dozen. When the emphasis is not simply on child-bearing or birth, the genitive adjuncts to eaforan/ab¯aron widely acknowledge the father, the mother but rarely. In this syntactical plight the mother almost never can claim the eaforan as solely her own; about the best she can do is to share with the father.51

If, as we saw in Chapter III, Adam is God’s soldier, then Eve, a modern reader might suppose, is or ought to be just as much God’s soldier. But if the poem admits this, it does so only grudgingly. Yes, Adam and Eve together are taken as God’s geongran/gingran ‘servants’ 450, 458. But consider the terms hyldo and þegn. The former, though not an uncommon word in the poem, is used sparely and obliquely of Eve’s relation to God. Twice, in his hyldo is unc betere ‘his favor is better for us’ 659 and unc is his hyldo þearf ‘his favor is a necessity for us’ 664, it is Eve herself who intimates that she shares, or that she ought to share, this favor with Adam. Only once, in hæfde godes hyldo, / lare forlæten ‘(she) had abandoned God’s favor (and) teaching’ 771–72, is it said that such favor was hers, and then, of course, only after she had lost it. Similarly, or perhaps worse, with þegn. Why men are called þegns in Genesis B we began to see in Chapter III and will see more clearly still in Chapter VI. But Eve is never said in any direct way, as Adam is, to be God’s þegn. Often in the poem, in reference to humankind, the male term subsumes the female. Twice, at the point of Eve’s eating the fruit, the poet observes the calamitous result in male terms: þegn swa monig 597 and men . . . þegnas 640– 41. Nowhere in the Heliand or the Old Saxon Genesis does thegan denote a female person; the phrase thegnos endi thiornun ‘thanes and serving-women’ in Genesis 104 (Genesis 5:4) illustrates the point. The very limited reference in our poem to female beings as such resulted from the ancient prejudice as reflected significantly, perhaps, in two contemporary factors: 1) a probable semantic restriction of Old Saxon huldi and thegan to male persons, despite the abandonment of reciprocity and the restriction of meaning (in religious

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contexts, at any rate) to the favor which the chieftain bestows on loyal subordinates; and 2) the circumstance that the poet, as a man of his time, and certainly in the light of the tribus modis rationale, saw Adam and his obedience as the more important of the two.52 Rather curiously, then, whereas editors and others have taken the passage as the narrator’s because hire ‘her’ is third-person, they should have taken it as the boda’s because hire is feminine. The poet himself, by no means, as we are coming to see, an unlearned man, was probably a cleric who shared, as his knowledge and use of the tribus modis rationale would suggest, the prejudice of his church. The poet’s prejudice, one can reasonably suppose, is reflected in the speech of the narrator. The narrator, then, would probably not have said “her.” But the boda, as we shall see, has good reason for doing so. The allusion to ‘her posterity’ in line 623 exploited medieval sexual prejudice—which, oddly, modern criticism of Genesis 623–25 seems to have overlooked. Indeed, the narrow context of hire eaforan ‘her posterity’ 623 would point to the boda, and not the narrator, as the speaker here. The phrase follows hard upon lines in which the boda has been enticing Eve into corrupting Adam. The response of especially a male audience to “her posterity,” one surmises, would have been to perceive that the passage was the boda’s and the phrase a part of his deceit. Their perception would not, I think, have been as difficult to arrive at as it might seem to us; their relative ease, as opposed to our tardiness, would lie principally in the difference between the ancient and a common modern perception of the Devil. The role of the Devil in the tribus modis rationale testifies, of course, to the fear of the Devil in early medieval times. We shall see, in Chapter VII, far more evidence of how much the Saxon poet’s contemporaries feared the Devil and his crew and how the poet introduced this terror, or rather the response to this terror, into his poem. Just now certain marginalia in the Genesis B text in MS Junius 11 might testify unobtrusively to such fear on the part, apparently, of its scribe. In The Vercelli Book, Kenneth Sisam explains, the sequence xb¯ “is a prayer . . . probably X(riste) b(enedic).”53 That same sequence occurs in the Junius Manuscript twice, in the leaves, in fact, of the Genesis B text, once on p. 18 as [x]b¯ (where [x] has, apparently, been worn away), and once as xb¯ on p. 36, both times close to the outer edge and near enough to the top of the page so that neither can be mistaken even momentarily as a correction or gloss to the text. On page 18 the text gives the name satan twice (lines 344, 347) and on page 35, near the bottom of the page, it again gives the name satan (line 761); these are the only occurrences of the name in the poem as we have it. Is the proximity twice of name satan and prayer x(riste) b(enedic) coincidence merely?

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Given their probable apprehension of the Devil as the Father of Lies, it would seem quite possible, perhaps likely, that many among an early audience of Genesis B, upon hearing ‘posterity’ styled not ’his’ but ‘her’—an attribution so pernicious, so corruptive of custom and propriety, specifically of male prerogative—would fairly promptly have come to an obvious conclusion as to who speaks lines 623–25. The Devil, who has been laboring through line 622 to corrupt Adam through Eve, is still at it. At it indeed: the boda here is pretending to repeat, for the edification of Eve, what, as God’s messenger, he feigns to have heard in Heaven, even, perhaps, from God himself. He is not addressing Eve directly, but is reciting something for Eve to hear and relish. Hence the third-person hire. For if, as Morton W. Bloomfield says, God “speaks through prophets in riddles, gnomes and proverbs” to later humankind, and if the boda had earlier told Adam that ic gehyrde hine þine dæd and word / lofian on his leohte ‘I heard him (i.e., God) praise thy word and deed in his light’ 507–08, why should it be taken as unlikely that the boda might now imply to Eve that earlier in Heaven he had heard God speak such a gnome?54 How gratifying to Eve, who, now that she has eaten the fruit, is surely no less susceptible to flattery than she was before, when hire ‘her’ 623 implies, as his final deceitful blandishment, that posterity is hers and when the third person form and the seemingly gnomic cast of the whole declaration intimate to her that the boda is echoing established and accepted truth, the wisdom of Heaven and even of God himself. In sum, a circumstance internal to the poem, i.e., that the passage immediately follows what are unquestionably the words of the boda, and two very broad and external conditions, i.e., the patrilineal tradition and the pervasive medieval fear of the Devil, conspire with that noxious hire ‘her’ to point to the boda as the speaker of the gnome. The gnome, or rather, the pseudo-gnome, and its meaning and language can also be considered in the light of two quite different contexts: that of gnomic poetry as a whole, and that of the words and sense of the gnome itself as it is located in the poem, especially in relation to the boda’s words which precede the passage. The passage seems to imply that forgiveness is readily come by: lufe wyrcean, betan . . . hearmcwide, habban . . . hyldo. But the idea that forgiveness of wrongdoing is so obtained runs counter to the normally pessimistic and minatory tone of ancient gnomic utterance. Such a tone is notably present in a gnome, without doubt the words of the narrator, which follows very shortly the passage in question in Genesis B (and which therefore illustrates both sorts of contexts):

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bið þam men ful wa 635   þe hine ne warnað þonne he his geweald hafað.

The sentence ‘Great woe is to the man / who takes no heed when he has power (or, control) of it’ accords ill with a passage which implies that no wa need ensue, that one’s atonement can restore hyldo. Surely it is not surprising that two passages so close to each other and yet so disparate in implication might mean two different speakers. The form of Genesis 623–25 resembles that of Beowulf 2029–31 Oft seldan hwær / æfter leodhryre lytle hwile / bongar bugeð, þeah seo bryd duge ‘Often, the deadly spear rests only for a short time after the death of a prince, though the bride be good.’ In the view of Susan Deskis this Beowulf passage is an “attempt to give sentential form to a non-proverbial statement.”55 But whereas both passages exhibit gnomic form, the Genesis passage exceeds by far the Beowulf passage in its reversal of gnomic sense; its sentiment is not only non-proverbial but as “gnomic” utterance defies other gnomic statements in Genesis B and even “defies not only a widely attested but an ancient tradition.”56 The gist of the lines, Doane declares, taking the passage as the narrator’s, is that “sin is unavoidable but a remedy is available.”57 But this Christian-sounding ring is quite out of tune with the sound of gnomic saying otherwise. I agree with Doane’s view, cited earlier, that “the Saxon Genesis” “works as a moral poem by forcing the audience to exercise correct perception and correct choice, to participate in the action of the poem.”58 Yet this evaluation and his reading of lines 623–25 are disjunctive. If “the Saxon Genesis” works as “a moral poem,” why do lines 623–25, if they are the narrator’s, contravene the usual import of gnomic saying? The term hearmcwyde in the phrase heora hearran hearmcwyde 625 is also evidence that the passage is the boda’s. Given its context, hearran must, I think, be taken as objective in function, so that hearmcwyde means ‘evil speaking, slander’ against (and not on the part of) the lord; whether we take the passage as the narrator’s or the boda’s there is no possibility that it is the hearra here whose speech offends.59 But the offense, the lað 624, turns out to be curiously specific, hearmcwyde. It would seem to have to allude to the boda’s allegation that Adam had spoken womcwidas ‘slanders, blasphemies’ 621 against him; fela he me laðes spræc ‘he spoke much ill (against) me’ 622. Note too þæt me hearmes swa fela / adam gespræc, . . . tyhð me untryowða, cwyð þæt ic seo teonum georn ‘ that Adam said so much of evil about me, . . . accuses me of treachery, says that I am adept in injuring.’ 579–81. Actually, of course, Adam had slandered no one; all that he did, for very good reason, was to rebuff the boda.

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With hearmcwyde we have obviously turned to the second sort of context, the boda’s words in the pseudo-gnome as they relate to his earlier words. His hearmcwyde sustains and magnifies the untruths the boda told Eve when, at the end of his first speech, he imputed nales godes engel ‘not at all God’s angel’ 582, and so on, to Adam. Perhaps it is this discrepancy between fact and claim which underlies Doane’s assertion that “the passage is awkward and seems to introduce a sudden new thought.”60 Let us consider these charges. That of sudden newness of thought can readily be dismissed. When taken as part of the boda’s speech, betan . . . hearmcwyde embellishes his previous argument: he has just told Eve that although Adam has spoken evilly against him, he will not hold Adam’s womcwidas ‘evil speaking, reviling, slander, blasphemy’ 621 against him. So too lað 624 alludes to fela . . . laðes 622. Also the boda, purporting to instruct Eve about how an offending posterity can stave off punishment, has just said that an offending Adam can stave it off: gif giet þurh cuscne siodo / læst mina lara, þonne gife ic him þæs leohtes genog ‘if still, through pure custom, he carries out my instructions, then I (will) give him a sufficiency of understanding’ 618–19. The negatively phrased ne wite ic him þa womcwidas ‘nor do I reproach him on account of the blasphemies’ 621 and now also the positively phrased betan heora hearran hearmcwide ‘amend malicious speech towards their lord’ 625 both purport to concern forgiveness for an offense, Adam’s against the boda, ‘her’ posterity’s against their lord, presumably God. Also swa 623 helps to identify the parallel between Adam’s situation and recourse and that of posterity; Sehrt observes that when Old Saxon sô is used “[z]ur Einführung eines Nachsatzes, . . . oft mit allgemeiner Hindeutung auf das Vorhergehende,” ‘it can mean ‘dann, dementsprechend, demgemäß, desgleichen.’ Note also Old English swa in the sense ‘in like manner.’61 When the lines are taken as the boda’s, awkwardness is absent and continuity is present in the context. The MS reading hire is intact, and there is no grammatical or syntactical impediment. Doane’s assertion as to the passage’s awkwardness and newness of thought has validity only if the lines are taken as the narrator’s.62 If the gnome is the narrator’s, he is admonishing the reader or listener concerning an offense that in the poem has not been committted. The pseudo-gnome declares that ‘her posterity,’ having offended, might, in time, recover their Lord’s favor. Doane comments that “comfortable words (however cold) of any sort and especially those that intimate a reconciliation of God and man do not fit the sentiments we can imagine the tempter expressing at this delicate moment.”63 But the passage is not to be taken as the boda’s real sentiments but only his pretended sentiments. Such

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favor would be the last thing that the boda would want posterity to have. He intends the damnation of Adam as well as of Eve, but until Adam eats he must pose as God’s messenger, and it serves his purpose more to seem to offer Eve the possibility and hope of reconciliation. Critics of the most varied persuasions acknowledge that especially in his addresses to Eve the boda uses truth and half-truth to his advantage. Susan Burchmore observes that as the Tempter goes from Adam to Eve, “his rhetoric becomes more subtle, his lies more ‘truthful’”; Susannah Mintz observes that “what makes the tempter’s speech to Eve even more tangled is its slippery inversion of ‘truth.’”64 It is a little strange that such perceptions have not been brought to support the inference that lines 623–25, subtle and slippery as they are, are part of the Tempter’s speech to Eve. Such truthfulness as found there, though suited to the boda’s purpose, is of course unwitting: in his fauxprophecy the boda thinks the restoration of hyldo an impossibility, whereas the audience knows otherwise. The dramatic irony is the knowledge that the deceiver is deceived. But until the very end, when Adam too has fatally partaken and his ruse can be abandoned, the boda must sail under false colors. Were we to regard as history the narrative of Genesis B, it would become the oldest trick in the book. If, as Bloomfield says, God “speaks through prophets in riddles, gnomes and proverbs” the devil can do so too, can quote scripture, or what looks like scripture. In doing so he becomes a false prophet. Such a being, God declares in Deuteronomy 18:20 (Vulgate), is arrogantia depravatus ‘depraved by arrogance’: Propheta autem qui arrogantia depravatus voluerit loqui in nomine meo, quae ego non praecepi illi ut diceret . . . interficietur.65 In the present instance, then, the boda’s gnome is worse than hearmcwyde ‘slander’; it approaches blasphemy. The boda, in decrying Adam’s alleged hearmcwyde, utters his very own womcwide. The dramatic irony entailed in the pseudo-gnome equals that in his declaration that for ‘her posterity’ God is sceaðena mæst ‘(the) greatest of enemies.’ Flattery has no small role in the beguiling of Eve. In his first speech the boda promises the power not only to see Heaven but also to govern, indeed to rescue, her pitifully recusant spouse. We noted in Part I of this chapter how the boda, in his first address to Eve, assured her that she might govern Adam’s will and so bring the two of them out of peril; note especially meaht þu adame eft gestyran ‘you can govern (‘steer’) Adam in turn’ 568. In his second address, after Eve has eaten, the boda exhorts her, sæge adame hwilce þu gesihðe hæfst, / cræfta þurh mine cime ‘tell Adam what vision you have, (what) strengths, through my coming!’ 617–18.66 And then, only a few lines later, the pseudo-gnome.

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With the pseudo-gnome the boda excels himself. It is, or purports to be, an appeal to authority, indeed to the highest of authorities, the intent of which, besides the blandishment of hire ‘her,’ is to intimate to Eve that the procedural mode for hard cases like Adam’s has already been decreed, and therewith instituted, from on high. In order to be able to appeal to such authority and to convince Eve that his gnome is of heavenly origin, the boda has first to establish his own credentials, i.e., to claim to know the affairs of Heaven. We saw some of his cautiousness in Chapter IV. An especially pertinent passage is lines 583–86, in which the boda assures Eve as to his informed and busy career in the heavenly comitatus: ic cann ealle swa geare engla gebyrdo, heah heofena gehlidu. wæs seo hwil þæs lang 585   þæt ic geornlice gode þegnode þurh holdne hyge. ‘but I know even (the) angels’ origins, (the) heavens’ high vaults. That time was so long that I eagerly served God through loyal spirit.’

The passage has not received much critical attention. Yet its range of assertion is extraordinary. On the one hand, the boda implies that he has a comprehensive knowledge of heavenly time (in engla gebyrdo and wæs seo hwil þæs lang) and of locale (in heah heofena gehlidu). On the other hand, again reflecting the Carolingian disposition to see angelic life as a transcendent version of the earthly comitatus, the boda claims (in geornlice gode þegnode) familiarity, perhaps even close acquaintance, with God himself. In other words, he hints that both broad facts and narrow details are his. He is the ultimate, the consummate, insider.67 The boda follows up this groundwork by characterizing the contrition he demanded of Adam as taking place þurh cuscne siodo ‘through pure custom’ 618, where siodo presumably renders Old Saxon sidu ‘Sitte, Gebrauch, Gewohnheit; custom, usage, habit.’68 Both þurh cuscne siodo and the pseudognome which follows imply that what the boda counsels is the already decreed, hence the normal and legitimate, course of action. The pseudo-gnome with its insidious hire is the culmination of a theme which informs, suffuses, the boda’s speeches to Eve. We noted in Chapter III that among Adam’s reasons for refusing the boda’s behest was the latter’s claim to serve as God’s proxy. In addressing Eve the boda no more than intimates the proxy element (e.g., þæt ic from gode brohte ‘[the visual power] that I brought from God’ 615). But certainly he retains the idea of a gift or gifts as a reward for compliance, of which he assures her before she eats and

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verbally affirms as hers after she does so. In a later chapter we shall refer in some further detail to the attitude of the Carolingian church toward women. May it suffice just now to note that the gift, or gifts, which the boda speaks of is one, or several such, which the practice of the Carolingian church as well as an apparently fairly wide acceptance of the tribus modis rationale of sinfulness might well credit the devil as offering to the woman Eve: the infamous counsel, now overt, now insinuated, that her authority, physical capability, her wisdom, indeed her renown to come, equals, or should and will equal and even exceed, that of Adam. Besides failing to see the mutual bearing of the boda’s earlier words and the words of his pseudo-gnome, modern criticism of lines 623–25 has, in sum, failed to bring to bear on the passage patrilineal custom, clerical misogyny, and the ancient cultural disposition to speak in proverbs, to store its truth, severe and pessimistic, in handy saws to be quoted opportunely.69 For if, as Blanche Colton Williams observes, a gnomic saying “promulgates principles of law and morality; in short, it is the vehicle of the ethical code,” then its very form conduces to enforce the sentiment or rule its words convey.70 There has furthermore been a failure to note that the MS text of Genesis B, like other Old English poetical texts, resembles, though without parenthetical cues, the script of a play, to be not merely spoken but spoken with appropriate nuance of voice and posture—perhaps, for the passage in question, some sort of vatic intonation or gesture. And perhaps with loudness: Eric Jager infers from strangre stemne ‘(with) strong voice’ 525 that “Adam is very likely indicating that God spoke in a loud, even thundering manner.” Cf. Psalm 28:3 Vox Domini super aquas; Deus maiestatis intonuit; Revelation 21:3 vocem magnam de throno. Since the boda is quite possibly intimating that he is quoting God, it would be appropriate for a reciter to speak here “in a loud, even thundering manner.”71 Once we can dismiss the objections to taking lines 623–25 as the boda’s pseudo-gnome, there remains the imagination and capability of the poet as an issue in the reading of the passage. Taking the passage as the boda’s permits us to see the Old Saxon poet of Genesis B as far more talented than we have supposed. Fundamentally, the impediment to understanding the passage may have been the unconscious assumption that the poet could not have been sufficiently gifted to end the boda’s speech so adroitly. We can reasonably assume that the poet had awareness of Germanic patriarchy and the general disposition of Germanic gnomic sentence. It was his excellence of wit which saw how these awarenesses might be combined, and each as it were perverted, so as to constitute a pseudo-gnome as a weapon for the deception of Eve.

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In the emphasis it gives to and the ingenuity it attributes to the deceptions and cunning of devil’s messenger, Genesis B far outshines passages in other Old English and Old Saxon poems relating to the Fall. We note here, as we noted earlier in the ominous litotes þæt git ne læstan wel, the boda’s talent for falsehood in the faux-prophecy with its insinuation hire eaforan. A very large measure of the poet’s wit finds expression through the boda’s malice and duplicity; the serpent of Genesis 3 is an amateur in comparison to the boda of Genesis B. Such emphasis is consistent with what has often been remarked: the poet’s inclination to convey some mitigation especially of Eve’s guilt. Lines 549–51 provide a parallel to the passage in lines 623–25. The latter passage takes gnomic form, whereas the former does not. But both, I conclude, are the boda’s mendacities as to posterity’s future. Despite their separation in the text by almost seventy-five lines, the passages might constitute, as I have argued in an earlier paper, an envelope pattern for the bulk of the boda’s two addresses to Eve. The verbal components of the envelope are the words eaforan/eaforum (. . .) æfter ‘descendants . . . after(wards)’ 550 and 623; the notional component is what the boda successively asserts, one way or another, as to the fate of these descendants. In this instance the circumstance that two utterances differ significantly in implication does not signify different speakers. The boda ignores consistency and says whatever serves his purpose. The earlier passage, pronouncing the ruination of their offspring, helps to intimidate Eve; the later, purporting to offer for posterity the restoration of hyldo, helps to relieve her anxiety and bolster her vanity and so to preserve her utility in bringing Adam also to ruin. The implicit contradiction between sceaðena mæst eallum heora eaforum æfter siððan 549–50 and swa hire eaforan sculon æfter lybban 623 is simply ignored. Both the threat and the promise are lies, of course, but useful nevertheless. At the outset, the boda, wraðmod ‘furious’ at Adam’s refusal, terrifies Eve with his threat; then, when she has eaten, he soothes her with a will-o’-the-wisp notion of restoration of hyldo. Hence siodo 618 and the pseudo-gnome. To his assurance of restoration is joined the flattering intimation that posterity is not Adam’s but hers. And if posterity is hers, then the task of saving that posterity is hers also. And should posterity be delivered, then to Eve as the instrument of their salvation would belong the glory. Moreover: The two parts of the envelope, the first terrifying, the second ostensibly friendly, serve to emphasize the shift in message and tone from the beginning to the end of the tempter’s addresses to Eve and therewith to show the extent of her collapse. Her apparent susceptibility to the intimidation of the first passage is evidence of her distance from wisdom; her susceptibility to the

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blandishments of the second reveals how far she succumbs in the meantime to the tempter’s will. The harshness of the words imputed to the tempter in the first passage and the egregiousness of his prophecy in the second demonstrate the seductive powers which effect this change. Though in indirect speech, the threat that an enemy will afflict posterity is dramatic in presentation: sudden in onset, . . . superlative and extreme in its phrasing: “greatest of enemies,” “ever afterwards”; and hysterological and inclusive, in that “(to) all their descendants” subsumes and anticipates the dual pronouns of the following direct speech.72

It might be asked what difference it makes to a reading of Genesis B whether lines 549–51 are to be read as ‘he said that the greatest of enemies . . .’ or ‘spoke that greatest of enemies . . .’ and whether or not lines 623–25 are to be included as part of the boda’s speech. The answer is that to read as Doane proposes is not only to ignore grammatical and syntactical factuality in the earlier passage but also in both passages to lose a good deal of the insidiousness in the boda’s temptation of Eve. To take the later passage as the narrator’s is to lose a sense of the boda’s assuagement of the fear he aroused. It would of course have been truthful and not inappropriate for the narrator in the first passage to denounce the boda as sceaðena mæst ‘greatest of ‘enemies’; we see equivalent denunciations elsewhere in the text. But the wrenching of grammar and syntax for such a reading is unbearable. And the racking is just part of the problem. Such denunciations are hardly part of the poem’s wit. Their directness and truthfulness have nothing to do with innuendo or slander, those favored weapons in the boda’s armory which are amply displayed in the boda’s first speech to Eve as well as in his second. As we have noted, the first speech allows the boda to condemn himself. But that is only a part of the drama. The reading ‘he said that the greatest of enemies . . .’ in the first passage and the inclusion of lines 623–25 as the end of the boda’s speech add greatly to the subtlety, and therefore to the strength and dangerousness, of his temptation of Eve. The reading ‘spoke that greatest of enemies . . .’ verbalizes the danger for the poem’s audience, but the reading ‘he said that the greatest of enemies . . .’ verbalizes the danger not only for the audience but for Eve as well. Moreover, to expunge, through misreading, one or another of the boda’s rhetorical triumphs is to diminish his insidiousness and therefore his strength as the adversary of Adam and especially of Eve. The unfortunate consequence of the misreadings is to lessen the excitement of the narrative and of our perception of the comedic imperative at the turn which informs the end of Genesis B as we have it.

CHAPTER VI

“God was Himself a Warlord”

We come now to what I suspect a good many students will have found to be the most challenging and certainly the most curious passage in Genesis B: the micel wundor passage in lines 595–98, just before the moment when Eve eats of the fruit (Heo þa þæs ofætes æt 599). Set forth in poetical lines but without internal punctuation the passage appears thus: 595                þæt is micel wundor þæt hit ece god æfre wolde þeoden þolian þæt wurde þegn swa monig forlædd be þam lygenum þe for þam larum com.

I refrain, for the moment, from essaying a more or less word by word translation of the whole passage. The main question in the passage is not what it is that the poet says is a micel wundor ‘great wonder’—for in that regard the sense is fairly clear—but rather why he takes it so: why did the poet say it was a great ‘wonder,’ with the strong implication ‘curiosity,’ that eternal God would suffer such deception or seduction?1 In light of this question, the approach must be, I think, to evaluate first the grammatical form and the syntactical bearing of the very problematical MS þe in the final clause. The elucidation of þe and its clause will help to explain why the poet took God’s sufferance to be the micel wundor. A fair number of scholars over many years have addressed the passage. Gustav Ehrismann found the answer to “why” to be the poet’s innocence: “in seinem naiven Gerechtigkeitssinn sucht der Dichter eine Erklärung dafür, 139

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dass der ewige Gott die Verführung des Menschen durch den Teufel zuliess, und findet keine andere als: das ist ein grosses Wunder (ags. Gen. 595ff.).”2 Erhard Hentschel comments that “den Dienst, den ein Mensch in getreuer Gesinnung Gott gegenüber zu tun sich anschickt, kann der Gläubiger nicht ausrichten, ohne die schmerzliche Erfahrung zu machen, daß Gott den Abfall, das Herausfallen aus seinem Willen, zuläßt.”3 Charles Kennedy also, though less certainly, perhaps, than either Ehrismann or Hentschel, is of their opinion as to the poet’s understanding: “after the Fall of Eve, the poet can only marvel that the Almighty has permitted this evil to come to pass.” He follows with a reading of the passage which (as we shall see) mistranslates its final clause.4 More recently, Michael Cherniss, without translating but perhaps echoing Ehrismann’s view as to the poet’s supposed naive sense of justice, says that the lines “raise serious doubts in our minds about [the poet’s] theological competence, and thereby lend support to our view of the poem as an essentially Germanic heroic work.”5 Finally, Doane goes beyond all these to surmise the divine logic behind such micel wundor: “the amazement is occasioned by the realization that God will endure injury to his creation in order to confirm its freedom”—an assessment which we shall consider in due course.6 Yet freedom of the will came doctrinally to prevail in the Carolingian church as it prevailed in the Anglo-Saxon church. It is therefore curious, to say the least, that the Old Saxon poet, who shows strong signs otherwise of being a fairly learned person, should reveal such naiveté, or perhaps ignorance, as these several scholars impute to him; their criticism seems almost to amount to a view that the poet never encountered the issue of freedom of the will until he was challenged by the narrative of Genesis 3. Their concern to explain the passage is, however, understandable; I know of nothing elsewhere in Old English Christian poetry quite comparable to the micel wundor passage. No scholar that I know of appears to surmise that the micel wundor passage is either an interpolation into the text of Genesis B or some drastic corruption of an earlier and less surprising statement; apparently the passage is thought to render faithfully the sentiment of the Old Saxon poet. Indeed, the present reading of the micel wundor passage will be seen to depend on the inference that it too derives from the Old Saxon Genesis and was not the addition of a possibly Anglo-Saxon translator. Paul Cavill argues cogently, largely on lexical grounds, that gnomic expressions in Genesis B derive from the Old Saxon Genesis.7 The circumstance that Genesis 598a forlædd be þam lygenum is nigh identical, mutatis mutandis, with Heliand 1037a forlêdda mid luginum (the role of exceptive þam in the Old English will be noted shortly) is lexical evidence that our passage represents such derivation. But still stronger evidence of its

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Old Saxon origin is that, as I hope the present chapter will show, the micel wundor passage finds a clear and reasonable interpretation only in continental, i.e., Carolingian and Old Saxon, and not in insular, Anglo-Saxon, terms. What I have called “the comedic imperative” of Christian narrative posits a confidence on the part of the narrator that the ordeal of his hero or heroes will end in salvation and eternal bliss. Such an outcome posits in turn an utter belief that God will effect this salvation. To be sure, the micel wundor passage says nothing in any direct way beyond wurde . . . forlædd about the final spiritual condition of þegn swa monig ‘so many (a) thane.’ Nevertheless, the sentiment of the passage, as Ehrismann and others have understood it, is hardly such as to encourage the view that the narrator entertained such confidence and belief. Any study attempting to identify Genesis B as a poem reflecting the comedic imperative—which term would imply for Adam and Eve some indication at the end of the poem that they too will know salvation—must therefore respond to the comments on the passage which Ehrismann and others have offered. Adam, one supposes, would have to be taken as the first of þegn swa monig to be forlædd be þam lygenum ‘seduced by these lies’; forlædd he is indeed by the end of the poem. The micel wundor passage is thus akin to lines 549–51 and 623–25 in that the failure to see the meaning of its text has greatly impeded recognition of the poem’s comedic imperative. The present response will consider not only lexical and syntactical problems in the passage itself but also larger questions of context: the question certainly of the poet’s theological competence but also of the conception of God and Christ on the part of newly converted Germanic folk. My contention will be that the passage, so far from stirring admiration for the poet’s naive sense of justice or raising doubts about his theological competence, is rather to be seen as the poet’s quite natural and almost, one might say, inevitable exclamation, orthodox to the point that in its final clause the passage declares that God has intervened in the matter of the Fall. As to the passage’s witness to “the poem as an essentially Germanic heroic work”—we shall see. It is appropriate to consider first, as a problem especially congenial to philologically inclined Anglo-Saxonists, the final clause in the passage, MS þe for þam larum com. I argued in the first of two earlier articles that the verb þolian 597 meant here, as generally elsewhere,‘(to) endure, suffer’ and not, as commonly understood, ‘(to) allow, permit’ and therefore the grammatical object of þolian indicated “God’s willingness to endure, rather than merely to allow, that His thanes be misled.”8 This inference I still regard as valid philologically; I will try to show in the pages to follow that the reading ‘(to) endure, suffer’ here is highly pertinent to the explanation as to why the poet declares as he does. That the meaning of þolian is ‘(to) endure, suffer’ and

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not ‘(to) allow’ also bears, of course, on the charge, noted earlier, that in Genesis B God is presented as indifferent to the fate of humankind. In the second article I considered the syntactical bearing of the clause þe for þam larum com; I argued that the antecedent and even the grammatical status of what looks like the indeclinable relative particle þe 598 has very probably been mistaken.9 The failure of earlier critics to grasp the import of the micel wundor passage resulted in some measure, I think, from a failure correctly to establish the antecedent or referent of þe 598 and therewith the specific pronominal status of this small word and the syntactical bearing of its clause. No fewer than four different antecedents have been posited for þe, whether retained as relative þe or as emended (as we shall see) to a demonstrative. In itself this number testifies to the prevailing uncertainty as to the meaning and bearing of the clause. One possible candidate has been the boda, although he is not named or even clearly referred to otherwise in the micel wundor passage. The remaining three candidates, all clearly present in the passage, are (þam) lygenum ‘(the/these) lies’ 598, þegn swa monig ‘so many (a) thane’ 597, and ece god . . . þeoden ‘eternal God . . . Chieftain’ 596–97. Kennedy obviously took þe as referring to the boda by translating þe for þam larum com as ‘by one who brought such counsel.’ His reading derived perhaps from K. W. Bouterwek, who imported the boda into the passage by emending þam 598a to þæs and translating ‘durch Lügen dessen verleitet wurden, der wegen dieser Täuschungen gekommen war.’ Several considerations tell against Bouterwek’s reading, one being that instead of for one should expect to in line 598b.10 As for Kennedy’s reading, Bruce Mitchell remarked that the reading ‘tricked with lies by one who brought such counsel’ “does impossible violence to the OE”; he had in mind, I suspect, the contortion which Kennedy requires for þe in order for it to be read as ‘by one who,’ i.e., the boda.11 Mitchell did not explain his verdict “impossible violence,” but Otto Behaghel offered what is at least statistical support for taking þe as nominative and the subject of com. Of relative pronouns which introduce subordinate clauses in the Heliand Behaghel observes that “zwar fungirt sie in weitaus den meisten Fällen als Subject des Satzes.”12 The candidacy of (þam) lygenum ‘(the/these) lies’ is doomed by its plural form. Mitchell observes, though without offering otherwise a solution to the problem of þe, “if þam lygenum is the antecedent, we should expect *comon in the adjective clause, because there is no intervening element between antecedent, relative, and verb.”13 The phrase þegn swa monig ‘so many (a) thane’ was in fact what I earlier took to be the antecedent of þe 598.14 It agrees in number with singular com. But this possibility too must be abandoned. If we take þegn swa monig as

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the antecedent of þe, the phrase for þam larum together with its small, but troublesome, article-demonstrative þam does not make sense with either be þam lygenum 598 or æfter þam larum 592. As I noted in the second of my earlier articles on the micel wundor passage: Many times in Genesis B, as often in other texts, lar means devilish counsel. Whose or which lar is spoken of is otherwise in Genesis B invariably marked, usually by a dependent genitive noun or possessive adjective either with lar itself . . . or with another noun to which lar stands in variation . . . but a few times by an article-demonstrative referring to some counsel mentioned in the preceding context. . . . Thus in lætan æfter þam larum 592 þam refers larum to the evil messenger’s counsel in his speech in lines 551–587 and then reported in the narrator’s summary in lines 588–589. The article-demonstrative þam 598b clearly refers larum to these same wicked counsels as well as to þam lygenum 598a.15

This consideration invalidates, I think, such a translation as that of R. K. Gordon: ‘that so many men should be led astray by lies when they sought for instruction.’ It is unclear to me whether Gordon is taking þe 598 as conjunctive ‘when’ or as pronominal ‘they’ (or as both). But either way, the failure of his translation to accommodate þam 598b is fatal.16 A further objection is that, as we saw in Chapters II and IV, Adam and Eve, and through them presumably posterity, have already received sufficient instruction, at least as regards the matter at hand: do not eat of that one tree’s fruit. J. M. Evans similarly misreads, when, though without translating, he takes the micel wundor passage to instance his view that the poet “maintains a continual contrast between the catastrophic nature of the actual deeds and the goodness of the motives which inspired them.”17 So far as I can see, the only way by which the micel wundor passage might show any “goodness of the motives” which inspired actual deeds would be to read ‘so many a thane . . . who came for counsels.’ But if lygenum 598a and larum 598b refer to the same thing, the boda’s deceptions, and if the presence of þam 598b is to be acknowledged in the translation, taking MS þe to refer to þegn swa monig would in effect have to mean (with relocation of the relative clause) ‘that so many a thane who came for these lies was deceived by these lies.’ But it makes no sense to say that so many a thane ‘came for these lies.’ The remaining possible antecedent within the micel wundor passage is ece god . . . þeoden, and it is ece god . . . þeoden which I would propose as the antecedent of þe 598b. The argument in support of this candidate will, I trust, be consistent with a new, a “Frankish” reading of the whole passage, a reading which may, I think, resolve the micel wundor.

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To begin, then. It appears to me just possible that in Genesis B an indeclinable relative might reach behind one or perhaps even two intermediate nouns to find its antecedent. For instance, in heoldon englas forð / heofonrices hehðe þe ær godes hyldo gelæston 320–21 þe reaches across the phrase heofonrices hehðe to amplify englas. We shall note later why with þe 598 this expedient might have been resorted to. At any rate, two considerations tell against the possibility. The first is that in lines 320–21 only the adverb forð and the phrasal object of the verb heoldon intervene between þe and its antecedent, whereas in lines 596–98 a clause of two whole verses entailing, as we have noted, two putative antecedents of þe comes between þe and a possible antecedent ece god . . . þeoden. My suspicion is that the scholarly reluctance to identify ece god . . . þeoden as the antecedent has rested on the view that an indeclinable relative must be closer to its antecedent than þe is to þeoden. The second consideration is the surprisingly high incidence of indeclinable relative þe in Genesis B as a whole. In the 617 lines of the poem as we have it, pronominal þe occurs twenty-seven times, i.e., once in about twenty-three lines. By way of contrast, in the Heliand, and as identified by Sehrt, indeclinable relative the occurs far more rarely, approximately once in almost 120 lines; and in the Old English Genesis A indeclinable relative þe occurs once in about every seventy lines.18 Especially the second consideration suggests that at least some of the þe forms in Genesis B represent not what in the Old Saxon Genesis text had been indeclinable relative the but rather declinable relative (or perhaps demonstrative) pronouns. A momentary inattentiveness on the translator’s part or on the part of one or another scribe in the course of the text’s transmission might have led to his taking as antecedent to the pronoun in 598b one of the seeming candidates closer than god . . . þeoden. But so far as MS þe 598 is concerned, with a putative antecedent at the remove of two whole verses, a plain linguistic fact would support an emendation of þe to [s]e. Whereas in Old English the relative particle and the nominative singular masculine demonstrative pronoun were formally different, in Old Saxon they were formally identical. Distinguishing between them in Old Saxon would presumably have depended on what the written forms did not indicate, the degree of stress. I therefore surmised, in the second of the earlier papers, that MS þe 598 was the translator’s misreading of Old Saxon demonstrative the (or thie) as the particle the, the equivalent of Old English þe, instead of the demonstrative the, equivalent of Old English se. I thought, therefore, that an emendation of MS. þe to [s]e was probably warranted—the capacity of se/seo/þæt forms as relatives or demonstratives to denote, through number or gender identification, an antecedent preceding intermediate nominals is not in doubt. Especially

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this might be so when, as in the passage in question, that possible antecedent, unlike any other within the micel wundor passage itself, was emphasized through variation (ece god . . . þeoden). It is worth noting that if Old English þe 598, apparently so obviously a relative particle, were put with its clause into Old Saxon, so as to read, with word-for-word substitution, *the for them lêrun quam, it would be quite uncertain, apart from contextual clues, that the was an indeclinable relative and not a demonstrative. One presumes that in speech the demonstrative would have received more stress than the indeclinable relative, but the manuscripts do not inform us here. As to elements collocated with the, Sehrt notes that, apart from preferring to represent an oblique case, “als Relativpartikel ist the sicher belegt, . . . wo es unmittelbar nach einem Demonstrativpronomen steht . . ., und wo es in Verbindung mit dem Personalpronomen erscheint.” Thus the instances of indeclinable relative the which Sehrt recognizes as “sicher belegt” all have either a noun immediately or very shortly preceding as an antecedent or a companion demonstrative or personal pronoun. But Genesis 598 þe has none of these.19 In the passage in question a demonstrative [s]e would refer beyond either lygenum or þegn swa monig to ece god . . . þeoden 596 and 597. The Old English demonstrative se translates not quite perfectly as ‘he’; not quite, because se is a demonstrative and ‘he’ is a personal pronoun. But accepting this imperfection, [s]e for þam larum com would say ‘because of these counsels He’—i.e., the Lord—‘came.’ Thus ece god . . . þeoden, the fourth possible antecedent of þe 598b, becomes in my view by far the most likely. It would allude either to Genesis 3:8 or to the Incarnation, perhaps more specifically to the Harrowing of Hell. Let us hold the last possibility, the Harrowing, in abeyance for a while, and for the moment infer that the allusion is to the Incarnation. It is possible, of course, that this resolution of the problem of MS þe is incorrect. If so, one must consider, I think, that more may have been altered or lost than merely one letter, [s] for þ, at this point. Scholarly reluctance to emend here has of course been strong. But it might be noted that Gordon’s reading ‘who came for instruction’ and Evans’ (inferred) reading ‘who came for counsels’ in effect regard þam 598b as if either deleted from or absent in the text. It is, however, far from clear that þam here can simply be so ignored; if the translator into Old English thought that the presumptive Old Saxon demonstrative here was unnecessary, why did he not leave it out? Perhaps Evans felt that a reading of the ‘when they sought for instruction’ ilk was attractive because it seemed to accord with the view otherwise that the poem reflected an unusual theology and that in Genesis B “the path to Hell is paved with good intentions.” This is unlikely to have been Doane’s view. But his reason for not emending þe here seems to me inadequate. He acknowledges

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my suggested emendation to [s]e but retains þe, adopting my early preference for þegn swa monig as its antecedent and remarking, rather charitably, that my translation “that so many a thane who came to learn was by lies led astray” (in full disdain of both þams, 598a and 598b) is the “the most grammatically plausible” even though I think I showed in the second paper that it isn’t.20 In discussing his editorial principles in his Preface Doane says that “emendations are allowed into the text only where the case is so desperate that it cannot be interpreted according to what we know of the languages and cultures concerned.”21 Now as to MS þe 598b the case is nominative (unless a corruption here is far greater than I think necessary to infer) but otherwise pretty desperate. In retaining þe in his text Doane does not invoke “what we know of the languages and cultures concerned” to defend his retention, whereas at least something of what we know of languages and cultures can be cited in support of its emendation. And [s]e for þe, entailing as it does the change of just one letter and remarking a slight but (as I believe) crucial lexico-grammatical difference between Old Saxon and Old English, has the virtue of simplicity. We are now able, I think, to venture a reasonably valid (though not very graceful) translation of the passage. It entails one or two transpositional concessions to Modern English and also the emendation of MS þe 598. I think its final clause bears significantly on the meaning not only of the passage as a whole but of the poem as a whole and certainly on its ending as an instance of the comedic imperative: ‘that is (a) great wonder, that eternal God would ever, (the) Chieftain, endure/ suffer it, that so many (a) thane should become misled by these lies—because of these counsels he [i.e., eternal God/(the) Chieftain] came.’

We can now address the question of what to make of the great wonder, the micel wundor. Here most of the poem’s editors give the reader little help or none. Krapp takes no notice of the passage. Timmer remarks only that lines 593–97 (i.e., 594–98) are among the passages in which “the poet . . . also turns into a commentator.” My dissertation offers no real elucidation of the matter; it even joins Gordon and others in mistaking þegn swa monig as the antecedent of þe.22 Nor do the editions of Klaeber and of Burkhard Taeger help us out.23 Doane’s view we shall take note of below. It is understandable, of course, that the critics whose responses we noted at the beginning of the chapter mostly give only brief attention to the meaning of the passage; as I have noted, what it is that the poet says is a ‘great wonder’ is quite clear.

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The modern reader trying to grasp the import of the micel wundor passage has, I think, been rather like the person confronting a painting with an anamorphic image without knowing what is needed to resolve his bewilderment. What is needed is a different perspective. In assessing why the poet of Genesis B took as a great wonder God’s enduring or suffering þegn swa monig to be misled, it might be instructive to consider what the evidence suggests as to the mindset of Saxon people not so very many years into their conversion to Christianity. I note at the outset of such consideration that such perceptions as to the Saxon mindset which are remarked in the following pages have for the most part found fairly broad acceptance among students of early Germanic life and religion and of church history, especially of the Germanic conversions. So far as I know, these perceptions have never been brought to bear on Genesis B and especially on its micel wundor passage; they lie off the beaten path and somewhere on the periphery of more narrowly Anglo-Saxon studies. But bringing them to bear might, I think, reasonably explain why the poet thought God’s enduring that the thanes were misled was a micel wundor. And this explanation in turn might explain how the final clause of the passage, [s]e/þe for þam larum com, relates to what precedes it. Such demonstrations would in their turn reconcile the micel wundor passage with the thesis that the poem Genesis B entails a comedic imperative. J. M. Wallace-Hadrill observes that a necessary precondition to converting the tribes dwelling in what we now know as Germany east of the Rhine was the presence nearby of Frankish military power: “no missionary penetration into Germany could ever have been successful that lacked strongholds on the Rhine and outposts beyond it.”24 His observation deserves mention here because the pages to follow will, I think, be seen as quite consistent with previous inferences, especially in Chapter III, as to the martiality of Old Saxon verse. Having noted the precondition to conversion, let us pass over the earliest efforts thereto and come to the stage undertaken prominently by AngloSaxon missionaries. As to the reasons behind this stage of the conversion, Wallace-Hadrill puts a question which I cite here because part of its answer bears on a phenomenon, that of peregrinatio, which we took note of in Chapter II and will remark again in Chapter IX: Why should many of the finest products of a newly converted land turn their attention overseas? One reason—and it was never absent—was the urge to peregrinatio, to sacrificial exile from home; and a very strong sense of home was requisite before this is possible. . . . Another reason was the influence of Rome, powerfully directed towards universal conversion. Stronger than either was the

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teaching of the Bible, because of which peregrinatio dissolved into missio. And what goal more natural for an Anglo-Saxon so inclined than the lands of his Germanic kindred over the sea?25

Whereas Christ himself sought followers among the lowly and despised, the Christian missionaries to Germanic peoples saw, or found, that the quickest way to wide conversion of these folk was through their chieftains and the chieftains’ followers.26 At least one reason for this approach, and a reason quite germane to a resolution of the micel wundor passage, was the hierarchical nature of Germanic society, an important dimension of which was that among Germanic tribes chieftains tended to have sacral functions. To be sure, the very nature of Germanic religious belief differed vastly from that of the new Christian belief. Nevertheless, if a Germanic chieftain could be brought round to baptism, the missionaries would seem to have reasoned, the weight and authority of what was already his sacral function would help to bring round his followers. Cuius regio, eius religio. Centuries before the time of conversion, it is thought, Germanic tribes had had two sorts of rulers, one religious, and one military, but by the time of the conversions to Christianity this was no longer widely the case. James C. Russell, acknowledging the hypothesis of Jan de Vries, explains that “. . . the sacral qualities of the reges . . . [had come to be] assimilated by the duces . . . because of the need for highly organized war confederations during the Völkerwanderungszeit [375–568].”27 Among the Germanic tribes the Saxons were unusual in that into the time of the Frankish conquest they had no kings. They did, however, as we noticed in Chapter III, have a class of noble warriors, the edhilingui, whose position, Goldberg notes, was “analogous to that of the Normans in England after 1066.”28 The conversion of these edhilingui and of Germanic tribal chieftains and their followers generally, beyond baptism and a nominal acceptance of Christianity, necessarily entailed extensive modification of the cultural, ethical, and indeed religious values of a warlike and pagan society. There is good reason for supposing that many such persons were probably not readily disposed through circumstance and temperament to embrace the depth and scope of the Christian faith. Russell cites a passage from Max Weber to afford insights “which may contribute to an understanding of the Merovingian aristocracy’s attitude toward Christianity”: As a rule, the class of warrior nobles, and indeed feudal powers generally, have not readily become the carriers of a rationalistic religious ethic. The life pattern of a warrior has very little affinity with the notion of a beneficent providence,

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or with the systematic ethical demands of a transcendental god. Concepts like sin, salvation, and religious humility have not only seemed remote from all elite political classes, particularly the warrior nobles, but have indeed appeared reprehensible to its sense of honor. To accept a religion that works with such conceptions and to genuflect before the prophet or priest would appear pleb[e] ian and dishonorable to any martial hero or noble person. . . . It is an everyday psychological event for the warrior to face death and the irrationalities of human destiny. Indeed, the chances and adventures of mundane existence fill his life to such an extent that he does not require of his religion (and accepts only reluctantly) anything beyond protection against evil magic or such ceremonial rites as are congruent with his caste, such as priestly prayers for victory or for a blissful death leading directly into the hero’s heaven.29

It should not be surprising, given aristocratic and warrior attitudes, not only that turning such folk even nominally to the Christian faith was an effort of many years but also that the effort resulted in significant changes in the Christianity which they were prevailed upon to accept. In their conversion efforts among Germanic peoples the missionaries stressed, among other considerations, that the Christian god was more powerful than pagan Germanic deities and therefore a mighty stay in times of battle. This emphasis might on occasion receive endorsement from high authorities: it was Bishop Avitus, Russell notes, “who reassured Clovis that the military effectiveness of the Christian baptismal charism would exceed that associated with the charism or Heil of his royal lineage.”30 The drawing card was thus intentional: a god who gave victory in war was what Germanic chieftains wanted. But although an accommodation to Germanic military code, the drawing card risked violation of ancient Christian belief. Russell contends that “in attempting to demonstrate the superior power and reliability of the Christian God, and in employing terms derived from the comitatus institution to convey Christian concepts, advocates of Christianization were implicitly reinterpreting Christianity in accordance with the world-view of the Germanic peoples.”31 Almost certainly the ruling and warrior class among the Germanic converts retained anomalous traditions and beliefs for many years after their acceptance of Christianity. Of “a reflection of the comitatus ethic” in Old English religious poetry Patrick Wormald says: The point that needs emphasis is that this is more than just a literary continuity; the miracle of Caedmon and the opinions of Bede notwithstanding, the idiom of early English Christian poetry is aristocratic, and testifies to the social ambience of Anglo-Saxon Christianity, as much as it does to the range of its literary and patristic learning.

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And again Wormald observes that [w]hen the aristocracies of the barbarian West became Christian, they did not, and they could not, lose their awareness of being aristocracies . . . If we start from this point, the abuses denounced by the Church Fathers may legitimately be seen as evidence, not of Christianity’s failure but of one of its greatest triumphs: it had been successfully assimilated by a warrior nobility, which had no intention of abandoning its culture, or seriously changing its way of life, but which was willing to throw its traditions, customs, tastes and loyalties into the articulation of the new faith, and whose persisting ‘secularity’ was an important condition of the richness of early English Christian civilization.32

The Church’s drawing card was not without effect. Historians of the early medieval church and of the Germanic conversions have noted for some years the motivation of the Germanic kings and chieftains and the success of the missionaries’ accommodating tactic. In his Die Christianisierung der Germanen Hanns Rückert said that “die vorherrschende Stimmung, aus der heraus der Germane den Übertritt vollzog, kleidet sich in unseren Quellen immer wieder in den ganz einfachen Satz: Der Gott des Christentums ist mächtiger als die alten Götter.”33 At some greater length Theodor Schieffer notes that die Annahme des Christentums vollzog sich demnach als ein Wechsel des offiziellen Stammkultes und war insofern auch eine politische Entscheidung zu der in manchen Fällen . . . die Könige mit Zustimmung ihrer Großen das Signal gaben. Sie entsprang nicht etwa der Einsicht, daß der Glaube an den bisherigen Gott eine irreale Vorstellung sei, sondern der Überzeugung, daß sich Christus als der stärkere Gott erwiesen habe.34

And de Vries infers that “es ist auch in vielen Fällen gar nicht die christliche Predigt, die den Übertritt zum Christentum veranlaßt. Die entscheidende Frage ist vielmehr, ob der christliche oder heidnische Gott der stärkere Gott ist.” To instance his point that converts or potential converts esteemed that deity, whether pagan or Christian, which they perceived to be the mightier, the more able, or the more disposed, to act in their behalf, de Vries cites the pagan Frankish king Clovis, who assured his Christian wife that his gods were the stronger, the more able, only to reconsider at the battle of Zülpich, which, after calling for succor upon the God of the Christians, he won— “das aber bestimmt ihn, sich zu bekehren,” along with some three thousand of his warriors.35 So also Edwin, king of the Northumbrians, . . . promisit se abrenuntiatis idolis Christo seruiturum, si uitam sibi et uictoriam donaret pugnanti

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aduersus regem . . . missus est ‘. . . promised that if God would grant him life, and victory over the king, . . . he would renounce his idols and serve Christ . . .’ Victorious he duly became, though he held off baptism until he might take counsel of his chiefs.36 It is unclear just how long among Germanic folk the understanding survived that Christ was not only “der stärkere Gott” but a god who was expected to intervene positively in the disputes and wars of his adherents. Russell infers that “the Germanic perception of Christianity as primarily a magicoreligious cult of a powerful deity endured at least through the eighth century.”37 De Vries says that from the baptism of the chieftain Widukind in 785 “. . . es dauerte noch fast zwei Jahrzehnte ehe man das Heidentum als endgültig überwunden betrachten konnte.”38 But the end of heathendom could not have meant profound understanding of orthodox Christian belief. Since the Saxons held out so long against the Franks and were not subdued until towards the end of that century it might not be surprising if the view of Christianity as “a magicoreligious cult of a powerful deity” persisted among the Saxons well into the ninth century and the time of composition of the Saxon Genesis. Wormald, having remarked that “the continental historians give a clear impression of a Christianity that was recognizably barbarian . . . ,” observes that, in contrast to Bede, the historians Gregory of Tours, Paul the Deacon, and Widukind “permit no reader to form the impression that their peoples had forgotten their ancestors.” Widukind, he notes, was “the historian of the continental Saxons (c. 968).”39 The Old Saxon Heliand shows very clearly the disposition to regard Christ as a military chief. In Genesis B also, as in the Utrecht Psalter, sacral and martial are one—though, to be sure, the Chieftain has an astonishingly unmartial ethic. A particular aspect of that cultural ambience which Wormald notes and an issue of possible significance in our discussion to follow is the injunction to “turn the other cheek” which Christianity enjoins. Perhaps the injunction has never been widely and passionately embraced among the Christian faithful. But pagan Germanic society might have found its acceptance especially antithetical to its ancient warlike disposition. The idea of a reciprocal military loyalty, the chieftain to his men, the men to their chieftain, was deeply imbued. And for such folk, as part of their military code, vengeance was a necessity. So Beowulf exclaims to Hroðgar: Ne sorga, snotor guma! Selre bið æghwæm, / þæt he his freond wrece, þonne he fela murne 1384–85; and he follows this exhortation with the rationale wyrce se þe mote / domes ær deaþe; þæt bið drihtguman / unlifigendum æfter selest 1388–89—which rationale presupposes that the taking of vengeance confers honor and renown upon the avenger.40 It might be thought that the urging of vengeance against the dam

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for her killing of Æschere especially merited such justification. Beowulf’s voice and attitude, overtly that of a heathen, is nevertheless something of a blend of the heathen and the convert to Christianity. As regards vengeance the poem’s narrator seems to share the view of his hero. At any rate, nowhere in all of Beowulf is the taking of vengeance, or the idea thereof, expressly criticized; vengeance seems rather to be accepted as a norm in the course of violence. Yet the “Christian coloring” of the poem is widely remarked; and Wormald notes that “the unqualified monotheism of Beowulf . . . is of a piece with the Anglo-Saxon evidence as a whole.”41 Of course, one might suspect that emphasis on the chieftain’s taking vengeance had also a less noble side, arising indeed from very nature of the comitatus. If, as Tacitus said, “the retainers [fight] for the chief, . . .” their focus of loyalty is not patria but rather the chief; what motivates is not the reflection dulce et decorum est but the impulse, the instinct even, Mein Kaiser, mein Kaiser zu schützen. But plunder too is a mighty incentive, so, concomitantly, it might well become the chief’s obligation to institute and carry through vengeance in part, perhaps, to accommodate and gratify the desire of his comites. I suggest, then, that the micel wundor passage might reflect the amazement of Saxon Christians who were aware, even if only in memory, of the bond of chieftain and followers and of the pressing necessity of vengeance, the amazement that their new Christian God, so mighty in battle, would endure, even temporarily, the subversion of his thanes. The final clause, þe/ [s]e for þam larum com, God’s intervention, is consistent with the pervasive martiality of the poem insofar as it intimates that vengeance was duly taken. Those of us who have considered the passage have attended mostly to what we thought was its theologically orthodox, or its unorthodox, meaning but in either case without considering the Germanic warrior code in the early years of their conversion to Christianity and without taking into account the degree to which this code had infiltrated the Saxon poet’s Christianity. We have suggested that ninth-century Saxon Christians, so recently converted from paganism in the belief that the Christian God gave victory in battle to his followers, may well have come to see God and Christ as a military deity. The circumstance that the Old Testament came along with the New to converts to Christianity and afforded no few stories of God as a sort of divine chieftain acting in behalf of his chosen people might have reinforced the Saxon, or generally the Germanic, disposition to see their new deity in this military light. Wallace-Hadrill, commenting on the effort of Charles the Bald to avail himself of Provence, remarks that “aggression was built into the Carolingian idea of Christian kingship. God was himself a warlord.”42 Which is to imply, of course, that separation of church and state

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was a concept remote indeed from Carolingian thought; here too the early medieval mindset was far at variance with that of modern western thought. Aggression and God as a warlord were not, of course, wholly consistent with the view that the empire was a “Christian unity,” indeed, “was itself the Corpus Christi, indivisible and sacred.”43 Theory and practice sometimes fall out. In fine, however, what we have in the micel wundor passage is another instance of what we earlier saw (in Chapter III) in Adam’s conviction that he [God] mæg me of his hean rice / geofian mid goda gehwilcum þeah he his gingran ne sende 545–46: a transcendentalizing of comitatus practice and belief from the secular to the divine. Handy evidence of this comitatus frame is seen in the Heliand, the poet of which was just possibly also the poet of the Old Saxon Genesis. The poet commonly takes the disciples as Christ’s comitatus. G. Ronald Murphy, exploring the concept in most of one entire chapter, comments that in the account of Christ’s arrest, trial, and death the poet “depicts Christ and his disciples as an embattled warrior group making their last brave stand against a superior enemy force.”44 But the depiction of Christ and his followers as Chieftain and comitatus long precedes the account of Christ’s last days. Again and again, even in contexts in which there is no suggestion of imminent violence or hostility, Christ is the drohtin ‘Chieftain,’ his disciples his thegnos ‘thanes.’ Herod’s retinue or Roman soldiers are the gisiðos ‘companions’ of their chiefs, but so too, commonly, are his disciples the gisiðos of Christ. Locales too might have a certain military aura about them; so Bethany, where Lazarus lies dead, is a burg, a ‘(protected) place’ 4022.45 But Christ’s ethic as a warrior chief, when, in Fitt LVIII, it comes to his arrest, is anything but military in the usual sense. His thanes surround him, prepared to defend him to the last, but he commands them to desist and accepts arrest. Judas’ betrayal of Christ as represented in the Heliand reveals the same understanding of the comitatus ethos. Judas’ crime, Murphy observes, “is seen . . . as a violation of the warrior code of gisid¯i—loyalty. Judas is not seen as guilty of ‘desertion under fire’ or of ‘treason to the cause’ but of breaking the intimate feudal bonds of loyalty between a Chieftain and the thanes who were his personal warrior-companions.”46 Thus þegn swa monig in the micel wundor passage should be understood. Adam’s crime, unlike Judas’ crime, is overtly remarked as prompted through the Devil. Nevertheless, ultimately their offense is the same: disloyalty to one’s lord, the worst offense, or certainly one of the worst, which a thane might be guilty of. If there is a martial dimension to Adam’s obedience, there is also a martial dimension to God’s authority and power.

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Except for the wretched Judas, Christ and his disciples in the Heliand represent a perfect Chieftain and perfect, or near-perfect, comitatus. And this perfection was, I suspect, another reason, above and beyond the missionaries’ selling point that the Christian God was warlike and mightier than pagan idols, why the poet of the Heliand described his characters and their relationship thus. Their relationship was one of mutual love. Earthly warbands typically knew, and know, rather different relationships. Michael J. Enright reminds us of how untypical of warbands was the situation of Hroþgar and his retinue in Beowulf. Life in the hall there went on so amicably, whereas [b]adinage, vicious repartee, and semi-serious insult are the norms of warrior sodalities everywhere and of all armies as well. . . . The flyting arises from notions surrounding the real-world warband battlefield, sometimes transferred to the “indoor battlefield,” where jockeying for ranked seats in the hall and the attention of the leader parallels the conflict outside. Much of the fighting of the period centered on individual combats or one small group against another. . . . The conventions of small-scale warfare determine those of the hall and permeate the mentality of the band.47

The response of reader or listener to the disruption in Heorot when Grendel comes and the response of the Saxon poet to the disruption in Eden are not dissimilar. We have noted that Adam too, before the Fall, stands as God’s soldier in a perfect relationship to his Chieftain. Both responses are to a violation of perfection and therefore are more intense, more anguished, than if that which has been destroyed were, in the nature of things, ordinary, commonplace. Given the perfection of Adam’s relationship to God, we can understand that it might well have seemed, to the poet of Genesis B, a ‘great wonder’ that so powerful a chieftain should endure not only Adam’s defection—in effect, his disloyalty—but through him the defection of so many other thanes. The military ethic or code demands, as we noted in Chapter III, the obedience, unquestioning and unqualified, of the inferior in rank. A well-ordered and dutiful comitatus was a necessity for victory in battle; would it not have been a marvel that a chieftain, especially, perhaps, so great a chieftain, would endure such subversion? It would be beside the point to argue that the new God of the Saxons, the Christian God, had no need of a comitatus; the early Germanic understanding of the Christian God as a Chieftain implied followers, i.e., a comitatus. As the word þeoden ‘chief, lord’ (< þeod ‘people, nation’) indicates, a “chieftain” without followers was unthinkable; D. H. Green observes that “the connection between the ruler and the people, [is] latent in the word thiodan.”48 We have noted, in the Utrecht Psalter, a drawing of the

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warrior chieftain Christ with his spear-bearing comitatus.49 And underlying the collocation þeoden, þolian . . . þegn swa monig might have been the idea of the obligation of thanes to obey their lord. In considering the idea of obedience in Old Saxon and Old High German religious verse, Green observes that the word thegan (along with man and wini), when it moves from secular to religious contexts, clearly shows the abandonment of the idea of reciprocal obligation between lord and thane and restriction to the idea of unilateral obedience, the obedience, that is, which the follower owes to the chieftain.50 The understanding of kingship among the Franks was such as especially to enjoin the subject’s obedience. “The most fundamental concept in Germanic kingship,” William A. Chaney infers, “is the indissolubility of its religious and political functions.”51 Chaney’s focus, of course, is on the Anglo-Saxon kingships. As to the realm of the Franks, Koert van der Horst notes that after the time of Charlemagne, “empire and church were conceived to be coextensive, even identical.”52 At much greater length, Wallace-Hadrill, commenting on the ordinatio imperii of Louis the Pious in 817, “the emperor’s disposition of his empire for the present and future,” observes that [i]t rested upon the most significant concept of the [Carolingian] Renaissance, not yet elaborated but generally felt: namely, that the empire was a Christian unity, and more than that, was itself the Corpus Christi, indivisible and sacred. To disturb this unity by dissension, let alone by rebellion and warfare, would be to dismember the Body of Christ. Such was the sense in which peace, resting on a delicate equilibrium, was understood. The empire was an earthly reflection of a greater reality, providing the opportunity for all men to achieve salvation. The Ordinatio was thus a religious and legal statement of the utmost gravity.53

This conception—“that the empire was a Christian unity, and more than that, was itself the Corpus Christi”—is of great importance for the micel wundor clause. What it means is that in the mind of the Old Saxon poet the þegn swa monig owes obedience not to two authorities, one divine and one secular, but rather to one authority which, since it is at once both divine and secular, is almost overwhelmingly potent as a moral force. And the obedience is that of the Germanic comitatus, where, by swearing loyalty and service to a chieftain, one has taken upon oneself the deepest of obligations. We see in the early lines of Genesis B, as well as in the ancient legend otherwise of the rebel angels, the intense awareness of the concept of hyldo and the obedience which God’s conferring of hyldo required. That is to say that the poet, in exclaiming as to a micel wundor, is not talking about God’s allowing His creation freedom to choose; he is marvelling instead that so

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great a chieftain should endure the subversion of his thanes. For their subversion would have to imply their disobedience. Just as obedience to one’s chief is seen as a primary virtue and excellence, so God’s, the Chieftain’s, countenancing the dereliction of a thane—refusing, that is, to take summary vengeance—is to be seen as astonishing. If in the Germanic comitatus, as Tacitus observed, “the retainers [fight] for the chief,” it might well be wondered at that the chief would endure defection. Especially this is so in light of the circumstance that in Genesis B the ancient story has been altered so as to bring the fall of the angels and the Fall of Man into close narrative proximity. In Chapter I, touching on the issue of God’s alleged inscrutability in the poem, we noted the promptness of God’s response to the rebel angel’s speech: (þa hit se allwalda eall gehyrde 292). How different had God as a chieftain been, whom Adam called sigedrihten ‘victory-lord’ 523, to act in such fashion. If this reading of the passage is correct, my earlier reading of the passage that God endures “injury to himself” could be seen as entailing a certain, though quite unforeseen and unintended, validity. Doane remarks, parenthetically, that the reading ‘injury to himself’ “seems to create more problems than it solves.”54 But the Heliand attests richly to the Lord’s willingness so to endure. And if, in Genesis B, ece drihten . . . þeoden is seen as a great military chieftain, it seems clear that his willingness to accept the subornation of his thanes amounted to a willingness to accept injury to himself. And although Doane acknowledges the possible emendation of MS þe to [s]e, he does not consider what light the emendation and its clause might cast on “injury to himself.” Yet with an emendation to [s]e a connection becomes fairly clear: verse 598b, whether taken as alluding to Genesis 3:8 or to the Incarnation, stands as a consequence to the cause which the two preceding þæt clauses (lines 596–98a) set forth. In other words, the clause [s]e for þam larum com is in sense, though not in syntax, a response to hit ‘it’ 596 and its amplification in the clause þæt wurde þegn swa monig / forlædd be þam lygenum. Since the antecedent of [s]e is ece god . . . þeoden, it might not unreasonably have been supposed that the text would go on to say what eternal God proceeded to do. The present reading would demonstrate the partial (but not unwelcome) truth in the view of Cherniss of “the poem as an essentially Germanic heroic work.” The phrase “essentially Germanic” is, however, problematical, because the micel wundor passage in particular should not be viewed dichotomously as either essentially Germanic or else orthodoxly Christian, but rather as Germanic-Christian. In assessing the passage we have attended too much to ece god ‘eternal God’ 596—in other words, to the “orthodoxly Christian”—and too little to þeoden ‘chieftain’ 597, i.e., to the Germanic, and so have failed to see that for the Carolingians the one is the other. The passage

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becomes front-line evidence that the Germanic people, “die Germanen,” as de Vries says, “haben . . . auch Christus immer nur als den triumphierenden Gott betrachten können, . . . als den mächtigen Gefolgschaftsherrn mit seiner kriegerischen Schar der Apostel, wie ihn das altsächsische Gedicht Heliand so anschaulich geschildert hat.”55 And—up to its final clause—the micel wundor passage marvels, and thereby seems to leave the passage open to the understanding that in suffering the defection of þegn swa monig God is no longer triumphierend. We have noted the comparison between God’s suffering this defection here in Genesis B and Christ’s submitting to arrest in Fitt LVIII of the Heliand. Yet there is an important difference. The Heliand passage describes Christ acting appropriately as Redeemer in an incident prior to his final and greatest redemptive act. His foe is ultimately the Devil, but the Devil here is acting through his human foils and is never mentioned in the fitt. So no “great wonder” is remarked. The Genesis passage concerns that incident out of which arose “all our woe” and so the Redemption; and God’s foe, the Devil, or rather his agent, brings it about: the Fall, the cataclysmic moment of humankind. That so great a military chieftain should be willing to endure all this prompts the exclamation. Up to its final clause, the micel wundor passage testifies to the poet’s perception of God’s procedure as a military leader, namely, his astonishing action, or rather inaction, on the occasion of the Fall. The alliteration on ece ‘eternal’ and æfre ‘ever (unquam)’ in line 596 notes this astonishment by implying that a strong element in his response to the great Chieftain’s acquiescence was a sense of its anomalousness.56 I surmise that the exclamation as to a micel wundor in lines 595–98a arose from the narrator’s perception of the stark contrast between the Lord’s action, or rather his apparent inaction, on the occasion of Eve’s ruin, and his action on the earlier occasion, reported at length early on in Genesis B, when God is said to have proceeded at once and with dire vengeance against his rebel angels and their subverter. That passage alone explains of course why the sense ‘semper’ is impossible for æfre 596. But the main point now is that in so proceeding on that earlier occasion God displayed the expeditiousness which one would expect in a Germanic chieftain. In a sense, the Christian missionaries came nigh to hoisting themselves, or their poetical successors, with their own petard. Though for Saxon converts Christ became a warrior, a warrior in the Germanic sense Christ was unfortunately but emphatically not, and Saxon Christian poets had somehow to deal with this immense discrepancy. Such poets had to address—in effect, to finesse—the problem: how does one, as an appeal to or reflection of residual

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pagan sensitivity and attitude, show Christ as a military leader? The Heliand poet, naturally, had a harder time of it; throughout his long narrative he speaks of Christ on the one hand as a warrior chieftain with loyal followers, while on the other hand, faithful to the message of the gospels, he managed wholly to avoid showing Christ acting in any igne ferroque manner. In the arrest of Christ it is left to all of his followers, his comitatus, to present an undaunted front before the multitude, grim folc Iudeono, come to seize him, and the abandonment by his followers is explained in the next fitt as, in effect, the working of fate; blôði ‘cowardice’ 4933 is expressly disavowed.57 With the Harrowing of Hell the Heliand poet got a break; biblically, the Harrowing is rather uncertainly alluded to. At any rate, it remains totally unmentioned in the Heliand.58 The Heliand poet does make mention of the Fall in Fitts XIII and XLIV. Fitt XIII takes up Mark 4, Jesus led into the desert to be tempted; Fitt XLIV takes up Luke 18, the blind men by the wayside whom Jesus healed. In both fitts the poet adverts to the ancient condition of men and its cause, the Devil’s misleading of Adam and Eve. In both fitts the poet describes God’s response to the Devil’s assault: in Fitt XIII, 1035              thô [Satan] thiu sinhîun tuuê, Âdaman endi Êuan, thurh untreuua forlêdda mid luginum, that liudio barn aftar iro hinferdi hellea sôhton, gumono gêstos. Thô uuelda that god mahtig, 1040   uualdand uuendean endi uuelda thesum uuerode forged¯en hôh himilrîki: bethiu he herod hêlagna bodon, is sunu senda. ‘how [Satan] misled the couple, Adam and Eve, with lies, into disloyalty so that the souls of the children of men would go to hell after their departure. God the Ruler wanted mightily (1040) to change that, He wanted to grant to these people the high heaven-kingdom, and for this reason sent them a holy messenger, His Son.’

As to the blind, in Fitt XLIV, help could not come              êr than uualdand god an thesan middilgard, mahtig drohtin, 1315  is selb¯ es sunu sendien uueldi ‘until ruling God, the mighty Chieftain, would send His own Son to this middle world’59

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To these passages in the Heliand there are comparable passages in Old English poems. Phoenix 418–23 says that ‘paradise was closed fast for many winters until the glory-king, through his coming-hence, . . . opened (it) again.’ In Christ and Satan 482–91 Christ says that ‘it grieved me that my handiwork endured the fetters of prison’ and in Christ 1414–15 that ‘it grieved me that my handiwork had to go into the power of fiends.’ In the micel wundor passage the pronominal element þe/[s]e finds its antecedent in ece god . . . þeoden and the lies described as þam larum ‘those counsels’ are identical to þam lygenum ‘those lies,’ i.e., the lies of the Devil or his messenger. These congruences are consistent with passages in the other Old English and Old Saxon poems which acknowledge in the space of a few lines both the Devil’s role in the Fall and the consequent divine intervention.60 But there is some difference in language between the Old Saxon poems (including Genesis B) and the Old English. The micel wundor passage makes of course the same connection as do these Heliand passages: the ancient condition of men and its cause, the Devil’s guile, is juxtaposed with some declaration as to God’s response. But in the present context the more important point is that the Old Saxon passages, these two in the Heliand and the micel wundor passage in Genesis B (as, presumably, following a lost Old Saxon original), reflect the distinctly more martial language typical otherwise of the Heliand, the disposition of early Saxon Christians to see God or Christ, or both, as a warrior-chieftain. In the passages in question the foe is, or is implied to be, Satan, though of course there is no explicit mention of actual physical violence. It is doubtful whether such terminology should be considered “metaphor”; if in the understanding of Christian Franks, Old Saxons, and other Germans “God was himself a warlord” then their description of him as such was not metaphorical. Certainly one should avoid a reading of the micel wundor passage as mere metaphor. Fitt XIII of the Heliand goes on to speak of Christ as the sunu drohtines ‘son of the Chieftain’ 1045, and Fitt XLIV speaks of God as mahtig drohtin ‘mighty Chieftain’ 3614. Genesis B 597 þeoden . . . þegn ‘Chief . . . thane’ implies, brief though it is, the Germanic understanding especially strongly through alliterative collocation. Such language is absent in the passages in Old English poems referred to in the second paragraph above. Phoenix 420 wuldorcyning ‘king of glory’ and Christ and Satan 486 and 493 hælend ‘healing (one)’ resonate quite differently. The difference between the language of Phoenix 420 and of Christ and Satan 486 and 493 on the one hand and of the micel wundor passage in Genesis B on the other can be seen as reflecting the circumstance that although the latter is not necessarily earlier either in composition or translation into Old

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English than its more strictly Anglo-Saxon counterparts, its representation of divine character shows, along with the Heliand, a much greater martiality than do these Anglo-Saxon poems. Anglo-Saxon Christianity shared, of course, the martiality of Carolingian, in particular of Old Saxon, Christianity—Old English wærloga ‘covenant-breaker’ as applied to the Devil or his cohorts might be a case in point. But also, given the circumstance that in the course of their fairly recent conversion God was presented to the Old Saxons as a Chieftain mightier in battle than their heathen deities, the Old Saxon Christians might have been especially disposed to see God as a warlord. In a sense, then, even though Genesis B could hardly have come into Old English earlier than some time in the second half of the ninth century, the poem might represent an earlier stage of Christianization than some other Old English poems. This situation has contributed to the very considerable perplexity among Anglo-Saxonists as to the significance of the micel wundor passage in Genesis B. Our perspective has been wrong; as Anglo-Saxonists, we have been duly expecting an insular sentiment, but what we have is an Old Saxon and continental sentiment. The difference makes the micel wundor passage a little like the passage cwæð þæt sceaðena mæst . . . 549–51 and succeeding verses. Here the boda, in saying ic wat inc waldendgod / abolgen wyrð swa ic him, is, of course, telling another lie. Yet possibly underlying such a passage is Eve’s, and also the poet’s, presumption that God can be quick to take vengeance. The micel wundor verses reveal what as far as I know was a conviction of the Saxons (and others) of the Carolingian realm but not (or not especially) of the Anglo-Saxons. The conception of God which these verses reveal is therefore, in an Old English text, something of a cultural anomaly, and in light of its implications for the meaning of the poem as a whole the passage, or much of it, may be the most notable, though the least understood, Old Saxonism in the poem. This inference leads to a surmise as to the expectations of a Saxon audience of the period concerning the time of the Incarnation. Christian Germanic folk, having at least in memory the ancestral custom of Germanic warriors to seek vengeance upon their foes as expeditiously as possible, might well have wondered why, from the time of the Fall, it took so long—until the sixth age—for the mighty Chieftain, a warrior figure, to be sure, to send His Son. In this circumstance the difficulty latent in the aforenoted discrepancy between the Germanic conception of God or Christ as a comitatus chieftain and the peaceful nature of Christ’s life could hardly be avoided. The Heliand poet, insofar as he had occasion to speak of the Fall, could not entirely evade facing the discrepancy, and the poet of the Old Saxon Genesis (and so, by extension, of Genesis B), insofar as the Fall was the heart and soul of

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one part of his poem, had no choice but to face it. Fitt XIII of the Heliand implies the lapse in time between the Fall and the Incarnation, but obscures the lapse by a focus upon God’s benevolence and Satan’s malice. Fitt XLIV, in its subordinate êr than . . . clause, forthrightly acknowledges the lapse, but the focus of the passage preceding has been the long and dreadful suffering of humankind in this life and then in Hell; the focus on the redemptive act (and, by implication, the Harrowing of Hell) obscures the lapse. Apparently such refocussings sufficed. But Matthew 24:34 made avoidance of the issue impossible: amen dico vobis, quia non praeteribit generatio haec, donec omnia haec fiant ‘truly I tell you: this generation will not pass away before these things take place.’ So for generatio haec ‘this generation’ the Heliand poet gives thit uuerod . . . thit folcscepi ‘this people, . . . these clans’ 4346–47 and so manages, as Murphy says, “to finesse the problem.”61 In the clause [s]e for þam larum com in Genesis B the lapse is obscured by simple omission, either of an adverb or adverbial phrase meaning ‘in the course of time’ or of a conjunctive adverb meaning ‘until.’ The very brevity of the clause, though it does not indicate expressly a near-simultaneity of man’s enduring before God’s coming, nevertheless obscures the lapse in time between them. So the Genesis poet accommodates as far as possible the disposition of early Saxon Christians to see God or Christ as a warrior chieftain (þeoden 597) moving expeditiously against the foe while also avoiding, as the Heliand poet largely avoided, any mention of fire and iron. Since the expression of surprise in the micel wundor clause derives from the poet’s focus upon God as a military chieftain, his cutting the Gordian knot thus was probably a good idea; thereby he circumvented entirely any question as to why the þeoden did not, in a context rather more explicitly military (þeoden . . . þegn) than either Heliand 1040–42 or 3613–15, proceed expeditiously against the subverter of his warriors. There is an impression of near-simultaneousness, that the þeoden almost at the same moment was willing to endure the subversion of so many a þegn and, by his coming, to respond to the subversion. The impression conjoins two themes of the greatest importance in the poem: the menace of devils and the saving power of the Lord. The absence of a conjunctive adverb and also the emendation of þe to [s]e permit the clause to stand as independent rather than subordinate and thereby helps to secure the rhetorical weight already noticed. We shall observe again, in Chapter X, the poet’s refusal to mention this lapse in time. In itself the verse [s]e for þam larum com does not declare explicitly that the Lord’s Incarnation is meant and not God’s coming in Genesis 3:8. But there are hints that the Incarnation is meant. The alliterative collocation þeoden . . . þegn intimates a bond of master and follower, which is more

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suggestive of the Redemption than of the maledictory Genesis 3:8–19; and that þegn swa monig, being quite probably an understatement for “a very great many thanes,” would suggest that ‘he came’ for many more than two persons only. Understatement was hardly unknown in early Germanic literature, nor is it unknown elsewhere in Genesis B: is þæs ænga styde ungelic swiðe 356, þu gelic ne bist 538, þæt git ne læstan wel 554, (æppel) unsælga 637, and ne gesawe þu no sniomor . . . þæt his o min mod getweode ‘you would not very quickly see [i.e., you would never see] . . . that my spirit would ever hesitate’ 830–33. So the lexicon and style of the verses preceding line 598b suggest that an allusion to the Incarnation is imminent. In other words, the passage as a whole zeroes in on the Incarnation. Its momentousness is not a matter of the final verse alone but is approached and intimated in the five, if not six, verses which precede. It seems just possible that the allusion to the Lord’s coming in the clause [s]e for þam larum com is more specifically to the Harrowing of Hell, Christ’s most obvious and most notable moment of physical violence and triumph, in later tradition though not in the gospels.62 De Vries posits a widespread awareness of the Harrowing of Hell as a principal basis for the conversion of pagan Germanic peoples to the Christian faith: Es ist kennzeichnend . . . daß der Germane als die große Katastrophe, welche die Erlösung notwendig gemacht hat, den Fall Luzifers und der bösen Engel oder die Entstehung der Unholde und die Erschaffung der Hölle betrachtet, und daß dementsprechend die rettende Stunde im Leben der Menschheit (nicht wie für den Griechen die Geburt des Gott-Logos, oder wie für den Römer der Sühnetod des Erlösers am Kreuze, sondern) der Abstieg Christi in die Höllenburg und sein siegreicher Einzelkampf mit dem Alten von der Hölle war. Man darf deshalb die Germanen nicht . . . als eine von den Dämonen geknechtete Menschheit betrachten. Die Siegesbewußtheit aber, die man von Odin kaum mehr zu erwarten wagte, wurde hier in der Gestalt Christi offenbar. In hoc signo vinces war auch für die Germanen ein erlösendes Wort, dem sie gerne folgten.63

If, as I have suggested, the micel wundor of the passage is to be seen as wonderment that a mighty chieftain on the Germanic model would endure the subversion of so many a thane, it might well be expected that some declaration would ensue as to what action this chieftain proceeded to take in consequence of his loss. And lines 597b–98, the last two clauses of the passage, take particular notice of causal relationships. I am not suggesting that the clause þæt wurde þegn swa monig . . . is a causal clause in relation to what follows; it is fairly clearly the clausal object of wolde / . . . þolian.64 Neverthe-

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less, a cause and effect relationship appears to hold between the þegn swa monig clause and the þe/[s]e clause which follows. In itself each clause entails some idea of cause and effect: through lies men were suborned; because of such counsels he came. The element of repetition is strong. The prepositions be and for, with their verbs, imply causality, be ‘through’ in the clause of ruin, for ‘because of’ in that of response thereto.65 Also both their clauses, again through repetition, take notice of the deceits which the boda has practiced upon Eve. The datives lygenum and larum refer to the same thing: lygenum ‘lies’ remarks the falsity of the boda’s asseverations, and larum ‘counsels’ notes the purport of the impostures, so both indicate humankind’s susceptibility to fraud. Both, with the participle forlædd, enter into alliterative, hence emphatic, collocation. If the clause þe/[s]e for þam larum com alludes to the Incarnation and possibly even to the Harrowing of Hell, the passage as a whole raises the question why its syntax indicates, through the repeated þæt clauses, that the micel wundor is God’s enduring the subversion of his thanes, rather than that þe/[s]e for þam larum com. Hereby the pronouncement as to the Incarnation, that central fact of Christianity, or else, and more specifically, as to the Harrowing of Hell, appears to be entailed in a brief clause with at best no more than a demonstrative pronoun as its subject. The topical momentousness of either the Incarnation or the Harrowing should lead us to expect something big, but what we get in line 598b, even with an emendation to [s]e, seems more mouse than mountain. There were, I think, two reasons why the poet left the allusion to be as slight and perhaps as ambiguous as he did. The one reason we can reserve until Chapter VIII, when we shall take note of the broad course of the narrative after line 598. The other is that in the poem as a whole Christ and his deeds were not to be more than alluded to. His name is wholly absent in Genesis B as we have it and in the Old Saxon Genesis fragments. The reticence and brevity of the clause þe/[s]e for þam larum com reflects, I surmise, the Saxon poet’s reluctance to allude in any very distinct way to an act of violence on Christ’s part. But there were ways of getting around reticence. Auditors of Germanic verse might well have been familiar with riddles or with riddling elements in poetry otherwise.66 Much in Christian belief entailed an element of riddle. And the micel wundor passage is riddle-like. It invites a question, and supplies clues. Together with the verse þæt is micel wundor the context, the imminent Fall of Eve, provides a clue: he would not have to have been the most thoughtful auditor who could have been intrigued by the possibility of connections between the ruin of Eve, a certain micel wundor, and the coming of someone or something. And the four verses that follow þæt is micel

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wundor present several clues. With the assertion as to a great wonder comes its amplification: that ece god ‘eternal God,’ þeoden ‘(the) Chieftain,’ would ever endure it. At the end, it remarks a certain coming. Genesis 595–98 merits, I think, inclusion among the passages which entail, in Bruce Mitchell’s phrase, “the excitement of the momentary riddle.”67 Moreover, although here as elsewhere it makes no mention of Christ by name, Genesis B, as I hope to show, otherwise alludes richly to Christ. It assumes and in its tropological scheme it presupposes Christ. We will present evidence, in later chapters, of important and telling allusions later on in the poem. The point of the Tempter’s vaunt, of which more will be said in Chapter IX, is largely that what underlies his speech is the Harrowing of Hell. And Christ is the great doer of the Harrowing. The brevity of the clause þe/[s]e for þam larum com is, I think, understatement; it is part of the poetical scheme by which the Devil’s strategem is successively implied to be utterly unlikely to succeed. The abruptness, I take it, is also part of the scheme: it entails the contrast between God’s willingness to endure (the micel wundor) and his redress thereof; it perhaps adumbrates Satan’s and his devils’ surprise and fright when suddenly their bastion is forced. Even the verb com is apposite: it might assume, momentarily, the point of view of the devils’ prisoners, their treasure, and possibly too that of the devils themselves, by admitting readily the sense ‘movement towards’(as, obviously, “to come” still does).68 Indeed, the possibility of deliberate understatement here might provide some basis for the editorial retention of MS þe 598; just possibly þe here participated in the understatement. The syntactical unusualness of an indeclinable relative pronoun having to find its antecedent noun or nouns situated before intermediate nouns might, as an element of a “momentary riddle,” challenge an auditor’s wits. It seems likely that an audience might have had some idea as to what was coming as the final clause. It is momentous but somewhat understated: ‘because of these counsels he came.’69 The final verse entails blunt statement; its plain, active verb com ‘came’ contrasts with verbs suggesting a certain passivity, whether through meaning or syntax: wolde / . . . þolian, wurde . . . / forlædd. The riddling catechesis stops short of declaring expressly just what that principal event entailed. The clause þe/[s]e for þam larum com is made to come last, the climax of the micel wundor passage and the end of what may have been a “minor division” in the narrative.70 The micel wundor passage is not in itself tropological, at least in the sense that tropology in the poem commonly entails a duality of character, e.g., Adam as both his Adamic self of Genesis 3 and as post-redemptive man, the boda as both the tempter of Genesis 3 and as a devil, in Doane’s phrase,

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“lurking around in the present.” But the general disposition of the poem to represent Adam and Eve as tropological figures having a post-redemptive as well as an Adamic significance suggests a reference to the Incarnation in line 598b. The import of the verse so understood is thus consonant with the poem’s tropology and with its counter-theme. Hence the irony in the usual interpretation of lines 595–98. The impression as to God’s remoteness in Genesis B arose in no small measure from what I see as the misreading of the micel wundor passage. Or rather, the impression arose from reading the passage only through line 598a; MS line 598b þe for þam larum com was either ignored or misunderstood. More narrowly still, there was the failure to resolve the problem of antecedence in MS þe 598 and certainly the failure, in which I long shared, to see how the circumstances of the Germanic, and therefore the Saxon, conversion might bear on why it was that that the þeoden’s enduring was said to be a great wonder. A major consequence of these lapses has been that the poet’s adroitness here has gone quite unrecognized; another has been that a passage entailing an allusion to the coming of Christ has been mistaken by some modern readers as a testimony to God’s indifference. But the recovery of the allusion and the poet’s assurance that ‘because of these teachings he [the Lord] came’ is immensely conducive to establishing the poem’s comedic imperative. It can be noted that of the five comments on the micel wundor passage cited near the beginning of this chapter, four (those of Ehrismann, Hentschel, Cherniss, and Doane) make no reference at all to the final clause MS þe for þam larum com while the remaining one (Kennedy’s) translates the passage in such a way as to construe impossibly the pronoun þe. But if the antecedent of þe, whether or not emended to [s]e, can be taken as god . . . þeoden 596–97, the final clause is brought very much back into the picture and can be taken as signifying that God did indeed intervene in the matter of the Fall. Several further points. David Bevington, in his Introduction to the Mystère d’Adam, remarks that “the play is centered on the theme of Christ’s coming,” and the play itself provides considerable evidence for this, such as Adam’s very words, noted in Chapter II, and the words of the prophets who, at the end of the play as we have it, severally foretell the coming of Christ.71 Genesis B and the Mystère d’Adam, then, have in common the acknowledgment of the Incarnation. What distinguishes them in this respect is the overtness of their disclosures. In the Mystère d’Adam the disclosure is very apparent: two of the prophets (Balaam and Daniel) even mention Christ by name. In Genesis B the disclosure is rather more subtle. Christ is never referred to by name; the closest we get to his name is the pronoun þe/[s]e 598 and its antecedent in the terms god 596 and þeoden 597. But the name itself

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is hardly necessary to establish an allusion. I shall suggest in the next two chapters that the poet invokes Christ through allusion to two of the most potent, widespread, and enduring of Christian beliefs. We have seen that the Old Saxon Heliand shares with Genesis B the disposition to see Christ as a military chief. But one cannot spend much time with, say, Sievers’ edition of that poem and its copious annotation without perceiving that the Heliand poet was master of no small part of Christian learning and allegorical interpretation.72 Take the passage in Fitt XLIV, quoted in part just above, on Luke 18, Jesus and the blind men, and what the Heliand poet makes of their encounter. We shall see in Chapter X that the author of the Old Saxon Genesis and therefore, at a remove, of Genesis B also knew what those blind men signified. Nor is the sophistication merely exegetical. Our consideration of the micel wundor passage has necessitated inquiry not only into “subtle philological nuances” of Old English and Old Saxon but also into that martial realm which was Carolingian Christianity. Only slowly has it become clear that the passage can be explained in terms of the belief, the dogma even, of the Carolingian church-state, and that the sentiment of the passage reflects a religious and political understanding of vast scope and no little sophistication.

CHAPTER VII

‘No Fiend Here in the Realm’

A word first about “audience.” Bruce Mitchell warns against “the common assumption that all Anglo-Saxon audiences were the same and homogeneous, sharing the same beliefs and understanding each poem in the same way.” He notes further that “both poets and audiences are credited by many critics with as much theological knowledge and acumen as a Regius Professor of Theology.”1 These are fair warnings, and I hope I have taken them to heart. But with the poem Genesis B the question of “audience” is peculiarly complicated. If one is concerned with the possible or even probable responses of an early audience one has to bear in mind not only an Anglo-Saxon audience but an Old Saxon audience as well. If one infers that as an interdialectal translation the poem as we have it probably represents a minimum of change and adjustment of the Old Saxon text on the part of the translator, and if one posits that the poem probably, if not certainly, reflects the religious and cultural background of its Old Saxon author, one is then obliged to have some knowledge of Saxony and its people in the ninth century. Historical inquiry is as necessary as philological inquiry. We have just noted how, in its micel wundor passage, our poem might represent a different, more specifically an earlier, stage of conversion to Christianity than is generally witnessed otherwise in Anglo-Saxon poetry. An assumption of homogeneity becomes especially perilous. One cannot say that the typical Christian audience in ninth century Saxony was learned in Christian lore. By the middle of that century Christianity was in some sense the official, the “state,” religion, in Theodor Schieffer’s 167

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phrase, “der offizielle Stammkult,” and had been for some years, but it seems likely that for many folk the new faith was neither deeply held nor widely understood. Even if (ultimately) the Praefatio and Versus referred or included reference to Genesis B, the view of Praefatio A that the emperor enjoined a translation “so that the sacred text . . . might be revealed not only to the lettered but to the unlettered” would hardly have to mean very many of the populace; “unlettered,” those ignorant of Latin, could still imply a limited audience of noble or high-placed persons.2 It is safer, then, to posit that only a distinct minority of ninth-century Saxons could have responded with perception and understanding to the complexities that the Saxon original of Genesis B stood ready to offer, even though their nature as items of belief was not such as would require the knowledge and acumen of a professor of theology.3 One is reasonably safe, however, in positing a Christian audience which was not necessarily uniformly devout nor even uniformly Christian but one which included at any rate a certain number of persons who were not only nominally Christian but also at the least knew their catechism and creed and other central and basic items of contemporary Christian belief. One can say that a good deal of evidence both from the Frankish realm and from AngloSaxon England, evidence external, that is, to Genesis B, testifies to the currency of these items of belief. It was this common knowledge on which Adam’s reference to a tacen 540 and the description of Eve’s vision in lines 666–71 was based. Our discussion of the micel wundor passage in Chapter VI provides evidence both as to the poet’s wit and of his orthodoxy. But if known cruces are a challenge, unknown cruces are something of a minefield—one’s interpretation negotiates the danger at some risk. It is therefore with trepid confidence that I consider, in this chapter and the next, the predicate tacen (-)iewan in lines 540 and 714. The significance of tacen (-)iewan, especially in line 540, has not been fully recognized, but these predicates, together with the interpretation of line 714 as referring to lines 666–71, constitute, I think, one of the most striking and compelling instances of both wit and the comedic in the whole of Genesis B. And unless these predicates can be shown to entail the comedic and to mean otherwise than that Adam and Eve were innocently damned, the exonerative view of the poem will persist, and it will little avail to demonstrate wit and the comedic elsewhere in the poem. The view that the poem is non-comedic—that it exonerates Adam and Eve, showing them to have been punished unfairly, and that it places God in the inscrutable distance—rests importantly (though certainly not solely, as we have just seen) on what I will try to show is a misreading of these predicates: Adam, so it has been perceived, said that the boda had tendered

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him no sign; the boda in due course tendered a sign to Eve which she in turn described to Adam, and so what was inferred to be Adam’s request for a sign was legitimately, albeit ruinously, accommodated. Thus the errors of Adam and Eve were “errors of judgement, not sins.”4 Yet in the light of philological and historical inquiry this reading of the poem will be seen, like Eve’s vision in the poem, to ellor scriðan ‘glide off elsewhere’ 773. Let us begin the inquiry by noting the implications of nergend user 536. Modern criticism has generally left the phrase unnoticed. It may be that, as Green says, “so often in Carolingian literature, there is no hard and fast distinction between God the Father and Christ, who is seen explicitly in the light of his twofold nature.”5 But this absence of distinction would not seem in any obvious way to be the case in “The Saxon Genesis,” for although references to God are hardly uncommon, nergend ‘savior’ occurs only in line 536 in Genesis B, and its sister neriand occurs never in the Old Saxon passages. As to the Heliand, Sehrt adjudges that, as substantive, neriand is “nur von Christus gebraucht” and, as adjective ‘heilbringend, rettend,’ always refers to Christ and usually modifies Krist.6 Genesis B, as I noted some years ago, “prefers terms naming God as Lord or Ruler almost to the exclusion of terms describing Him otherwise.” Such terms for God as cyning, drihten, waldend or alwalda, þeoden, and hearra help to emphasize “the relation of Master and Servant which once existed . . . first between God and Lucifer and then between God and Adam.”7 That nergend occurs even once in the Old English poem might therefore seem anomalous. Certainly the immediate context, with its emphasis on God’s commands to Adam—me her stondan het / his bebodu healdan ‘bid me stand here (to) hold his commands’ 525–26, me warnian het ‘bid me be on (my) guard’ 527, hwæt he me self bebead ‘what he himself commanded me’ 535, het me his word weorðian and wel healdan, / læstan his lare ‘commanded me to honor and keep well his word(s), carry out his teaching’ 537–38, as well as the ready disposition to obey his lord which Adam displays throughout the speech—would suggest that some term implying a master-servant relationship, min hearra 542, for example, would be appropriate, contextually, at least, where in fact nergend stands in the text. Most notably, the end of Adam’s long speech indicates (as we saw in Chapter III) an intimate chieftain-thane relationship: he [God] mæg me of his hean rice / geofian mid goda gehwilcum þeah he his gingran ne sende ‘He is able from his high realm to present me with each of good things, although he does not send his servant’ 545–46. And nergend ‘savior’ appears otherwise quite out of place: not as yet having fallen, Adam might be expected to have no need of a saving being; indeed, in its usage otherwise, nergend, like hælend ‘healing (one),’ reflects a consequence of Adam’s Fall.

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Nor is nergend here likely to have resulted from the translation of the poem from Old Saxon into Old English; presumably neriand and adverb nahist stood in the lost Old Saxon text at the point where nergend and nehst stand in the Old English. The only attested Old Saxon word beginning with n- and denoting, with one emphasis or another, a divine being, is neriand. That is why neriand occurs not infrequently in the Heliand. Not only nergend is curious. Concerning Old Saxon pronominal forms Holthausen notes that “die Dualformen sind im Hel[iand] schon mehrfach durch die Pluralformen ersetzt, . . ..”8 But in Genesis B the use of the dual form seems generally to be deliberate and purposeful, and this suggests in turn that the absence of a dual where it might be expected is also deliberate and purposeful.9 Thus far in their lives Adam and Eve are the only existing persons, yet Adam’s pronoun here is the general plural form user instead of the dual uncer. Adam speaks bluntly to the boda and in lines 538–39 even tells him that he is unlike any of God’s angels he had seen before. As a reflex perhaps of the circumstance that (as we noted in Chapter IV) Adam speaks here as ratio, there is no suggestion of intimacy between himself and the boda. He addresses the boda merely as þu without any honorific vocative. But it seems unlikely that the form user reflects a polite inclusion of the boda as well as himself and Eve. In so hierarchically aware a poem as this and in a speech to one who says he has come from God (near to whom, he asserts, he has not long since been sitting, and on whose errand he says he was sent [lines 497–99]), the absence of some such vocative is noteworthy and in itself suggestive that Adam does not believe the boda’s protestations. Nor is it clear how the nergend might be the savior of the boda, who, if he is drihtnes . . . / boda of heofnum 532–33, as he has claimed, is no more in present need of a savior than is Adam. In Old Testament narratives reshaped in Old English poetry the voice uttering the word nergend is usually that of the narrator. In Genesis (A) 855 the narrator says that nergend wished to find out what his children had done. In some other texts, however, Old English and otherwise, an Old Testament speaker who is in some great peril evidently has knowledge of Christ or of the Trinity. For instance, in the Mystère d’Adam Adam exclaims, “No one will help me now except the Son who will come forth from Mary,” and Old Testament prophets speak of Christ. In Daniel 312, 374, and 401 the speaker, Azarias or the Three Children as one, prays and calls on the nergend for deliverance from the furnace. Nergend ‘savior’ in these speeches has no equivalent either in the Septuagint or the Vulgate text (Daniel 3: 24–45 and 51–90); their contexts, however, suggest that although the speeches are located in

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adaptations of Old Testament narratives, the speakers at these points are seen as Christian. In Judith 83–86 Judith speaks explicitly of the Trinity: “Ic ðe, frymða god ond frofre gæst, bearn alwaldan, biddan wylle   85   miltse þinre me þearfendre, ðrynesse ðrym.” ‘I will ask you, God of creation and spirit of consolation, son of the Almighty, (85) of your mercy to me as one in need, glory of the Trinity.’

Similarly in Daniel 399–403 the youths exclaim:            We þec bletsiað, 400   frea folca gehwæs, fæder ælmihtig, soð sunu metodes, sawla nergend, hæleða helpend, and þec, halig gast, wurð[i]að in wuldra, witig drihten” ‘We bless you, (400) Lord of each of peoples, Father Almighty, true son of the creator, savior of souls, helper of heroes, and you, holy Spirit, (we) honor in glory, wise Lord’

In Azarias 155–57 the youths name the Trinity in giving thanks: 155   “Nu we geonge þry god bletsiað, felameahtigne fæder in heofonum, þone soðan sunu ond þone sigefæstan gæst.” ‘Now we three youths bless God, the exceedingly powerful Father in the heavens, the true Son and the Spirit confirmed in victory.’

And in Azarias 103 the Song of the Three Children names þec, Crist cyning ‘you, Christ (the) King.’ In all these passages—Daniel, Azarias, and Judith— the contexts entail a moment in which the speakers either are or have been in great danger and except in the last instance their words constitute a lorica. These two circumstances, that the situation of the Old Testament speakers entails some very serious threat or danger and that the words of the speakers display knowledge of Christ or of the Trinity, bear very significantly, as we shall see, on the situation and the words of Adam in his response to the Tempter in Genesis B.10

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The impulse to import Christian concepts into what originally were Old Testament stories or other literary works went of course well beyond such Old English poems as I have just mentioned. Again the Utrecht Psalter provides evidence. Koert van der Horst observes of its drawings that “the divine majesty is sometimes represented by the hand of God, but usually by a figuration of Christ with a cruciform nimbus and flanked by two symmetrical groups of angels, generally three in number.” And presently he explains that The portrayal of God, the Creator, as Christ in an Old Testament text is due to a sophisticated Christian exegesis. In the early commentaries, the Word of God (the “Logos”) was regarded as the instrument of the Creation, while the link between the creative Logos and Jesus was established as early as the first chapter of the Gospel of St John. . . . [T]he idea developed of the pre-existence of the Christ-Logos with God the Father and his active role in the Creation. In about half of the cases, Christ-Logos—enthroned in majesty, standing or half-length—is depicted in an oval mandorla.11

The apparent disjunction between nergend user and nehst in Genesis 536 neatly illustrates Doane’s observation that “We are not looking forward to the Advent, but back from it. Adam and Eve’s soteriological situation does not coincide with their narratological one, where the rescue will have to be undertaken in the distant future, but with our historical one, where salvation has already been effected.”12 At line 536 Adam is of course in danger but as yet he has not sinned—that may be why, as in the Daniel passages, God is called nergend ‘Savior’ and not hælend ‘Healer.’ But if Adam’s situation is one in which “salvation has already been effected” (apart from the circumstance that in lines 535—42 he has not yet sinned), then Adam is seen as Christian here and might indeed make some kind of reference to Christ. The tropological mode of composition means that even as Adam resists the Tempter, his dual identities as the biblical Adam and as a Christian of the sixth age amalgamate in his speech. Within the one line 536, the alliterating nergend user ‘our savior’ and nehst ‘in proximo’ imply, respectively, the post-redemptive (nergend user) and the prelapsarian (nehst; cf. Genesis 2:17) conditions of humankind. An allusion to a redemptive and comedic nergend in the first temptation of Adam would be comparable to what we have noted as an allusion to the redemptive and comedic [s]e in the temptation of Eve: both remind an audience of the salvific recourse in the face of danger. No doubt nergend ‘savior’ 536 is out of place among such terms as drihten, sigedrihten, and other terms of distinctly martial import in Adam’s reply to the boda. But only superficially out of place; as we saw in Chapter VI, to the Carolingians, Christ was himself a chieftain, “God was himself a warlord.”

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The prior temptation of Adam in Genesis B, as we have inferred, reflects the rationale of temptation whereby Adam was taken as ratio, Eve as sensus corporis animalis and so on. But the condition and psychology so figured and explained is not that merely of Adam and Eve but that of postlapsarian humanity as well. It follows that the phrase nergend user in Adam’s speech here, apparently an anachronism and otherwise so seemingly out of place in the immediate context and so different from other terms for God in the poem, is not an authorial or scribal inadvertence and may very well bear considerable tropological significance. The inference that nergend user has tropological significance throws light on another passage in Adam’s speech. I recapitulate at some length an earlier argument concerning this passage because that article’s conclusion bears very importantly both on the tropology of lines 535–42 and on the exonerative reading of the poem. The passage shows, I think, that the exonerative reading has very seriously misunderstood the clause ne þu me oðiewdest ænig tacen 540.13 The predicate oðiewdest ænig tacen can hardly mean that Adam was willing to accept “any” sign. No scholar that I know of would suggest that it would make no difference what Adam was shown as long as he was shown something; after all, Adam goes right on to say þe he me þurh treowe to onsende, / min hearra þurh hyldo ‘which through good faith he sent to me, my Lord through favor’ 541–42. But since ænig ‘any’ alliterates in its line it is not unreasonable to ask if the word bears rhetorical emphasis. Both the distinct preference of Old Saxon têkan/têcan to serve as an alliterating lift and the disinclination of Old Saxon adjectival ênig so to serve would suggest that the putative Old Saxon antecedent of ænig tacen is much more likely to have alliterated on têkan than on ênig, so that whatsoever emphasis on ænig which the alliteration in the Old English ne þu me oðiewdest ænig tacen 540 might seem to convey would not have obtained on Old Saxon ênig; cf. Heliand 844 êr than he thar têcan ênig tôgian uueldi.14 But the much more important point is that, as Heliand 844 illustrates, Old Saxon had not only the verb ôgian ‘to show’ but also tôgian ‘to show,’ the initial t- of the latter deriving, by aphesis, from *at-ôgian. And what we find is that “[i]n the Heliand and Old Saxon Genesis, when noun [têkan] and verb [ôgian/tôgian] occur in the same line, têkan is never used with ôgian but always with (-)tôgian.”15 Presumably, then, the lack of an Old English equivalent (conjecturally, *tiewan) to Old Saxon tôgian obliged the translator to shift from consonantal to vocalic alliteration, with the unfortunate result that in the Old English, tacen came to occupy the final lift. J. R. R. Tolkien, remarking on alliteration in Old English verse, notes that “the second half of the

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line must be so arranged that the stronger lift comes first. As a result the lines tend to end with the naturally inferior words (such as finite verbs), and so to fall away in force and significance together.”16 So tacen here, an important word in any scheme of interpretation, was relegated as a lift to the least important place in its line and the less important ænig raised up as the stronger lift. To regard the alliterative stress on ænig as warranting a translation of ne þu me oðiewdest ænig tacen 540 which might invite emphasis on ‘any’— e.g., Gordon’s ‘nor have you shown me any sign’—is therefore somewhat dangerous.17 Given adjectival fondness for a prenominal position in Modern English it is difficult, at first thought, to know how to translate ænig here so as to minimize this danger. But in light of Sehrt’s conclusion that Old Saxon adjectival ênig “[i]n Verbindung mit der Negation ni = ‘kein,’” a reasonable translation of ne . . . ænig tacen 540 would be ‘no sign.’18 Such a reading would differ from ‘not any sign’—with ‘any’ emphasized—because it would not suggest an array of possible signs there to choose from, whereas ‘no sign’ suggests simple dearth. We shall see later in the chapter that the difference in the interpretation of ænig is not an unimportant matter. If, then, Genesis 540 ne . . . oðiewdest ænig tacen reflects, putatively, Old Saxon *ni . . . gitôgdes têkan ênig and if any rhetorical emphasis on Old English ænig as a misplaced lift can be neutralized by translating ‘no sign,’ would such a translation as ‘you have shown me no sign’ (or, perhaps, ‘you haven’t shown me a sign’) be satisfactory?19 My view is that it would not. For when we have addressed the problems of ænig and of word order and therefore of emphasis, we must address another problem: in ne þu me oðiewdest ænig tacen, how do we translate the verb phrase ne . . . oðiewdest? The matter hardly seems problematical and worthy of notice; ‘nor have you shown’ would, I suspect, be for many and perhaps most readers the obvious and correct translation. Even Doane appears to have no doubt on the point: ‘nor have you shown me any credentials . . .’20 But doubt there is indeed. Bruce Mitchell observes that “[Wanderer] 92 Hwær cwom mearg? is usually translated ‘Where has the horse gone?’ But is ‘Where did the horse go?’ out of the question?” And for the difference in implication he cites J. M. Wattie: The special force of the perfect tense is not so much to indicate a completed action as to imply that this particular happening of the past has a bearing on the present. . .. This bearing of the past on the present is frequently indicated in Old English, as in Modern English, by the resolved perfect tense; but the older usage, the simple past, lacking in this delicacy of suggestion, is also of frequent occurrence.21

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The form oðiewdest is simple past, and therefore does not necessarily partake of this delicacy of suggestion. Certainly the Old Saxon preterites, if we may judge from the Heliand, do not necessarily require translation other than through the simple past; Behaghel observes that the preterite indicative, among other possibilities, can signify “[e]inzelne, wirklich vollzogene Thatsachen der Vergangenheit, ohne Rücksicht darauf, ob sie zur Gegenwart in Beziehung stehen oder nicht.”22 We should therefore not be disposed to assume, through a translation such as ‘have you shown,’ that the tacen at issue “has a bearing on the present” (“zur Gegenwart in Beziehung steh[t]”), and that translations such as ‘nor did you show me a sign’ or ‘you showed me no sign’ are, as Mitchell puts it, “out of the question.” Put more emphatically, there is nothing in the clause ne þu me oðiewdest ænig tacen to warrant the implication that the so-called “demand” must still be in force. Although Greenfield’s phrase “Adam and Eve’s insistence on a ‘sign’ from God” can very well apply to Eve in her temptation of Adam, we cannot reasonably infer that in his prior temptation Adam was indicating to the Tempter not simply that a sign might have helped his case but even that he might redeem his failure so far by presenting some sign in the future. It may well be as if a teacher should say to a student, “you failed the test” or “you didn’t turn in the assignment.” In and of themselves such observations need by no means imply that the test can be taken again and later or that the assignment can still be submitted. Correspondingly, Adam’s saying to the boda, . . . ne þu me oðiewdest ænig tacen . . . cannot, of itself, be understood as his assurance to the boda that he might still present a sign and that when Eve, later on, told Adam of her vision, he understood it as the fulfillment of what he had requested. This is in no way to imply, of course, that when she did tell of her vision he did not, in the thralldom now of his lustas, come to believe her. It simply means that earlier he had made no admission of conditionality to the boda. The circumstance, moreover, that the boda goes on to promise a reward to Eve, just as he had done to Adam, in no way obliges us to see Adam’s oðiewdest as entailing present-perfect force and so implying his pledge to obey the boda’s behest once Eve has told of her vision. The exonerative reading errs more broadly here than in misreading only ne þu me oðiewdest ænig tacen. It also ignores the immediate context of the clause. That context, i.e., lines 535–46, does not in any way suggest that Adam was admitting a limitation to his refusal: 535              ic wat hwæt he me self bebead, nergend user, þa ic hine nehst geseah. he het me his word weorðian and wel healdan,

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læstan his lare. þu gelic ne bist ænegum his engla þe ic ær geseah 540   ne þu me oðiewdest ænig tacen þe he me þurh treowe to onsende, min hearra þurh hyldo. þy ic þe hyran ne cann, ac þu meaht þe forð faran. ic hæbbe me fæstne geleafan up to þam ælmihtegan gode þe me mid his earmum worhte, 545   her mid handum sinum. he mæg me of his hean rice geofian mid goda gehwilcum þeah he his gingran ne sende. ‘I know what he himself commanded, our savior, when I saw him in person. He bid me honor his word and keep (it) well, carry out his teaching. You are unlike any of his angels whom I saw earlier (540) nor did you show me any sign which through good faith he sent to me, my Lord, through favor. Therefore I cannot obey you, ac you can go forth. I have fast belief in the almighty God who wrought me with his arms, (545) here with his hands. He is able from his high realm to present me with each of good things, although he does not send his servant.’

There is, of course, no more mention here of a “demand” on Adam’s part than there is anywhere else in the poem. But it is hardly in this respect alone that the context supports our reading of oðiewdest and its clause. Adam precedes the passage in lines 540–42a by giving two other reasons why he refuses the boda’s behest: God’s prior command (lines 535b–38a) and the boda’s non-angelic shape (lines 538b–539). He follows the passage with his outright refusal: ‘therefore (þy 542) I cannot obey you, and you can go forth’ (lines 542b–43a); and then with his declaration of loyalty to God (lines 543b– 45a). Finally, in the mindset of the comitatus and of Carolingian martiality, he reminds the boda that the boda’s assertion that he himself as God’s proxy will bestow the reward when Adam acquiesces is a violation of the norms of ritual and protocol: it is not through an intermediary that God rewards his servants (lines 545b–46). In all of what both immediately precedes and follows lines 540–42a, then, there is no hint of conditionality. And merely to note Adam’s grounds for refusal is not to exhaust all the objections which the context entails to the exonerative reading. If Adam had in mind the notion that *“if, of course, you should at some future time present a sign, then, . . .” why, in so uniformly hostile a context, did he allow the idea to depend on the verb form oðiewdest/*gitôgdes, in itself so ambiguous as to a “bearing of the past on the present”? And if Adam was allowing that the boda might manifest a sign in

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the future, why did he continue with the declaration ‘I cannot obey you, ac you can go forth’ 542–43, when his ‘go forth’ might not unreasonably be taken to mean that he perceived no need for another encounter and therefore, presumably, no possibility of such a manifestation? Indeed, Adam’s ac þu meaht þe forð faran smacks far more of dismissal than of au revoir. Sehrt observes that “(nach einem negativen Vordersatz)” ‘(after a preceding negative clause),’ Old Saxon ak (Old English ac) means ‘sondern,’ i.e., ‘to the contrary,’ which tells us that the clauses þy ic þe hyran ne cann and ac þu meaht þe forð faran stand in very strong contrast. The contrast is not only between the pronominal subjects but between the auxiliaries cann (infinitive cunnan ‘[to] know; verstehen,’ etc.) and meaht (infinitive magan ‘[to] have power; die Fähigkeit wozu haben,’ etc.); whereas cann acknowledges Adam’s intellectual and moral grasp of the issue, meaht implies merely the boda’s ability to move physically. The implication is that Adam, as victor, holds the ground, while the boda, as loser, must give way. In ac þu meaht þe forð faran Adam is telling the boda to get out; Sehrt notes in fact that mugan (Old English magan) with the infinitive “. . . wird öfters zur Umschreibung des Imperativs . . . gebraucht.”23 Rather pointedly Adam makes no mention of destination, notably of that Heaven whence the boda claims to have come. The exonerative reading of the poem rests principally on the supposition that the clause ne þu me oðiewdest ænig tacen 540 signifies not merely Adam’s observation as to a past circumstance (that no sign was shown) but also his continuing demand for a sign. The argument so far in the present chapter, together with the argument in Chapter IV that Adam, incited by the boda in the presence of Eve, succumbed because of his lustas 687, will have served, I trust, severely to impugn this supposition and therewith to call strongly into question, even indeed to lead to the dismissal of, the exonerative reading of Genesis B. According to the exonerative reading, the supposed signification of the ænig tacen clause as to the future is more important by far than its signification as to the past; that Adam not only “demanded” but was continuing to demand a sign is fundamental to the whole argument. The belief further is that the sign of which Adam speaks and the vision of which Eve tells have little or no meaning or significance except in relation to each other, Adam’s as a demand and Eve’s as a fulfillment of that demand. The present reading quite alters this understanding. If ne þu me oðiewdest ænig tacen does not mean that the boda may still present a sign, it does mean not only that in failing to present a sign he fails to establish his credentials as an emissary of God but in addition that Eve’s vision is not in a cause and effect relationship with Adam’s absent tacen.

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Insofar as the difficulty which the clause presents to modern readers probably resulted in part from the translator’s having had to turn a somewhat intractable Old Saxon passage into reasonably concise Old English, the clause ne þu me oðiewdest ænig tacen joins the clause cwæð þæt sceaðena mæst / eallum heora eaforum 549–51, as another passage in which differences between Old Saxon and Old English in lexicon, morphology, or style have caused serious problems of interpretation for modern students of Genesis B. The clarification of other passages has depended, as we have seen, in no small part on inquiry into the social or religious context of the poem: the swa hire eaforan passage in lines 623–25, and certainly the micel wundor passage in lines 595–98. It is especially this latter sort of inquiry which must now address the aforementioned and indeed central mystery in ne þu me oðiewdest ænig tacen. Such inquiry (with an assist from philology) will show that the clause, even though taken only as “Adam’s observation as to a past circumstance,” is of great significance both in and of itself and in relation to Eve’s vision. The Old English predicate tacen (-)iewan and Old Saxon têkan ôgian/(gi-) tôgian normally imply that the tacen/têkan is itself something perceived visually. In Heliand 2350 and 3114, so that the faith of the Jews or of His disciples might be increased, Christ reveals signs, though in 5680, so hard-hearted are the witnesses to the execution that no sign is shown. In 5273 Herod’s bodyguards look for some sign from Christ. Sometimes the verb iewan/ôgian is not present, but there is evidence otherwise that the perception of the sign is visual: in John 6:30 Jesus is asked, Quod ergo tu facis signum ut videamus et credamus tibi?, for which the Corpus Ms. gives hwæt dest þu to tacne [þæt] we geseon 7 gelyfon. 24 Etymological evidence supports the contextual: ôgian, (gi-) tôgian, and iewan derive from Germanic stems of IE *ok- ‘sehen’: *augan-, whence Old Saxon ôgian and tôgian (both ultimately from ôga ‘eye’; cf. Old English eage); and *awi-, whence Old English eawan, iewan, etc.25 The circumstance that considerable phonetic similarity obtained between the Old Saxon and Old English forms for noun ‘eye’ and verb ‘to show (visually)’ might have strengthened the understanding that the verb implied visual perception. In Old Saxon the implication of visuality in the contextually principal verb meaning ‘to show, to manifest’ was perhaps even stronger than that in the equivalent Old English verb: there is somewhat greater phonetic similarity between the Old Saxon forms for noun ‘eye’ and verb ‘to show (visually)’ than between the Old English: cf. ôga/(-)ôgian but eage/(-)iewan. That a “sign” is divinely bestowed is of immense consequence: such a sign is itself the proof of its own authenticity. Moreover, the sign is not only wondrous in its divine bestowal “but also is something given for the edification, the protection, the admonishment of lesser beings.” A being shows a sign to

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some person or persons, possibly but not necessarily suspicious or skeptical, as proof of his holiness, divinity, legitimacy, or bona fides. “‘To manifest a sign’ is therefore to imply a hierarchical relationship, and to imply a hierarchical relationship is to imply an ethical one.”26 Commonly in Old English the word for such a sign was tacen. In Genesis 6:30, for instance, God, declaring to Noah a new covenant, says that hoc signum foederis quod do inter me et vos. . . . Arcum meum ponam in nubibus, et erit signum foederis inter me et inter terram; the Old English Heptateuch duly gives tacn: Ðis bið ðæt tacn mines weddes ðæt ic do betwux me 7 eow. . . . Ðæt is, ðæt ic sette minne renbogan on wolcnum, 7 he byð tacn mines weddes betwux me 7 ðære eorðan.27 This is to say that in Old English texts, certainly in Old English religious texts, the word tacen ‘sign’ is bound up with far stronger associations than those which commonly attend the word “sign” in modern English. Underlying the speeches of, say, Matthew 11:2–11, including Christ’s Ioannis laus, is the idea of a sign, in this instance a prophet. The scriptural attentiveness to signs is reflected in early medieval Christian poetry, which is desirous and respectful of signs. In the Old Saxon Heliand and in Old English Christian texts it is commonly a divine and benevolent spirit who “manifests a sign” to those in need of instruction or admonition. And at Genesis 540, even though Adam does not say what the sign might be, there is no intimation, as I said in an earlier paper, “that Adam’s words at or around line 540 imply or admit any dismissal or qualification of the normal implications of the predicate. His words make sense only if these implications are understood to obtain.”28 The instances of tacen (-)iewan later in the poem do not show the normal implications. In lines 713–14 the narrator’s reference to Eve’s disclosure to Adam becomes extraordinary when it says that mid þam wordum þe heo þam were swelce / tacen oðiewde ‘with those words by which she showed such signs to the man . . .’ In the first place, the phrasing mid þam wordum þe ‘with those words by which’ makes quite clear that Eve’s disclosure of her tacen was verbal and not visual.29 In the second place, the near-oxymoron implicit in mid þam wordum þe heo . . . tacen oðiewde also entails the circumstance that Eve, the one who discloses, is not a divine, a more-than-human, spirit. That she is not more-than-human quite contravenes the usage of Old Saxon predicate têkan ôgian/(gi-)tôgian, which elsewhere indicates such a being as the subject of the predicate. This can be seen initially in Genesis B. Adam’s observation in line 540 that his visitor showed no sign clearly posits that if a sign had been shown the visitor would indeed have come from Heaven and was more-than-human. When Eve has succumbed to the boda, he iewde hire tacen 653, and the narrator follows this up with the comment that the devil, as a being more-than-human, . . . hire þurh untreowa / tacen iewde ‘through

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fraud showed her a sign’ 773–74. The Old Saxon Genesis demonstrates the point in tôgean sulic têkean 73, God’s setting a mark on Cain. The Heliand, not surprisingly, provides further evidence: in lines 844, 1206, 2076, 2163, 2350, 2660–62, 3114, 5273–74, Christ is the grammatical subject of predicative têkan ôgian/(gi-)tôgian.30 Since, therefore, Eve’s disclosure of her vision is verbal and not visual and since Eve herself is not a supernatural being, her report of a vision by which heo þam were swelce / tacen oðiewde cannot be taken, as nevertheless many, over many years, have taken it, as a valid response to Adam’s mention of a tacen and so as an exoneration of Adam.31 In other words, mid þam wordum . . . tacen oðiewde 713–14 has been misconstrued just as ne þu me oðiewdest ænig tacen 540 has been misconstrued. On the first occasion, Adam’s words can reasonably be taken to say no more than ‘you showed me no sign.’ They need not even be taken as the rather differently nuanced ‘nor have you shown me a sign,’ and they certainly need not be understood to imply that ‘any sign you show me in the future will be acceptable.’ On the second occasion, ‘with those words by which she showed such signs to the man’ indicate only the fact and the nature of her disclosure. It seems likely that Adam did accept her account of the vision as true. But as we saw in Chapter IV, this acceptance followed, and did not precede, the circumstance that in Eve’s presence the Tempter legde him lustas on ‘put desires into him’ 687, so that his rational faculty became disabled—in other words, the tribus modis rationale was operative. Therefore Adam’s reference to a tacen in line 540, the boda’s disclosure of a vision to Eve, and Eve’s report thereof to Adam do not explain his Fall. Nor is the failure signified by Adam’s belief that a sign has been shown an intellectual failure, because his intellect has already been crippled by the lustas imparted by the boda in the presence of Eve. His failure is not the failure in itself of reason; his ruin, in the rationale of the early medieval ages, came through carnal delectation. It is probably no accident that just at the point when Eve approaches Adam, the narrator refers to Eve’s beauty: þa gien[g] to adame idesa scenost, wifa wlitegost þe on woruld come (lines 626–27) ‘then went to Adam the loveliest of ladies, of women the most splendid who came into the world.’

If Adam’s ne þu me oðiewdest ænig tacen entails no implication for the future, it nevertheless entails one for the present: Adam is noting that in having failed to present a sign the boda has failed to establish his credentials. One may therefore ask what that sign could have been.

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If, of course, Adam’s “demand” was fulfilled by Eve’s vision, there was no need to try to answer or even to put the question. A few valiant souls have dared to do both. Ute Schwab, herself certainly not of the exonerative school, questions if tacen 540 alludes to “eine Urkunde? den Botenstab? das Botenkleid? oder die Reliquienkapsel, auf die geschworen wurde?” ‘a document? the messenger’s staff or dress? or the reliquary to be sworn upon?’32 But although I agree with her assumption that the tacen would have to have been one which made sense to the poet and to the poet’s contemporary audience, all of these answers appear to assume that the boda is in angelic rather than serpent form. I have noted as more plausible the inference of Burchmore and others that his form was that of the serpent; certainly the reference to the boda’s shape closest to his address to Adam is wearp hine þa on wyrmes lic ‘cast him(self) then into (a) serpent’s body’ 491. On the one hand, the notion of a serpent proffering a document or a staff of office is a little bizarre. On the other hand, if the understanding was that a devil might transform himself into an angel of light (2 Cor 11:14) and if the boda did appear in angelic form, it is difficult to see why above and beyond angelic form a staff or document would be supposed to afford a surer token of legitimacy. Doane takes another approach. Citing instances in the Old Saxon Genesis and the Old English Juliana, he observes that “real angels and devils appearing as angels don’t have identification problems, but are recognized for what they are by spiritual insight.”33 Well and good, but perhaps only uncertainly helpful in the present instance. Eve’s assertion ic on his gearwan geseo ‘I see by his apparel’ 657 is perhaps an instance of un-spiritual insight. It would seem possible that Adam, obedient, loyal to God, a man by tropology both of the first age and of the sixth and, until his Fall, the figure of ratio, ought to have had such insight, and perhaps such insight did inform him with certitude that the messenger was false. But this insight is never identified as such; rather, as we have seen, what does become identified, in Adam’s reply to the boda, are the several explicit reasons why he refuses the boda’s behest. Janet Schrunk Ericksen suggests, as apparently her preferred nominee, a “token” not wholly unlike, though in one respect significantly improving upon, Schwab’s “Urkunde” ‘document.’ She proposes that Adam’s tacen 540 is an allusion to a chirographum, literally ‘hand-writing,’ more specifically, a legal document written out doubly and then cut in two, each of the signatories retaining one half of the text against a possible adjudicative need to compare that half with the other party’s half. The virtue of the chirographum is that it is evidence, virtually irrefutable, of a prior agreement.34 Thus Adam, in Genesis B, is to be understood as saying that the boda presented no chirograph, or half thereof. Yet, apart from the same objections which were raised

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above against Schwab’s “eine Urkunde,” etc., there is another and weightier objection. The noun tacen 540 has the adjective clause þe he me þurh treowe to onsende, / min hearra þurh hyldo ‘which he, my lord, through grace sent to me’ 541–42: would Adam be seriously saying here that the Lord might have entered into a contract whereby Adam would be obliged to do what the Lord specifically forbade him to do? Or are we to guess that Adam himself was somehow one of the signatories? Irony, I suppose, is a possibility, but the passage otherwise hardly seems to entail irony. The strongest objection, however, to both Schwab’s and Ericksen’s proposals is, in my view, that a contemporaneous audience would have been readily disposed to take Adam’s tacen 540 as an allusion to a physical—and spiritual—act long familiar to medieval Christian peoples and in fact commonly designated in Anglo-Saxon life by the verbal element (-)tacen ‘(-) sign.’ The early Middle Ages put great store in signs, as did indeed the Old and New Testaments. Given that the poem’s audience was accustomed, as Christians of the time commonly were, to honor “signs” and expect them to have significance, Adam’s reference to a sign which, if conferred, would have demonstrated the visitor’s legitimacy is eminently plausible. I infer that in giving Adam the words ne þu me oðiewdest ænig tacen 540 the poet had in mind some sign either the prior showing or non-showing of which would have allowed his audience to take as proof either of the boda’s legitimacy or his non-legitimacy. The immediate context of the passage indicates that Adam would be very careful in regard to a tacen. It is clear, if only from lines 531–32, that he must, and knows that he must, distinguish with certainty friend from foe, bona fides from mala, and that a failure to do so means disaster. Even the circumstance that the form nergend ‘savior’ derives from the present participle of the verb lends a certain urgency to Adam’s request: the word, more strictly, means ‘(the) saving (one)’ and implies rather more strongly than ‘savior’ the capability of immediate action. It is in this light that we can assess the temptation of Adam as a “mnemonic chain.” He speaks of a tacen not so much against possible failure in such a chain, i.e., a failure of orality, but as a proof of legitimacy: if the sign is legitimate, then so is its bearer. The boda’s message originates, of course, with the boda (or rather with Satan), but purportedly it comes from God: het he me on þysne sið faran, / het þæt þu þisses ofætes æte ‘he commanded me to travel on this journey, commanded that you eat of this fruit’ 499–500; and what Adam is demanding is verification that these het he . . ., het . . . clauses report the truth, that the messenger is indeed from God. If such an origin can be confirmed, there is no need to question the chain.

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The chain God>boda>Adam, which the boda implies is legitimate, actually would be legitimate as well as intact. The surest—the handiest literally, but also the most obvious—tacen for Adam would, I suggest, be the sign of the cross, the signum crucis. The celebration of the cross and of its efficacy is, of course, an ancient principle and mainstay of Christian belief. It seems not improbable that the Carolingian prelates and magnates to whom, as we have noted, “God was himself a warlord” welcomed a metaphor which likened the efficacy of the cross to that of the paraphernalia of war. Contrasting the uselessness of images and the efficacy of the mysterium crucis, a passage in the Libri Carolini declares of the cross that [h]oc enim vexillo antiquus hostis, non imaginibus, victus est. His armis, non colorum fucis, diabolus expugnatus est. Per hanc, non per picturas, inferni claustra destituta sunt. Per hanc, non per picturas, inferni claustra destituta sunt. Per hanc, non per illas, humanum genus redemptum est. In cruce namque, non in imaginibus, pretium mundi pependit. . . . Est enim cassis, quo diabolici ensis inpulsio quatitur; est clypeus, qui ad resistendum illius missilibus telis opponitur; . . . hoc est munimen, quo illius flexuose fraudis meandros et callida machinamenta devincimus, ne vincere valeat temptatos, quos primi hominis tenuit suasione captivos.35 ‘By this banner, not by images, the ancient foe is overcome; by these arms, not by the deceit of colors, is the devil to be subdued. Through this, not through mosaics, the defences of Hell are abandoned. Through this, not through those, the human race is redeemed. For on the cross, not on images, the price of the world was hung. . . . It is the helmet, by which the thrust of the devilish sword is defeated; it is the shield, which is brought forward to resist his hurled darts; . . . This is the defense by which we overcome his Mæander of flexuous fraud and artful engines, lest he should overcome those tempted ones whom he held captive by the suasion of the first man.’

Such metaphors as these are in accord with, say, the depiction in the Heliand of Christ as a warrior chieftain and with, as Green terms it, “the heroic, warlike vocabulary,” the comitatus lexicon, “rendered fit for christian use.”36 They are likewise in accord with the martiality which suffuses Genesis B. The efficacy of the cross itself was anciently perceived also in the sign of the cross; just as the cross, as the Libri Carolini testifies, defeats the Devil, so too the signum crucis was anciently seen to defeat the Devil and his minions. In his monograph on the signum crucis Franz Joseph Dölger identifies

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almost forty areas of its usage in late Antiquity and the early Middle Ages—a testimony to the vast utility of the signum crucis in that period of time. In Section 13, “Das Kreuzzeichen in Verbindung mit der Teufelsabschwörung in der privaten Frömmigkeitsübung” (‘The Signum Crucis in Relation to the Abjuration of the Devil in the Private Exercise of Piety’) Dölger cites, as the first of several references, a passage from St. John Chrysostom in which the saint, exhorting his listeners to recite a Teufelsabschwörung ‘devil-abjuration’ on their going out of doors, urges them also to make therewith the sign of the cross. Dölger translates: Und mit diesem Worte zeichne dir zugleich das Kreuz auf die Stirne. So wird dir nicht nur kein Mensch, der dir begegnet, sondern auch nicht einmal der Teufel selbst einen Schaden zufügen können, wenn er dich überall mit dieser Waffenrüstung auftreten sieht. Nimm von da gleich diese Lehre hin, damit du, wenn du das Siegel angenommen hast und ein ausgerüsteter Soldat bist und das Siegeszeichen gegen den Teufel aufgerichtet hast, den Kranz der Gerechtigkeit empfangen kannst.37

We noted, in the preceding chapter, the missionaries’ argument that the God of the Christians was mightier than any of the heathen gods. It is not surprising to find mention of Christ’s cross or of its signum in an account of a conversion to Christianity. In his Elene Cynewulf tells of Constantine’s dream before his battle against the Huns and the Goths. It is a passage which we could have noted in Chapter VI: the heathen chieftain urged to embrace, and coming to embrace, Christ as the giver of victory in battle. The heavenly messenger exhorts Constantine to look heavenward; þær ðu wraðe findest / sigores tacen ‘there you (will) find support, the sign of victory’ 84–85, which counsel the emperor at once adopted by commanding that a wooden cross, þæt halige treo 107, be made as a standard for his soldiers.38 By the ninth century the belief in the protective power of the signum crucis “in der privaten Frömmigkeitsübung” was many centuries old. “From the earliest period,” the Catholic Encyclopedia observes, the signum crucis “has been employed in all exorcisms and conjurations as a weapon against the spirits of darkness.” And “of the external rites of exorcism,” Ludwig Eisenhofer and Joseph Lechner remark, “the sign of the cross and the laying on of hands are of early Christian origin. . . .” The ritual use of the signum crucis bears obviously on the non-ritual use which is our principal concern; both practices employ the signum crucis as a defense against the devil, the one against the devil presumed to be in possession, the other against the devil not yet in possession but feared or suspected to be present or imminent.39

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It seems quite likely that no little difference obtains between some modern understanding of the meaning and role of the sign of the cross and the understanding of late Antiquity and the early Middle Ages. Chrysostom’s adjuration reflects a culture fearful of the Devil; the literature also of the ninth century shows a culture fearful and profoundly concerned with protection against him. The vivid reality of devils was, of course, another reason why obedience to the commands of God and of the Church was so overriding a necessity in the Christian worldview of the time; to disobey God, “to be free of the sovereignty of God,” was to obey the devils. Above all else, protection against devils meant the sign of the cross, the one sign, or one of the few signs, which a devil, it was thought, could not endure. Cyril of Jerusalem so testifies: We preach the crucified, and see, the demons tremble. Many have been the victims of crucifixion through the ages, but of which of them but of him did the invocation ever drive off the demons? So let us not be ashamed of the cross of Christ, but though someone else keeps it secret, do you openly sign it upon your forehead, so that evil spirits beholding the royal cipher may fly far from you, terrified. Make this sign as you eat and drink, when you sit down, when you go to bed, when you get up again, while you are talking; in brief, at your every undertaking.40

The testimony of Cyril and Chrysostom is widely affirmed in the centuries following. Origen says that Quid timent daemones? Quid tremunt? Sine dubio crucem Christi, in qua triumphati sunt, in qua exuti sunt principatus eorum et potestates. Timor ergo et tremor cadet super eos, cum signum in nobis viderint crucis fideliter fixum. . . . ‘What do the demons fear? At what do they tremble? Without doubt it is the cross of Christ, by which they are triumphed over, by which their chieftainship and powers are despoiled. Fear and trembling befalls them when they behold in us the sign of the cross faithfully affixed.’ Hrabanus concurs.41 The metaphor is changed in Jonas of Orleans so as to associate, through a simile perhaps rather strained but nevertheless unsurprisingly Carolingian, the emperor and the Godhead: as the image of the emperor is impressed upon a coin, so the signum crucis, the sign of the celestial chief, is impressed upon the faithful: Sicut nummus imperatoris portat imaginem, ita et fidelibus signa cœlestis principis imprimuntur: hoc munime diabolus multiformis expellitur, et fraudulenta machinatione non prævalet superare tentatum, quem habuit primi hominis suasione captivum.42

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The Evangelienbuch counsels that Nu scúlun wit unsih rígilon mit thes krúces ségonon, mit Krístes selben wórton widar fíanton. (V, ii, 1–2) ‘Now must we protect ourselves with the blessing of the cross, with Christ’s own words, against (the) fiends.’

Adopting the metaphor of the vexillum, Otfrid exhorts: Drag thú, gilóubi thu mir, then gúndfanon anan thír, in hóubite inti in brústin, in thines hérzen lústin; Nist fíant hiar in ríche nub ér hiar fora intwíche, ther diufal sélbo thuruh nót, so ér tharana scówot! (V, ii, 9–12) ‘Make the war-banner upon you (believe me!), upon your head and breast, in the desires of your heart; no fiend here in (the) realm but that he withdraws at once, the devil himself through necessity, when he looks thereon!’43

Since the Gospels do not know or allude to the ‘sign of the cross’ (unless, perhaps, in Matthew 24:30), the Old Saxon Heliand, though it reflects, in twenty-odd citations, the Gospels’ interest otherwise in signs, does not explicitly refer to the mysterium crucis or signum crucis. The Old Saxon Genesis has têkan only in line 73, where it refers to the mark set upon Cain. But Old English poetry and prose and Anglo-Latin writing offer numerous testimonials that the sign of the cross protects its bearer against devils. A few examples may suffice to show this. The phrase mære tacen ‘renowned sign,’ by the sight of which devils were put to flight in Andreas 1337–40, testifies to the wide acknowledgment of its efficacy: Syððan hie oncneowon Cristes rode on his mægwlite, mære tacen, wurdon hie ða acle on þam onfenge, 1340   forhte, afærde, ond on fleam numen. ‘When they saw the renowned sign, the cross of Christ, on his countenance, they became afraid in the attack, fearful, terrified, and sent into flight.’

The same incident, with the same response, is reported in the Blickling Homily S. Andreas.44 In similar vein Ælfric cautions that we sceolan on ælcne timan and on ælcere styrunge gebletsian us sylfe mid soðum geleafan, and mid rode-tacne þa reðan aflian, for ðan þe se reða deofol wearð þurh ða rode oferswiðed, and heo is

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ure sige-beacn ongean þone sceoccan a. Elsewhere he observes that þæt heofonlice tacn þære halgan rode is ure guðfana wiþ þone gramlican deofol, adding that if the sign is truly made se reða feond biþ sona afyrht for ðam sige-fæstan tacne.45 And in the Blickling Homily Dominica Tertia in Quadragesima it is exhorted that ‘Ne ablinnan we . . . þæt we . . . mid Cristes rode tacne us gebletsian, þonne flyhþ þæt deofol fram us; forþon him biþ mara brogan þonne ænigum men sy, þeah hi [sic] mon slea mid sweorde wiþ þæs heafdes.46 In the Monk of Whitby’s Life of St. Gregory it is told how demons once put Gregory’s horse into a frenzy. But Gregory, “first making the sign of the Cross of Christ, . . . quickly drove off the demented enemy.”47 In Felix’s Life of Saint Guthlac phantoms of wild beasts beset the saint, but when Guthlac, armato corde signo salutari ‘arming his breast with the sign of salvation,’ commands Satan to desist, the phantoms vanish.48 When we turn to Genesis B itself we can begin to see how this external evidence might bear on the issue of the tacen 540. If the Adam of Genesis B is a tropological being, he is also, of course, his unfallen self. And as Satan in the poem is not only the rebel from God but also the Satan bound through the Harrowing of Hell, so Adam is not only his unfallen self but also Christian man, fallen but post-redemptive. Thus the poet draws no distinction between the condition of Adam and that of post-redemptive humanity when he says þæt þær yldo bearn moste onceosan / godes and yfeles 464–65 between the lifes beam 468 and the deaðes beam 478. That is to say that even before the first temptation an association holds between Adam and the tree of life, which, since that tree is Christ, facilitates the identification both of the nergend user as Christ and of the tacen as the signum crucis. For the tree of life might figure the cross of Christ.49 When perceived as post-redemptive as well as the Adam of Genesis 3, Adam can speak of nergend user and ask for the signum crucis. Or rather: without naming it, he can in effect intimate to the poem’s audience that the sign of the cross is his and their own surest protection against all devils, including one who might now be confronting him. Whether we see Adam as unaware or as aware of the meaning of the signum crucis will depend on which of his dual identities we ourselves have in mind. But either way, the allusion here to the signum crucis, like the mention of [s]e for þam larum com in line 598, is highly appropriate in the context. The phrase nergend user 536 is the textual clue that Adam’s tacen 540 alludes to the signum crucis. The passage ne þu me oðiewdest ænig tacen / þe he me þurh treowe to onsende, / min hearra clearly indicates he . . . min hearra as the sender of such signs, and the closest noun to which he . . . min hearra might refer, if we search beyond the numerous (but unambiguous) pronouns and possessive adjectives, is nergend. The tacen, had it been manifested, would have to have come from this nergend.

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So Adam’s nergend is the giver of signs. And the early Middle Ages understood fairly clearly—the scriptural basis was John 3:14, 8:28, 12:32, and 18:32—that Christ very deliberately chose a mode of death which readily conduced to a sign for the protection, the saving, of the faithful. Thus Otfrid answers the question Cur Dominus Ignominiam Crucis et non Aliam pro Nobis Mortem Pertulerit ‘Why the Lord endured (as) Death the Ignominy of the Cross and not some Other (form) for Us’: Mit fíuru sie nan brántin, mid wázaru ouh irquáltin, odo óuh mit stéinonne: mit wiu ségenotis thu thih thánne? (Evangelienbuch, V, i, 11) ‘They did not burn with fire nor torment with water nor again with stones; with what then would you bless yourself?’50

And Alcuin said that Christ noluit ergo lapidari, aut in gladio truncari, quod videlicet nos semper nobiscum lapides aut ferrum ferre non possumus, quibus defendamur. Elegit vera crucem, quae levi manus motu exprimitur, qua et contra inimici versutias munimur.51 ‘was unwilling to be stoned, or to be maimed by the sword, because plainly we cannot always bear stones or iron with us by which we might be defended. Truly he chose the cross, which is represented by an easy motion of the hand and by which we are defended against the enemy’s wiles.’

The Heliand makes no explicit reference to the signum crucis. However, the last lines of Fitt LXVII are at least consistent with Alcuin’s belief that Christ deliberately chose to undergo crucifixion in order to benefit humankind: 5710                   all sô is uuillio geng endi hie habda gimarcod êr manno cunnie, firiho barnon te frumu: thou uuas it all gifullid sô. ‘All of this was just the way He wanted it and had predetermined beforehand for the benefit of mankind, the sons of men. Now it had all come to pass.’52

The key terms here are all 5710 and frumu 5712. The former, all, “in Verbindung mit einem Adv. oder Adj. mit sô . . .” means ‘ganz; wholly,’ that is, ‘in every particular’ as to the mode and the incidents otherwise of the execution. The

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latter, frumu ‘Vorteil; advantage, benefit,’ “häufig in der Verbindung, te frumu, . . .” i.e., ‘to [one’s] advantage,’ completes the reading: the death advantaged ‘the sons of men.’53 Adam’s tacen 540 illustrates Alcuin’s quae levi manus motu exprimitur. Why require a document or a staff of office or a reliquary when a (sign of the) cross might, quite literally, be at hand, a sign by which one would be defended against the enemy’s wiles (qua et contra inimici versutias munimur)? For the signum crucis is the preeminent “sign” of Christianity, the most famous and revered of those signs divinely bestowed for the edification of the faithful and certainly for their protection against devils.54 Just as the phrase tacen (oð-)iewan in Genesis B as elsewhere implies visuality, so also, obviously, does the signum crucis. Often this is merely implicit, but sometimes, as in the citation above from the Evangelienbuch, it is expressly declared in the exposition of its virtue. Thus, as we noted, Cyril of Jerusalem: when devils “see even the Sign of the Cross of Christ,” and Origen: “cum signum in nobis viderint crucis fideliter fixum. . . .” In Figura III of his “Kreuzgedicht” De laudibus sanctae crucis Hrabanus proclaimed the protective power of the crux and therefore of its sign by the placing of the words “Crux” and “Salus,” both emphasized through great size and coloring, so that CRUX is interposed by SALUS: C R SALUS U X The interposition, in displaying a cruciform, indicates the nexus of its two ideas.55 The poet of Genesis B expressed much the same belief and frame of mind in the clause þe he me þurh treowe to onsende, / min hearra þurh hyldo ‘ which (tacen ‘sign’) he, my lord, sent to me through grace, through favor’ 541–42: the passage indicates a sign (crux or signum crucis) given out of solicitude for protection and welfare (salus) of the loyal and faithful. In lines 535–42 the tropological and narratological modes closely interact. The tacen, could the boda have shown it, would mean that he was legitimate. The biblical account, how-ever, precludes both the boda’s innocence and his being so vanquished by Adam that he cannot plausibly be shown as going on to tempt Eve. Unlike Adam in the Mystère d’Adam, then, Adam in the poem can be allowed only a brief reference to the Savior, and neither Adam nor the boda can be allowed to assert or to acknowledge the implications of the

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terms nergend and tacen. Thus Adam cannot use the tacen for his defense and the boda need not flee in terror but can turn wraðmod 547 to Eve. Like nergend 536 and the prior temptation as a whole, tacen 540, taken as an allusion to the signum crucis, helps the audience to see the situation in the light of its own circumstances. If the audience of the poem felt the plenitude and unanimity of testimony as to the power of the signum crucis, it might, following Adam’s reference to nergend user, see the tacen 540 as their nergend’s sign to put demons to flight: “timor ergo et tremor cadet super eos, cum signum in nobis viderint crucis fideliter fixum.” The wit in the reference to tacen 540 lacks either the risibility of the boda’s phrase hire eaforan or (as we shall see) the eschatological satisfaction implied in Eve’s unwitting allusion to the Judgment. In both of these Eve has already fallen. But the reference to a tacen 540, like the trinal invocations in Judith, Daniel, and Azarias, comes at a moment of great danger for the speaker; Adam struggles with what he suspects might be, and what the audience knows to be, a devil, and the contrast between what Adam says and what the audience might perceive in what he says invites the perception that the Lord’s grace has given the audience, which sees, as Doane says, “the old story of the Fall with new eyes . . . in terms of what their own reactions might be,” the clear advantage over Adam, who is unaware of the defense which for redeemed mankind in a similarly desperate situation is ever sure. In the Mystère d’Adam there is no comparable reference to the signum crucis. Adam’s reference to the Redeemer is more lengthy and detailed than it is in Genesis B, and is consistent with the circumstance that in the play Adam refers expressly to Mary’s son. There Adam’s cry for the Redeemer’s help points to an intervention at some point in the future, and Adam’s exclamation that only Christ can save him obviates any need to mention the cross or its sign. It is reasonable to infer, in short, that the meaning of tacen ‘sign’ 540 straddles definitions VI and VII in An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary s.v. tacn, tacen: ‘VI. a sign which shows the truth or reality of anything, proof, demonstration, evidence,’ and ‘VII. a supernatural sign, miracle, prodigy.’ We are now in a position to see better how Adam’s allusion to a tacen in line 540 bears on the interpretation of the poem and on the poem’s comedic imperative. If the signum crucis shields its bearer from demons, it would follow that demons or devilishly inspired persons could no more dare to present it themselves than they might endure seeing it in others. Therefore, for one to manifest the sign of the cross is not only to shield oneself from demons but to demonstrate one’s own legitimacy and freedom from any noxious or diabolical intent. Conversely, an inability to manifest the signum crucis would mean the failure to demonstrate one’s legitimacy and innocence.

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In Heliand 2350, Christ . . . sô manag mahticlîc / têcan gitôgda ‘showed so many mighty signs’ that the folk believed in his teaching. And twice at least in Latin and Anglo-Saxon texts the cross or the sign of the cross is the proof of bona fides. In the monk of Whitby’s Life of St. Gregory, Edwin, in exile and in fear for his life, receives one day “a beautiful vision with the Cross of Christ on his head” and is told presently that he should obey “whoever first comes to you with this likeness and sign”; “they say,” the monk adds, “that in the likeness of that vision the aforesaid Bishop Paulinus first appeared.”56 In the Gospel of Nicodemus, the penitent thief says that Christ gave him the sign of the cross to take with him to the gate of Paradise, saying that if the angel there should try to deny him entrance, “ætyw hym þysse rode tacen.”57 The latter of these citations is, I think, particularly germane to Genesis B. Adam had said to the boda,               þu gelic ne bist ænegum his engla þe ic ær geseah 540   ne þu me oðiewdest ænig tacen þe he me þurh treowe to onsende, min hearra þurh hyldo. ‘You are unlike any of his angels whom I saw earlier (540) nor did you show me any sign which through good faith he sent to me, my lord through favor.’

The penitent thief and the Tempter have something in common: suspicious appearance. An angel in Paradise might be excused for not knowing that the broken and bloody body, though that of a thief, was also that of a penitent. After all, those the thief had earlier encountered had asked, Hwæt eart þu, þe ðyn ansyn ys swylce anes sceaðan? ‘who are you, you whose appearance is that of a malefactor?’58 And Adam can readily be excused for suspecting that the serpent shape before him was not that of an angel of the Lord. In other words, we have evidence other than the simple past form of the verb oðiewdest that the implication of the clause ne þu me oðiewdest ænig tacen is not that Adam would alter his decision were the boda now or shortly to produce some sign. The implication is rather that since the shape before him was distinctly odd for that of an angel of God—þu gelic ne bist, etc.—it would have helped the stranger’s cause had he shown the infallible sign of legitimacy.59 It seems likely that Adam’s bland ne þu me oðiewdest ænig tacen implies, in the context of þu gelic ne bist, . . . more than it literally says: ‘since (as you must know) your shape is strange for that of an angel of God, your failure to show me a sign probably means that . . .’; its implication, in other words, is that Adam

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is deeply suspicious, rather than that he is offering the boda another chance to present a sign. Again it is helpful to recall the poem’s aura of martiality: Adam, þær he on eorðan stod ‘(there) where he stood on (the) earth’ 522, is a sort of sentry in Eden—cf. especially and me warnian het ‘and bid me be on (my) guard’ 527—and the being he is challenging doesn’t have the password. The declaration in Genesis 2:15 that God placed man in Paradise ut operaretur, et custodiret illum ‘to cultivate and guard it’ is appropriate to the martiality of our poem.60 Since by the nature of things it was impossible for the boda to produce before Adam the sign as proof of his legitimacy, we cannot know what Adam would have done or said if he had tried. A probable nexus can now be seen to obtain between the two main ideas of the passage around line 540: that for an angel of God the visitor is strangely shaped and that he showed no sign. Adam’s declaration as to the shape fully explains and warrants his following reference to a sign: ‘you’re odd-looking, yet you didn’t show credentials.’ But the full significance of this nexus could not be perceived until it was seen that the tacen 540 to which Adam alludes is the signum crucis and also it was recalled that elsewhere in Old English poems and other early medieval texts, as we have noted, Old Testament personages might have knowledge of Christ. In the case of Adam in Genesis B such knowledge should be fairly easy to accept, since Adam here has otherwise a clear tropological identity as a person of the sixth age. The failure to perceive first the allusion and then the nexus impelled critics to cast around for some other explanation of ne þu me oðiewdest ænig tacen. So the failures contributed importantly to the exonerative view of the poem. We can now summarize the evidence against the exonerative reading of Adam’s reference to a tacen in line 540. Adam’s remark that ‘you showed me no sign’ is unqualified; that is, it does not necessarily mean that were a sign presently to be shown, Adam might alter his decision. The form oðiewdest when construed as simple past ‘showed’ is consistent with this reticence; it admits the inference that the matter is closed and does not “ha[ve] a bearing on the present.” We noted too that the alliteration on ænig ‘any’ is deceptive; it is quite unlikely that its alliteration signifies the alliteration of its counterpart (presumably ênig) in the lost Old Saxon text here and that Adam was intimating thereby that ‘any’ sign would suffice. Far from it; the nature and identity of the sign was absolutely critical. Therefore the twin perceptions that the clause ne þu me oðiewdest ænig tacen bears on þu gelic ne bist shortly before and that Adam, by his mention of a tacen, alludes to the signum crucis imply that the only sign Adam could accept was a sign which the boda could not, dare not, produce. The implication in turn obviates any need to construe tacen 540 along with Eve’s vision as exonerative of Adam and Eve.

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To dismiss the exonerative view is immensely to enhance the likelihood that the poem might exhibit a comedic imperative. Whereas, as I am maintaining, the allegorical reading of the poem admits such an imperative, the view that Adam and Eve suffered the loss of Eden through their own innocent mistake is an understanding quite preclusive of some happier and even comedic ending to their ordeal. We can see in a variety of Carolingian texts several of the ideas present when Adam’s tacen in Genesis 540 is understood as an allusion to the signum crucis: the testimony of Hrabanus and Otfrid as to the devil’s fear of the sign; the testimony of Otfrid and Alcuin as to the handiness of the sign; the testimony of the Libri Carolini, Otfrid, and of course the Heliand as to Christian martiality; the testimony of Hrabanus and of many another as to the cross as the instrument of salvation. The genius, the wit, again, of our Old Saxon poet lay of course not in the invention of these ideas but in their adroit association in Adam’s response to the boda. In Chapter II I described the nature of the poet’s wit as “[the mind’s] power to associate, always felicitously, but sometimes also ominously.” How the narrative felicity in tacen 540 relates to the narrative felicity but also the ominousness in Eve’s tacen 653, 714 we shall consider in the next chapter.

CHAPTER VIII

DOM is Darker and Deeper

Eve’s vision, purportedly of God, which she describes to Adam in lines 666–71, certainly leaves untouched the conclusion we have just reached as to the import of Adam’s ne þu me oðiewdest ænig tacen 540. For Eve’s vision is also the tacen ‘sign’ which theTempter, after Adam had referred to a sign, had promised Eve as the reward for compliance. That this is so is clear from three passages: iewde hire tacen ‘(he) showed to her (a) sign’ 653, Ac wende þæt heo hyldo heofoncyninges / worhte mid þam wordum þe heo þam were swelce / tacen oðiewde ‘but (she) thought that she wrought (the) heaven-king’s favor with those words by which she showed to the man such signs’ 712–14, and þa heo þæt leoht geseah / ellor scriðan þæt hire þurh untreowa / tacen iewde se him þone teonan geræd ‘then she saw the light glide elsewhere which he (who) counseled the injury to them showed to her in treachery (as) a sign’ 772–74. In my article “The Vision of Eve in Genesis B” I proposed that Eve’s vision as she later on describes it to Adam would be recognized by a reasonably wellinformed auditor of the poem as a vision of Judgment.1 It is now appropriate, I think, to revisit that inference and its implication. Eve’s belief that she is the sole hope of humankind rests not only on the boda’s intimation that posterity is hers but also on her false vision of the Lord on his throne. The three-fold disclosure of this vision is handled adroitly. In lines 564–67 the boda assures Eve that if she eats of the fruit she will have greatly enhanced vision, in particular, the sight of God’s throne, selfes stol / herran þines. In lines 603–604, when Eve has eaten, we learn that ‘heaven and earth, and all this world’ seemed more luminous and splendid to her. The 195

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third and most detailed report of the vision is Eve’s description of her vision to Adam in lines 666–71:             ic mæg heonon geseon hwær he sylf siteð, þæt is suð and east, welan bewunden se ðas woruld gesceop. geseo ic him his englas ymbe hweorfan 670   mid feðerhaman, ealra folca mæst, wereda wynsumast. ‘I can see from here where he himself who created this world sits in the south and east, encompassed in weal. I see his angels circle about him (670) with feather-coats, (the) greatest of all folk, (the) most blissful of hosts.’

We have waited for a hundred lines to learn more about the selfes stol / herran þines, and now it comes. What again has not been recognized in the whole matter of the tacens of Adam and Eve is the wit of the poet. Adam had at first refused the Tempter’s behest partly, as we have seen, because he had presented no sign, which sign, as Adam spoke of it, the audience of the poem could construe as the signum crucis. Then Eve, having succumbed, tells Adam of the sign she thinks she has seen, which sign the audience could readily construe as an allusion to Matthew 25:31, in other words, as a vision of Judgment. Fairly strong support buttresses this inference. Noting the diction in some Old English eschatological texts, Milton McC. Gatch remarks that the homilists and poets worked (as did Latin writers) analogically. Judgment Day, for example, was described in terms derived from the courts of their kings: the king (cyning) or the judge (dema) gives judgment (dom) sitting on his high throne (heahsetl) and presiding over the great assembly (gemot) of the various orders of his thanes. Like the Latins, the Anglo-Saxons used the only terminology at hand to describe what, as they repeatedly said, was beyond the descriptive powers of the word-hoard.2

Several considerations indicate that unbeknownst to Eve herself the vision is indeed one of Judgment. In Genesis B certain details, and certainly the detail that God is seen sitting, are specified not only in Old English but also in Latin references to Judgment—where, of course, it was not a matter of the word-hoard’s limitations. The detail that in Genesis B God is said to be sitting in the south and east is found elsewhere; its association with Christ’s coming in Judgment is especially evident in Christ III (“Doomsday”):

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Þonne semninga on Syne beorg 900   suþaneastan sunnan leoma cymeð of Scyppende scynan leohtor þonne hit men mægen modum ahycgan, beorhte blican, þonne Bearn Godes þurh heofona gehleodu hider oðyweð. ‘Then, suddenly, on the mountain of Sion, from the southeast, the light of the sun comes to shine from the Creator more brightly, radiantly, than men can conceive, when Son of God appears hither through the vault of heaven.’

Albert S. Cook explains that the southeast direction may derive from Jerome, where “the subject of the commentary is the separation of the elect from the reprobated on the Day of Judgment.”3 The locus classicus of such visions as Eve’s is either, or both, Matthew 24:30: et tunc plangent omnes tribus terrae: et videbunt Filium hominis venientem in nubibus caeli cum virtute multa et maiestate or Matthew 25:31: Cum autem venerit Filius hominis in maiestate sua, et omnes angeli cum eo, tunc sedebit super sedem maiestatis suae. The predicate him his englas ymbe hweorfan / mid feðerhaman, ealra folca mæst in the Old English amplifies and somewhat militarizes the Latin et omnes angeli cum eo. That Eve in Genesis B speaks of heaven as she does, mixing a detail such as suð and east with Germanicizations such as ealra folca mæst, is further evidence that the poem is a reflex of a Germanicized but also of a not unlearnedly Christian and Carolingian understanding of humanity’s final earthly moment. There is more to be perceived in lines 666–71 than that they illustrate Gatch’s very sound observation. We do not have an Old Saxon version of the New Testament, but we do have Anglo-Saxon versions, and no reason that I know of suggests that the two dialects would differ significantly in their translations of New Testament Latin. Let us accordingly juxtapose phrases or verses of Genesis B 666–71 (in italics) with corresponding phrases from the Corpus MS translation of Matthew 25:31 (in roman), Christ sitting in Judgment4: ic mæg heonon geseon and geseo ic (no correspondence) hwær he sylf siteð = þonne sitt he ofer hys mægen-þrymmes setl þæt is suð and east and se ðas woruld gesceop (no correspondence) welan bewunden = on hys mægen-þrymme him his englas ymbe hweorfan = 7 ealle englas mid him mid feðerhaman, ealra folca mæst, / wereda wynsumast (no correspondence).

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One of the lapses in correspondence, that of Eve as beholder, is immaterial. The other lapses reflect different emphases. The Corpus phrasing emphasizes Christ’s glory whereas the Genesis phrasing either emphasizes the strength of his angel host or serves rather obliquely to establish his identity—the former in keeping with the poem’s Germanic martiality, the latter (þæt is suð and east and se ðas woruld gesceop) in keeping with the need to intimate that it is the Son, and not the Father, to whom Eve unwittingly alludes.5 An auditor of the poem, recalling not only Matthew 24:30 Filium hominis but also John 1:3 Omnia per ipsum facta sunt, might have heard in Eve’s se ðas woruld gesceop ‘who created this world’ 668 (as well as the aforenoted þæt is suð and east 667) some further evidence that her report in lines 666–77 is to be taken as alluding to the Son in particular. Mutatis mutandis, then, the correspondences as well as this latter absence of correpondence are telling: Christ the Son sits in glory with his host about him, with the implication in the poem that the occasion, just as in Matthew 25:31, is Judgment. The immediate context of Genesis 666–71, like the context of Matthew 25:31—it follows directly the parable of the talents—is Judgment, or Eve’s fear thereof. She believes that if Adam complies, the boda will intercede with God on their behalf; of the boda she says to Adam that               his hyldo is unc betere 660   to gewinnanne þonne his wiðermedo. gif þu him heodæg wuht hearmes gespr[æ]ce he forgifð hit þeah gif wit him geongordom læstan willað. hwæt, scal þe swa laðlic strið wið þines hearran bodan? unc is his hyldo þearf. 665   he mæg unc ærendian to þam alwaldan, heofoncyninge. ‘his favor is better for us (660) to secure than his hostility. If today you said anything injurious to him, he nevertheless forgives if we (two) will perform vassalage to him. Indeed, shall (there be) such hateful contention against your Lord’s messenger? His favor is a necessity for us (two); (665) he can ærendian (for) us (two) with the almighty, (the) heaven-king.’

Eve’s ærendian here is, in intent, ‘intercede,’ but may be a euphemism on the order of ‘take care of our problem.’6 At any rate, she offers Adam her vision as proof that the boda is truly God’s messenger: hwa meahte me swelc gewit gifan / gif hit gegnunga god ne onsende, / heofones waldend? ‘who could give me such intelligence if God, heaven’s ruler, did not send it directly?’ (lines 671–73).

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An allusion here to the Last Judgment can be presumed to have been of deep interest and vital concern to an audience of Genesis B. Augustine’s analysis of secular history in De Civitate Dei as consisting of six ages was widely known. The present age, which began with the Incarnation, was the sixth and last. Fitt I of the Heliand observes that scolda thuo that sehsta sâliglîco / cuman thuru craft godes endi Cristas giburd ‘the blessed sixth age was to come by the power of God and the birth of Christ’ 48–49. The age was to end with tumult and Judgment.7 The recently converted Germanic peoples were not exempt from interest, concern, fear as regards that Judgment. Jan de Vries, in discussing the conversions of these peoples, infers that “die eschatologische Frage,” ‘the eschatological question,’ was in the Germanic mind; he cites the Old Norse Voluspá and quotes at length from a letter from Gregory the Great to King Ethelbert of Kent.8 The author of the Versus is also aware of the six ages, saying that the poet, summoned by divine voice from slumber, “started from the first beginning of the newborn World: running through the Five Ages of retreating time he came to the Advent of Christ, Who with His Blood mercifully snatched the World from the jaws of Avernus.”9 Certainly too there was concern in England, as evidenced in the textual analysis of Milton Gatch already noted and especially perhaps by the six eschatological homilies of Wulfstan.10 Bede refers in several tractates to the six ages, saying at the finish of one of these, De Temporibus Liber, that sexta, quae nunc agitur, nulla generationum vel temporum serie certa sed, ut aetas decrepita ipsa, totius saeculi morte finienda.11 No little evidence suggests that such concern did not diminish in the Christian centuries following the time of Gregory’s letter. The Heliand reflects the concern in no less than two whole fitts, LII, on the coming of Doomsday (Heliand 4294–4377), and LIII, on Doomsday itself (Heliand 4378–4451). And twice, in Heliand 2591 and 4358, there occurs the word: mût-spelli, mûd-spelli (Muspilli): ‘Weltuntergang,’ perhaps ‘earth-destroyer.’12 Here is the beginning of Fitt LIII, on Doomsday: Huand sô huan sô that geuuirðid, that uualdand Krist, mâri mannes sunu mid theru maht godes, 4380   kumit mid thiu craftu kuningo rîkeost sittean an is selb¯ es maht endi samod mid imu alle thea engilos, the thar uppa sind hêlaga an himile, (Heliand 4378–83) ‘Whenever it does happen that Christ the Ruler, the famous Son of Man, comes with the strength of God, with the force of the most

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powerful of kings, and with all the holy angels who are up there in heaven accompanying Him, to be seated in His own strength, 13

One or two of the notable differences between the Heliand account of Doomsday and that in Genesis B are to be seen as the Genesis poet’s wish to play down, to mute, the direness of the Doomsday scene. Christ is not, of course, referred to, even by epithet, whereas in the Heliand he is named, or rather he names himself. The Genesis account is a good deal more benign, less minatory by far, than that in the Heliand; it lacks the references to maht ‘strength’ and craft ‘force.’ The Genesis passage reflects the boda’s intention to lure but not to frighten; the Heliand passage deliberately puts fear into its hearers. As Sievers recognized in his note to the lines, the allusion is clearly to Matthew 25:31.14 Otfrid likewise describes the Coming: Químit ther selbo gótes sun fon hímilriche hérasun mit míhileru kréfti joh éngilo giscéfti; Mit míhileru hébigi, mit ímo al sin githígini. (Evangelienbuch, V, xx, 5–7) ‘the very son of God comes hither from heaven with great power and presence of angels; with great force, with him all his retinue.’

A note to the passage acknowledges Matthew 25:31.15 The attention to the signs of Judgment in the Heliand is presumptive evidence of concern among the Saxon folk about Judgment itself. Thus lines 4308–10 Ik mag iu thoh gitellien, huilic hêr têcan biforan / giuuerðad uunderlîc êr than he an these uuerold kume / an themu mâreon daga ‘I can tell you, however, the amazing signs that will occur here before He comes to this world on the great day’; 4314 uuirðid sulicaro bôkno filu ‘there will be many such signs’; 4344–45 Sô uuitun gi ôk bi thesun têknum, the ik iu talde hêr, / huan the lazto dag liudiun nâhid ‘so you will also know, by the signs I told you here, when the Last Day is drawing near for human beings.’ In sum, the passages from Latin, Old Saxon, Old High German, and Old English texts which I adduced in “The Vision of Eve . . .” seem to me, in and of themselves, to be fairly conclusive evidence that Eve’s words are an unwitting allusion to Judgment. Nevertheless, I now strongly suspect that the article failed to note all the evidence which our poem itself has to offer, and so I turn to Eve’s further assertion that              ic mæg swegles gamen gehyran on heofnum. (675–76)

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The clause presents two problems, on heofnum and swegles in swegles gamen. Eve’s on heofnum is likely to be understood as ‘in Heaven,’ i.e., God’s Heaven.16 But as Peter Ilkow notes, there are two ‘heavens.’ So the question is, does heofnum 676 mean God’s Heaven, or is it the sky, the earth’s atmosphere? The distinction is important because, as the biblical passages to be noted below and as later such understandings as we have just noted have testified, the Judgment was (and is) conceived as taking place on earth. It might be noted that the Old Saxon word given in Genesis B here as heofon was very possibly himil; Old Saxon heb¯ an, apart from its compounds, occurs comparatively infrequently and, at least in the Old Saxon Genesis, only in the formulas heb¯ an-es/-as uualdand or uuard. But Ilkow observes that as to a narrowing of meaning of either word to designate one rather than the other heaven, “[i]m Hel[iand] dagegen ist diese Entwicklung noch nicht eingetreten, heb¯ an und himil drücken unterschiedlos beide Begriffe aus.” It is clear that also Old English heofon can express either concept.17 What might appear to mean ‘in (God’s) heaven’ is therefore not certainly either the one heaven or the other; it is ambiguous, as vague as Eve’s earlier exclamation that she sees where God sits heonon ‘hence, away from here’ 666. As to swegles gamen. We have noted several indications that what Eve said she saw was, for a reader or audience, a Vision of Judgment. But it would appear that Eve’s disclosure, consistent as it was with the ancient understanding of the Last Judgment, was not a matter only of what she thought she saw. It is clear from gehyran that the false presence was aural as well as visual. Doane, addressing Eve’s exclamation that ic mæg swegles gamen / gehyran on heofnum ‘I can hear swegles gamen in heaven’ 675–76, suggests that “the transcriber . . . may have remodeled an OS *swiglan gaman, which would mean ‘bright (loud) joy,’ into swegles gamen, ‘the pleasure of music.’”18 Earlier editors had sometimes read swegles here as ‘sky, heaven” or even “music,” taking swegles as the Old English noun swegl in the somewhat rare sense ‘music.’19 But no such formal equivalent to the Old English noun swegl is known to occur in Old Saxon. Hence Doane’s comparatively drastic explanation of swegles as the translator’s adaptation from the Old Saxon adjective swigli ‘hell, strahlend, glänzend; bright, shining.’ Yet there are one or two objections to Doane’s solution. In the first place, his *swiglan gaman is, so far as I can see, ungrammatical; gaman is a neuter noun, and therefore as an accusative (for so Doane takes it in his Glossary) its adjective should have either no ending (as strong) or else –a or –e (as weak). In the second place, and more importantly, his solution does not indicate why the translator should not simply have replaced the putative Old Saxon adjective and noun by their

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Old English cognates, Old English adjective swegle and noun gamen, which together could also and just as attractively be read as ‘bright (loud) joy.’ Nevertheless, given the apparent absence of a formal Old Saxon equivalent to the Old English noun swegl, Doane’s surmise that the Old Saxon text here may have entailed the adjective swigli ‘hell,’ etc., is a promising lead, and I retain it in what I think is a somewhat more defensible reading. The Old Saxon verb hôrian takes the accusative frequently but also, on occasion, the genitive. Sehrt cites hôrian ‘auf etwas hören, hinhören, c. gen. rei’ for Heliand 2659 and 3955, and Behaghel adds that hôrian is among those “Verben des Wahrnehmens und Denkens” which may take the genitive.20 But I do not find that also Old English (ge-)hyran might take the genitive. Mitchell, in his “List of verbal rections,” indicates that besides the accusative, hieran, ge-hieran might, for a nominal complement, take only the dative.21 And Behaghel, in noting the use of a genitive with Old Saxon hôrian, explains that such instances could occur when “[d]er Genitiv enthält eine Abstractbezeichnung,” i.e., an abstraction.22 Gaman / gamen ‘Lustbarkeit, Spiel / sky, heaven, music’ would seem sufficiently non-specific to constitute an abstraction; the assortment of definitions hardly constitutes specificity. The very diffuseness of gaman / gamen in meaning supports the inference that the rection of Old Saxon gaman with hôrian here was genitive. In his turn, the translator, I surmise, made the appropriate correction into the accusative for the noun, but neglected to do likewise for the adjective. In other words, the translator did replace the Old Saxon adjective and noun by their Old English equivalents, but incompletely as to case endings, so that swegles appears to stand as a noun before its noun headword.23 It might be objected that gaman’s adjective provided the noun with specificity. I would answer that it provided a deliberate ambiguity. Perhaps there resides in swegles gamen (or, as one might emend, swegle gamen) one of those philological nuances to which the poem’s audience might have responded. It seems possible that swegle- in swegle(s) gamen implies a particular sort of music—or rather, of sound—so that swegle- here indicates and amplifies an allusion to Judgment in lines 666–71 more pointedly than a meaning ‘music’ might suggest. In contrast to ‘bright (loud)’ in the posited Old Saxon, Doane’s reading of Old English swegles here merely as ‘music’ fails to convey the implication of ‘brilliance’ which the many and widespread derivatives from the Indo-European root forms display. Pokorny gives Old Saxon adjective swigli as ‘hell, strahlend’ (‘bright, shining’) from Proto-Germanic *swegila and Old English noun sweg(e)l as ‘Himmel, Sonne’ and adjective swegle as ‘hell, strahlend’

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from *swagila. Sehrt gives swigli as ‘hell, strahlend, glänzend.’24 Bosworth and Toller give ‘brilliant’ as a meaning of adjective swegle.25 And if, as Fred Robinson observes, “the Anglo-Saxon poets appear to have been unusually bold in their use of synaesthetic imagery,” our Old Saxon poet might be forgiven for venturing the same, for seeing, that is, that an implication ‘brilliant’ might be conveyed by the adjective swegl in an aural as well as in a visual context.26 Given the verb gehyran ‘(to) hear’ it is hard to see why this might not have been the case. It is another stretching of a semantic field, an instance of which we saw in Chapter V. ‘Brilliance’ is characteristic of the timbre and sonority of horns and trumpets. As gamen ‘Lustbarkeit, Spiel; joy, pleasure’ informs us, the effect of the swegl on the enraptured Eve was obviously other than minatory. But for the audience, just now given such clues as suð and east and Eve’s fear of judgment evident in her plea that he mæg unc ærendian to þam alwaldan 665, an implication of tonal brilliance in swegles gamen might have summoned to mind the judgmental trumpet of Matthew 24:31, Et mittet angelos suos cum tuba, et voce magna; of 1 Corinthians 15:52, in novissima tuba: canet enim tuba; of 1 Thessalonians 4:15, ipse Dominus . . . et in tuba Dei descendet de caelo. As repeatedly described either by the boda or by Eve the vision makes no specific mention of the Deity by name; the closest we come is the boda’s selfes stol / herran þines 566–67. But an auditor of the poem might, as we have noted, have found ample allusion in lines 666–77 to the Son in particular. In light of these “tuba” passages I would resist taking MS swegles 675, now seen as adjectival, as, say, ‘musical.’ Only 1 Corinthians 15:52 canet ‘will sing’ might hint of musicality, and Christ 880–81 englas ælbeorhte on efen blawað / byman on brehtme ‘all-bright angels together sound trumpets in tumult’ suggests not music but clangor—far more consistent with tunc plangent omnes tribus terrae.27 More importantly, swegles (or, emended, *swegle), as the adjective, would mean ‘brilliant.’ We have noted that the ambiguity of on heofnum 676 nicely accommodates both Eve’s presumption that the sound originates in (God’s) heaven and the understanding of reader or listener as to an origin otherwhere. For gamen too a kind of ambiguity might hold. Commonly signifying, as we have noted, ‘Lustbarkeit; joy,’ etc., gamen, Old Saxon gaman, is yet no stranger to horrific or grisly contexts: in Heliand 5294 Christ, fettered but adorned in white, is shown to the multitude te gamne ‘zum Gegenstand des Spottes, as an object of derision’; in Beowulf 1066 Hroðgar’s scop refers to the bloody encounter between Finn’s kinfolk and the Danes as a healgamen ‘hall-game, hall-mirth.’28 For an audience which caught the allusion to Judgment Eve’s evident pleasure in swegles gamen would indicate the disorder of her senses, the distortion of her expectations; she hears with pleasure what

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posterity will hear with terror (et tunc plangent . . .).29 Eve’s cause for joy was an auditor’s for anxiety. The ambiguity here, along with that of on heofnum 676, is a masterstroke of irony: at a critical point in the course of their Fall, Eve, in exhorting Adam to join her, is allowed to intimate the last consequence of their deed through her unwitting allusion to the sounding brass of Judgment.30 The sounding of trumpets as the summons to Judgment is a striking motif. Christopher Monk describes the tone-qualities of brass instruments as “colourful and exciting,” and Nicholas Bessaraboff observes that such instruments “possess an unusual power in stirring certain elementary emotions of the human heart.”31 The reference in Matthew emphasizes this power through a probable hendiadys: cum tuba, et voce magna = ‘with loud trumpet.’ The Heliand disregards the motif, but Otfrid and the Muspilli do not: Evangelienbuch V, xx, 25–26 Thaz íst ouh dag hórnes joh éngilliches gálmes, / thie blásent hiar in lánte ‘that is also the day of the horn and of angelic resounding (another hendiadys, perhaps), which blows here in the land’; and Muspilli 73 So daz himilisca horn kilutit uuirdit ‘when the heavenly horn is sounded.’32 It is not surprising that the Old Saxon Genesis poet, any more than the biblical authors themselves and also numerous Old English authors, should remark the sounding of lip-vibrated aerophones to herald Judgment. The passages noted many years ago by Waller Deering and F. M. Padelford indicate the frequency of the motif in Old English poetry and prose.33 We will note, toward the end of the present chapter, the inference that Genesis B was composed with a rather select, indeed distinguished, audience, lay probably as well as clerical, principally in mind. It would be such an audience in ancient Francia which might reasonably be expected to have heard and remembered the sound of horns and trumpets, whether in war or peace, and therefore to have grasped the allusion in swegles gamen.34 An equivalent Anglo-Saxon audience would presumably have known the bieme ‘trumpet’ “used,” as Padelford says, “as a signal . . . in war, . . . in camp, . . . in heralding a king, . . . for worship” and have expected its sound “at the Judgment Day.”35 The boda’s ghastly prank is played on Adam as well as Eve. In refusing the boda’s behest Adam had noted that God could endow him (me . . . geofian 545–46) from Heaven without sending a messenger, in other words, directly from Heaven. Eve’s gif clause indicates her belief that God has now done exactly that; her gegnunga 672 looks like Old Saxon gegnungo in its sense ‘unmittelbar; directly,’ as in Heliand 5945–46 that siu sulic uuillspel brâhte / gegnungo fan themo godes suno ‘that she brought such a welcome message directly from God’s Son.’36 Eve, of course, is both mistaken and forgetful: 1) the narrator has already said that se sceaða georne / swicode ymb þa sawle þe

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hire ær þa siene onlah ‘the injurer who just now lent her the vision deceived (her) soul’ 606–07; and 2) the boda himself had said to her that were she to eat the fruit, þonne wurðað þin eagan swa leoht / þæt þu meaht swa wide . . . / geseon siððan and selfes stol / herran þines ‘then your eyes will be so bright that you can see so widely . . . see afterwards and your Lord’s throne’ 564–67— which assurance clearly implicates the boda as the vision’s artificer. The circumstance that Adam will now come to accept Eve’s assurance as to the provenance and legitimacy of her vision is evidence of his submission to her will and judgment; it is evidence, that is, of his decision, as Augustine would say, “to be free of the sovereignty of God when he does a deed that is sinful only in so far as God forbids it” and to accept the sovereignty of Eve. Thus the narrative role of Eve’s vision is not to indicate that the boda has now given Adam a sign (which, as we have seen, he had not requested) but rather to remind reader or audience of the terrible consequences of Adam’s imminent decision to follow Eve. It was not the sign but the lustas laid upon him which brought him to ruin. Broadly, the boda’s manipulation of Eve entails two very different modes: first the terrorizing and then the emollient; and his bestowal of the vision, once Eve has eaten, is a feature of the latter. So in her credulous ecstasy Eve cannot see its eschatological bearing; at any rate, her report of the vision withholds certain visual elements and mentions none of rather more unsettling terms like, say, domsetl ‘judgment seat’ or dema ‘judge’ or ominous clauses such as plangent omnes tribus terrae. The omission also of et tunc parebit signum Filii hominis in caelo (also Matthew 24:30) would entail another delicious irony, for the signum Filii hominis to appear in the heavens might be understood as the signum crucis; as Ælfric writes, translating but also interpreting, and ðonne bið æteowed Cristes rodetacn on heofonum ‘and then the sign of Christ’s cross is manifested in heaven.’37 The sign so longed for among those of the exonerative school, the same sign as that presumably to be understood in Adam’s reference to a tacen, is not included as a detail of Eve’s vision. It cannot therefore be perceived by Eve, who presumably delivers for Adam’s ears all that she thought she saw, as proof upon proof of the vision’s legitimacy. The boda himself, who has engineered the spectacle, presumably fails to recognize the eschatological implication of his gift and therefore does not grasp what he has supplied to Eve; in any case he would have hoped neither to alarm Eve nor to clue Adam to the danger that, as the audience can see, the two of them are about to put posterity in the dock. The significance of the allusion is entirely tacit, quite unnoted verbally, resident only in the Christian context of the poem and its depiction of the Fall, but apparent therefore to those reasonably well informed among its Christian audience.

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The tacen which for Adam earlier would have been a sign of protection becomes now a sign of Judgment. We noted in Chapter V the probability that hire eaforan 623 was, as part of the end of his speech, the Tempter’s insinuation to Eve that posterity was hers (and not Adam’s, or even theirs). Since Eve has already eaten of the fruit and is said in the next few lines to approach Adam, the reasonable inference is that she accepts the Tempter’s assurance. But as we saw, his assurance is one which defied ancient belief and usage; to the early medieval mind it would amount to another of the Tempter’s lies. Eve’s acceptance, therefore, testifies to her gullibility and her presumption. And we noted in Chapter III the discrepancy between Eve’s assurance to Adam that the Tempter is godes engel god. ic on his gearwan geseo / þæt he is ærendsecg uncres hearran 657–58 and the reasonably clear textual indications otherwise that the Tempter took a serpent’s form throughout the temptations. That Eve would confound serpent and angel of God is evidence, as Burchmore observes, of the disorder of her senses. Just as the Fall and the Great Judgment are related, so are the two tacens: that of Adam’s refusal in line 540 and that of Eve’s vision, thrice referred to as a tacen, the former tacen alluding to the signum crucis, the latter to the Judgment. For Frankish and Old English Christianity, the signum crucis and the Great Judgment, as much evidence has shown, were vivid realities. The wide acceptance of belief in both would mean that both allusions were especially likely to capture the attention of an audience. Moreover a nexus holds between them, and by way of that tribus modis rationale which, as has been argued, underlies the poem’s sequence of temptations. Temptation comes from the Devil (suggestio quippe fit per diabolum). But if the signum crucis defends us against the enemy’s wiles (qua et contra inimici versutias munimur), then sin is avoided, and so the fear of Judgment is assuaged. But absent the signum, when the suggestio and delectatio are present—wæs se feond ful neah 688, idese sceonost 704—consensus is imminent. The moral is obvious: again, as Doane observes, “the poem works as a moral poem by forcing the audience to exercise correct perception and correct choice, to participate in the action of the poem.”38 Eve’s vision holds to the audience the prospect of what is to come in consequence of the Fall presently unfolding in the narrative. It might be argued that the two tacens have such significance of their own as elements of the counter-theme as to explain their presence as poetical motifs without having to take them as a device upon which the plot of the poem turns. But quite apart from such significance, the normal social or hierarchical implications in the manifestation of signs are so far violated in Eve’s disclosure of her tacen to Adam as to show no more than that his

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acceptance of her vision, if acceptance it was, meant no more than that his reason was already incapacitated. The poem indicates that Adam succumbed because his will had already consented to Eve’s behest that he eat of the fruit. It was not because he thought Eve’s vision was a valid response to a request for a sign, there having been no such request. As for Eve, the clause oð þæt hire on innan ongan / weallan wyrmes geþeaht 589–90 occurs before the statement that she ate of the fruit, in line 599. It is quite unclear that the wyrmes geþeaht ‘serpent’s thought, counsel, suggestion’ must, in particular, be the boda’s promise to give Eve the sight of selfes stol / herran þines ‘throne of your lord himself’ 566–67; the boda, as well as threatening her, had promised her many things, for example the governance of Adam and his, the boda’s, intercession with God in their behalf. The same sequence holds in Eve’s temptation of Adam. Two passages there indicate his coming to consent. The first is oð þam þegne ongan / his hige hweorfan þæt he þam gehate getruwode / þe him þæt wif wordum sægde 705–07. Of the two it is perhaps the more detailed as to the stages of Adam’s consent: the þæt clause in line 706 looks like a clause of result: his hige ‘mood, intention’ began to shift, þæt ‘so that’ he getruwode ‘trusted (or, confided)’ in Eve’s gehat ‘promise.’ The article-demonstrative þam 706 would seem to specify some promise in particular, and that ‘promise,’ so far as I can see, could only be Eve’s assurance in lines 677–83 that the/this ofæt ‘fruit’ (line 677) which she holds in her hand has come from God. In this promise she makes no mention of her vision. The second such passage is Oð þæt adame innan breostum / his hyge hwyrfde and his heorte ongann / wendan to hire willan 715–17. The two passages say much the same thing: Adam came round to Eve’s will. This repetition suggests, of course, that the meaning is important, and this importance would suggest that especially the second passage might be marked in some way or other to indicate rhetorical emphasis. And indeed the second passage provides more than one indication that some such emphasis, conveyed in performance, perhaps, through a pause or an increase in loudness or decrease in tempo, was intended. One such indication is that in line 715 the MS gives Oð with a small capital O (þæt is abbreviated) where oð might be expected, since apparently Oð þæt merely introduces a subordinate clause of time: ‘until in Adam’s breast his mood (or, intention) turned.’ Of such capitals George Philip Krapp said that “it seems they must have had” rhetorical value, and it is easy to see such value in Oð 715.39 It is possible even that although its presumed Old Saxon anterior here was conjunctive ant-that, unt-that ‘bis daß,’ the Old English Oð þæt here is not a conjunction.40 Mitchell, citing a number of passages in Old English verse and prose (though not Genesis 715),

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remarks “the much-canvassed possibility that oð þæt is used adverbially with some such sense as ‘and then’ or ‘at length’”—the latter sense being consistent with that of the verse and speon hine ealne dæg 684. Clauses which oð þæt introduces seem sometimes to have had, for the Anglo-Saxons, something like independent or semi-independent status. But it is perhaps not necessary to infer an adverbial Oð þæt here in order to see rhetorical emphasis at this point; Mitchell, translating [H.] Möllmer, explains that “the action of the oþ þæt clause introduces a new idea into the narrative, so that the temporal clause should psychologically be regarded as a main clause.”41 It is easy to see why a rhetorical emphasis might have been intended at this point. Thomas Hill observes that the crucial phrase oðþæt Adame innan breostum / his hyge hwyrfde and his heorte ongann / wendan to hire willan suggests the subversion of reason by sense rather more precisely than has been recognized. Adam yields innan breostum and his heorte accepts Eve’s desire; in terms of early medieval physiology the heart is thought of as the physiological seat of the reason.42

In other words, here again the text of the poem reflects the tribus modis rationale.43 The second such indication is the somewhat greater emphasis which the second passage gives to Adam’s consenting. Genesis 715 Oð does not, of course, introduce a new idea; it repeats, in fact, the sense of lines 705–06. But this repetition entails repetition: adame innan breostum / his hyge hwyrfde 715–16 is immediately echoed in sense by the syntactically parallel variation and his heorte ongann / wendan to hire willan 716–17. There is a certain cumulative effect from lines 705–06 to lines 715–17, and it is easy to see why: the idea thus repeated—Adam’s consenting to Eve’s will—is the climax of the narrative. It was not even necessary for the poet explicitly to remark Adam’s proceeding to eat. When Adam’s will gave way to Eve’s, the deed was as good as done, and so immediately the text, in lines 717–24, takes notice more of the consequences of the deed than of the deed itself: he æt þam wife onfeng / hell and hinnsið 717–18. The passage which intervenes between the passages remarking the turn in Adam’s hige addresses Eve’s motivation and implies, I think, a certain mitigation of her offense. Two preceding passages which note Eve’s consenting to disobey also acknowledge a reason or attendant consideration: hæfde hire wacran hige / metod gemearcod 590–91 and wifes wacgeþoht 649. Lines 712–14 offer the further consideration that Eve did what she did thinking that it was in Adam’s behalf or in accordance with God’s will:

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Ac wende þæt heo hyldo heofoncyninges worhte mid þam wordum þe heo þam were swelce tacen oðiewde and treowe gehet. ‘but (she) thought that she wrought the heaven-king’s favor with those words by which she showed the man (a) sign and promised good faith’ (712–14).

One might note that the text here does not say that because Eve ‘showed (the) sign,’ Adam must have accepted it as valid. An inference that he did accept it as valid would be as weak as the supposition that his mention of the boda’s not showing a tacen, back in lines 540–42, meant that he was requesting some such sign. There is again a problem with the form þe, this time in line 713. Doane takes þe here as conjunctive and meaning ‘because.’44 This solution leaves me a little uneasy. It would seem that if a causal relationship obtained between the two clauses here, the first clause (Ac wende . . .), given the clear sense of the context, would more probably have to be dependent on the second (þe heo þam were . . .) than vice versa. That is, that ‘(she) thought that with these words she wrought the heaven-king’s favor because she manifested . . .’ is rather less likely than that ‘she manifested . . . because (she) thought that with these words she wrought the heaven-king’s favor.’ Perhaps Doane’s ‘because’ might be softened to ‘in that, insofar as.’ But there are other solutions. The circumstance that the first clause here looks like Eve’s motivating reason suggests that the þe clause might be taken as a clause of result and that þe itself be taken not as an indeclinable but rather a declinable relative, either as a form of instrumental þy ‘by which’ referring not merely to plural þam wordum but to the whole of the preceding clause; or else as an again instrumental but now demonstrative þy ‘by that,’ referring also to the whole of the preceding clause. Such readings are consistent with Old Saxon usage.45 Either possibility would, I think, imply punctuation after wordum.46 Whichever reading of þe is settled on, the adjacency of the phrase mid þam wordum 713 in the one clause and the predicate tacen oðiewde 714 in the other highlights the discrepancy we have already noted as to a mode of disclosure: tacen (oð)iewan, we recall, implies a visual, mid (þam) wordum a verbal disclosure. The article-demonstrative þam in þam wordum 713 identifies, by emphasizing ‘words,’ the anomaly, the grotesqueness even, of the transaction by which conviction through seeing becomes conviction through hearing. Mid þam wordum and oðiewde are contradictory. That the anomaly was perceived as significant is suggested by another oddity in the passage, the apparent, but curious, separation of swelce and

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tacen by the line-ending. Questioning certain line divisions in Old English verse, Bruce Mitchell, in the knowledge that syntactical breaks are commonly reflected in verse endings, not unreasonably wondered “whether swelce in [Genesis 713] should be placed at the beginning of the next line.” For no short while I shared Mitchell’s doubt about swelce here, although placing swelce with tacen meant depriving a b-verse of its second lift as well as regarding the MS point after swelce as misplaced. My present view is that the division swelce / tacen gives, to use Mitchell’s phrase, “dramatic emphasis.”47 He notes elsewhere that “the lines of classical OE poetry are not always end-stopped” and remarks, in reference to Maldon 7–8 leofne fleogan / hafoc (next-to-untranslatable, I think, into Modern English if one tries to convey the “dramatic emphasis”), that “today . . . we often miss this enjambment and this excitement by reading the poetry instead of hearing it recited or by hearing it recited too fast—a criticism of modern renderings often made by J. R. R. Tolkien.”48 Some kind of syntactic break at line endings, if “not always” present, was at least usual, but since swelce here seems to dangle nounlessly, what might be helpful for the recitation of swelce / tacen is either perhaps a momentary pause after swelce or a momentary lingering emphasis on swelce itself, as if to say ‘such!’ Note too that swelce, with its first syllable a lift, is also by its second syllable a plural, and along with it tacen in the next line. The plural swelce might amplify plural wordum in the preceding verse, as if Eve’s every word was a sign for Adam; or else swelce / tacen 713–14 might be taken as syllepsis, here, the use of a plural for an expected singular, Eve’s vision having been the only tacen to be disclosed, by whatever medium, to Eve and Adam. So the passage would say, ‘with those words by which she showed (to) the man such(!) / signs.’ A disapprobative sulik ‘such!’ here need hardly be seen as original to our poet; it occurs, for instance, in Heliand 4324: —that is egeslîc thing, that io sulik morð sculun man afhebbien— ‘—that is a terrible thing, that ever a person should raise up such murder—’49

By either explanation the point of ‘such(!) / signs’ was to emphasize, and deplore, the departures from the norms of tekan ogian/(gi-)togian ‘(to) manifest a sign’ which we noted in Chapter VII.50 So the usual accommodation of verse endings to syntax might, if only rarely, have had to defer to—or rather, have been manipulated for the sake of—rhetorical considerations. The point of the disapprobation here is of course to stress that although Adam obviously succumbed to the blandishments, he should just as obviously not have done so.

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That the passage Ac wende þæt heo hyldo heofoncyninges / worhte mid þam wordum þe heo þam were swelce / tacen oðiewde suggests a certain perturbation on the narrator’s part should not be surprising. Adam’s acquiescence here is, after all, momentous. And at least one consequence of that acquiescence is signalled in the passage itself. In line 713 the text intimates that the hierarchical relationship which had formerly obtained between Adam and Eve is now altered: Eve speaks of her vision þam were ‘(to) the man.’ The term wer occurs only here in Genesis B. It would appear to acknowledge gender rather than social status, so that þam were, unlike the phrase to hire hearran ‘to her lord’ 654 (or Eve’s phrase frea min ‘my lord’ 655), would not imply Adam’s hierarchical superiority to Eve. In other words, the failure here to remark such ascendance “helps to imply a relationship between Adam and Eve in which Adam is far less obviously Eve’s lord than he was, if indeed he is now her lord at all.”51 They are now perhaps equals; when, in the Mystère d’Adam, Adam accepts the apple from the hand of Eve, he exclaims tu es ma per ‘you are my equal.’ In all instances but one, moreover, in the Old Saxon Genesis (lines 53, 125, 152, 180, 184; uuamlosa uueros 215 is the exception) wer occurs in contexts which bespeak moral lapse in male characters: the offspring of Cain or the men of Sodom.52 So wer 713 probably bespeaks Adam’s Fall: once selfsceafte guma ‘man of self-fate’ 523, he is now no more than wer ‘man,’ (almost, perhaps) ‘fellow’ 713. The clause immediately following lines 712–14 says of Adam only that his hyge hwyrfde and his heorte ongann / wendan to hire willan ‘his spirit changed and his heart began to turn to her will’ 716–17. It does not say, in any explicit way, that Adam believed what Eve said about the tacen. But that he did so, or came to do so, is probably a reasonable inference. The inference, however, does not imply his exoneration. As we have seen, the text offers no evidence that Adam, in his speech to the boda, “demanded,” or requested, or even hinted, that were the boda at some point to present a sign he would accept it. Then too, as also we noted, the presentation of Eve’s vision, as far as Adam is concerned, is not visual but aural; there is no evidence that he sees Eve’s vision. He accepts, or probably accepts, her vision because his reason has already come to smash; suggestio, in the presence of the animal sense of the body, has put desires into him, legde him lustas on 687, before any reference to Adam’s capitulation. That Adam probably comes to accept Eve’s counsels as to vision and fruit is evidence not of any reasonable doubt as to God’s will or intention but only of his by now fatally diseased reason. And finally, as we have come to see, the two tacens spoken of in the poem, Adam’s in line 540, Eve’s mainly in lines 666–71, have in and of themselves a completely otherwise function than to demonstrate exoneration. The tacens

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are timely reminders to the sixth age audience, the one an assurance of the means of protection against devils, the other a warning against disobedience to God’s command. Both are tendered with exquisite and ironic subtlety in their integration into the text. It looks as though the assertion Ac wende þæt heo hyldo heofoncyninges / worhte just preceding mid þam wordum þe heo þam were swelce / tacen oðiewde says what it says not to exonerate Adam, to affirm, that is, his innocence, but to mitigate Eve’s guilt by declaring that her intentions, at any rate, were well meant. I will suggest in Chapter X why it was that the poet, though not exonerating Eve, more times than once softened the impression of her guilt. Eve’s acceptance of the boda’s imposture and Adam’s refusal to accept are made clear otherwise. Eve’s is the wacgeþoht ‘pliant resolve’ 649, and she wende ‘thought, supposed’ 712 that she was effecting God’s favor. These or comparable terms are not used of Adam. What is said is rather that in Adam’s breast his hyge hwyrfde and his heorte ongann / wendan to hire willan 716–17. As for hyge, Michael Joseph Phillips notes that “hyge and mod are the Old English soul-words associated with courage.” The association—almost, one suspects, the identification, of hyge and mod ‘soul’ with the concept “courage”—was an easy one in a martial society and even a martial religion, so it seems quite possible that hyge hwyrfde 716 signifies Adam’s loss of courage. As for heorte, Phillips notes that although “early medieval physiology considered the heart the seat of the intellect,” nevertheless, “despite the frequency of [phrases like] heortan geþohtas, etc., it would be a mistake to say that heorte there has the sense ‘mind, understanding.’” For, he goes on to say, heorte “is preeminently that which God knows and searches.”53 The clause his heorte ongann . . . would intimate then Adam’s turning away from God and God’s command; the verbs hweorfan and hwyrfan and related forms often signify a falling away, a turn for the worse and even the worst. What Adam accepts here, then, is not a belief that a tacen has legitimately been presented, but rather that Eve’s will is mistress of his own. Since in easy circumstances obedience proves nothing, real obedience is an indication of courage. Loss of courage and the falling away of obedience in one’s heart are therefore much the same thing. In the Old English Exodus poem, for example, the Israelites beholding Pharaoh’s advance are said to become ortrywe 154. The word has been translated as ‘despairing, without hope,’ but it is perfectly clear that a literal translation of or- and -trywe as ‘not faithful, not true’ is quite in order; the term illustrates the fondness of the Exodus poet for intimating a deeper spiritual signification through some word the literal meaning of which might seem strange or not quite appropriate in the context. Obedience, Exodus

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154 says, requires fortitude. So Genesis 716–17 remarks now the failure of obedience. The wit and skill which the poet exhibits in his manipulation of the predicate tacen oðiewan in the contexts of lines 540 and 713–14 exceeds by far a mere shift from one sign to another. To argue that Adam is exonerated because he requested a sign as proof of the boda’s legitimacy, which request was fairly met by the boda’s subsequent bestowal of a sign, is to miss or ignore much of what early medieval Christian culture understood, in the context of religious belief, as to the nature of signs. In line 540, oðiewdest . . . tacen entails the normal implications of the phrase. A tacen is understood to be a visual sign which a hierarchically and ethically superior being bestows, in this instance through his subordinate intermediary, upon his hierarchical and ethical inferior for the instruction and certainly the protection of the latter. In line 714, tacen oðiewde entails implications which are distinctly abnormal: the “sign” is disclosed to Adam not visually but verbally; it is disclosed by a hierarchical inferior whose very disclosure of the tacen entails a subversion of hierarchy. The tacen of line 540 which an audience could readily, as I have argued, identify as alluding to the sign of the cross, a gesture conferring protection against devils, mutates through lines 666–71 and then line 714 into a tacen which that same audience could identify as a vision portending judgment and perhaps damnation—for all humankind—the ultimate consequence of the act which Eve at the very moment urges upon Adam. Her disclosure entails neither instruction nor protection but rather vast affliction upon him to whom it is disclosed. The disclosure has, it is true, been perceived as an example of Eve’s prescience as a Germanic woman. Fred Robinson, arguing in support of taking wacran 590 as ‘(more) soft, pliant, yielding’—in itself a better reading than ‘weaker’— says that [f]rom Tacitus’ Germania right through the various succeeding Germanic traditions Germanic people regarded women as having minds which men held in special esteem because women enjoyed a superior understanding of things and were even able to prophesy future events. The Germanic acknowledgment of women’s superior insight is what lends credibility to the Genesis B poet’s portrayal of the fall. To a Germanic poet and his Germanic audience it would seem entirely reasonable that Adam would follow Eve’s advice, especially after she tells him that she has received a vision confirming the credentials of the tempter. In this context it would be puzzling for the poet to say that the woman had “a weaker mind” than the man. For Germanic people the opposite would be true.54

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Several responses to this comment seem in order. The understanding that Eve’s vision “confirm[s] the credentials of the tempter” seems to presuppose the critical view that Adam, earlier, had requested a sign. This view, as I trust now to have shown, cannot be admitted. A further response is that Adam’s following Eve’s advice might—might—have seemed reasonable to Germanic poet and audience, but it is hard to see that it would have seemed wise. For the audience, at least, would have recalled or come to see, as the poem was very shortly to remind or inform them, that Eve’s counsel was calamitous. So this—this catastrophe, this hell—was the upshot of superior understanding? One might suppose, not so very unreasonably, that such an upshot would have inclined many among such an audience as Robinson posits to begin to question any belief in this woman’s superior insight. Furthermore, it seems quite possible, even probable, that the culturally instilled assumption of poet and audience was not as Robinson has indicated, and that the poet and many, even possibly most, of his audience would have perceived as a menace any understanding and insight which Eve might tender even before she gave it in the poem—leaving Robinson’s view open to very strong doubt. Robinson’s “Germanic poet and his Germanic audience” can readily be inferred to have been Christian, even to have included well instructed and highly placed Christians. As to that poet and his intended audience Doane writes that [t]he subtle narrative, coherent structure, and integration of learned sources suggest a poet who was more than a superficially instructed nobleman, as put forward by the Praefatio. More likely the poet was not only a man of talent, but secure enough in his learning to use it with originality and powerful enough to advance traditional ideas in new garb. This suggests a cleric of some rank. [Thomas D.] Hill imagines him writing for “a circle of sophisticated and sympathetic readers in the relative privacy of the vernacular.” The court would be a place where noble bishops and abbots, magnates and courtiers, and perhaps even the king, met with relative equality.55

Whether or not the poet of the Saxon Genesis enjoyed quite as exalted an audience as Doane suggests, the overall attitude of the Frankish Church towards women was in important respects very different from the attitude of the Germanic pagans. Wallace-Hadrill, in his chapter entitled, significantly enough for the issue at hand, “The [Frankish] Church and Some Unsolved Problems,” attends over several pages to these differences and the problems they raised for the Church. For one thing, the Germanic belief that “the Germanic woman was a prophetess” and “associated with magic” was suspect and dangerous in the understanding of the Church: “one could trace this

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suspicion of women through the pages of Gregory of Tours to the time of that unhappy emissary of Satan, the Empress Judith.” And above and beyond what I noted to this effect in Chapter V, Wallace-Hadrill amply supports his generalization that in regard to the Church’s problem with Germanic women “the Fathers of the Church can scarcely be said to have made matters easier.”56 Given the attitude of the Church and what were quite possibly the circumstances of the poet of Genesis B, it would appear that in light of its calamitous result Eve’s report of her vision to Adam would have been seen more as depravity than as superior understanding, as a kind of proof, even, that the Germanic view as to women’s superior insight was sadly in error. The presence too in the poem of the tribus modis allegory as otherwise displayed in Adam (ratio) and Eve (sensus) is hardly consistent with a “Germanic acknowledgment of women’s superior insight.” Eve’s disclosure of the vision might therefore be added to the several items noted at the end of Chapter VII which I would nominate for mention in, as Doane puts it, the Genesis B poet’s “integration of learned sources.” The poet’s wit emerges in his handling of narrative and of character. It stems from “the mind’s power to associate,” more specifically, from the poet’s perception that the ancient belief in the efficacy of the sign of the cross could be worked into a retelling of the story of the Fall, the purpose of which, again in Doane’s words, was “not the exploration of the biblical text or meaning per se, but the relation of the history of the First Times to the inner and outer lives of the audience now living near the Final Time.”57 The first tacen, an allusion to the signum crucis, aptly reminds a post-redemptive audience of its sure defense in the presence of a devil; the second tacen, which is both a deft elevation of Genesis 3:5 aperientur oculi vestri into a Vision of Judgment and a daring perversion of “manifesting a sign,” aptly reminds that sixth-age audience of the ultimate consequence of disobedience. All in all an astonishing conception. The comedic in Genesis B is thus not only a matter of God’s attentiveness to the condition of humankind but also a matter of wit of a high order, subtle and intellectually demanding. The ambivalent representation of Adam and Eve in the poem as persons both of the first and of the sixth age underlies this wit. It should be clear also how pervasive in the poem the power of association becomes and how commonly it entails irony, often dramatic irony: Adam speaks of a protective sign and Eve in rapture describes her vision, though as persons of the first age, neither knows what either tacen alludes to.

CHAPTER IX

The BODA and Gottschalk

The citations in Chapter II show that the tribus modis rationale, in its figuring of Adam as ratio, Eve as sensus, and the Tempter as suggestio, interprets only the events of Genesis 3:1–7. What followed thereupon, the Lord’s coming, his maledictions, and the expulsion from Eden, the rationale takes no notice of. The poet of Genesis B, in elaborating the rationale narratively, had therefore, as far as the rationale was concerned, a free hand in presenting first the boda and then Adam and Eve in the aftermath of the Fall. The tropological presentation, whereby in Genesis B the agents function as personages both of Genesis 3 and of the sixth age, readily entails at least the possibility of uneasy inconsistencies. In the presentation of the boda at the end of the poem such an inconsistency emerges, or threatens to emerge. Insofar as he is still the messenger of Satan, who is bound in Hell by the Harrowing thereof and thus is incapable of sortie, the boda has still his sixth-age dimension. But of this dimension his final speech betrays no sign. For the devils the Harrowing was, or should have been, the great eye-opener. They learned, or should have learned, that if they had not wholly lost their humankind treasure, they most certainly no longer possessed them, or it, through the “ordinance which was against us” (Colossians 2:14) and which Christ had destroyed. We noted in Chapter I Satan’s dismay, as reported in Elene, at his coming to perceive the loss, and in Chapter X we shall note the anger and vexation of his minions, as told in Christ and Satan. But in Genesis B the boda speaks now not of treasure which Satan has lost but which only God has lost, and irrrevocably so. It is as though the Harrowing has not happened. 217

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Our discussion of these matters will lead to a consideration of the issue of free will in the poem, in particular, the question as to whether Genesis B represents the view either of such authorities as Hincmar and Hrabanus, magnates of the Carolingian church, in their setting forth of the hitherto prevailing doctrine of free will, or else of the Saxon monk Gottschalk, and his setting forth a belief in predestination, and especially to damnation. Or whether, thirdly, the poem represents, as Doane suggests, a compromise position. My contention, as will be seen, is that the poem, through several and widespread indications of the narrator and through the declarations both of Adam and of the boda, rather than through formal discourse, repudiates Gottschalkian theology. The presentation of Adam and Eve greatly alters the biblical account in Genesis 3:8–19; it also, in effect, abandons tropological duality to show Adam and Eve as no longer also the Adam and Eve of Genesis 3 but persons entirely now of the sixth age, as recipients of and participators in those Christian beliefs ironically disclosed in the boda’s speech of triumph. The mutual abandonments are thus the reverse of each other: the boda loses his sixth age dimension, Adam and Eve lose theirs of Genesis 3. Both abandonments conduce to the realization, at the end of the poem, of the comedic imperative. A very long passage on Adam’s Fall, not far short of two hundred lines and almost one-third of what we have of Genesis B, intervenes between the clause [s]e for þam larum com 598 and the account of the nascent recovery of Adam and Eve, which begins with the speeches of Adam and Eve (lines 788–840) and culminates in Adam’s vow to Eve that ic to þam grunde genge 834, were the Lord so to command. The declaration ‘because of these counsels he came’ 598 served, I think, not only to indicate the consequence of the boda’s malice (at least, so far in the narrative) but also to sustain an audience through the impending long account of failure and defeat until we come to Adam’s resolve almost at the end of the poem. The long passage includes the Tempter’s quite long triumphal vaunt (just over forty lines, including its speech introduction). From line 599 until Adam’s final speech many lines later there is ample mention of God, but always in the context of disobedience, condemnation, and punishment. This passage instances “the darkest hour,” the familiar narrative device of defeat or death brought to impend, or to seem to impend, before, at the last minute, the hero is delivered. In the present instance, as we shall see in the next chapter, the hero is enabled to deliver himself, for deliverance is what it is. Curiously, it is the Tempter who with his own words unwittingly and with no little irony adumbrates this deliverance.

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Narratively, what follows [s]e for þam larum com until Adam’s response to Eve in line 827 is sustained and dreary defeat: the boda’s success in tempting Eve, Eve’s success, in the presence of the boda, in tempting Adam, and, following the boda’s vaunt, Adam’s horrified perception of Hell, which awaits grædige and gifre ’open-mouthed and greedy’ 793 before them, and their expressions of recrimination and remorse.1 In this tale of calamity a further distressing though seldom noticed circumstance is that until after he has eaten of the fruit Adam says nothing. His silence is close to the situation in the Mystère d’Adam: there Eve offers the fruit to Adam, who in consequence is shocked; as Auerbach says, “the few words which he still manages to stammer out show that he is in a state of utter confusion.”2 That Old English poems, like Old Saxon, were not given to short speeches or quick dialogue was perhaps one reason why Adam’s few words in the Mystère d’Adam become no words in Genesis B. But there is another reason. Whereas in the Mystère Eve offers the fruit to Adam before she herself eats of it, in Genesis B, conforming to the biblical account, Eve has already eaten before she approaches Adam, as þis ofet is swa swete, / blið’ on breostum 655–56 suggests and as siðþan ic þæs ofætes onbat 677 confirms. Adam’s consternation lies therefore in the fact that Eve has not merely proposed that he disobey but also that she herself has already disobeyed. Just after his own triumph over the boda, Adam finds himself having suddenly to choose between God and Eve. So he goes voiceless, speechless, into ruin. His silence, however, is consistent with the tribus modis explanation of how sin is committed. If ratio is incapacitated by sensus corporis animalis in the presence of suggestio, that incapacitation can readily be indicated through loss of speech. Just as in the boda’s “prophecy” to Eve, so in Eve’s report to Adam of her vision in lines 666–71: the speaker’s words to his or her auditor in the poem entail real deception but nevertheless again convey to an audience of the poem a reality which bespeaks in some way the coming truth of the Lord. In the prophecy a piquancy lies in the contrast between the boda’s belief that he has effected the irrevocable damnation of humankind and the audience’s perception that in the larger scheme of things he is helpless and his mission, while successful in the short term, is in the long term futile. The two speeches—the boda’s with dramatic irony, Adam’s with open declaration—describe the way by which, for post-redemptive humankind, the Devil’s victory is cancelled. In its surprising length the boda’s vaunt might seem repetitious; it seems broadly to recapitulate the principal incidents of the poem and to declare, as the upshot of these, what the boda is certain will follow for Adam and Eve. But ironically the vaunt merits inclusion in the poem as an expression of the counter-theme. What is much to

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the point as far as the counter-theme is concerned is the boda’s display of wrongheadedness in his assessment of not only the past but also the future. Eric Jager has noted in some detail the dramatic irony in many passages prior to the boda’s long and final speech. They occur at one point or another in the boda’s attempts on Adam or on Eve and then Adam. Thus “the Tempter’s claim to have ‘sæt’ [499] with God ironically inverts the fact that he has actually been in the presence of Satan. . . .” The insinuation, of course, carries little weight with Adam. But with Eve his ironies begin to score: “ironically, Eve is prompted to avoid a direct vocal encounter with God when instead she should shun the mediation offered her by the Tempter”; and “ærendian [665], like ærendsecg a few lines before, echoes the Tempter’s repeated use of the noun ærende in his first speech to Eve and thus suggests that Eve completely assimilates the Tempter’s claim that he carries messages between heaven and earth”; and “since gehieran . . . [673, 676] has previously been used by the Tempter (507) and Adam (524) to invoke the vox Dei, its use here by Eve, for what is not God’s voice, is ironic”; and “the progression [in lines 698–701] from a nonvocal term for God’s discourse (‘gebod’), to an equivocal term for the Tempter’s (‘ligenword’), to a vocal term for Eve’s (‘spræc’) ironically reverses the actual declension of God’s direct, vocal command into a doubly mediated discourse.” And later, in his final speech, when first Eve and then Adam have succumbed, “the Tempter goes on to report that the humans have broken God’s command: ‘hie wordcwyde his, / lare forleton (730–31). That it is the Tempter who should thus identify God’s speech (‘wordcwide’) with God’s teaching (‘lar’) is ironic.” And finally, Jager observes, “ironically, the Tempter exercises a direct vocal relation to his lord [beginning with þine 726] just when the humans have culminated their departure from a direct vocal relation to God.”3 It is fairly clear that the strong impression of defeat or death which informs the long passage from line 599 to Adam’s speech beginning in line 828 is owing in some part to most of these ironies: they testify to the subtlety of the Tempter and to the susceptibilities of Eve and then Adam. The poem’s “darkest hour” here is superficial only, for its culmination, the Tempter’s vaunt, is in reality, along with the recovery of Adam and Eve, an essential part of the comedic imperative with which the poem ends. For what frustrates the vaunt is the Incarnation and the Harrowing of Hell. We can be fairly sure that an early Christian audience of Genesis B had knowledge of the Fall and of the Redemption, so basic have these understandings been to Christian belief. This circumstance underlies the unobtrusiveness of the counter-theme as a concept and of its numerous constituent passages. The counter-theme is never expressly formulated; its several and

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separate elements, when they occur, are never acknowledged as such. Their recognition depends wholly on audience or reader. The tacens, for example, lie like gems in the speeches of Adam and Eve, but wait modestly for audience or reader to recognize first their significance as elements of the countertheme and then, perhaps (or so it might be hoped), the wit of the poet who nestled them so adroitly and pointedly in their contexts. What greatly eases this task for audience or reader is the circumstance that the recognition, or at least the principal recognition, is not that of some arcanum of Christian faith or practice but, instead, of widely known and central beliefs thereof: the potency of the signum crucis, the inevitability of Judgment. But the elements of the counter-theme are there for anyone to grasp; it is quite possible that the poem was directed, as the Praefatio says, “not only to the lettered but to the unlettered”: the counter-theme serves to enlighten Christian believers by weaving elements of Christian belief and hope into the story of the Fall and despair. The appprehension is the more ready because the elements are referred to in very direct and concrete ways: the two trees, Satan bound, se forhatena ‘the forsworn (one)’ 609, the tacens—all are easy to visualize in the mind’s eye. The most extraordinary instance here is surely the micel wundor passage with its final clause [s]e for þam larum com, which takes note of Christianity’s central fact: a personalized deity who willed to endure (wolde / þeoden þolian) and his very generalized servant who was deceived (wurde þegn swa monig / forlædd). Having lost Heaven, humankind must now, the boda avers, join Satan in the fire of Hell:             forþon her synt butu gedon: ge þæt hæleða bearn heofonric[e] sculon, leode, forlætan and on þæt lige to þe hate hweorfan. (751–54) ‘because both are accomplished here, that sons of men, people, must both lose Heaven and (that they must) go to you in that hot fire.’4

And, except for a very few, his forecast comes true. But the boda’s victory therein is no more than temporary. The boda’s tropological status is that of Adamic Tempter but also of post-redemptive devil, se forhatena, like Satan, in Doane’s phrase, “lurking around in the present.” Yet his entire vaunt affords no sign that the boda knows of the redemptive act. Unlike Adam, whose terms nergend and tacen were out of context in his prelapsarian state but were nevertheless to be realized for post-redemptive man, the boda’s expectation

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is counter, and flagrantly so, to the counter-theme. The audience or reader perceives in Adam’s nergend and tacen reminders of the counter-theme; it also perceives a reminder of the counter-theme in the boda’s false assumption that humankind is lost; again, the point is hardly an arcanum of Christian belief. The Tempter supposes, wrongly, that God is no longer a player and that, anyway, the game is over and won. The circumstance that the boda seems blind to such a fact of life while remaining, in part, a creature of the sixth age, the devil “lurking around,” adds considerable pungence to Alain Renoir’s observation that here again the boda has hugely deceived himself.5 In sum, the boda’s account of the Fall, and his fallacious prediction as to its consequence, becomes for the post-redemptive audience or reader a reminder that the devil’s intentions were turned to the purposes of God. There is a kind of wit which lies in exposing, or allowing to become exposed, the blunder of one’s adversary, and so in a curiously negative way the boda’s speech here is an important part of the comedic in Genesis B: it reminds an audience of their own basis in faith and therewith of the promise for the future. In the last verses of his speech the boda, rather unnecessarily, announces his destination: 760                       Nu wille ic eft þam lige near; satan ic þær secan wille. he is on þære sweartan helle hæft mid hringa gesponne. ‘Now will I approach the fire; I will seek Satan there. He is in the black Hell bound with the clasping of rings (of chains)’6

And in the lines immediately following, the narrator assures us that indeed the boda proceeded to carry out his intention to return þær his hearra læg / simon gesæled ‘where his lord lay / bound in fetters’ 764–65. Partly the poet’s intention here was to anticipate the moral contrast between the boda and Adam. For Adam too will declare his willingness to go to þam grunde ‘to the (very) bottom’ 834. They both would descend, the Tempter out of pride and exultation in victory, Adam out of humility and remorse in defeat. But equally, or perhaps more importantly, the poet gives perspective—in plainer English, he gives the lie—to much of the boda’s preceding speech. It is another instance of dramatic irony. The poet presents what Renoir, in his “self-deception” article, identifies as the substance of the boda’s speech: an instance of the boda’s deceiving himself. The speech is another notable instance of the poem’s dramatic ironies: it sets forth, in an ingeniously negative way, basic Christian belief. The Tempt-

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er’s last speech reminds the poem’s audience that the outcome about which the boda has been assuring himself is nullified: the ruin and endless misery of humankind. The boda’s unwitting reminder that humankind is not ruined for eternity signifies also, of course, the final frustration of Satan’s scheme. Renoir identifies the entirety of Satan’s intention: “Satan’s motivation for the Temptation is revenge for the sake of revenge.”7 Satan’s boda’s words are now as such to show that that intention will be frustrated. His speech is the final and perhaps not the least of the poem’s dramatic ironies, and along with Adam’s resolve in the passage which follows establishes the comedic imperative as the dominant mood at the end of Genesis B. The question of Adam’s recovery and the final speeches of first the boda and then of Adam bear on the question noted briefly in Chapter I: where does Genesis B stand in respect to the Gottschalk controversy? Especially, I suspect, the general failure correctly to apprehend ne þu me oðiewdest ænig tacen 540 has supported a view that the poem insinuates a theology of divine distance and inscrutability and so presents a sort of crypto-Gottschalkian view under the camouflage of splendid rhetoric. How such a doubtfully orthodox text might have been brought to publication in the first place is not explained. The fate of Gottschalk alone would suggest who or which party prevailed in the ninth-century predestination debate. In the poem, at any rate, no sustained and formal discourse to one effect or another is present. We must look beyond tacen 540, already addressed, for evidence in separate passages at different points. The evidence now to be presented should not be taken to signify that the Saxon poet must have understood Adam’s failure quite as we might expect it to be understood, i.e., as sin. Sin, Old English synn, is, as it turns out, a word the poet avoids, at least in relation to the lapse of Adam and Eve. The poet’s acceptance of free will is strongly implied in both of two speeches near the end of the poem as we have it, the last speech of the Tempter and that of Adam. Adam’s speech, so strongly in contrast to the boda’s, sets forth, as we have seen, his resolve to do penance. But such a resolve is meaningless unless we can recognize its presupposition that in human life free will, and not predestination, is operative. For Adam to ask hwæt ic his to hearmsceare habban sceolde would be pointless if his understanding were that whatever the punishment he was willing to undergo, he was predestined regardless of suffering either to salvation or damnation. Again a passage from De catechizandis rudibus 18.30 is pertinent: ‘if he confesses his sin and returns to an upright manner of life, he finds Him worthy of praise for the mercy of His forgiveness.’8

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Several of the passages that I have discussed at some length in Chapters III and VII suggest that Genesis B does not represent the Gottschalkian view. Adam’s speech in lines 523–46 affords no evidence that predestination rather than free will is assumed to be operative. For God to declare, as Adam says, that ‘he who might entertain anything sinful in his heart should hold the black Hell’ 529–31 cannot be taken as evidence of the poet’s predestinative position, because it says nothing to the effect that persons are so predisposed. Adam’s reference to God as nergend user ‘our savior’ 536, coming as it does from one whose tropological situation is that of post-redemptive man as well as of the Adam of Genesis 3, gives no hint, brief as it is, that “our” is anything other than inclusive and general. And the likelihood that an early audience would apprehend the word tacen in the predicate ne þu me oðiewdest ænig tacen 540 as an allusion to the signum crucis is evidence too. The evidence cited in Chapter VII would indicate that the efficacy thought to inhere in the signum crucis held for Christian folk generally; thus, for example, in the rationale that Christ provided the sign qua et contra inimici versutias munimur ‘by which we are protected against the enemy’s wiles’ the subject ‘we’ entails no limit to inclusiveness, other, obviously, than that “we” must be taken as referring to the faithful. As far as I can see, nothing in the poem gainsays the likelihood that tacen 540 was understood in this light. None of these passages suggest that the poem places God in the inscrutable distance; all are consistent with the understanding that the poem represents the pastoral view of Hrabanus or Hincmar. As Hrabanus said, “God created the world not for perdition, but for salvation.”9 Such evidence suffices, I think, to establish a prima facie case that the poet of Genesis B was not of Gottschalk’s persuasion. Still stronger evidence to the effect the poet regarded the human will as free is, I think, to be found in the narrator’s account of the two trees, in the introduction to Adam’s first speech, and in the final speeches of both Adam and the boda. In the account of the two trees, the narrator says that waldendgod ‘(the) Lord God’ set forth two trees, to the end þæt þær yldo bearn moste onceosan / godes and yfeles, gumena æghwilc, welan and wawan ‘that there (a) child of men, each of persons, must choose of good and evil, weal and woe’ 464–66. The text here indicates that the yldo bearn must choose and that he who chooses, chooses either salvation or damnation, but not that the choice, one or the other, is itself predestined. What would be the point of setting such a choice for gumena æghwilc ‘each of men,’ i.e., all men, if some of them were predestined to fall? Why would Adam, whom we just now left in worse than limbo, have had forever to dwell without God’s hyldo?

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I suggested in Chapter II that the prior and unsuccessful temptation of Adam reflects the common early medieval understanding of how sin operates in the human psyche (tribus enim modis impletur omne peccatum, uidelicet suggestione, delectatione, consensu), and I argued in Chapter IV that the presentation especially of Adam but also of Eve in the course of Eve’s and then of Adam’s second temptation must reflect this allegory. These readings do not seem compatible with a possibility that the poem also reflects Gottschalk’s teaching. What would be the point of such allegory in the poem if the individual human being is predestined, willy-nilly, one way or another? But the allegorical presentation is quite in order if the individual has free will, and if, as Doane argues, suggestio meant “one of the circumstances or conditions that precedes the operation of will.”10 About midway through his vaunt, the boda declares that unc gegenge ne wæs / þæt wit him on þegnscipe þeowian wolden 743–44. Here the boda—not the poet, but the boda—intimates that predestination, and not free will, is the operative principle. I argued a good many years ago that gegenge 743 should be taken as ‘necessity, fate’; the clause says that ‘it was not our fate that we two [the boda and Satan] should want to serve [God].’11 In effect this would seem to have to mean “we were not predestined to serve him.” The gegenge clause looks very much like an extension of an argument set forth by Hrabanus. In censuring Gottschalk’s position, he asked that if men should think themselves predestined, “Why should anyone strive for eternal life, for men would say, ‘if I do good and am not pre-destined to eternal life it profits me nothing, and if I am, it harms me nothing if I do evil.’”12 So, by extension, if one is predestined not to do something, it is hardly one’s fault, one’s sin, if one does not do it. But whereas Adam, selfsceafte guma, accepts, the boda denies responsibility: unc gegenge ne wæs. We can glimpse, if we judge at least from the Heliand, why the boda’s word for ‘fate’ is gegenge and not wyrd. The latter term, at least in its Old Saxon form wurd, commonly means ‘death’ or else ‘that will or power which results in death’—for the boda here an altogether unpalatable association.13 The former term, presumably giving Old Saxon gigengi, is comparatively mild; it denotes merely what has been arranged, whether by God or man, while retaining, of course, the idea that the determination in question is out of one’s own hands. In short, as ærendian 665 may be Eve’s euphemism, gegenge 743 is the boda’s. It is very much the poet’s wit here which conveys the impression that his acceptance is of free will and not of predestination, and his wit deploys gegenge ne wæs and its context to huge advantage. Pervading the whole of

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the boda’s vaunt, of course, is again dramatic irony: presumably the audience is aware that all that he boasts of and all that he foresees will be undone. But there are numerous more specific instances of wit. For the audience of the poem the exclamation unc gegenge ne wæs is, one would suppose, much more probably critical, indeed, depreciative, of the idea of predestination than it is approbatory; to assign to a devil what obviously amounts to an affirmation of an idea is seldom a way of recommending it to another party, especially if that party, here, the audience of the poem, is in effect the other party in a dispute; those whose ruin is proclaimed when the boda declares that hæleða bearn heofonrice sculon, / leode, forlætan 752–53 would include, after all, the poem’s listeners. And the more would this be so if that devil, in having brought about a notable, if temporary, defeat of this same other party, is yet declaring his own innocence in having done so. Indeed, it is his glee in having overthrown humankind which leads the boda into this very declaration. And still more might the disclosure displease an audience, inasmuch as the devil hardly conceals this glee: he hloh þa and plegode ‘laughed and exulted’ 724 (J. R. Hall gives ‘frolicked’ here14) that men synt forlædde ‘men are seduced’ 728, and so on. Noting that “ein Aufjauchzen nach der Erfolg malt die Epik öfter,” Levin L. Schücking cites the boda’s speech here as the outstanding example (“niemals freilich so deutlich”); he describes it as “ein sichtlich von mimischen begleitetes Triumphgelächter des Teufels”—that is, another passage during which, in recitation, the point of the text itself could be driven home by suitable gesture and expression.15 The poet satisfies audience expectation by supplying this common feature of epic, but adapts the Aufjauchzen to include the disclosure to the audience of what the Gottschalkian position might be taken to imply. It might be noted that the Aufjauchzen reveals how curiously close the boda now sees his relation to be to his master—as equals, or almost so. No fewer than seven dual pronouns help to detail what he and Satan have undergone and continue to undergo (wit ‘we two’ 736, 741, 744, 755; unc ‘the two of us’ 740, 743, 745), with unc 743 coming midway in the procession. Not until us 746, anticipating folca mæste 747, does the boda allow, at least grammatically, that Satan’s huge grievance and woe caught up other devils besides himself. These intimations of closeness to his master betoken the boda’s self-esteem, and it seems just possible that his self-esteem is a Germanic echo of what Janet Schrunk Ericksen has noted as to a legal contract spoken of in the Irish Saltair na Rann between the Devil and the serpent-tempter. The Devil promises that the snake’s reward will be fame. In Genesis B some such agreement is perhaps further hinted at in Satan’s proclamation to his crew that, as to a volunteer who succeeds, Sittan læte ic hine wið me sylfne ‘I

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shall let him sit next to me myself’ 438 and again in the boda’s final exuberance, confirmed by the narrator, that satan ic þær secan wille ‘I will seek out Satan there’ 761, i.e., in Hell. The boda is eager to claim his reward.16 The dual pronouns also help to imply a sameness of purpose and thought— that though only the boda speaks here, he speaks for his master as well, so as to remind the audience that the rationale, the excuse, of unc gegenge ne wæs was also Satan’s, whose earlier long complaint twice hinted his likely concurrence in the matter: næfð he þeah riht gedon / þæt he us hæfð befælled . . . ‘he did not do right in that he cast us . . .’ 360–61 and swa he us ne mæg ænige synne gestælan ‘so he cannot impute any sin to us’ 391. As a final touch of wit, a double line of defense is implied by the verb phrase þeowian wolden: we two were fated, the boda says, not merely not to serve God but even not to want to serve him; his wolden covers not only the deed but the will behind it: wit him noldon on heofonrice / hnigan mid heafdum ‘we (two) did not wish to bow with (our) heads to him in Heaven’ 741–42. In the predestined certainty of our rebellion even our wills were innocent, while, as the following unc waldend wearð wrað 745 implies, God’s umbrage was hateful and wicked. The defense covers all bases, and the boda proclaims himself guiltless. It is instructive to compare the terms selfsceaft 523 and gegenge 743 in their immediate contexts. That of the former is direct and forthright; Adam is “active.” The phrase selfsceafte guma does not, I think, imply that only Adam, and not posterity, had self-dispensation; its emphasis rather is that Adam exercises this faculty promptly and decisively. The ‘man of self-fate’ declares his understanding of the issue: ‘I cannot obey you; you can go away’ 542–43. The context of gegenge is euphemistic and oblique; the boda is “passive.” The intimation in unc gegenge ne wæs is that the boda and Satan were more acted upon than acting, almost more sinned against than sinning. The phrasing is delicately emollient and self-exculpatory, “it was not our fate to serve God,” rather than startling and outrageous *“it was our fate to rebel against God.” Through the oblique pronoun unc ‘(to) us (two)’ the responsibility is shunted off onto the obliging shoulders of predestination. The boda’s mincing gegenge is further evidence of his self-deception. The final point, of course, comes in the speech of Adam, in which he accepts responsibility for what he has done. In sum, especially since their position near the end of the poem gives emphasis to their content, the boda’s vaunt and Adam’s avowal illustrate Doane’s observation, in beginning his remarks on the possible bearing of the Gottschalk controversy on Genesis B, that in the Saxon Genesis “the great theological issue . . . is ‘will.’” The Saxon poet, in his retelling of the Adam and Eve story, understands that will is not only free, but the source of man’s responsibility, what makes the possibility of salvation or damnation

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meaningful.”17 Elsewhere he says that “the poet has externalized the eventual results of the Fall in the form of two trees of the original story, polarizing them as symbols of man’s free and absolute choice in the garden.”18 In such passages as these Doane seems clearly to read the poem as accepting free will, and not predestination, as the operative principle. But otherwise Doane seems not ill-disposed to the view that Genesis B might reflect Gottschalkian doctrine. He notes, plausibly enough, “[i]t is probable a priori that our poem was composed in [the ninth-century Carolingian] atmosphere of controversy about will, grace, predestination, and eternal rewards and that the controversy had not died out at the time the poem [i.e., the story of the Fall as one of the Old Saxon Genesis fragments] was copied in our manuscript at Mainz.”19 But also Doane goes beyond this coincidence of time and appears to accept that the poet of Genesis B took a position somewhere intermediate between that of Gottschalk and that of Hincmar and Hrabanus; he remarks that “reading into the poem a more ‘Augustinian’ intention, as I in fact tend to do, along with Vickrey and R. Woolf, one can even imagine it as emanating from the circle around Gottschalk (if not from himself, who was a Saxon and a fine Latin poet).” His next sentence retreats somewhat from this formulation: “the poet . . . slurred over the extremes to make a useful pastoral amalgam of both Pelagian and Augustinian positions.”20 The problem with “amalgam” is that although an amalgam is a mixture of different elements, in the present instance each principal position, in the view of its more strenuously engaged adherents, largely or wholly denies the other position. In this circumstance it seems doubtful to me how satisfactory the poem might have been in a pastoral function. So I would abstain from endorsing Doane’s amalgam; I do not now find that the poet “slurred over” the extreme of free will, and I wish that Doane had more clearly noted those passages in the poem which seemed to warrant his pastoral amalgam. The evidence presently cited tells fairly strongly, I think, against the view that Genesis B reflects a Gottschalkian theology or even an intermediate position. My surmise is that despite the evidence which obviously was apparent to him, Doane was moved to conclude otherwise by the seemingly ineluctable reading of the poem’s tacens: Adam had demanded a sign, the demand was met in the form of Eve’s vision, and so he acted reasonably in acceding to the boda’s behest, whereby he came to ruin through no deliberate choice to refuse good and accept evil. Doane’s most ample discussion of these tacens is in his note to ne þu me oðiewdest ænig tacen 540. Having translated the line as ‘nor have you shown me any credentials’—there again is the fatal presentperfect—he goes on to speak of “[t]he demand for proof.” The unexamined “demand” here, reminiscent of Evans’ “Adam had demanded a ‘tacen,’”21

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suggests fairly strongly that Doane is not challenging, let alone refuting, the reading of the tacens which underlies the exonerative view and which, certainly as Evans understands it, though perhaps not identical with the Gottschalkian view, is comfortable with the view that mankind generally is lost. And yet the next chapter will note that Doane, without using the word, adumbrates a “comedic” ending for Genesis B. What I conclude to be the likely thematic triumph of free will in the poem, and with it the repudiation of Gottschalkian theology, contributes greatly to the poem’s comedic intent and strength. Doane does remark the societal consequence of predestinarian teaching, including, presumably, such teaching as the poem Genesis B, if indeed anciently it was taken to entail predestinarian thought, might itself have afforded: . . . [T]he implications were horrifying: in a world where the great problems were lordly arrogance, disobedience of authority at all levels, and chaotic assertion of “heroic” will, in a world where the emperor was trying to establish his superiority to his vassals, even if they were kings, and the Church was trying to establish its right to oversee the secular authorities, Gottschalk’s teachings seemed to ratify the mysterious urge of individuals to defy their superiors if they felt in the right and to ignore all moral constraints if they felt in the wrong.

We can see from Chapter III how “disobedience of authority at all levels” might well have been, for Carolingian authority, most strongly to be deplored and resisted. But Doane notes the mainly personal effect as well: “[T]he idea of fixed eternal fates would seem to lead people to despair of their own salvation.”22 So it was no wonder that Hrabanus and Hincmar objected strongly to Gottschalk’s teachings and strove to suppress him, even to the point of imprisonment. Quite apart from his representation of Adam as embracing the way of the pilgrim, the poet’s endorsement of free will over predestination in numerous passages in Genesis B conduces broadly to hopefulness in the audience of his poem and so underlies its comedic import.23 And though the tropological Adam in his presence as the Adam of Genesis 3 is himself doomed to many winters of torment, he can, as one who has undergone long and sorrowful penance, become, unlike Satan, the recipient of grace. It is now, perhaps, appropriate to note the concerted bearing on Genesis B of various historical circumstances (apart from the question of Gottschalk and freedom of the will) which from time to time the present study has taken notice of. In Chapter III we noted both the discord that was rife in mid ninth-century Saxony as well as generally in the empire and the Carolingian idea of “correctio,” the “rolling ‘thunder’ of authoritative voices” demanding

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purer thought and conduct. More importantly, I think, we noted in Chapter VI the view of Wallace-Hadrill that the ordinatio imperii of Louis the Pious (817) “rested upon the most significant concept of the [Carolingian] Renaissance, not yet elaborated but generally felt: namely, that the empire was a Christian unity, and more than that, was itself the Corpus Christi, indivisible and sacred. To disturb this unity by dissension, let alone by rebellion and warfare, would be to dismember the Body of Christ. Such was the sense in which peace, resting on a delicate equilibrium, was understood.” Given especially this understanding of the Carolingian realm—that it “was itself the Corpus Christi”—it becomes quite possible to see Genesis B as, in some part, a poetical expression of the problems and dangers of its age. In Chapter II we considered the poem’s tropological schema, the dual presentation of character and action which allowed the drama of the Fall to be seen from a contemporaneous point of view. In Chapter III we noted martiality as an aura which suffuses the poem; there also we noted obedience as the principle underlying the poet’s account of the Fall. But there is a further consideration to be remarked: the extraordinary emphasis in Genesis B on Satan’s rebellion in the first part of the poem. Not much has been said about this event since Chapter I. But from line 246 into line 441, where the text breaks off, we have almost two hundred lines given to the war in Heaven and its aftermath. The lacuna of two MS leaves at line 441 might entail, by my reckoning, perhaps 230-odd verses, in which, apparently, Satan continued to harangue his followers and in which one of them volunteered as Satan’s boda.24 Even if, because of an illustration or some part of a page left blank, the loss was markedly less than 250 verses, it is easy to see that originally the proportions of the narrative were quite otherwise from those of the text as we have it, and that the ratio of lines given to the Satanic rebellion and what followed thereupon much greater. We might with some reason suppose that an early Saxon audience, living, as Doane puts it, “in a world where the great problems were lordly arrogance, disobedience of authority at all levels, and chaotic assertion of ‘heroic’ will,” would note the parallel between the Satanic rebelliousness and its resultant discords and the rebelliousness and discords of their own time. The principal identification was fairly obvious: the heavenly unity found its earthly equivalent and manifestation in the empire, conceptually indivisible and sacred, but now rent by the magnates’ feuds and the disobedience figured in the Satanic rebellion. Even the boda, in his self-deception toward the end of the poem, preserves fidelity to the wrong cause and comitatus, and in his seemingly almost quixotic loyalty to his master reflects the poet’s condemnation of disloyalty to the imperial chief.

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By the sort of equation implied in the view “that the empire was a Christian unity, and more than that, was itself the Corpus Christi,” the emperor becomes also a vicar of God on earth. Genesis B, celebrating as it does the virtue of obedience to supreme authority, would appear to stand firmly in the imperial camp against the disturbers of peace and unity. This circumstance, I suggest, lends a certain additional weight to the view that the author at least of Praefatio A was alluding to the Saxon Genesis and therefore, though unknowingly, to Genesis B. It is consistent with this view that, as I have argued, numerous passages in the poem either subsume free will or otherwise testify that free will is operative in human existence. Doane’s comment about the world in which “the emperor was trying to establish his superiority to his vassals . . . and the Church was trying to establish its right to oversee the secular authorities,” further, that “the idea of fixed eternal fates would seem to lead people to despair of their own salvation,” may be compared the opening sentence, in translation, of Praefatio A. We recall from Chapter III its statement that the emperor enjoined the composition of a certain poem or poems and that “gladly complying with the imperial commands . . . [the poet] at once applied himself to this difficult and laborious task.” Although august Louis the Most Pious with his most elevated and excellent temper of mind wisely strives to arrange and to order very many matters advantageous to the common weal, yet he is especially proved to be zealous—devoted, too—in what concerns sacred religion and the eternal salvation of souls, making it his daily preoccupation, by wisely instructing the people made his subjects by God, always to fire them to better and nobler ways and to check and suppress all harmful and superstitious practices.25

There is an obvious difference between Doane’s words and those of the author of Praefatio A. The former emphasize the intransigence, even the obstreperousness, of some, at least, of the Frankish nobility. The latter emphasize the wisdom and charity of their ruler without taking explicit notice of obstreperousness. But it is not hard to see that Doane is talking about those same folk whom, as Praefatio A says, “Ludouuicus Piissimus augustus” strove to instruct and inspire. And when we consider Genesis B quite apart from its emphasis on freedom of will we can see how the poem might have served the emperor by “instructing the people.” It was the emperor himself, according to Praefatio A, who prompted the composition of the poem or poems in question, “so that the sacred text of the Divine Precepts might be revealed not only to the lettered but to the unlettered.”26 By itself such witness cannot, of course, prove that

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in referring to a poem on Old Testament subjects the author (or authors) of the Praefatio had “[our] Saxon Genesis” in mind; it does, however, insofar as the present study demonstrates the overall orthodoxy of Genesis B, considerably strengthen the possibility that such was the case. An interpretation of the poem which found God’s will to be hard to find would exclude Genesis B as one of the poems to which the Praefatio and Versus allude. More broadly, it seems quite reasonable to regard both the Heliand and the Old Saxon Genesis as a dimension of Carolingian correctio. The governing of newly subjugated Saxony entailed great harshness; the Capitulatio de partibus Saxoniae (775–790?) exemplifies the attitude of Frankish authority. But there was a gentler and probably more subtle side. Alcuin’s letters to Bishop Arn of Salzburg and to others, including Charlemagne, commended taking a more mild approach in bringing the Saxons to obedience. The Praefatio and Versus and the Saxon poem or poems they allude to might illustrate such an approach.27 Both Doane and Barbara Raw note the possibility that “a combined Genesis and Heliand” came with King Æðelwulf of Wessex, returning to England in 856 with his new queen, Judith, daughter of Charles the Bald.28 Michael Enright argues that Æðelwulf’s reason for marrying Judith was probably to strengthen his hand against his son Æðelbald, who was inclined to rebelliousness.29 The present study, I think, supports Raw’s and Doanes’ suggestions and Enright’s argument. Doane’s view otherwise as to the Old Saxon Genesis possibly “emanating from the circle around Gottschalk”30 or even from Gottschalk himself does not, of course, readily comport with Enright’s view as to the putative role of Hincmar in the marriage; the scenario of Gottschalk’s opponent and jailer allowing, wittingly or otherwise, the dispatch to Wessex of a text emanating from the circle around Gottschalk entails a certain wry humor. But as the present chapter has argued, the likelihood of such emanation is remote. And it does seem possible that the very strong disposition of Genesis B to exalt the virtue of obedience to authority, a virtue so accommodative to the Carolingian theocratic ideal, might explain, or help to explain, why at least that part of the poem which dealt with the Fall was brought along from Francia to England.31 Charles and his counsellor Hincmar, who as Enright argues probably had a hand in arranging not only the marriage but also some details thereof—for example, the anointing of Judith as queen—might have suggested the poem as one more way by which the disaffected among Æðelwulf’s subjects at home might be brought around to a greater degree of submission to him and his new queen. That literary implement through which Saxons of the fractious sort might have been brought around to obedience may now have been intended to serve likewise for the fractious of Wessex.

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In our present state of knowledge, this reason for transit from Francia to England remains no more than conjecture, and other explanations might be proposed. But although the extent to which the poem might have conduced to obedience among the English is unknown to us, the present suggestion as to the reason for its conveyance should not readily be discounted. On the one hand was the anxiety of authorities either episcopal or secular, or both, concerning domestic tranquility whether in Francia or Wessex. On the other hand there was, among the ancient Indo-European peoples, what Calvert Watkins infers to have been the “extraordinarily high valuation accorded the poet by society.”32 If we posit further that much, or some, of this valuation survived well into the Christian era, it becomes easy to see, beyond the bonds merely of affability and friendship, a deliberate and charitable purpose in Francia’s gift of “a combined Genesis and Heliand” to Æðelwulf of Wessex.33

CHAPTER X

Adam and Eve and the Light

We have noted that Adam, Eve, and the Tempter, Satan’s boda, have each a dual presence in the poem: by tropology they are personages both of the biblical Genesis and also of the sixth, i.e., the final, age. But this duality of presence is not sustained without variation throughout the poem (and probably could not be so sustained), and the poet secures some of his finest effects by allowing his characters either to speak or perform now in one capacity, now in another, or else to interact with one another in such a way that their tropological identities collide. The first possibility we have already noticed in Adam’s verse nergend user, þa ic hine nehst geseah ‘our savior, when I saw him in person’ 540, where nergend user ‘our savior’ bespeaks Adam’s identity as a post-redemptive man but nehst ‘in person’ in the following verse bespeaks, even though it alliterates with nergend, his identity as the Adam of Genesis 2:16–17. The second possibility can be seen very neatly in the final speeches of Adam and the Tempter, wherein the Tempter’s final speech unwittingly anticipates Adam’s, and the two constitute a dramatic turn in the poem’s narrative. Both possibilities demonstrate the wit of the poet. The Tempter, in his last speech, is certain that               men synt forlædde, adam and eue. him is unhyldo 730   waldendes witod nu hie wordcwyde his, lare forleton. forþon hie leng ne magon healdan heofonrice . . .

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‘human folk, Adam and Eve, are deceived; the Lord’s disfavor is assured for them now (that) they have abandoned his command and instruction. Therefore no longer can they hold the realm of Heaven.’

The Tempter’s words convey no sign that he thinks their loss of hyldo and Heaven is other than permanent and that Adam and Eve are anything other than forever, in saecula saeculorum, the captives of Satan and Hell. This opinion the Tempter would seem to share with the narrator, whose assessment of the Fall, just a few lines earlier, was that it meant deaðes swefn and deofles gespon, / hell and hinnsið and hæleða forlor, / menniscra morð ‘sleep of death and devil’s deceit, hell and journey-hence and destruction of warriors, damnation of humanity.’ 720–22. The sentiment of this passage echoes that of many other passages “which emphasize,” as I noted in an earlier study, “that to anger God entails disaster but make no express mention of extenuation, of mitigation or annulment of the penalty, of a restoration to favor.”1 The seeming coincidence of the narrator’s view with that of the Tempter masks differences not merely of tone but of understanding. The narrator, to sustain a sense of defeat and death, does not disclose all that he knows as to the consequence of the Fall; the Tempter, rejoicing in victory, pours out all his certainties as to the Fall. It is as if the Tempter, elsewhere in the poem by tropology a creature active in the sixth age, is in his last speech no more than the serpent, i.e., the Devil, in the Eden of Genesis 3. But his victims elude him, or will elude him in time. For neither Adam, in his last speech, nor Eve are the persons of Genesis 3; by a kind of tropological time warp they are persons of the sixth age and therefore capable of redemption. The effect of this meeting, whereby beings of the primal age and of the sixth age confront each other in resolve and prophecy, serves partly to confirm for audience or reader the vast, the immeasurable, superiority of the age of Christ to earlier ages. But far more surprisingly, the effect for Adam and Eve is to posit a state of affairs undreamt of in Genesis 3. It lies with Adam’s last speech and the few lines that follow to relieve the impression of gloom and defeat and restore the poem’s comedic underlay— to restore, in fact, its meaning and significance as a Christian and comedic poem. That is why Adam’s words to Eve in lines 828–35 are rhetorically so elaborate and so eloquent. His response to Eve’s declaration that her own remorse is as great as his becomes the poem’s final and perhaps its greatest and most memorable speech and certainly its most comedic. Genesis B draws near its end with alterations of the biblical narrative which quite cancel the picture of gloom and defeat presented by the long passage from line 599 through the boda’s vaunt. In Genesis 3 Adam hears

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God’s malediction but in no way indicates a desire to restore himself to God’s favor. In Genesis B, of course, he does show such a desire, indeed by undertaking penance. Much evidence indicates that contemporary Old Saxon and Anglo-Saxon culture believed in the importance and desirability of penance. Allen J. Frantzen notes that “[the early penitentials] demand a new inward disposition from the penitent: a submission of his will was to precede the submission of his body to penitential deeds.” Such submissions, even though phrased in the language of the comitatus, are just what we see in Adam’s resolve in lines 828–35.2 The common Old English terms for penance are absent in Genesis B as a whole and in the passage in question: noun (dæd-)bot (Old Saxon bôta), verb (ge-)betan (Old Saxon bôtian).3 Nevertheless, Adam’s desire is evident not only in the substance of his final speech but in two motifs, one of which we have already observed. In the thought and literature of the time the two motifs are natural companions to that of penance: judgment and hell. Frantzen observes that “[a]lthough all poems which exhort Christians to devout and honest conduct point ahead to the eternal rewards of good behavior and belief, very few imagine the judgment scene. Those which do constitute a second and much larger group of poems about penance.”4 We have already noted the dramatic irony in Eve’s Vision of Judgment: she and Adam do not apprehend the momentous significance that would be evident, one supposes, to any reasonably well instructed Christian in an audience of the poem. The second motif is hardly a matter of dramatic irony. Frantzen remarks that “penance is juxtaposed with life everlasting in hell.” And to be sure, Adam, before he gives voice to his desire to do penance, describes Hell to Eve. His prospect is brief, in lines 792–94 only, probably to conduce to the impression that Adam’s remorse at losing God’s hyldo, to which he gives voice in lines 828–37, is greater than his fear of eternal pain. Nevertheless, to “repent in this life,” as Frantzen says, is necessary not only to conduce to spiritual betterment but “to avoid eternal penance in the next”—i.e., “life everlasting in hell.” So Adam’s vow to undergo penance, coming as it does almost at the end of the poem, lays as it were the foundation for a comedic end to what we have of Genesis B.5 It will be seen that “the comedic” in Adam’s resolve is by nature transcendental, entailing physical hardship in this life but assuring, it was felt, a heavenly reward. Frantzen and also Wallace-Hadrill address institutionalized penance, i.e., penance, whether public or private, governed by and conducted through the Church. Public penance involved four parties: God himself, the priesthood, the penitent, and a congregation or public, or some part thereof. Private

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penance involved three, for the congregation or public did not now participate. In Genesis B the parties are reduced to two, for the institution, i.e., the priesthood, is not now mentioned. The priest for whom, in Frantzen’s phrase, “a submission of [the penitent’s] will was to precede the submission of his body to penitential deeds” becomes God himself and only God. The poet’s reduction seems like an extrapolation from a trend, for Wallace-Hadrill indicates that in the Frankish realm private penance was becoming increasingly important: The canons of the early councils had been quite clear about the sacrament of penance, which was a public act and therefore humiliating. Already this must have been very difficult to enforce, even before varieties of Irish penitentials became available in Francia in the Merovingian age. These, though less rigorous in some respects, still envisaged public penance. Confession to the priest, however, which was the first step towards a penitential sentence and ultimate absolution, was increasingly permitted in private. In fact, private penance steadily increased while public penance, though never abolished, tended to atrophy.6

But the idea of a penitent Adam long antedated Carolingian times; a passage in Augustine’s De catechizandis rudibus 18.30 might have suggested the idea to the Old Saxon poet: et surgentem adiuuaret ‘and help [Adam] if he repented.’7 Frantzen, who is disposed to doubt whether The Wanderer, The Seafarer, and Resignation should be regarded as penitential poems, infers that “penitential poetry had fallen on hard times; it was a category of Old English poetry without poems.” I have argued elsewhere that sea-penance was a motif in The Seafarer.8 I would argue now that Genesis B is another poem exhibiting “independen[ce] of penance assigned by the confessor.”9 As such, of course, our poem is rather more daring than The Seafarer, there being no reason to suppose that the speaker in that poem is to be understood as other than a more or less contemporary Anglo-Saxon Christian. As we see from Adam’s lamentation Genesis B is clearly a poem in which a principal character expresses sorrow for his offense as well as an eagerness to undergo severe penitential immersion. So, on grounds of content, Genesis B could with some reason be regarded as a penitential poem, especially since the penitential motif is so evident at its end. In reporting both Adam’s prior refusal and Eve’s acceptance of the fruit the poem alludes, as we have seen, to the Redemption and indeed to the Redeemer: nergend 536 and þe (or, better, [s]e) 598. No such comforting allusion marks the moment of Adam’s Fall. The narrator marks Adam’s Fall not

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by saying that he ate of the fruit but by noting the momentous consequence of his act:                   He æt þam wife onfeng helle and hinnsið þeah hit nære haten swa ac hit ofetes noman agan sceolde. (717–19) ‘He received from the woman / hell and journey hence [death], though it was not styled thus, / but it was to have the name of “fruit.”’

Adam’s response to the catastrophe suggests that he is not entirely disheartened. It is true, as Doane points out, that he answers Eve’s vision of God by showing, or describing to her, his image of Hell.10 But thereupon he makes no reference to having been befuddled by the tacens, that is, to his having supposed that Eve’s vision was the boda’s apparently legitimate response to his earlier mention of a sign and proof also of the boda’s own legitimacy. The exonerative view of the poem is, as I put it in Chapter I, “essentially that if God’s will was hard for [Adam and Eve] to discover they surely cannot be strongly blamed for not finding it.” One might expect, then, that Adam, in despair at their plight, would refer in righteous indignation to the difficulty of the choice before them. But no; the issue is not one of knowledge but of obedience, and so it is only the latter to which Adam refers: 795                   ac þis is landa betst þæt wit þurh uncres hearran þanc habban moston þær þu þam ne hierde þe unc þisne hearm geræd þæt wit waldendes word forbræcon, heofoncyninges. ‘but this is the best of lands / which through our Lord’s grace we (two) were able to possess, / if you had not obeyed him who counseled us this harm: / that we (two) broke the word of the Lord, / of the heavenking.’

Adam’s acknowledgment here of disobedience supports the inference drawn in Chapter III that in Genesis B the Fall comes about through disobedience and not through fate, through guilt and not despite innocence. It is one more piece of evidence that the exonerative view of the poem is amiss. But, as we can begin to see, his acknowledgment also anticipates the presentation of Adam and Eve as penitents and therewith a comedic ending to the poem.

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It becomes plain in the first of Adam’s last two speeches (lines 791–820) that Adam and Eve must depart Eden. But in the second such speech (lines 828–40) the emphasis is not so much the necessity of departure as it is Adam’s wish to depart in order to recover God’s hyldo, His favor and esteem. Here again the poem adapts the narrative of Genesis 3 to the penitential practice of the poet’s own age: remorse over the loss of Eden becomes an eagerness to embrace exile. Since Genesis 3 remarks no penitential impulse on Adam’s part, the poet turns this omission to his own purpose in Genesis B. A common mode of penitential exile, to be noted below in more detail, was either a venturing on the sea, not necessarily even with a particular destination in mind, or more commonly, it would seem, a passage into foreign lands. Wilhelm Levison notes that “to give up one’s native country, to leave one’s relatives and friends and all the things one loved, was considered a good means of winning forgiveness for sins and eternal life.”11 This mode, which had vast consequences for continental Germanic peoples, was well known to the Irish and to the Anglo-Saxons alike. But a more extreme form was also known, and is seen in Adam’s vow that to recover God’s favor he would go into the depths of the sea. The sea-penance which Adam resolves upon is apparently “ascetic immersion,” the act of praying while standing in water. A scriptural precedent might be 2 Corinthians 11:25 nocte et die in profundo maris fui ‘I was night and day in the depth of the sea.’ Ælfric refers twice to this passage: Paul cwæð, þæt he ænne dæg and ane niht on sægrunde adruge ‘said that he endured one day and one night in the abyss’ and Paul sylf wunode on sæ-grunde middan / ofer dæg and ofer niht ‘himself dwelt in the midst of the abyss a day and a night.’ The several lives of St. Cuthbert report how the saint prayed through the night standing in sea waves even up to his neck; the story was repeated by Ælfric.12 And Bede relates the certainly no less severe ascesis of Drycthelm, who often, solebat hoc creber ob magnum castigandi corporis affectum ingredi, ac saepius in eo supermeantibus undis inmergi ‘(he) often used to enter [the river] in his great longing to chastise his body, frequently immersing himself beneath the water.’13 One account of such immersions, the Gaelic poem Saltair na Rann assigns the practice to Adam and Eve: “Eve, after the expulsion from the earthly paradise, is condemned to stand thirty days in the Tigris, while Adam undergoes a penance of the same kind during forty-seven days in the river Jordan.”14 In Genesis B Adam describes his readiness to undergo sea-penance thus: Gif ic waldendes willan cuðe, hwæt ic his to hearmsceare habban sceolde

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830   ne gesawe þu no sniomor —þeah me on sæ wadan hete heofones god heonone nu þa, on flode faran nære he firnum þæs deop, merestream þæs micel— þæt his o min mod getweode ac ic to þam grunde genge gif ic godes meahte 835  willan gewyrcean. ‘If I knew the Lord’s will, what I was to have as punishment for it, you would not see quickly—though Heaven’s God should right now bid me go into the sea, traverse in the flood, howsoever deep it were, the sea-stream so great—that ever my courage doubted of it, but I would go to the abyss if I might [thereby] do God’s will.’15

The overall structure is that of the envelope, though the passage enveloped is fairly brief. The enclosing gif clauses 828–29 and 834–35 entail a common subject ic and common phrasal object (waldendes, godes) willan, the former concerning God’s will, the latter concerning Adam’s carrying out that will. The clause þeah me on sæ wadan . . . posits sea-penance as the mode which Adam’s hearmsceare might entail. The passage is climactically ordered, implying ever more intense degrees of hardship and severity of punishment. Between the subject and verb ne gesawe þu no sniomor and their object þæt his o min mod getweode of Adam’s main clause the þeah clause intervenes, its concession being intensified in turn by the further “concessive-equivalent” nære clause of degree, an extremely rare construction.16 The six verses within the ne gesawe . . . nære . . . clauses of concession prolong completion of the predicate. The þeah clause is close to being a parenthesis, whereby “one interrupts a thought by inserting a reasoned explanation.”17 In the passage as a whole ample variation serves to focus and intensify. The unspecific hearmsceare ‘punishment, penalty’ is narrowed in the concessive þeah clause to on sæ wadan with its variation on flod faran. Of itself the conjunction þeah ‘even though’ helps to convey, in its context, Adam’s readiness to endure, but then on sæ wadan and on flod faran are themselves narrowed and intensified in nære ‘were it never’ firnum þæs deop and its variation merestream þæs micel, the one suggesting the depth, the other the vastness of waters. Then the climax, the object of the verb phrase ne gesawe: þæt his o min mod getweode / ac ic to þam grunde genge ‘that my resolve would ever hesitate, but I would go to the (very) bottom,’ where the adverb o is superfluous, merely repeating the o of no 830 (ne + o), but gives emphasis and helps to tie its clause as direct object to the clause with no sniomor, and where his resolve finds double expression, first negatively (with the particles ne and no 830) and then positively, in the clause ac ic to þam grunde genge, where grund

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indicates the uttermost possibility of penance. It seems very possible that grund here alludes to Hell.18 The passage ends with Adam’s declaration of resolve: the pronoun his ‘of it’ 833 is inclusive of the whole idea expressed so far, his readiness to undergo sea-penance, and this is repeated, with final intensification, in the following clause. Adam closes with the thought that is dearest to him: ‘if I might do God’s will.’ It is as if, should Heaven’s God so command him heonone nu þa ‘hence right now!’ he must declare his readiness to obey, were the flood never so deep, the sea-stream so vast. In all the speech there is no question but that Adam accepts responsibility for what has happened. For Adam this resolve, of course, comes too late; belief contemporary to the poet placed the postlapsarian Adam and Eve in Hell until the Harrowing. But post-redemptive man might find salvation, and in Genesis B, as we have seen, Adam has a dual identity, tropologically a post-redemptive figure as well as the Adam of Genesis 3. There is no reason for supposing that this capability, having been sustained through the poem to this point, is now abandoned in the last scene of what we have of Genesis B. It seems clear that in Adam’s last speech the capability holds and that now Adam’s presence as a post-redemptive person is paramount. The circumstance that Adam is now fallen serves to strengthen this presence, for “post-redemptive” presupposes the fall of all posterity in Adam. And since in Christian belief the whole idea of penance, including sea-penance, presupposes the Redemption, it is reasonable to think that here his post-redemptive presence obtains. The speech is not just an avowal of personal responsibility but is also an exhortation: his last speech, in distinct contrast to his first, instances the high style of rhetoric, appropriate to stirring an audience—not just Eve but the audience of the poem—to similar resolve. Adam’s penitential speech, together with what is said as to the prayers of Adam and Eve in the brief passage that follows, is the comedic passage which informs the end of the poem and redresses the catastrophe which the narrative hitherto has related. Adam’s speech here differs from all preceding such reminders in that, whereas these take note of what God himself has done or will do or provide, Adam now declares what he himself would do to carry out God’s will. His speech thus amends and redirects Wrenn’s view of the poem, noted in Chapter I. If Genesis B does glorify the comitatus spirit, it does so as a Christian poem; its exemplar of the comitatus spirit is not Satan but Adam. In Adam’s declaration of guilt and of readiness to undergo penance, the Germanic and comitatus conception of loyalty and obedience to one’s lord becomes completely Christianized.

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It is especially these words of Adam which constitute the third and final element of my argument in behalf of the term “imperative” in my title. We have noted contemporaneous Carolingian and Anglo-Saxon theological judgments and beliefs and the disposition in Genesis B to present its characters, in particular Adam and Eve, as tropological. Now we behold the disposition especially of Adam, though engulfed in calamity, to persevere in faith and loyalty. That the poem as we have it comes nigh to ending with Adam’s resolve leaves the reader or audience with his declaration in mind, an exhortation to humility and penance. Though the earthly existence of Adam and Eve henceforth becomes one of physical distress, nevertheless the loss of Eden, entailing misery and want, is to be endured gladly in service and obedience to God. Adam could have formulated his resolve as did the speaker in Fates of the Apostles: Ic sceall feor heonon, / an elles forð, eardes neosian, / sið asettan, nat ic sylfa hwær, / of þisse worulde ‘I shall (go) far hence, forth elsewhere, sojourn afar, set forth my journey I know not where, out of this world’ 109–12. Adam’s and the Seafarer’s resolution is not unlike what must have been that of the voyagers of whom The Parker Chronicle speaks in its entry for the year 891: 7 þrie Scottas comon to Ælfrede cyninge on anum bate butan blcom gereþrum of Hibernia, þonon hi hi bestelon forþon þe hi woldon for Godes lufan on elþiodignesse beon, hi ne rohton hwær ‘And three Scots came to King Alfred in a boat without any oars from Ireland, which they had left secretly, because they wished for the love of God to be in foreign lands, they cared not where.’19 Thus Genesis B shows its affinity to many another Old English text: like them, it entails an exhortation to the ideal Christian life. Adam’s resolve to embrace exile for the love of God—ac ic to þam grunde genge gif ic godes meahte / willan gewyrcean 834–35—is unmistakable evidence that Genesis B is firmly Christian in its outlook, and thereby is further evidence, if now only collaterally, that to take Adam and Eve as erring not morally but merely in judgment is hugely to misunderstand the poem. Adam’s speech here, being so eloquent and being so near the end of Genesis B as we have it, strengthens, it seems to me, the possibility that the end of Genesis B was also the end of the largely lost Old Saxon Genesis story of the Fall. Roberta Frank notices the elaborate paronomasia in the last five lines of the text, in which the expression of Adam’s penitence and hope is sustained and is broadened to include Eve. Finally, the poet says, Adam and Eve prayed: ac hie on gebed feollon butu ætsomne morgena gehwilce, bædon mihtigne

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þæt hie ne forgeate god ælmihtig 850   and him gewisade waldend se goda hu hie on þam leohte forð libban sceolden. ‘and both together they fell every morning into prayer, besought the mighty (one) that God almighty not forget them and (that) the good Chieftain would instruct them how they henceforth ought to live in the light.’20

The passage entails not only three paronomastic sets but, after the first pair (gebed / bædon), two pairs which interlock (mihtigne / ælmihtig and god / goda). Frank observes that “[s]uch wordplay, extending beyond the metrical boundaries of the long-line and depending in large part on words not required by the alliteration, suggests that here the rhetorical framework is dominant in the poet’s mind, the verse unit secondary.”21 This framework serves to mark the end of the poem (or, in the Old Saxon text, the end of the section on the Fall) by introducing the immensely telling allusion which the phrase on þam leohte 851 entails. We shall consider this allusion a little further on. It is what Adam and Eve say in lines 790–840 (Adam’s two speeches and the intermediate speech of Eve) which in my view obviates any need subsequently to represent God’s rebuke and the maledictions of Genesis 3:8–19 and therefore also suggests that the endings of both the Old Saxon Genesis story of the Fall and its translation in Genesis B came with line 851 of the latter text. In any case the boda has already departed netherwards. Though to the modern mind it seems cruel, Adam’s expression of regret that he had ever asked God for the creation of Eve and in fact that he had ever seen her (lines 816–20) is less craven by far than his response to God in Genesis 3:12.22 In its probable allusion to Eve as Adam’s rib (of liðum minum ‘from my limbs’ 818) it may also imply Adam’s recovery of authority. And his resolve to undertake sea-penance alters God’s curse of exile and hardship in Genesis 3:17–19. Eve’s declaration þu meaht hit me witan 824, is, as I read it, a candid acceptance of responsibility as well as an acknowledgment of Adam’s rebuke: ‘you can blame it on me’ (magan ‘to be able’), and her expression of sorrow that follows goes far beyond her response to God in Genesis 3:13. In short, the speeches here of Adam and Eve redirect the substance of Genesis 3:8–19: the maledictions of God on the one hand and on the other the confessions of Eve and Adam are altered and fused into a resolve to do penance, a resolve which carries the more conviction because God is not present as a visible and speaking being. The many centuries between the composition of Genesis 3 and that of the Old Saxon Genesis had of course imposed layers of traditional

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belief and meaning on the story as well as intensifying the burden of guilt and responsibility on the offending pair. But despite this burden the Adam and Eve of Genesis B show themselves nobler by far than the Adam and Eve of Genesis 3. B. J. Timmer suggests that Eve’s brief reply in lines 821–26 to Adam’s long speech in lines 791–820, “may very well have been put in by the translator.” On the whole I am skeptical of his argument. He maintains that the whole of Adam’s words from line 790 to line 840 “may be read continuously by skipping [lines 821–26].”23 In the first place (though this is a very minor point), the translator, were he to have added Eve’s little speech, would also have had to make an adjustment in lines 788–89, which note that both Adam and Eve have speeches to follow. And just as Eve’s interjection (with its introduction) at line 821 is obviously appropriate as an answer to Adam’s reproach, so Adam’s further speech is in substance an appropriate response to her rejoinder: she has just said that she is as sorry as he, and he goes on to stress to her the depth of his own sorrow by declaring his readiness to undergo seapenance. One might, I suppose, argue that the translator interrupted what had been a sustained speech of Adam in order to accommodate Eve’s speech, but I see no evidence of such alteration; it would appear to me rather that the Saxon poet put Eve’s short speech here as a foil for Adam’s eloquence to follow. Timmer says also that hire þa Adam andswarode 827 “is so short that it does not look like a translation from the OS.” But very shortly before, Adam had been speaking for no fewer than thirty lines; surely there was no need for more than one line of speech-introduction, although it appears quite possible that here as elsewhere the translator shortened an Old Saxon line in order, as Doane explains (though not with specific reference to line 827), to effect “(1) the incidental elimination of syllables in Genesis B because of morphemic differences between OE and OS; [and] (2) the elimination in Genesis B of redundant function words characteristic of OS style, apparently with the motive of tightening the metrical structure.”24 Timmer’s most challenging and difficult point is his statement that Eve’s phrase wine min Adam 824 “seems to be better OE. than OS.,” a view he supports by remarking in his Commentary that “in OS. uuini only means ‘friend.’”25 To be sure, the formula wine min N. is found otherwise in Old English (Beowulf 457, 530, 1704) but not in Old Saxon. But the more pressing concern is the import of the term wine. ‘Friend’ for uuini includes more than a personal or familial relationship. Concerning wine / uuini D. H. Green infers that “the practice of regarding the relationship of the lord with his followers in terms of the image of friendship appears to be established more firmly and at an earlier date in the south [i.e., in Germanic lands other

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than Scandinavia], for we find it with particular frequency in Beowulf and also (though less often) in the Heliand and with Otfrid.” He adds, however, that “in the Heliand, apart from the cases in which it is used of a horizontal relationship, it occurs in the vertical sense and denotes every time only the subordinate”—whereas in Old English wine is readily used also of the leader (e.g., wine Scyldinga in Beowulf). Yet Green infers that “we cannot dismiss the possibility . . . that Germany as well as England was acquainted with wini applied to the leader.”26 So Eve’s wine here remains something of a puzzle. It is hard for me to see that Eve is indicating to his very face either that she is Adam’s equal (Green’s “horizontal relationship”) or even that Adam is now her subordinate. But if it represents uuini from the Old Saxon Genesis and means ‘friend (and authority figure)’ it would signify Eve’s rather placatory acknowledgment, together with the acceptance of blame implied by the verb phrase meaht . . . witan 824, of Adam’s authority in their relationship; it would also bear out Green’s inference, although so far as I know it would be the only attested evidence of Old Saxon uuini in this sense. And the word would imply, by the by, a sort of refutation of the boda’s hire in the aforenoted hire eaforan 623. More importantly, though, wine, used here in what looks like a formal and honorific style of address (wine min Adam ‘my friend/lord Adam’) to address the superior in a relationship, would indicate the restoration of order. Thomas Hill points out that the Fall of Adam and Eve in Genesis B, unlike that of Satan, is presented as the subversion of hierarchy.27 We saw in Chapter VIII, for instance, that this overthrow may have been implied by the term wer ‘man’ 713 used of Adam. The restoration is accomplished mutually, by Eve through the honorific wine, by Adam through the assumption of leadership. For in his second speech here Adam’s recovery of authority proceeds apace; we can see it not only in his declaration to undergo penance (Eve, though she expressed regret and sorrow, expressed no such intent) but in his exhortation that, being now as they know themselves baru ‘naked’ 838, they must separate and go on þisses holtes hleo ‘into the shelter of this wood’ 840. In the biblical account the issue of nakedness arises in the presence of God as part of Adam’s humiliating confession and from God’s question (Genesis 3:10 and 3:11); in Genesis B the perception comes as another sign that ratio and obedience have been restored. Whereas in Genesis 3:10 Adam merely acknowledges that he is naked and God then clothes them (3:21), in Genesis B Adam directs that they separate, whereupon they clothe themselves (lines 845–46). Adam is thus shown to regain, or to have regained, his authority as a sort of vicarius Dei. Here again, of course, the Genesis poet treads on modern western toes; as one of his own time he readily identifies dominance as male.

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It is not difficult to see why the text provides this evidence as to Adam’s recovery of authority. It would not do for Adam, whose ship of the mind, as we noted in Chapter III, has been thrown onto its beam ends, to declare an intention to undertake penance without some prior evidence that rationality is again paramount, that his ship has righted herself. From one so distraught as to come to believe that the serpent-like boda was an angel of God and that the vision Eve describes to him was a legitimate sign of deliverance, a vow to undertake penance could hardly mean much. The several early medieval formulations of the tribus modis rationale which often employ Adam, Eve, and the Tempter as exemplars of ratio, sensus, and suggestio address, in effect, only the Fall and nothing as to its aftermath—“in effect,” because the Fall itself is alluded to, if unmistakably, nevertheless somewhat obliquely. The poet of Genesis B is therefore free to abandon Adam and Eve as allegorical figures of ratio and sensus. But his ship’s righting herself suggests that Adam was still to be seen as master and Eve as his inferior. Given the patriarchal natures of the Saxon poet’s society and of early Christianity, the restoration of hierarchy, which the speech discloses, is quite consistent with and is indeed part of the comedic ending of the poem. The poet’s adaptation of the biblical account at the end of the poem is evidence of his Christian heroicization of Adam and Eve and of the restoration of social order as it was understood in the Carolingian realm. Adam in his wretchedness has been much blamed among modern critics for his outcry against Eve in lines 791–20, especially remorseful in its last five lines. But his lamentation and remorse here are quite in keeping with the abandonment of the tribus modis rationale. As to Eve, she was present with Adam, as we noted very early in our study, to receive God’s command, his interdiction as to the eating from the Tree of Death. She too, that is, was directly subject to that express command which was absolute in its nature and absolutely to be obeyed. Eve then is partly, but Adam, as ratio, is more largely to blame. Yes, his outcry against Eve is ignoble. What it shows is that Adam has lapsed from ratio into mere humanity. What is more human, if hardly admirable, than the disposition to blame another? But it is from Adam’s speech at line 790 and on to the end of the poem that Adam in Genesis B might become, for some readers, most human, most “interesting” as a character. And how different from the Adam of his first speech and its aftermath: whereas Adam, as the figure purely of ratio, did nothing to forestall the boda’s assault on Eve nor appeared even to resent it, he now resumes control and authority. The inference that wine 824 is Eve’s placatory acknowledgment of Adam’s authority (rather than an assertion of her authority) is, I think, in keeping with the poet’s general disposition, widely remarked among readers of the

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poem, to represent Eve, apart from her wretched disobedience, in a favorable light. And when, at the end of the poem, we perceive that Adam and Eve become the proto-pilgrims of the Christian faith, we can fathom what I think is a principal reason behind this disposition. Since we must have their progeny, Adam and Eve must go into penitence and exile together, and so we must have, prior to Adam’s speech of resolve, an impression of Eve as well as of Adam which is consistent, or at least not greatly inconsistent, with her apparent readiness in the last lines of the poem to depart with Adam into hardship. This is probably why, several passages earlier on, the poet, though never excusing their disobedience, ameliorates our impression of their disobedience and softens our impression of their guilt.28 We have noted the very considerable departure whereby, in Genesis B as we have it, no mention whatsoever is made of God’s visitation and maledictions and the expulsion from Eden in Genesis 3. Instead, we have amelioration: Adam and Eve, having clothed themselves, fall in prayer and, in their tropological identity as persons of the sixth age, ask forgiveness and enlightenment. The alteration of the biblical account is huge, and the amelioration entailed a considerable measure of artifice, including, it seems clear, some suppression of details in Genesis 3:8–19 and 3:23–24. It entailed, in effect, some reinterpretation of the meaning of the Fall. From the time the boda is said to have returned to Hell (lines 762–64) until the end of the poem, neither the narrator nor Adam and Eve ever so much as once acknowledge that their calamity is also that of posterity. As far as the literal text is concerned, posterity, the eaforan of Adam and Eve, is ignored; the poem concerns solely the plight and the extent of the recovery therefrom of Adam and Eve. It seems possible that the poet, thinking it too risky to mention eaforan so shortly before the account of Adam’s grief, anticipated this focus by withholding the word from the boda’s long speech prior to the speeches of Adam and Eve. The boda has proclaimed, of course, that not just Adam and Eve but the generations to follow are doomed:              forþon her synt butu gedon: ge þæt hæleða bearn heofonrice sculon, leode, forlætan and on þæt lig to þe hate hweorfan (lines 751–54) ‘because two things are accomplished here: both that (the) sons of men, mankind, shall relinquish heaven-realm and tumble hotly into the fire to you [Satan],’ etc.

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and also               and mid hæleða forlore, monnum mid morðres cwealme. (lines 757–58) ‘and with (the) destruction of men, with death’s pain to men.’

But where is the word ‘posterity,’ by which term Satan had referred to the creation he hoped to ruin (and on his eafrum swa some andan gebetan ‘and make good our anger on his [Adam’s] posterity as well’ 399) and which, as we saw in Chapter V, was ascribed to the boda by indirect discourse (eaforum 550) and employed by him in direct discourse (eaforan 623) with such dire effect? Such avoidance might seem merely a matter of chance. What suggests that it was more than chance is the circumstance that Adam avoids identifying Eve’s fault and his own as sin, original or otherwise. The word synn ‘sin’ was evidently at hand (Satan, in line 391, had denied any synn, and Old Saxon sundea ‘sin’ and sundig ‘sinful’ occur in the Genesis fragments), but Adam avoids synn and instead, by way of a one-word substitute, alludes to his and Eve’s offense by the term sið: uncer sylfra sið ‘(the) sið of us (two)’ 792 and sorgian for þis siðe ‘grieve on account of this sið’ 800—where, from the preceding lines, the sið would appear not to have meant a literal journey to a place of punishment subsequent to their offense. Old Saxon sîd¯ ‘1) Weg, Reise (‘way, journey’) and ‘3) Mal (‘time, occasion’) is a word mostly fairly free of ominousness; Sehrt does give the sense ‘2) Schicksal’ (‘fate’) for sîd¯ , but only for the two phrases in the passage in question, Genesis 2 unkaro selb¯aro sîð and 10 sorogon for them sîd¯ a, i.e., Old English uncer sylfra sið 792 and sorgian for þis siðe 800.29 But a sense ‘2) Schicksal’ here seems doubtful to me for two reasons. Firstly, ‘Schicksal, fate’ could mean no more than ‘outcome’ and not ‘what is appointed,’ since both Adam and the narrator speak not only quite plainly and at length of the sið’s dire consequence but also, consistent with what we argued in Chapter IX as to the poet’s acceptance of free will, neither Adam’s nor the narrator’s words give any indication that the disobedience was other than of human doing: þæt wit waldendes word forbræcon ‘that we (two) broke the word of the Lord’ 798, selfe forstodon / his word onwended ‘(they them)selves understood (the) command (to have been) destroyed’ 769–70,30 þa hie godes hæfdon / bodscipe abrocen ‘when they had broken God’s command’ 782–83. To this extent the nature of their sin is identified. Secondly, it seems fairly obvious that the meaning of sîd¯/sið here is much more Sehrt’s ‘1) Weg, Reise’ than his ‘2) Schicksal’—but now

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in a extended, rather than a literal, sense: Adam refers to the spiritual ‘Reise, journey’ of the second and third temptations which has brought the two of them to ruin. Adam’s avoidance of the word “sin” here entails, of course, a certain irony; the tribus modis rationale, which often identified Adam as ratio, purported to explain how sin ensnared humankind. The explanation, I think, is that Adam’s language, and that of the narrator, is again more martial than theological and probably stems from the poem’s underlying strain of Carolingian martiality. The offense is seen, at least in overt terms (forbræcon, onwended, abrocen), as disobedience to a chieftain’s command. The offense against posterity is not acknowledged and the word synn, with its theological overtone, is avoided. To a culture in which “God was himself a warlord” the distinction between martial and theological language was rather indistinct. The poetical result was a very considerable reinterpretation of the impression and understanding of guilt which the Fall anciently imposed upon Adam and Eve. Evans observes that [i]t was St. Paul who first set the Fall opposite the Redemption, and thereby established once and for all its unique position in the structure of Christian theology. Following in the tradition of Jewish Messianic typology, he created an unequivocal connexion between Adam’s sin and Christ’s sacrifice: “For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.” Nor was death the only consequence of the Fall, as this passage by itself might seem to imply; in the fuller discussion of the question in the Epistle to the Romans hereditary sinfulness was declared to be the primary result of Adam’s transgression and death the consequent punishment.31

St. Paul dealt here with universals: “all die” (omnes moriuntur), but “shall all be made alive” (omnes vivificabuntur). His wording therefore did not exclude Adam (and Eve) from Redempion. Nevertheless, to speak of “set[ting] the Fall opposite the Redemption” is to identify a link but also a certain opposition between Adam and Christ. The identification is warranted by the opposition which the passage cited from 1 Corinthians 15:21–22 adumbrates and which the “fuller discussion” in Romans underscores, wherein the curse of sinfulness as well as that of death is laid at Adam’s feet. Paul hardly minimized his indictment in Romans: forms of peccatum, peccator, peccare occur some nine times in 5:12–21. Genesis B reinterprets the Fall’s “unique position in the structure of Christian theology.” The poet postulates good intentions for Eve; he also represents the boda’s approach to Eve as much more subtle than his approach

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to Adam. Alain Renoir, among others, has analyzed the boda’s trickery.32 Also, and perhaps more importantly, it was felt necessary to lessen the sense of blame accruing to Eve in consequence of her ruinous disclosure to Adam. But, as we have just seen, the poet’s reticence extends as much, or perhaps more, to Adam. He avoids the word synn and he passes silently over Adam’s pride, his consenting, in the shadow of those boda-bestowed lustas, “to be,” in Augustine’s phrase, “free of the sovereignty of God.” For if humility for a while preserved his obedience, his disobedience followed some upsurge of pride. Of this the poet says nothing; as far as his sentiments are openly expressed, Adam does not lament his pride but rather his disobedience. What he especially laments is the consequent separation from his beloved Chief. The several avoidances on the one hand, and on the other hand Adam’s eloquence in lamenting this separation give the impression that his resolve, so soon after the Fall itself, to undergo penance is genuine and plausible. The poet’s handling of Genesis 3 here is thus consistent with his expression of wonderment in the micel wundor passage. In both the matter is one of military discipline and also of affection between chief and thane: in the one, the poet marvels that the chief endured defections; in the other, he notes that dereliction meant the loss of hyldo. Just as the poet avoids the term “sin,” so too he avoids the word “grace” and, consistent again with the motif of Germanic martiality, employs the word hyldo. In fine, the disposition to represent the Fall itself as a breach in a transcendentalized system of military discipline is another of the poem’s Carolingian departures from what would seem to us conventional Christian theology. The reinterpretation, far from signifying the exoneration of Adam and Eve and a refusal, in effect, to acknowledge Original Sin, conduces rather to a sense of the poem’s hortative aim by rendering Adam’s subsequent wish to undergo penance perhaps more plausible and certainly more worthy of notice. The poem’s disinclination to mention “sin” has much in common with its disinclination to represent God’s confrontation of Adam and Eve, so that, as we have noted, Adam and Eve fall readily into praying for forgiveness, and God’s deeds in their behalf in Genesis 3 become Adam’s in Genesis B. The somewhat sulky and passive Adam and Eve of Genesis 3 can become the active, though remorseful, Adam and Eve of Genesis B. Genesis B can be seen as akin to The Seafarer, say, or to Fates of the Apostles or The Rhyming Poem: the intention is Christian and didactic; the poem is a pattern for its reader or listener—“to fire them,” in the words of Praefatio A, “to better and nobler ways.” As Adam and Eve of Genesis B went forth into exile, so may the poem’s reader or listener go forth, if not necessarily into pilgrimage, at least to a more instructed and purposeful, and therefore a more obedient,

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Christian life. At the beginning of our study we noted the widespread critical perception as to the poem’s anomalousness, especially in what has been taken as the poet’s disposition to present Adam and Eve as blameless in their calamity. We approach the end of Genesis B with the understanding that the poem presents Adam and Eve as not merely sinful but as ready to embrace penance. Thereby the poem becomes typical of much Christian narrative: its account of the very Fall itself becomes, through its aftermath, an instance of the comedic imperative. In Genesis B, Adam and Eve become exemplars of Christian conduct. If, through the operation of the tribus modis rationale, they display, lamentably, the lapse into evil, they also display, praiseworthily if putatively, the way through which hyldo is recovered. The very founders of humanity become the model of Christian obedience for a Saxon, and then an Anglo-Saxon, audience. At the end of Chapter I, I ventured to suggest that in Genesis B Adam and Eve after their Fall “are to become, presumptively and fictively, members of the Body of Christ,” i.e., the Corpus Christi. But now it seems reasonable to extend the proposition: before their Fall as well as after, Adam and Eve are to be recognized, as far as its constituency is human, as members of that Body. Throughout the narrative, before as well as after the Fall, Adam and Eve have a dimension as persons of the sixth age. As to a prelapsarian Corpus in particular, well before the poem tells of Adam’s accepting the fruit it testifies to the presence of Christ, though Christ is never named. The Tree of Life, spoken of in lines 467–76, alludes to Christ. Adam, as we have seen, refers to the Deity as nergend user ‘our savior,’ a clear, an obvious, giveaway. The tacen he speaks of is in all probability to be perceived as the signum crucis, and the vision which Eve beholds is in all probability to be perceived as that of Judgment. As to a postlapsarian Corpus. Adam, full of remorse at the end of the poem, declares his readiness to undergo penance, in the form, specifically, of ascetic immersion. And both Adam and Eve pray to God to be shown ‘how they henceforth ought to live in the light,’ that is to say, in the light of Christ. These circumstances alone suffice, I think, fictively to indicate that Adam and Eve resume as members of the Corpus Christi. “Martiality” in Genesis B means especially Germanic and Carolingian martiality, the comitatus. It is the uniform in which Adam’s relationship to God is dressed out. Again and again, indeed from Adam’s first speech and well before his Fall, such martiality is not only the exponent to a clearer understanding of passages but testimony to the nature and depth of this relationship. As we saw in Chapter III, an important reason for Adam’s refusal was the boda’s attempt, against propriety, to insinuate himself as one promising to confer the Chieftain’s gift. In Chapter V we noted that Adam’s ability

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to stand against the boda’s wiles depends on that sine qua non, his soldierly morale, the strength or depth of his fæst geleafa ‘firm faith’ in his Chief. In the micel wundor passage the term þeoden (grammatically parallel to god) alliterates with þegn, intimating the closeness of the chieftain-thane relationship. Adam’s loyalty is not only to a cause but to its Chieftain. The grand word expressive of this devotion is hyldo, which occurs eighteen times in the poem. In the present chapter we have noted Adam’s view of himself not so much as a sinner but as a soldier who through disobedience fails his Chief and therefore loses his hyldo. In sum, both before their Fall and resumptively thereafter, Adam and Eve in Genesis B are the comitatus of the Chief. So far as I know, Genesis B is alone among Old English and Old Saxon poems in its implication that the way of exile for Adam and Eve is the way of the Christian penitent. Again, the comedic effect results in part from what the poet declines to mention, namely, the four-thousand winters of captivity. It is obvious that the tropological presentation of Adam and Eve conduces mightily to this understanding: that they can be seen as persons of the sixth age means that for them as for all Christians salvation can be theirs through penitence. And since, given “the teaching of the Bible,” as Wallace-Hadrill has put it, “peregrinatio dissolve[s] into missio,”33 Adam and Eve in Genesis B, as servants of Christ and insofar as they become exemplars of conduct, become, at least in prospect, Christ’s missionaries. In effect, the readiness of Adam and Eve to await God’s dispensation (bidan selfes gesceapu / heofoncyninges 842–43) and embrace prayer and God’s governance henceforth (lines 847–51) means that, however wretched otherwise their lives will be, Adam and Eve are about to become pilgrims, like the speakers in The Dream of the Rood and The Fates of the Apostles. In their dual but combined being as the Adam and Eve of Genesis 3 and as postredemptive persons, they become in Genesis B the proto-pilgrims of Christianity, and so Adam’s last speech, the resolve to endure richly in want, is not greatly unlike the endings of these and other Old English Christian poems. Thereby Adam and Eve become models of penitence, as the Heliand says, for “the sons of men . . . all over this wide world.” This was again a product of the wit, as well as the fervor, of the Old Saxon poet, who realized that for the firing of his audience, the biblical account of the exile of Adam and Eve into wretchedness might be transmuted into the penitential modes of the poet’s own age: a departure into foreign lands or an ascetic immersion as of Cuthbert and Drycthelm. Although, as we have noted, a fairly good case can be made that there has been no loss of text at the end of the poem, it might seem that if the exonerative school is right, the text here should acknowledge the futility of penance.

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To the contrary: what it says instead is that Adam and Eve confide that God will show them how to live in the claritas supernae lucis. The assumption is of a post-redemptive condition and of the circumstance, as the micel wundor passage puts it, that [s]e for þam larum com. The interpretative failure of the exonerative school lies not only in the misreading of ne þu me oðiewdest ænig tacen 540 but in the failure to see that as persons also of the sixth, the postredemptive, age Adam and Eve can undertake penance. It is Doane who calls attention to the huge role of tropology in Genesis B, and without tropology it is hard to see how Christian penitence could plausibly be open to Adam and Eve. Appropriately, then, it is Doane who perceives that Adam’s declaration in lines 828–835 is in effect such a resolve. Doane does not, however, set forth clearly the logic of his perception as it bears on the end of Genesis B, i.e., that the resolve rests importantly upon the poet’s tropological presentation of Adam and Eve, nor does he grant the perception the strong emphasis which in my view it deserves, that in effect Adam’s resolve converts the narrative outcome from the tragic to the comedic.34 As for the occasionally raised issue of Gottschalkian influence in the poem, the present study would suggest that Adam’s resolve, as part of the comedic ending, is in itself a measure of evidence that the Old Saxon poem on the Fall was doctrinally far from Gottschalkian. It might even have been, conceivably, an answer, or part of an answer, to Gottschalk and his views. The several allusions in Genesis B to the condition of post-redemptive humankind, most notably, perhaps, to the signum crucis and to atonement through a penitential exile, exhort either the avoidance or the atonement of sin. The tropological representation of Adam, Eve, and the boda, by seeming to diminish the distance in time and outlook between its characters and the audience of the poem, helps the latter in each instance to perceive that the disclosure of the danger is also the disclosure of remedy or response. The simultaneity of perceptions, intimating almost that the Lord’s response frustrates the boda’s every move and so helping to suggest both the impotence of the boda and the power of the Lord, conduces to the comedic effect. The ending of Genesis B is artistically deft but also sustains a didactic intent. The ending moves from the almost tumultuous to the measured and calm, from Adam’s words to Eve in lines 828–40, impassioned and yet climactic and orderly in their affirmation of obedience, to the narrator’s quiet and factual recital of their subsequent actions: their going apart to await God’s dispensation, their covering themselves, their beseeching God’s guidance. In the manner of saints’ lives, the poem holds up outcry and recital as exemplars, the one of passionate devotion, the other of quiet fortitude and resolution; it invites an audience to share with Adam and Eve the leoht

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of Christ and the duties of the faith, to sojourn, like Mary and Guyon and Dürer’s Knight, in the presence of World, fleshe, yea Devill. And yet, behind the quiet factuality, a good deal of surprise and excitement resides in the phrase on þam leohte 851. It is, I infer, the poem’s final allusion to Christ. Luke 18:35–43 tells of the blind man at the roadside to whom Jesus gave sight. Fitt XLIV (lines 3588–3670) of the Heliand embellishes the story, following the allegorization in Bede: Caecus iste per allegoriam genus humanum significat, quod in parente primo a paradisi gaudiis expulsum, claritatem supernae lucis ignorans damnationis suae tenebras patitur ‘that blind [man] signifies, allegorically, the human race, which, expelled in the primal parent from the joys of Paradise, suffers the darkness of damnation (while) knowing not the brilliance of supernal light.’35 The strong likelihood is that Genesis 851 on þam leohte ‘in the light’ would refer to what Bede calls the claritas supernae lucis, i.e., the light of Christ. Bede’s parente primo is obviously Adam, and that such is the meaning of leoht 851 is consistent with the resolve which Adam expresses in the preceding speech and implies again that through penitence they—for now Eve can be seen as sharing Adam’s resolve—are hopeful of forgiveness. Having noted that the Devil had deceived Adam and Eve, the Heliand poet exclaims: Hôriad nu huô thie blindun, sîður im gibôtid uuarð, that sie sunnun lioht gesehen môstun, huô si thô dâdun: geuuitun im mid iro drohtine samad, folgodun is ferdi, sprâkun filu uuordo 3665   themu landes hirdie te lob¯ e: sô dôd im noh liudio barn uuîdo aftar thesaru uueroldi, sîður im uualdand Crist geliuhte mid is lêrun. ‘Listen now, to what the blind did once they were cured and could see the light [of the sun]! They decided to set off together with their Chieftain, they followed His footsteps, and spoke many words of praise for the land’s Herdsman! This the sons of men still do all over this wide world, once ruling Christ has enlightened them with His teaching.’36

For lioht as noun, Sehrt indicates two frequently occurring senses. The first is ‘Licht, Glanz; light, brightness.’ The citations show plainly that lioht here is ‘the heavenly light, the light of Christ.’ The second is the transferred sense(s) ‘Leben, Welt, Erde; life, world, earth.’ But this second sense is rather more narrow than might be suggested by either the bare terms ‘Leben, Welt, Erde.’ Sehrt’s citations for lioht 2 (more numerous than those of lioht in his

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first sense) show that lioht is here the ‘Leben, Welt, Erde’ of Heaven itself or of the world or life of the Christianly innocent and faithful or of the world understood as the light which God has bestowed on humankind. So, in the Heliand, Iohannes quam an liudeo lioht ‘John [the Baptist] came to (the) light of peoples’ 199 and antfâhen scoldin lioht endi listi endi lîf êuuig, hôh heƀenrîki endi huldi godes ‘(they) were to receive light and instruction and eternal life, high Heaven and God’s favor’ 3923–25.37 Ilkow’s assessment that Old Saxon lioht “meint zunächst ‘Helligkeit, Glanz’ allgemein, dann das ‘Sonnen-’ oder Tageslicht im Gegensatz zum ‘Schatten’ oder zu ‘Nacht, Finsternis’” would also suggest that leoht in on þam leohte 851 does not mean the difficult world in which Adam and Eve, once out of Eden, were to come by their daily bread and shelter.38 It seems likely, then, that leoht in Genesis 851 on þam leohte means ‘the light of Christ’ or perhaps ‘the spiritual light which God has bestowed on humankind.’ If the former is meant, we have another allusion to Christ, though again not by name. But the strongest evidence that leoht 851 bears spiritual meaning is Heliand 3598–3600. Adam and Eve, the poet observes, were so deceived into sin                    that sie sinscôni, lioht farlêtun: uurðun an lêðaron stedi, 3600   an thesen middilgard man faruuorpen. ‘that they lost (the) splendor, (the) light: (they) came to a worse place, men were) expelled to this middle-earth.’

To try to take lioht 3599 and leoht 851 as ‘world’ in an other than spiritual sense is to confound oneself. The grammatically parallel sinscôni and lioht, even if not strictly in variation, cannot remotely be considered as antithetical. And to infer that in Heliand 3599 humankind is said to have lost what in Genesis 851 they pray to regain, namely, an unsavory middilgard, is nonsense. The likelihood that Genesis B ends with an implication that Adam and Eve seek out redemption through submission and prayer is not merely, of course, contrary to the outcome as given in the biblical Genesis. The implication strains orthodoxy in ways far beyond merely that Adam and Eve are seen as Christianly penitent after the Fall: the blessing of the sixth age becomes extended as it were retroactively almost to the beginning of the first; through tropology the six ages of human history attain, imaginatively, fictively, a kind of unity; Adam and Eve are not only the perpetrators of Original Sin but become, prospectively, the first recipients of grace. In other words, the poem represents them as quite in the same situation as caecus iste

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of Bede’s allegory and thie blindun ‘the blind (ones)’ of Heliand 3661. The implication, if one pursues it, is that the whole of human history attains to an impression of unity: through tropology and the comedic imperative, the Old Law would be obliterated, and the New Law obtain right from the Fall. Ultimately the implications might even seem annihilative of Christ and Christianity. In short, in seeing Adam and Eve as prospective recipients of grace, the poet is sailing theologically rather close to the wind. But far from positing his annihilation, the poem implies Christ’s presence, though unnamed, one way or another, now with more clarity, now with less, almost continuously throughout the poem. In large part the tropological mode entails his presence; Satan in his post-Harrowing state and the consequent need of a boda, Adam and Eve as Every-man and -woman all imply the presence of Christ. The account of the Tree of Life implies Christ and the sacrament. The boda’s several declarations invite the reflection that Christ was to act, and, as I have argued, [s]e/þe for þam larum com 598 affirms that he did so. Adam’s reference to a tacen and Eve’s to a vision of God allude, as I have argued, to Christ’s involvement via the signum crucis and the Last Judgment. The willingness of Adam and Eve to undergo penance by water presupposes a Christian institution and therefore Christ. We have noted something of poetical audacity in Genesis B: the boda’s pseudo-gnome in lines 623–25, the reference to nergend user 536 or to a certain tacen 540, as well as allusions to Judgment in lines 666–71 and 673–76. By on þam leohte 851 we are accustomed to the poet’s intrepidity. I suspect that he never intended the implications of his poem’s ending to be seriously thought through and accepted. But insofar as it verges, if only prospectively, on heterodoxy the audacity in on þam leohte exceeds that of these earlier passages, and one is tempted to speculate as to any circumstances which might have permitted such departure from doctrinal certitude. We noted in Chapter VIII the surmises of Doane and Hill that the poem’s composition may well have entailed the author’s familiarity with an intended audience. Hill notes especially his employment of the vernacular, which, “precisely because it was a relatively obscure medium, had certain advantages over the more widely accessible medium of Latin. One can see how a learned poet writing in the vernacular, which would be accessible only to a relatively small group of friends and countrymen, might well feel less inhibited than if he were writing, potentially at least, for all Europe.”39 There was also, of course, as we noted in Chapter II, the broad disposition of a prevailing Christian theology and of much of Christian literature to see the mortal end of its heroes, even when gruesome, as joyous and victorious. But one can, I think, perceive readily enough by this point in our study

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that quite apart from the weight and example of Christian literature the comedic ending of Genesis B is generated from within and even anticipated in the course of the poem. We can see how our poem’s motifs underlie the ending, how, even, they collaborate, so to speak, in bringing about the final and happy state of affairs. The tropological presentation of events as (more or less) simultaneously of the sixth age and of the first means that Adam and Eve as proto-penitents might attain to the grace of Christ. The tribus modis rationale plays a role here. It expounds in universal terms (omne peccatum, ælc yfel) an understanding of the commission of sin, including that of Christian persons; thus the circumstance that Adam was often given as the archetypal sinner succumbing to sensus conduces, in our poem, to his being depicted as a sinner who as a Christian was open to divine grace. The poet’s disposition to represent free will as operative in his poem is also important; no expostulation is necessary as to the candidacy of Adam and Eve among the elect. The poem’s disposition to interfuse the transcendent and the terrestrial worlds are important; the thane wills to return to duty and affection, and by implication the Chieftain wills to restore him to hyldo. Furthermore, the Adamic resolve and the comedic ending of the poem presuppose a certain understanding of God’s intentions. Adam’s resolution and confidence would be pointless were it not that both reflect his utter assurance of God’s mercy, the belief that waldend se goda 850 would henceforth guide them. Adam’s humility answers the boda’s pride as these are disclosed and contrasted in their final speeches, and Adam’s expression here of faith reveals the affinity of Genesis B to Old English Christian poems as a whole. In sum, howsoever these several motifs interact, they lead not only with plausibility but a virtual inevitability to the penitential resolve of Adam and Eve at the end of the poem. Hence the phrase “comedic imperative.” It might be noted that the tribus modis rationale and the comedic imperative are, as motifs, somewhat uneasy bedfellows. The former, as a way of exemplifying the incidence of sinful action, is willing to blame and dismiss Eve, even to denigrate her as the figure of sensus. The latter needs to preserve Eve as Adam’s companion in penitence. Toward the end of the poem Adam and Eve lose both their dimension as the pair of Genesis 3 and their allegorical dimension as ratio and sensus. It is this twin loss, I suspect, which underlies what has been taken as the poet’s sympathetic regard especially for Eve; her belief, notably, that in persuading Adam she was accomplishing God’s will exemplifies Whitman’s view that “the more personal attributes we give our personification, the more we turn it first into a mere character type”—though not, in this instance, of wisdom.40 But in the final passages,

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lines 840–51, Adam and Eve, as persons now wholly of the sixth age, become as one; hie ‘they,’ Adam and Eve, are the subjects of the principal clauses and of many of the dependent clauses. The Heliand poet does not say, at least not explicitly, that Adam and Eve might be among those who “followed His footsteps,” but the representation of Adam and Eve as persons tropologically both of the biblical Genesis 3 and of the sixth age allows the Genesis poet to indicate at least their determination to do so: once cured of blindness and enlightened with His teaching, they too would set off together with their Chieftain. In other words, the Genesis poet, rather startlingly, asks us to see that in effect Adam and Eve beseech inclusion among those to be redeemed through Christ, Bede’s Caecus iste or thie blindun in the Heliand passage. Thus the end of the poem brings about, through Adam’s speech and the prayers of Adam and Eve, a very considerable transformation of Adam and Eve from their presentation in the biblical Genesis: the wretchedness of their defeat is not forgotten but they attain now to valor and nobility in our estimation and understanding. No less significant is the nexus between the redemption of Adam and Eve at the end of the poem and the poem’s emphasis on obedience discussed at some length in Chapter IV: their looked-for recovery of hyldo is the result of their return to obedience. The prospective reversal in fortune of Adam and Eve, and the impression of that reversal on the reader or audience of the poem, is intense, though not unanticipated. The Fall of Adam and Eve is momentous, and, for the moment, as they hear the boda’s yelp of triumph and behold hell mouth, seemingly irremediable. But their restoration, or the capability of restoration, is momentous too. The end of the poem manifests, though the presence and interaction of the aforenoted motifs, what earlier was latent and unannounced. Only in the last two speeches of Eve, first, and then Adam (lines 821–26 and 827–40) and then in their final actions (lines 840–51) do we see the prospect of redemption. The prospect identifies the poem as comedic, and therefore it can be considered appropriately placed with the other poems of MS Junius 11 as part of what J. R. Hall has termed “the Old English epic of redemption.” Two of the other poems in Junius 11, Daniel and Christ and Satan, display, or seem to display, a comedic ending through a rebuke of wickedness. As we have the poem, Daniel ends with Daniel’s rebuke of Baltassar for his sins. But the rebuke is not especially severe, and Barbara Raw has argued, fairly convincingly, that a leaf containing the end of Daniel is missing.41 Christ and Satan ends rather wittily, with the lesser devils’ excoriating their chieftain Satan after the loss of their treasure humankind through Christ’s Harrowing of Hell. Genesis A attains the comedic mood by indicating at its ending that

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humankind finds salvation; as Doane’s note observes, “Christ’s merciful grace fills the last lines of the poem” through the story of Abraham and Isaac.42 The end of Exodus has been much discussed and variously interpreted. In my view, the poem attains to the comedic imperative by noting, indeed by starkly juxtaposing, the delivery of humankind and the discomfiture of the evil ones. The promise of redemption for all mankind is signified not only through the Israelites’ safe transit but also through the conjunction of two seemingly quite unrelated though vivid images, that of the (MS) Afrisc meowle ‘African woman’ 580 and that of Iosepes gestreon ‘Joseph’s acquisition’ 588. The former, as Fred Robinson argued quite some years ago, denoted Moses’ wife; the latter, as I argued some years later, denoted Joseph’s coat of many colors.43 At first consideration, the seeming unrelatedness of these images to each other and the evident historical unrelatedness of Joseph’s coat, the tunica polymita of Genesis 37:3, to the events of the biblical Exodus make these identifications a seemingly improbable interpretation of the poem’s final lines. But an understanding of the figural meanings which early medieval exegesis assigned to the wife of Moses and to Joseph’s coat reveals their intimate relationship. The wife of Moses, the Afrisc meowle, figured, so the exegetes declared, the Church which is adorned, “Ecclesiam ex gentibus Christo conjunctam” ‘the Church assembled in Christ from out of the nations.’ The coat of many colors, i.e., the gold and godweb, Iosepes gestreon, figured the humanfolk who so adorn, “varietatem populorum ex omnibus gentibus in corpore Christi congregatam” ‘the variety of peoples assembled from all nations in the Body of Christ.’ Perhaps the poet thought the latter metaphor a little obscure— modern criticism has certainly thought so—so he followed gold and godweb, Iosepes gestreon with the literal variation wera wuldorgesteald ‘glory-possession of men’ 589, i.e., those who once were the Devil’s possession but who now are God’s.44 Immediately following the image of possession in wera wuldorgesteald comes one of dispossession, indeed of spoliation—which image in itself, fully (though ironically) consistent as it is with the preceding images, constitutes a measure of evidence that the wife and the coat taken as exegetical figures of adornment are a valid interpretation of the phrases Afrisc meowle and Iosepes gestreon. At its very end the poem assures us that werigend lagon / on deaðstede, drihtfolca mæst ‘(the) wearers (literally, ‘wearing [ones]’; also, punningly, ‘defenders’) lay in the place of death, (the) greatest of hosts’ 589–90 (that is, the Egyptians, figurally the devils) lay dead, stripped of their treasure, their garb of humankind.45 The conjoining of images of wife and coat in Exodus is not without a certain bearing on Genesis B. No evidence that I know of suggests that it was

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an exegete and not the Exodus poet himself who so conjoined them.46 The surmise that it was he, the Exodus poet, who possessed wit enough to do so supports, if only indirectly, the surmise in the present study that the poet of Genesis B possessed wit enough to deploy the two tacens, that of Adam in line 540 and of Eve in lines 666–76, as allusions to the signum crucis and to Judgment. Poetic genius is easier to acknowledge the more widely it can be recognized. “The Old English epic of redemption,” I would aver, entails the circumstance that in their endings all of the poems of MS Junius 11 display the comedic mood, insofar as all set forth either or both the delivery of humankind or the discomfiture of the evil ones. Such an inference is consistent with Hall’s thesis, although the supportive evidence differs considerably from the sorts of evidence which Hall has presented. Genesis B effects the comedic mood by noting both delivery and discomfiture, though without their stark juxtaposition as in Exodus and in reverse order. As we noted in Chapter IX, not only the narrator but especially the boda himself, somewhat curiously, perhaps, as it might seem to modern understanding, take notice in lines 760–65 of Satan’s wretchedness amid the fires of Hell. The principal focus toward the end of Genesis B, however, is not on the boda but on Adam and Eve: the hope, through their tropological identity as persons of the sixth age, of their redemption, their delivery into Light. Finally, another reason, rather more subjective than those put forward near the end of Chapter IX, might be adduced to support the view that the Praefatio, as far as it may have referred to a poem or poems on Old Testament subjects, was referring to the Saxon Genesis and, albeit unknowingly, to Genesis B. The mere fact that the Praefatio existed (though testified to only in the sixteenth century) indicates that both the poet and the poem(s) it speaks of were held in high esteem. By his own people the former, according to Praefatio A, ‘was regarded as no mean poet’; the poem itself the poet had ‘composed so clearly and elegantly . . . that to those hearing and grasping it, it demonstrates the no little charm of its beauty.’ Much in Genesis B is of course to be seen as moral instruction, conducing both to edification and to a condemnation of what Praefatio A spoke of as ‘harmful and superstitious practices’ (nociva quaeque atque superstitiosa). The conclusion of the Versus, that Christ “with His Blood snatched the World from the jaws of Avernus,” is a further note of concord between the Old English and the Latin.47 According to Praefatio B, though its reference is less certainly to a poem on an Old Testament narrative, the poem ‘excels all German poetry with its charm. It shines forth splendidly [is magnificently clear?], indeed, when read aloud—more brilliantly when fully grasped.’48 The present inquiry, I hope,

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will have demonstrated to the modern sensitivity the “charm of the beauty” in Genesis B not hitherto perceived and also will have made more plausible the possibility that the reference in the Praefatio was, among other texts, to the Saxon Genesis and ultimately to Genesis B. The modern student can now, I hope, see good reason not only for inviting our poem, the Englished version of its Saxon cousin, into the happy throng of Anglo-Saxon Christian and comedic narrative but also for acknowledging its claim to an eminence of subtlety and wit and imaginative power among extant Anglo-Saxon as well as Carolingian German poetical narratives.

Notes

An Introductory Note Passages from Genesis B and the Old Saxon Genesis, throughout the text, generally though not always follow those in A. N. Doane, The Saxon Genesis: An Edition of the West Saxon Genesis B and the Old Saxon Vatican Genesis (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1991); occasionally I have altered his punctuation. Passages from other Old English poems, unless otherwise noted, follow the texts in George Philip Krapp and Elliott Van Kirk Dobbie, eds., The Anglo-Saxon Poetic Records, 6 vols. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1931–53). For text and translation of Mystère d’Adam (Ordo Repraesentationis Adae) see David Bevington, Medieval Drama (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1975), 78-121. Passages from the Old Saxon Heliand are from Burkhard Taeger, ed., Heliand und Genesis, Altdeutsche Textbibliothek 4, 9th ed. (Tübingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag, 1984). Translations are my own, unless otherwise noted.

Chapter I 1.  The Saxon Genesis: An Edition of the West Saxon Genesis B and the Old Saxon Vatican Genesis (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1991), 55–64 (“Where the Texts Meet”); also 3–8 (“The Search for the Saxon Genesis”) and 9–42 (“Manuscripts”). 2.  J. M. Evans, “‘Genesis B’ and Its Background,” RES 14 (1963): 1–16 (Part I) and 113–23 (Part II).

263

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  3.  J. R. Hall, “The Old English Epic of Redemption: the Theological Unity of /. Junius 11,” Traditio 32 (1976): 185–208 (citation, p. 194). The paper is reprinted in The Poems of MS Junius 11: Basic Readings, ed. R. M. Liuzza (New York and London: Routledge, 2002): 20–52 (citation, p. 26); thereto Hall adds “The Old English Epic of Redemption’: Twenty-Five Year Retrospective,” 53–68.  4. Doane, Saxon Genesis, 104 and note 16.   5.  Kemp Malone, “Religious Poetry: Cædmon and His School,” in The Middle Ages, ed. Kemp Malone and Albert C. Baugh (New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1967), 62.   6.  C. L. Wrenn, A Study of Old English Literature (London: George G. Harrap, 1967), 99.  7. Tacitus, ‘Germania,’ 14, in Sir William Peterson, trans., Tacitus: Dialogus, Agricola, Germania, Loeb Classical Library (London: William Heinemann, 1932), 285 (principes pro victoria pugnant, comites pro principe, 284).  8. The OED, s.v. warlock sb.¹, remarks that ‘an oath-breaker’ “seems to have been the original sense of the present word, but the special application to the Devil (either as a rebel, or a deceiver) was already in OE. the leading sense.” In his Glossary, A. N. Doane, Genesis A: A New Edition (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1978), gives s.v. wær-loga ‘faith-breaker, one who is false to a promise.’ He indicates werlogan 36 as plural, i.e., as referring to Satan and his crew, and the context might seem to bear him out. Normally, a dative form werlogan would be singular.   9.  Geoffrey Shepherd, “Scriptural Poetry,” in Continuations and Beginnings: Studies in Old English Literature, ed. Eric Gerald Stanley (London: Nelson, 1966): 25. 10.  This is the translation in Doane, Saxon Genesis, 301. 11.  Some other, mostly earlier, critics who have taken this view are cited in John F. Vickrey, “The Vision of Eve in ‘Genesis B,”‘ Speculum 44 (1969): 96, note 33; and in Vickrey, “The ‘Micel Wundor’ of ‘Genesis B,”‘ SP 68 (1971):, 246, note 3. 12.  Charles W. Kennedy, The Earliest English Poetry: A Critical Survey of the Poetry Written before the Norman Conquest with Illustrative Translations (London and New York: Oxford University Press, 1943), 170. 13.  Stanley B. Greenfield, A Critical History of Old English Literature (New York: New York University Press, 1965), 153. 14.  Stanley B. Greenfield and Daniel G. Calder, A New Critical History of Old English Literature (New York: New York University Press, 1986), 211–12. 15.  On the text presumed lost from both Genesis A and Genesis B between pages 12 and 13 of the MS see Doane, Saxon Genesis, 30–34, esp. 32. Barbara C. Raw, “The Construction of Oxford, Bodleian Library, Junius 11,” ASE 13 (1984): 194, remarks that “it is inconceivable that the scribe should have begun the interpolation in midspeech, as Gollancz implies.” 16. Raw, “Oxford, Bodleian Library, Junius 11,” 194–95, says that “the only material which could have filled the gap between pp. 12 and 13 [p. 13 begins what we have of Genesis B] is a reference to the introduction of Adam into the garden of Eden (Genesis II:8 and 15) and possibly some reference to the two trees (Genesis

Notes  •  265

II:9), which are not mentioned at the appropriate point on p. 12.” But her “possibly” should, I think, be strengthened to “probably.” See also, on p. 207, “Appendix II: Suggested Arrangement of the Biblical Story in the First Two Gatherings of Junius 11.” 17.  Evans, “‘Genesis B’ and Its Background,” Part II, 113; and J. M. Evans, Paradise Lost and the Genesis Tradition (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1968), 160, 161, and 163. 18.  Evans, ‘“Genesis B’ and Its Background,” Part II, 115. The verdict is repeated (though not verbatim) in Evans, Paradise Lost and the Genesis Tradition, 165–66. 19. Malcolm Godden, “Biblical Literature: The Old Testament,” in The Cambridge Companion to Old English Literature, ed. Malcolm Godden and Michael Lapidge (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 214. 20.  Evans, ‘“Genesis B’ and Its Background,” Part II, 115–16. 21.  Evans, ‘“Genesis B’ and Its Background,” Part II, 117. 22.  For the glosses of gal and galscipe see Doane, Saxon Genesis, 267–68. 23.  The translation at line 391 is that of Doane, Saxon Genesis, 274. 24.  Godden, “Biblical Literature: The Old Testament,” 214. 25.  R. D. Fulk and Christopher M. Cain, A History of Old English Literature (Oxford: Blackwell, 2005), 114. 26.  Gillian R. Overing, “On Reading Eve: ‘Genesis B’ and the Readers’ Desire,” in Allen J. Frantzen, ed., Speaking Two Languages: Traditional Disciplines and Contemporary Theory in Medieval Studies (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1991), 35. She is citing Evans, “‘Genesis B’ and Its Background,” Part I, 4. 27.  Overing, “On Reading Eve,” 63 (the emphasis is Overing’s); and Susannah B. Mintz, “Words Devilish and Divine: Eve as Speaker in ‘Genesis B,”‘ Neophilologus 81 (1997): 609–23 (citation, p. 609). 28.  Mintz, “Words Devilish and Divine,” 610. 29.  Alain Renoir, “The Self-Deception of Temptation: Boethian Psychology in ‘Genesis B,”‘ in Robert P. Creed, ed., Old English Poetry: Fifteen Essays (Providence: Brown University Press. 1967), 47–67 (citation, pp. 64–65; and Creed’s Preface, p. viii). 30.  See Doane, Saxon Genesis, 101–07; or Eleanor Shipley Duckett, Carolingian Portraits (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1962), 153–59, 196–200, 258–64. 31. Doane, Saxon Genesis, 104–05. 32.  As to theology and its pastoral implication, J. M. Wallace-Hadrill, The Frankish Church (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983), p. 364, remarks as follows: The Frankish position, a compromise, had been determined long ago in 529 at the council of Orange. . . . The fathers at Orange had concluded that man was clearly responsible for his own damnation by refusing to mend his ways and accept Christ’s sacrifice, but that his eventual salvation rested with God alone. In other words, they side-stepped the problem of double predestination, the implicit “either . . . or.” Orange became accepted doctrine and the matter was allowed to rest. . . . Until Gottschalk came along.

266  •  Notes

33.  John F. Vickrey, “‘Exodus’ and the ‘Herba Humilis,’” Traditio 31 (1975): 29– 30. Augustine, I noted on p. 29, “provided an epitome in chapter 108 of Enchiridion [PL 40, 282–83] and longer discussions in Books 4 and 13 of De Trinitate” [PL 42, 896–901 and 1024–33]. 34.  Translation in M. Jack Suggs, Katherine Doob Sakenfeld, and James R. Mueller, eds., The Oxford Study Bible: Revised English Bible with the Apocrypha (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992), 1495. 35.  Gregory, “Moralia in Iob” 17.30.47, in S. Gregorii Magni Moralia in Iob Libri XI–XXII, ed. Marcus Adriaen, CCSL 143A (Turnholt: Brepols, 1979), 879. 36. Leo, Sermo 60.3 (PL 54.344–45). 37.  R. Morris. ed, The Blickling Homilies, EETS 58 (London, 1874), 85; and S. J. Crawford, ed., The Gospel of Nicodemus (Edinburgh, 1927), 23. 38.  Jane’s Dictionary of Naval Terms, compiled by Joseph Palmer (London: Macdonald and Jane’s, 1975), s.v. Stern chase: “Pursuit from dead astern; (fig.) long and arduous pursuit of objective.” 39. Not to mention, abroad, Anglia: Zeitschrift für englische Philologie, Neophilologus, Neuphilologische Mitteilungen, Studia Neophilologica, Zeitschrift für deutsche Philologie, . . . 40.  William M. Chace, “The Decline of the English Department,” The American Scholar 78, No. 4 (Autumn, 2009): 34. 41.  Seth Lerer, “Words of Fire” (review), TLS, February 25, 2011, p. 28 (col. 1). 42.  Bruce Mitchell, Old English Syntax (Oxford: Oxford University, 1985), Vol. I (820 pp.), Vol. II (1080 pp.). Old English Syntax is surely the most notable of the exceptions spoken of in my paragraph. 43.  Evans, ‘“Genesis B’ and Its Background,” Part II, 114. 44.  Evans, ‘“Genesis B’ and Its Background,” Part II, 121. 45.  Overing, “On Reading Eve,” in Frantzen, Speaking Two Languages, 63. Adam’s mention of a tacen is in line 540, a little short of halfway through Genesis B as we have it. But, as we have seen, some part of the beginning of Genesis B is lost and at line 441 there is a lacuna which Doane (Saxon Genesis, 31) estimates as “about 250 verses.” I will argue in Chapter X that the end of the Old Saxon account of the Fall corresponded to the end of the account in Genesis B, i.e., at line 851. So it would appear likely that in the original poem Adam’s reference to a têkan/tacen came well along in the second half of the poem’s account of the Fall.

Chapter II 1.  See James W. Earl, “Hisperic Style in the Old English ‘Rhyming Poem,’” PMLA 102 (1987): 187–96. On p. 188 Earl offers a translation; note especially the last eight lines. 2.  Text and translation in Bede, Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People, iv. 24; ed. Bertram Colgrave and R. A. B. Mynors (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1969): 414, 415.

Notes  •  267

  3.  Citations from the Old Saxon Heliand are to Burkhard Taeger, ed., Heliand und Genesis, Altdeutsche Textbibliothek 4, 9th ed., (Tübingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag, 1984).   4.  J. R. Hall, “The Old English Epic of Redemption: the Theological Unity of MS Junius 11,” 185–86; reprint in The Poems of MS Junius 11: Basic Readings, 20.   5.  Hardin Craig, “The Origin of the Old Testament Plays,” MP 10 (1912–13): 482; cited in Hall, “Old English Epic of Redemption,” 189.   6.  Hall, “Old English Epic of Redemption,” 190 and 191.   7.  On the fitt divisions for Genesis B see Doane, Saxon Genesis, 36–38; on fitt divisions through the whole manuscript see George Philip Krapp, ed., The Junius Manuscript (New York: Columbia University Press, 1931): xxxix–xl. Of “VII” Krapp, p. xl, notes “marked VII at the bottom of p. 19, probably a mistake for VIII.” Liber II (Christ and Satan) has its own numbering.  8. Augustine, De catechizandis rudibus, in CCSL 46 (Turnholt: Brepols, 1969): 153 and 154–55; and Augustine, St. Augustine: The First Catechetical Instruction, trans. Rev. Joseph P. Christopher, in Ancient Christian Writers, No. 2 (Westminster, Maryland: the Newman Bookshop, 1946): 58 and 59.  9. Doane, The Saxon Genesis, 49. 10.  D. H. Green, The Carolingian Lord: Semantic Studies on Four Old High German Words: Balder. Fro. Truhtin. Herro (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1965): 326, note 2. I have not been able to see Willems’ study: F. Willems, “Heldenwörter in germanischer und christlicher Literatur” (Cologne dissertation 1942). 11. Green, Carolingian Lord, 377. His reference is to Willems, “Heldenwörter in germanischer und christlicher Literatur.” 12.  Martiality: “the quality or state of being martial.” Its most recent citation in the OED is 1823. 13.  The other words in question either do not occur in Genesis B (trost, milti, era) or so infrequently as to afford a poor basis for comparison (treow four times). 14.  For a possible ambiguity in hold 708 see Doane, The Saxon Genesis, 295. 15.  J. B. Bessinger, Jr., and Philip H. Smith, Jr., A Concordance to the Anglo-Saxon Poetic Records (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1978): 673–74. Bessinger and Smith list forty-one instances of hyldo and one of unhyldo (Genesis 729). 16.  J. R. Hall, ‘“Geongordom’ and ‘Hyldo’ in ‘Genesis B’”: Serving the Lord for the Lord’s Favor,” PLL 11 (1975): 302–07 (citation, p. 307). In a far more limited and also different way the term triuwa, Old English treow ‘grace, favor, good faith,’ also shows the abandonment of reciprocity in Genesis B. In Old Saxon treuwa generally is the attitude of the inferior toward the superior. In a few instances, however, the reverse is the case, as it is also in Genesis 541 þe he me þurh treowe to onsende, where the circumstance that the treow is God’s is confirmed by the variation þurh hyldo in the next line. 17. Green, Carolingian Lord, 370. Edward H. Sehrt, Vollständiges Wörterbuch zum Heliand und zur altsächsisches Genesis, 2nd ed. (Göttingen: Vandenhoek & Ruprecht, 1966), s.v. huldi, lists 23 instances of the word, but no huldi occurs in line 4561.

268  •  Notes

18.  Commonly the text speaks of God’s hyldo either granted to or withheld or withdrawn from angels or from Adam and Eve. In line 726 Satan’s messenger exclaims that he has now wrought Satan’s hyldo for himself. 19.  Katherine O’ Brien O’Keefe, Visible Song: Transitional Literacy in Old English Verse, Cambridge Studies in Anglo-Saxon England (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990): 193. 20. O’Keefe, Visible Song, 193–94. 21.  Maynard Mack, Alexander Pope: A Life (New York, New Haven, and London: W. W. Norton and Yale University Press, 1986): 169–70. The discussion here is of An Essay on Criticism. 22.  Eric Jager, “Invoking/Revoking God’s Word: the Vox Dei in ‘Genesis B,’” English Studies 71 (1990): 307–321 (citation, p. 319). By my count Jager uses one form or another of the word “irony” no fewer than twelve times in this important paper. 23.  Erhard Hentschel, Die Mythen von Luzifers Fall und Satans Rache in der Altsächsischen Genesis, Religion und Geschichte 4 (Stuttgart: Verlag W. Kohlhammer, 1935): 59: ‘Moreover, at that time the devil did not approach someone in his own person; rather—this is important to note—only his “agents,” whether in the form of a seduced person or in the shape of an “evil demon,” approached the Christian. Thus our narrator too, from his own experience, apparently conceived of assault by the devil’s messenger rather than by Satan himself.’ Most of Hentschel’s text here is given emphasis by wide spacing. 24. Doane, Saxon Genesis, 140, 111. 25.  The Latin in Carolus Halm, Bedae Venerabilis: Liber De Schematibus et Tropis, in Rhetores Latini Minores (Leipzig: Teubner, 1863): 611; translation in Gussie Hecht Tanenhaus, “Bede’s De Schematibus et Tropis—A Translation,” Quarterly Journal of Speech 48 (1962): 244–45. 26. Doane, Saxon Genesis, 302. 27.  Koert van der Horst, “The Utrecht Psalter: Picturing the Psalms of David,” in The Utrecht Psalter in Medieval Art: Picturing the Psalms of David, ed. Koert van der Horst, William Noel, and Wilhelmina C. M. Wüstefeld (London: Harvey Miller, 1996): 55. 28. Doane, Saxon Genesis, 135. 29. Doane, Saxon Genesis, 289, note to line 609b. 30.  Scott Gwara, “A Metaphor in ‘Beowulf’ 2487a: ‘guðhelm toglad,”’ SP 93 (1996): 339, note 20. 31. Doane, Saxon Genesis, 292, note to lines 647–48. 32. Doane, Saxon Genesis, 279. 33.  Evans, ‘“Genesis B’ and Its Background,” Part II, 115. 34. Doane, Saxon Genesis, 113. 35. Doane, Saxon Genesis, 107. 36.  For text and translation of Mystère d’Adam (Ordo Repraesentationis Adae) see David Bevington, Medieval Drama (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1975): 78–121.

Notes  •  269

37.  Erich Auerbach, “Adam and Eve,” in Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature, trans. Willard Trask (New York: Doubleday, 1953): 130, 131. On p. 137, Auerbach goes on to say that “it is clear that Adam has advance knowledge of all of Christian world history, or at least of Christ’s coming and the redemption from that original sin which he, Adam, has just committed.” 38. Bevington, Medieval Drama, 79; cited from Auerbach, Mimesis, 131. 39.  Eric Jager, The Tempter’s Voice: Language and the Fall in Medieval Literature (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1993): 156. 40. Jager. Tempter’s Voice, 153. 41. Jager Tempter’s Voice, 161. 42.  Wilhelm Bruckner, Die altsächsische Genesis und der Heliand: das Werk eines Dichters, Germanisch und Deutsch 4 (Berlin and Leipzig, 1929): 101; John F. Vickrey, “‘Selfsceaft’ in ‘Genesis B,’” Anglia 83 (1965): 164. 43.  Thomas D. Hill, “The Fall of the Angels and Man in the Old English ‘Genesis B,”’ in Lewis E. Nicholson and Dolores Warwick Frese, eds., Anglo-Saxon Poetry: Essays in Appreciation for John C. McGalliard (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1975): 279–90, esp. 285; his reference is to Gregory, Moralia in Iob, IV, xxvii, 49 (PL 75, 661).The bracketed translation is Hill’s. 44.  ‘But why is it thst he deceived through the woman and not through the man?’ ‘[B]ecause our reason cannot be seduced into sin unless in the agitation of infirmity from a preceding carnal delectation.’ ‘[T]he woman and not the man ate first, for the reason that carnal [beings] are more easily persuaded to sin, whereas spiritual [beings] are not quickly ensnared.’ Hrabanus, Commentaria in Genesim, I, xv; in PL 107: 489–90; cf. Isidor, Quæstiones in Vetus Testamentum: In Genesin, iv; in PL 83: 218–19; Claudius of Turin, Commentarii in Genesim, I; in PL 50: 911; Bede [?], De Sex Diebus Creatione, in PL 93: 230. Somewhat different formulations: Augustine, De Genesi Contra Manichæos Libri Duo, II, xiv; in PL 34: 207; 1246): Gregory, Regulæ Pastoralis Libri Duo, III, xxix; in PL 77: 109; Angelomus, Commentarius in Genesin, iii; in PL 115: 140–41. 45. Bruckner, Die altsächsische Genesis und der Heliand, 101: ‘he needed only to express the idea that the man could not be seduced.’ 46. F. H. Colson and G. H. Whitaker, Philo, Loeb Classical Library (London, 1929): I, 271, 333–43; and R. Marcus, trans., Philo: Supplement I: Questions and Answers on Genesis, Loeb Classical Library (London, 1953): 20, 22. 47.  Text and translation in Bede, Ecclesiastical History of the English People, i. 27, 100, 101. 48. Bede, The Old English Version of Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People, Part I, 1, ed. and trans. Thomas Miller, EETS 95 (London: Oxford University Press, 1895 [repr. Millwood, N. Y., 1978]): p. 86. Miller’s translation: ‘For every sin is fulfilled in three ways, namely, first through suggestion, and through delight, and through consent. Suggestion is of the devil, delight of the body, consent of the spirit. For the accursed spirit suggested the first sin through the serpent, and Eve then, as

270  •  Notes

it were the body, took delight, and Adam then, as it were the spirit, consented: then was the sin fulfilled’ (p. 87). 49.  Henry Sweet, ed., King Alfred’s West-Saxon Version of Gregory’s Pastoral Care, Part II, EETS 50 (London: Oxford University Press, 1871 [repr. 1930, 1958]): 417. Sweet’s translation: ‘We have learnt from our progenitor Adam, that from him it is our nature to accomplish all evil in three ways: through suggestion, delectation, and consent. Suggestion is caused by the devil; delectation by the body; consent is accomplished by the spirit. . . . As the serpent in Paradise first suggested evil to Eve, and Eve allowed herself to be subdued by delectation, like the body. Then was Adam, like the spirit, overcome by the serpent’s suggestion and Eve’s delectation, so that he consented to the sin’ (p. 416). 50. Ælfric, The Homilies of the Anglo-Saxon Church, ed. Benjamin Thorpe (London: Ælfric Society, 1844, 1846): I, 174. Thorpe’s translation: ‘In three ways is temptation of the devil: that is in instigation, in pleasure, in consent. The devil instigates us to evil, but we should shun it, and take no pleasure in the instigation: but if our mind takes pleasure, then should we at least withstand, so that there be no consent to evil work’ (p. 175). 51.  Rosemary Woolf, “The Fall of Man in ‘Genesis B’ and the ‘Mystère d’Adam,”’ in Studies in Old English Literature in Honor of Arthur G. Brodeur, ed. Stanley B. Greenfield (University of Oregon Press, 1963): 187–99, esp. 188. 52.  J. E. Cross and S. I. Tucker, “Allegorical Tradition and the Old English Exodus,” Neophilologus 44 (1960): 123. 53.  For the “battle” see John F. Vickrey, ‘“Exodus’ and the Battle in the Sea,” Traditio 28 (1972): 119–40; for the end of the poem see Vickrey, ‘“Exodus’ and the Treasure of Pharaoh,” ASE 1 (1972): 159–65; and Vickrey, ‘“Exodus’ and the Robe of Joseph,” SP 86 (1989): 1–17. 54. For the terms “interpretive allegory” and “compositional allegory” see Jon Whitman, Allegory: The Dynamics of an Ancient and Medieval Technique (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1987): 3 and 4. 55.  Susan Burchmore, “Traditional Exegesis and the Question of Guilt in the Old English ‘Genesis B,’” Traditio 41 (1985): 117–44 (citation, p. 120). 56.  Alain Renoir, “Eve’s I.Q. Rating: Two Sexist Views of ‘Genesis B’,” in Helen Damico and Alexandra Hennessey Olsen, eds., New Readings on Women in Old English Literature (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1990): 269.

Chapter III 1.  Possibly an anacoluthon here, since and 525 seems to imply the continuation of the ic . . . gehyrde construction whereas actually a new subject and verb (he) het, intervenes. See further Doane, Saxon Genesis, 284. 2. Doane, Saxon Genesis, 284, takes bedroren 528 (and also 823) as ‘deprived,’ while acknowledging the suggestion in Vickrey, ‘“Genesis B’: A New Analysis and Edition,” PhD diss. (Indiana University, 1960): 214, that since the prefix be-/bı˜-

Notes  •  271

sometimes “has the effect of making the intransitive transitive” (Randolph Quirk and C. L. Wrenn, An Old English Grammar [London: Methuen, 1955], par. 170 [110]), Old Saxon driosan ‘fallen, hinfallen’ (Heliand 4328 only) and Old English dreosan ‘to rush, fall, perish’ might here mean ‘to fell.’ The point is a fine one, but I am going to stay with my earlier suggestion. Old Saxon fallan ‘fallen, stürzen’ and bifallan 2) ‘befallen, ergreifen’ might instance for Old Saxon the force which Quirk and Wrenn noted for Old English be-/bı˜-. And I would note the contrast between stondan ‘stand’ 525 (also on eorðan stod 522) and bedroren which the translation ‘felled’ permits.   3.  The three, with their introductions, are lines 522–46, 790–820, and 827–40. The second and third are so close together that they are virtually one.  4. On strangre stemne see Eric Jager, “Invoking/Revoking God’s Word: the Vox Dei in Genesis B,” English Studies 71 (1990): 314 and note 24.  5. For nehst ‘in person’ see John Vickrey, “Adam, Eve, and the ‘Tacen’ in ‘Genesis B,”’ PQ 72 (1993): 1 and 10–11, note 1. The conjunction þonne in 523–24 þonne ic sigedrihten / . . . mæðlan gehyrde might seem to warrant taking nehst 536 as ‘last, most recently,’ for þonne with preterite verb normally means ‘whenever.’ But Mitchell, Old English Syntax, II, par. 2568, is, I think, correct in doubting that þonne here is frequentative. The resolution of the problem may lie in the circumstance that Old Saxon than, thanna, thanne as conjunction with a preterite verb means ‘als, während’; see Sehrt, Vollständiges Wörterbuch zum Heliand und zur altsächsischen Genesis, 548. Presumably, one of the than(-) forms stood in the Old Saxon here and was rendered not as Old English þa ‘when’ but as þonne by whoever turned the Old Saxon into Old English. So þonne 523 is, I suspect, an “Old Saxonism.”   6.  Jager, “Invoking/Revoking God’s Word,” 315.   7.  I am not the first to assert thus. For instance, John Gardner, The Construction of Christian Poetry in Old English (Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press, 1975): 33, notes “salvation, obedience, damnation” as “the B-poet’s controlling ideas.”   8.  I follow Doane’s translation here, in Saxon Genesis, 284.   9.  On this point see Doane, Saxon Genesis, 148–49. 10. For hyperbole see Bede, De Schematibus et Tropis, in Carolus Halm, ed., Rhetores Latini Minores (Leipzig: B. G. Teubner, 1863): 615: “Hyperbole est dictio fidem excedens augendi minuendive causa.” 11.  Renoir, “Self-Deception of Temptation,” 65. 12.  Vickrey, “‘Selfsceaft’ in ‘Genesis B,’”154–71, esp.161. 13.  F. Holthausen, Altsächsisches Elementarbuch, 2nd ed. (Heidelberg: Carl Winter, 1921): pars. 295, 298, 353, 363. 14. Mitchell, Old English Syntax, I, pars. 1288–95 (p542–45). He makes no reference to Genesis 523 selfsceafte. 15.  C. S. Lewis, The Discarded Image (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1964): 158. 16.  Renoir, “Eve’s I.Q. Rating,” 265.

272  •  Notes

17. Sehrt, Vollständiges Wörterbuch, s.v. hôrian. 18.  Renoir, “Eve’s I.Q. Rating,”269. 19. Whitman, Allegory, 5–6. 20. Augustine, De Trinitate 4.10 21. Augustine, De Genesi ad Litteram, VIII, 13; translation in John Hammond Taylor, S.J., trans., St. Augustine: The Literal Meaning of Genesis, II (New York and Mahwah, N.J.: The Newman Press, 1982): 53. For the Latin see Augustine, Sancti Aureli Augustini De Genesi ad Litteram Libri Duodecim, ed. Josephus Zycha (hereafter cited as Augustine, De Genesi ad Litteram Libri Duodecim), CSEL 28, Pt. 1 (Vienna: F. Tempsky, 1894): 252: cum vero illud tangitur, quod nec tangenti obesset, si non prohiberetur, nec cuiquam alteri, quandolibet tangeretur, quare prohibitum est, nisi ut ipsius per se bonum oboedientiae et ipsius per se malum inoboedientiae monstraretur. Denique a peccante nihil aliud adpetitum est nisi non esse sub dominatione dei, quando illud admissum est, in quo, ne admitteretur, sola deberet iussio dominantis adtendi. quae si sola adtenderetur, quid aliud quam dei uoluntas adtenderetur? quid aliud quam dei uoluntas amaretur? quid aliud quam dei uoluntas humanae uoluntati praeponeretur? dominus quidem cur iusserit, uiderit; faciendum est a seruiente quod iussit et tunc forte uidendum est a promerente, cur iusserit. sed tamen, ut causam iussionis huius non diutius requiramus, si haec ipsa magna est utilitas homini, quod deo seruit, iubendo deus utile facit quidquid iubere uoluerit, de quo metuendum non est, ne iubere quod inutile est possit. 22.  Van der Horst, “The Utrecht Psalter: Picturing the Psalms,” 22–64. 23.  Van der Horst, “Utrecht Psalter: Picturing the Psalms,” 64, fig. 42, and 79, fig. 65. 24.  Tacitus, ‘Germania,’ 14, 285 (iam vero infame in omnem vitam ac probrosum superstitem principi suo ex acie recessisse, 284). 25. William H. McNeill, The Pursuit of Power: Technology, Armed Force, and Society since A.D. 1000 (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1984): 126. “The person principally responsible for developing modern routines of army drill was Maurice of Nassau, Prince of Orange (1567–1625), captain-general of Holland and Zealand.” 26.  Tacitus, ‘Germania,’ 14, 285 (exigunt enim a principis sui liberalitate illum bellatorem equum, 284). 27.  The translation of line 507, other than my ‘(the) Chieftain’ for his ‘God,’ is Doane’s, Saxon Genesis, 366, s.v. dyre. 28.  R. F. Leslie, The Wanderer (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1966): 74–75, note to lines 41–44; and Michael J. Enright, “The Warband Context of the Unferth Episode,” Speculum 73 (1998): 297–337 (citation, 322). 29.  The translation is that of T. A. Shippey, in Poems of Wisdom and Learning in Old English (Cambridge, England; and Totowa, N. J.: D. S. Brewer and Rowman and Littlefield, 1976): 67. Enright’s inference as to the sacral nature of the initiation ritual would appear to challenge the view of Carl T. Berkhout, “Four Difficult Passages in the Exeter Book Maxims,” ELN 18 (1981): 247–51, who says that “the apparent mention of treasure-dispensing in [Maxims 89–90] assists Tupper’s reading,

Notes  •  273

yet difficulties remain with inwyrcan, from which it is hard to construe any such meaning as ‘consecrate,’ ‘place (the hand) upon,’ or ‘perform a rite’” (248). Berkhout suggests translating hond sceal heofod inwyrcan 89a as ‘The head shall inform (or work within) the hand’ (248). But perhaps the meaning is ‘the hand shall imbue the head,’ meaning that the lord’s hand upon the head of the thane confers the mana of the former into the latter. 30.  Stephen O. Glosecki, Shamanism and Old English Poetry (New York and London: Garland, 1989): 86. The translation from The Wanderer is Glosecki’s. 31.  Charles R. Sleeth, Studies in Christ and Satan (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1982): 90–91 (citation, p. 90). 32. Green, Carolingian Lord, 331, comments that “whereas Baetke is right in saying that drohtin in the Heliand has now come to mean little more than ‘king, ruler, lord’ this is not to say that it had never had the more specialised meaning of ‘leader of the comitatus,’” which, he adds, “is likely to have been the word’s original meaning.” (His reference is to W. Baetke, Vom Geist und Erbe Thules [Göttingen, 1944]: 100.) The sense “Chieftain (of a warband)” seems possible for drihten in Genesis 255, 352, 386 (wereda drihten ‘Lord of hosts’). 33.  Enright, “Warband Context of the Unferth Episode,” 322. 34. Doane, Saxon Genesis, 56, commenting on differences between Old Saxon Genesis 1–26a and Genesis B 790–817a, infers that one result of these differences is “a loss of some of the subtler meanings and effects of the rigidly balanced style of the original.” 35. Green, Carolingian Lord, 378 and 379. 36. Green, Carolingian Lord, 378–79, note 4. 37. Green, Carolingian Lord, 359. 38.  Peter Brown, The Rise of Western Christendom: Triumph and Diversity, A.D. 200–1000, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Blackwell, 2003): 440 and 446. Also on 440 Brown observes that “the movement of ‘correction’ from on top lasted longer than the reigns of Charles and of his son, Louis the Pious (814–840).” 39. Brown, Rise of Western Christendom, 452. 40.  Goldberg, “Popular Revolt,” 467–501 (citations, p. 470 and 471). 41.  Goldberg, “Popular Revolt,” 472 and 474. 42.  Goldberg, “Popular Revolt,” 475. 43.  Goldberg, “Popular Revolt,” 477. 44. Francis Magoun, Jr., “The ‘Praefatio’ and ‘Versus’ Associated with Some Old-Saxon Biblical Poems,” in Mediaeval Studies in Honor of Jeremiah Denis Matthias Ford, ed. Urban T. Holmes, Jr. and Alex. J. Denomy, C. S. B. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1948): 107. The study gives texts, translations, and discussion. The Latin texts are also found in Taeger, Heliand und Genesis, 1–4. 45.  ‘Praefatio A’ intimates also that both the emperor and the poet thus enjoined were divinely prompted. 46.  Magoun, ‘“Praefatio’ and ‘Versus,”’ 125.

274  •  Notes

47.  Magoun, ‘“Praefatio’ and ‘Versus,”’ 126. The translations above are Magoun’s, 124 and 126. Here are the Latin passages: Qui iussis imperialibus libenter obtemperans . . . ad tam difficile tamque arduum se statim contulit opus, potius tamen confidens de adiutorio obtemperantiae quam de suae ingenio Parvitatis (111).

and mox Divina polo resonans vox labitur alto.

48. Also that sea scoldin ahebbean . . . godspell that guoda ‘so that they could lift up their holy voices . . . to chant God’s spell’ 24–25. See Sehrt, Vollständiges Wörterbuch, s.v. skulan 1). 49. Green, Carolingian Lord, 99, 360–61. 50.  Because of menn in the preceding verse, þegnas 641 is often taken as ‘men’ in simple variation. But a narrowed meaning ‘servants’ is, I think, appropriate. Those spoken of are the Lord’s servants unless or until they fall away. 51.  Bede, “‘De Schematibus et Tropis,”’ ed. Halm, 615: “Antifrasis est unius verbi ironia”; or Tanenhaus, “Bede’s ‘De Schematibus et Tropis’—A Translation,” QJS 48 (1962): 250. 52. Green, Carolingian Lord, 381–82, note 6. 53.  For this clause Doane, Saxon Genesis, 331, gives, less word for word but more accurately, ‘I have my life from you as a feudal gift.’ Green, Carolingian Lord, 356, note 2, says that “only in the noun lêhen in Genesis, 173, is the social background of this word at all visible.” 54. Green, Carolingian Lord, 356 and 357. 55. Adam’s þeodnes here looks like antiphrasis.

Chapter IV 1.  The translation is something of a pastiche from Doane, Saxon Genesis, 278, and from my dissertation, 189. 2.  Quirk and Wrenn, in An Old English Grammar, par. 117, assess the difference between the se and þes demonstratives. They note that “the latter . . . points to and singles out a part of a series, the whole of which may already be specific.” We might translate þas bryd as ‘this (particular) bride/woman,’ but ‘this’ again can be misunderstood. 3.  In my view, the best discussion of the question of the boda’s shape or form in his temptations is that of Burchmore, “Traditional Exegesis,” 120 and 141–44. 4.  Charles Kennedy, trans., The Cædmon Poems (Gloucester, Mass., 1965): p. xl, note 1. 5.  Evans, ‘“Genesis B’ and Its Background,” Part I, 4 and note 2. 6.  Burchmore, “Traditional Exegesis,” 120. We will return to this “demand” in Chapter VII. Burchmore’s phrase “the confusion about the tempter’s appearance” is

Notes  •  275

itself somewhat confusing. Eve, and later Adam, are not confused in the sense of having some doubt; they both believe, or come to believe, that he is angelic. But modern readers, of course, have been in some confusion.  7. St. Augustine: The Literal Meaning of Genesis, XII, 12, 25 and XII, 12, 14, 30; translations in Taylor, II, 193 and 198. The Latin, in De Genesi ad Litteram Libri Duodecim, ed. Zycha, 395: cum autem uel nimia cogitationis intentione uel aliqua ui morbi, . . . uel conmixtione cuiusquam alterius spiritus seu mali seu boni ita corporalium rerum in spiritu exprimuntur imagines, tamquam ipsis corporis sensibus corpora praesententur manente tamen etiam in sensibus corporis intentione and .pp. 399–400: quapropter et cum uisis corporalibus diabolus fallit, nihil obest, quod ludificantur oculi, si non erratur in ueritate fidei et intellegentiae sanitate, quae docet deus subditos sibi.   8.  Burchmore, “Traditional Exegesis,” 130.  9. Adam had said further on this point, in lines 531–33, only that he didn’t know whether the messenger came mid ligenum . . . þurh dyrne geþanc ‘with lies . . . through malicious intent’ or was the Lord’s messenger. Doane, Saxon Genesis, 284, observes that “Adam puts the unpleasant possibility of lying in the subjunctive [fare ‘might come’ 531] and repeats the devil’s claim of truth in the indicative [eart ‘(you) are’ 532].” 10.  On Adam’s þu gelic ne bist 538 and the boda’s ne eom ic deofle gelic 587 see further Janet Schrunk Ericksen, “Lands of Unlikeness in Genesis B,” Studies in Philology 93 (1996): 1–20, especially pp. 11–12. Her essay indicates the theological implications of “likeness” and “unlikeness” in Genesis B far more fully than does the present study. 11. Theodor Braasch, Vollständiges Wörterbuch zur sog. Caedmonischen Genesis, s.v. wærlı˜ce (Anglistische Forschungen 76. Heidelberg: Carl Wintersbuchhundlung, 1933) gives ‘wahrhaft’; Klaeber, Texts Relating to the Fall of Man (Heidelberg: Carl Winters Universitätsbuchhandlung, 1931): 52 and 68, comes down strongly for wærlı˜ce ‘truly’; B. J. Timmer, The Later Genesis (Oxford: The Scrivener Press, 1948): s.v. wær and wærlice, gives ‘truly’ (for the most part his edition does not indicate long vowels). R. K. Gordon, Anglo-Saxon Poetry (London: Dent, 1976): 107, gives ‘carefully’; and Doane, Saxon Genesis, 393, gives ‘carefully, diligently,’ and, most satisfactorily, ‘cunningly’ (though he mistakenly gives the first vowel as æˉ). 12. Sehrt, Vollständiges Wörterbuch, 642 and 644. 13.  Barbara Raw, “The Probable Derivation of Most of the Illustrations in Junius 11 from an illustrated Old Saxon Genesis,” ASE 5 (1976): 133–48. 14.  Raw, “Probable Derivation,” 141. 15. See Ohlgren, Anglo-Saxon Textual Illustration: Photographs of Sixteen Manuscripts with Descriptions and Index (Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute, 1992): 510–12 (illustrations, Plates 15.38–15.40, upper drawing) and p. 85 (descriptions). On p. 9 Ohlgren notes that MS Cotton Cleopatra C. VIII “dates to the late tenth or early eleventh century”; on p. 10 he notes that “the date circa 1000 . . . seems to be a reasonable compromise” for MS Junius 11. 16.  The translation is Doane’s. See his instructive comment in Saxon Genesis, 281. 17.  On Burchmore’s suggestion see “Traditional Exegesis,” passim. On the illustrator’s putative representation cf. p. 143: “While the poet could disguise his serpent

276  •  Notes

with rhetoric, the illustrator could have represented the devil’s deceit only visually and therefore might give him a visual disguise.” 18. Ambrose, De Paradiso Liber Unus, 15.73 (PL, 14.311): ‘woman is a symbol of the senses.’ 19.  Burchmore, Traditional Exegesis,” 128. 20.  Burchmore’s inference here bears implications, of course, not only as to the learning of the poet himself but also as to that of his intended audience. It is convenient, however, to postpone this issue to the end of our discussion of Raw’s paper. 21. Doane, Saxon Genesis, 293. 22.  Raw, “Probable Derivation,” 148. 23.  In addition: þæt heo hire mod ongan / lætan æfter þam larum ‘that she began to incline her mind according to these counsels’ 591–92; þæt heo ongan his wordum truwian, / læstan his lare ‘that she began to confide in his words, carry out his counsel’ 649–50. Doane, Saxon Genesis, 383, wisely cautions that onginnan with an infinitive is “frequently pleonastic,” in which instance one could translate ‘she inclined her mind according to these counsels,’ etc.—either way, the inclination happened after the boda began to address her. But I think oð þæt ‘until’ 589 suffices. 24.  Cf. Doane, Saxon Genesis, 149. 25.  Burchmore, “Traditional Exegesis,” 144. On pages 124–25 Burchmore cites Augustine’s De Genesi ad Litteram, Book 12, where, “analyzing the various forms of vision inherent man’s nature,” Augustine “concludes that corporeal vision is often deceived by material reality.” 26. Doane, Saxon Genesis, 39. 27. Doane, Saxon Genesis, 113. 28.  Raw, “Probable Derivation,” 135. 29.  See Doane’s important comment on wearp hine . . . in Saxon Genesis, 281. He translates ‘cast’ instead of ‘threw.’ 30. See Sehrt, Vollständiges Wörterbuch, s.v. standan ‘vorhanden sein.’ Cf. Bosworth and Toller, An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, London: Oxford University Press, 1898 (repr. 1954), s.v. standan IIa. ‘of situation or position in a figurative sense, denoting resistance, assistance, representation, degree, etc.’ 31. Doane, Saxon Genesis, 294. 32. Gordon, Anglo-Saxon Poetry, 108. 33.  Sometimes, perhaps, him is indeterminate as to number. An instance might be fylgde him frecne 688. Adverb frecne, Old Saxon frôkno ‘kühn, verwegen, frech,’ i.e., ‘boldly, audaciously,’ could lead one to suppose that him refers to Adam, but since Adam and Eve are together here the reference might be to both. 34. Doane, Saxon Genesis, 294, notes that for MS bræcon “Junius prints bræcen and perhaps so we should understand here. Adam does not begin to give in until 705ff.” 35.  Mintz, “Words Devilish and Divine,” 615. 36.  John Hammond Taylor, trans., St. Augustine: The Literal Meaning of Genesis, XI, 42, 59; vol. II, 176. The Latin, in Augustine, De Genesi ad Litteram Libri Duodecim, ed. Zycha, 378: non quidem carnis uictus concupiscentia.

Notes  •  277

37.  The translations follow G. Ronald Murphy, S.J., The Heliand: Saxon Gospel (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992): 57 and 113, but for the second passage I have followed the singular subject in the Old Saxon. 38.  Elis Wadstein, ed., Kleinere Altsächsische Sprachdenkmäler (Norden und Leipzig: Diedr. Soltau’s Verlag, 1899): 17, lines 12–13. 39. Sehrt, Vollständiges Wörterbuch, s.v. lust; and T. Northcote Toller, An AngloSaxon Dictionary: Supplement (London: Oxford University Press, 1921), s.v. lust III, IV. 40.  The Hound of the Baskervilles, Ch. XV “A Retrospection.” 41.  Burchmore, “Traditional Exegesis,” 126. 42.  Burchmore, “Traditional Exegesis,” 134. 43.  See especially Burchmore, “Traditional Exegesis,” 129–30. 44.  Translation in Taylor, St. Augustine: The Literal Meaning of Genesis, II, 165. The Latin, in Augustine, De Genesi ad Litteram Libri Duodecim, ed. Zycha, XI, 32, p. 366: hoc ergo amisso statu corpus eorum duxit morbidam et mortiferam qualitatem, quae inest etiam pecorum carni, ac per hoc etiam eundem motum, quo fit in pecoribus concumbendi adpetitus, ut succedant nascentia morientibus. 45.  Mintz, “Words Devilish and Divine,” 617. Her reference is to Evans, “Genesis B and Its Background,” Part II, 114. 46.  Evans, “‘Genesis B’ and Its Background,” Part II, 114. 47. Anne L. Klinck, “Female Characterization in Old English Poetry and the Growth of Psychological Realism: ‘Genesis B’ and ‘Christ I,”’ Neophilologus 63 (1979): 597–610 (citation, p. 599). 48.  I take it (as does Doane) that dyrne 532 gives Old Saxon derni ‘malicious’; Sehrt, Vollständiges Wörterbuch, ‘heimtückisch, böse.’ 49. Bevington, Medieval Drama, 93–94 (lines 277–92). 50.  Overing, “On Reading Eve,” 234. 51. Doane, Saxon Genesis, 114, citing Judson Allen, A Distinction of Stories: the Medieval Unity of Chaucer’s Fair Chain of Narratives for Canterbury (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1981): 13. 52.  Renoir, “Eve’s I.Q. Rating,” 265. 53. Doane, Saxon Genesis, 114. 54.  Rainer Maria Rilke, The Life of the Virgin Mary [Das Marienleben], translated by C. F. MacIntyre (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1947): 7: But she came and raised her eyes and looked at all of this (Though just a child, a small girl among women). Then she mounted calmly, full of her self-trust, toward a pomp that fastidiously gave way— so much was everything that men build already outweighed by the praise within her heart. 55. Whitman, Allegory, 5.

278  •  Notes

Chapter V 1. Doane, Saxon Genesis, 285. 2. I have anticipated the present remarks on the passage in Vickrey, “Genesis 549–51 and 623–25,” 347–50. 3.  Cf. Otto Behaghel, Die Syntax des Heliand (Prague, Vienna, Leipzig, 1897 [rept. 1966]), Par. 42 (p. 22): “die dem Superlativ vom Hause aus zukommende Artikellosigkeit ist regelmässig gewahrt bei der ‘unflectirten’ Form.” ‘the absence of an article with the superlative is regularly maintained with the “uninflected” form’; and “Wo der Superlativ dagegen in flectirter (der schwachen) Form auftritt, wird der Artikel stets zugesetzt.” ‘Where the superlative occurs in inflected (weak) form, the article is always present’; and Mitchell, Old English Syntax, I, par. 136 (p. 65): “The weak form of the adjective is used after a demonstrative.” 4.  For Old English: Bruce Mitchell, A Guide to Old English, 2nd ed. New York: Barnes and Noble, 1968 [rpt. 1978]), par. 156 (p. 70), observes that “when introducing a dependent statement, cweðan prefers the subjunctive.” For Old Saxon: either F. Holthausen, Altsächsisches Elementarbuch, 2nd ed. (Heidelberg: Carl Winters Universitätsbuchhandlung, 1921), par. 531 (p. 195); or Gerhard Cordes, Altniederdeutsches Elementarbuch, mit einem Kapitel “Syntaktisches” von Ferdinand Holthausen (Heidelberg: Carl Winter Universitätsverlag, 1973), 2.1134 (p. 251): “In der indirekten Rede steht im allg. der Optativ nach den Verben des Sagens und Mitteilens” ‘In indirect discourse the subjunctive generally obtains in verbs of speaking and communicating.’ Cf. Sehrt, Vollständiges Wörterbuch, s.v. quean 3). 5.  H. Munro Chadwick, The Heroic Age (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1912 [rept. 1967]), p. 344. 6.  Dorothy Whitelock, The Beginnings of English Society (London: Penguin Books, 1952), 39. She observes further, pp. 38–39, that “[t]he bond of kinship may at times have had to yield before the claims of the lord, but it was nevertheless very important in Anglo-Saxon society,” and “[v]engeance was no mere satisfaction of personal feeling, but a duty that had to be carried out even when it ran counter to personal inclination, and a favourite theme in Germanic literature was provided by any situation when this duty clashed with other feelings.” 7.  Andreas Heusler, “Der Dialog in der altgermanischen erzählenden Dichtung,” ZfdA 46 (1902): 243: ‘only the religious poetry of the [Old] Saxons is rich in indirect discourse; it leaves that of the English poets far behind.’ 8.  Heusler, “Der Dialog,” p. 264: ‘the German texts depart wholly from the West Germanic [i.e., Old English]: they know no queðan, quedan before direct discourse, the single instance [Genesis 355], he þa worde cwæð, being the work of the English translator. In the Heliand, queðan is the usual verb, either in the merely graphic interpolation or before indirect discourse.’ 9.  Heusler, “Der Dialog,” p. 257. The term “kwaþ” is “ein handlicher ausdruck für die formelhaften oder individuellen wendungen, die die rede ankündigen” ‘a handy

Notes  •  279

phrase for the formulaic or individual expressions which announce the speech’ (p. 245). 10. See Vickrey, “Genesis 549–51 and 623–25: Narrative Frame and Devilish Cunning,” PQ 78 (1998): 359. 11. Doane, Saxon Genesis, 285, gives ‘whatever message’ for hwilc ærende swa, and I can’t improve upon it. 12.  Doane’s taking þæt sceaðena mæst as the subject of cwæð can be related to his putting a full stop, rather than a comma, after gesceapene 549, which quite obscures the circumstance that the subject of cwæð has to be carried over from the preceding wende hine . . . clause. 13.  Calvert Watkins, “Aspects of Indo-European Poetics,” in Edgar C. Polomé, ed., The Indo-Europeans in the Fourth and Third Millennia (Ann Arbor: Karoma Publishers, 1982): 110. 14.  It might seem as if our poet took to heart as well as anticipated a chiasma voiced of late (and in chiastic echo). Sam Leith, “Other Men’s Flowers,” The New York Times “Sunday Review,” September 9, 2012, p. 10: “Ask not what you can do for chiasmus, then: ask what chiasmus can do for you.” 15.  Gustaf Aulén, Christus Victor, trans. A. G. Hebert (London: S.P.C.K., 1950): 67–68 and 69. 16. Aulén, Christus Victor, 71. 17. Doane Saxon Genesis, 366; but see also Sehrt, Vollständiges Wörterbuch zum Heliand und zur altsächsischen Genesis, s.v. eft 2) ‘hinwiederum, andrerseits, dagegen; zum Entgelt.’ Old English (ge-)styran is not attested in Old Saxon, but Wadstein, Kleinere Altsächsische Sprachdenkmäler, cites a noun stior-with ‘(seil)ring (zur befestigung?) des steuerruders.’ 18. Michael Benskin and Brian Murdoch, “The Literary Tradition of Genesis: Some Comments on J. M. Evans’ ‘Paradise Lost’ and the Genesis Tradition,” NM 76 (1975): 389–403 (citation, p. 397). “Beauty-bright’ for wlitesciene is Doane’s translation, Saxon Genesis, p. 395. 19.  Mintz, “Words Devilish and Divine,” 613. 20.  The translation is that of Timmer, The Later Genesis, 109. 21.  Renoir, “Eve’s I.Q. Rating,” 269. 22.  Renoir, “Eve’s I.Q. Rating,” 265. 23.  John Keegan, The Face of Battle: A Study of Agincourt, Waterloo and the Somme (New York: Vintage Books, 1977), 173. 24.  C. S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man (New York: Collier, 1955), 34. 25. Charles D. Cuttler, Northern Painting: From Pucelle to Bruegel (New York, Holt, Reinhart and Winston, 1968), 349. 26.  Tacitus, ‘Germania,’ 284). 27.  Bosworth and Toller, Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, gives ‘(to) endow.’ For geb¯an, Sehrt, Vollständiges Wörterbuch, gives ‘geben,’ etc.; for geb¯on, geb¯ogean he gives ‘schenken, beschenken.’ Heliand 1688–89 than uuili iu the rîkeo drohtin / geb ¯ on mid alloro

280  •  Notes

gôdu gehuuilicu ‘the rich Chieftain will endow you with each of all good (things)’ (my translation) parallels the sense of Genesis 545–46 quite closely. 28.  And therefore perhaps culpable. See Robert Emmett Finnegan, “Eve and ‘Vincible ignorance’ in ‘Genesis B,”’’ Texas Studies in Literature and Language 18 (1976): 329–39. 29.  Jane Chance, “Eve in ‘Genesis B’: Anti-type of the Peace-Weaver and the Virgin Mary,” in Jane Chance, Woman as Hero in Old English Literature. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1986): 74. 30. Larry M. Sklute, “‘Freoðuwebbe’ in Old English Poetry,” NM 71 (1970): 534–41 (citation, p. 540). 31. Tacitus, Germania, in Peterson, trans., Tacitus: Dialogus, Agricola, Germania, p. 275 (adeo ut efficacius obligentur animi civitatum, quibus inter obsides puellae quoque nobiles imperantur, p. 274), p. 277 (inesse quin etiam sanctum aliquid et providum putant, nec aut consilia earum aspernantur aut responsa neglegunt, pp.274, 276), p. 275 (Memoriae proditur quasdam acies inclinatas iam et labantes a feminis restituas, p. 274), pp. 289, 291 (ne se mulier extra virtutum cogitationes extraque bellorum casus putet, ipsis incipientis matrimonii auspiciis admonetur venire se laborum periculorumque sociam , pp. 288, 290), p. 285 (quia et ingrata genti quies et facilius inter ancipitia clarescunt magnumque comitatum non nisi vi belloque tueare, p. 284). 32.  Michael J. Enright, “Charles the Bald and Aethelwulf of Wessex: the Alliance of 856 and Strategies of Royal Succession,” Journal of Medieval History 5 (1979): 291–302 (citation, p. 291). I take further notice of Enright’s article at the end of Chapter IX. 33.  Enright, “Charles the Bald and Aethelwulf,” 298. 34.  On women as textile workers see Mildred Budny and Dominic Tweddle, “The Maaseik Embroideries,” ASE 13 (1984): 65–96, especially 89 (“For the most part the sources make it clear that Anglo-Saxon women, not men, practiced embroidery”) and the paragraph following the section-title on p. 91. 35.  Enright, “Charles the Bald and Aethelwulf,” 298. 36.  Enright, “The Warband Context of the Unferth Episode,” 305. 37.  Chance, “Eve in ‘Genesis B,”’ 72–73. 38.  Chance, “Eve in ‘Genesis B,”’ 74. 39.  Fred C. Robinson, “Eve’s ‘Weaker’ Mind in ‘Genesis B,”’ in The Editing of Old English (Oxford: Blackwell, 1994): 124–27. Michael Joseph Phillips, “Heart, Mind, and Soul in Old English: A Semantic Study” (University of Illinois diss., 1985): 23–42, cites passages which indicate “hyge’s affinity with ‘intention’” (p. 35) and concludes that “hyge has affinities with ‘intention’ and ‘thought’” (p. 292). 40. Toller, An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary: Supplement, s.v. geþoht II. Doane, Saxon Genesis, 292, though he takes hyge 648 as ‘mind,’ explains the passage very clearly. 41.  Evans. ‘“Genesis B’ and Its Background,” Part II, 119. 42.  Jacob L. K. Grimm, Deutsche Mythologie, 4th ed., ed. E. H. Meyer (Berlin, 1875–78), I, 270: ‘for this our old speech may have availed itself of the verb [to turn, change, move about].’ The suddenness of appearance or departure might also

Notes  •  281

be noted through an adverb; thus semninga ‘suddenly’ in Christ III (“Doomsday”) 899–904: Þonne semninga . . . / . . . sunnan leoma / cymeð of Scyppende . . . / . . . þonne Bearn Godes / þurh heofona gehleodu hider oðyweð 899–904. 43.  Doane’s gloss, in Saxon Genesis, 407. 44.  See Karen Cherewatuk, “Standing, Turning, Twisting, Falling: Posture and Moral Structure in Genesis B,” NM 87 (1986): 537–44. 45. The translation of line 625a (betan ‘amend . . .’) is that of Doane, Saxon Genesis, 363. 46.  John F. Vickrey, ‘“Genesis B’ and the Anomalous Gnome,” Mediaevalia 14 (1988): 51–62; “On ‘Genesis’ 623–25,” ES 70 (1989): 97–106; ‘“Genesis’ 549–51 and 623–25,” esp. pp. 350–59. 47.  Though he gives (MS) hire in his Old English text, Benjamin Thorpe, Cædmon’s Metrical Paraphrase of Parts of the Holy Scriptures (London, 1832), p. 39, translates as ‘his.’ I gave his in my dissertation. Taeger, Burkhard, ed., Heliand und Genesis, 9th ed., (Tübingen: Max Niemeyer, 1984), also reads his. Doane, Saxon Genesis, 376, takes hire 623, along with other hire forms (591, 654, 717), as feminine. 48.  Vickrey, ‘“Genesis’ 549–51 and 623–25,” 353–57. 49.  Woolf, “The Fall of Man,” 195–96. For Augustine her note 18 cites De Genesi contra Manichaeos II, xi in PL 34, cols. 204–05, and adds that “in the same chapter St. Augustine quotes another important biblical text, 1 Corinthians 11:3, ‘Caput enim viri Christus, et caput mulieris vir.’” In Ingeld and Christ (The Hague: Mouton, 1972), 165, Michael D. Cherniss, p. 165, says that in her essay Woolf “cites doctrinal precedents for the inferiority of women, but she is forced to admit that in Genesis B this doctrinal point is by and large neglected.” What Woolf says is that “even if the poem did not make explicit the point that Eve was created inferior to Adam, this idea cannot have been unfamiliar to poet, translator, or audience (p. 195).” But as we saw in Chapter IV the poem does make the point fairly plainly through its account of the prior and unsuccessful temptation of Adam and the allegorical presentation of Adam and Eve, which reflects the tribus modis doctrine. 50.  Calvert Watkins, “Indo-European and the Indo-Europeans,” in William Morris, ed., The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (New York: American Heritage 1969): 1500; Edgar C. Polomé, “Indo-European Culture, with Special Attention to Religion,” in Polomé, ed., The Indo-Europeans in the Fourth and Third Millennia, p 161. 51.  Vickrey, “Genesis 549–51 and 623–25: Narrative Frame and Devilish Cunning,” 355–56. 52.  Lines 770–72 note that þæt wif gnornode, / . . . hæfde hyldo godes, / lare forlæten. 53.  Kenneth Sisam, “Marginalia in the Vercelli Book,” in Studies in the History of Old English Literature (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1953): 109. Sisam takes xb¯ in the Vercelli Book as “an inconspicuous pen-trial,” and remarks that “anybody who scans the margins of the facsimile edition must be content with very little things.” But this may not always be the case. He notes that xb¯ occurs, for instance, at the top of

282  •  Notes

(Vercelli) folio 119r, but the text toward the bottom of folio 118v entails a warning as to the torments which ðæt deoful has prepared for those who ær his willan worhton on worolde. This positioning of putatively relevant text and xb¯ parallels the situation in Genesis B pp. 35 and 36, where satan near the end of text on p. 35 precedes the xb¯ at the top of p. 36. See D. G. Scragg, ed., The Vercelli Homilies and Related Texts,. EETS, O.S. 300 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), 373–74. 54.  Morton W. Bloomfield, “Understanding Old English Poetry,” Annuale Mediaevale 9 (1968): 20. 55.  Susan E. Deskis, Beowulf and the Medieval Proverb Tradition (Tempe, Arizona: MRTS, 1996): 134. The translation is that of Deskis. 56.  Vickrey, ‘“Genesis B’ and the Anomalous Gnome,” 53. 57. Doane, Saxon Genesis, 291. 58. Doane, Saxon Genesis, 113. 59. For Genesis 625 heora hearran hearmcwide, Bosworth and Toller’s Anglo-Saxon Dictionary gives, s.v. hearm-cwyde, ‘their lord’s sentence,’ i.e., a judgment which the lord imposes. This reading cannot be correct. The basic meaning of hearm-cwyde/ harm-quidi is ‘slander, calumny,’ but the point must be that the hearra is spoken ill of, rather than that he speaks ill (and this is so whether the passage is taken as the narrator’s or, as I maintain, as the Tempter’s). 60. Doane, Saxon Genesis, 290. 61. Sehrt, Vollständiges Wörterbuch, s.v. sô (pp. 481–82): ‘in introducing a sequent clause, . . . often with general reference to what precedes,’ it can mean dementsprechend ‘correspondingly’; demgemäß ‘accordingly’; desgleichen ‘in like manner.’ Note also Bosworth and Toller, Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, s.v. swa IV adv. (I) (a) (b¯) ‘so, in the same way, in like manner.’ 62. Doane, Saxon Genesis, 290. 63. Doane, Saxon Genesis, 291. 64.  Burchmore, “Traditional Exegesis,”129; Mintz, “Words Devilish and Divine,” 613. 65.  Suggs, Sakenfeld, and Mueller, The Oxford Study Bible, 201: ‘But the prophet who presumes to utter in my name what I have not commanded him . . .—that prophet must be put to death.’ See also Deuteronomy 13:1–5. 66. The MS reading here is sæge·adame hwilce þu gesihðe hæfst·þurh minne cime·cræfta, but I have ventured to give 618a as cræfta þurh minne cime. The form cræfta is either genitive or accusative plural, but if genitive it is curiously quite distant from gesihðe, on which it would depend. If accusative, it would be parallel to, and more or less in variation with, gesihðe. The normal position of such a second member in a variation is at the beginning of its verse; see Walther Paetzel, “Die Variationen in der altgermanischen Alliterationspoesie,” Palaestra 48 (Berlin, 1913): 179–80. Following hwilce . . . the passage is pointed after hæfst and after cime, so that cræfta appears to be part of the verse gif giet þurh cuscne siodo 618b. I surmise that cræfta was omitted in a copying and was added after þurh minne cime had been written.

Notes  •  283

67. For gebyrd ‘origin’ see Peter Ilkow, Die Nominalkomposita der altsächsischen Bibeldichtung, ed. W. Wissmann and H.-Fr. Rosenfeld. (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1968) p. 246: “Das as. Grundwort –burd hat die Funktion [‘Geburt, Herkunft’] in . . . gi-burd . . .” For gehlid ‘vault’ see Sehrt, Vollständiges Wörterbuch, p. 262, (verbs) a-hlîdan ‘sich aufdecken, erschliessen’; bi-hlîdan ‘einschließen, umfassen, decken.’ 68. Sehrt, Vollständiges Wörterbuch, s.v. sidu. Old English sidu can have the same sense. 69.  Just possibly lines 623–25 are a variant, carefully adjusted to the boda’s purpose, of a proverbial warning. Deskis, Beowulf and the Medieval Proverb Tradition, p. 114, observes that “Sententiae pointing out the potential for discrepancy between one’s words and works . . . consistently contrast the two activities, and invariably assign greater value to works.” Hence the injunction that they must lufe wyrcean 624. 70.  Blanche Colton Williams, Gnomic Poetry in Anglo-Saxon (New York: Columbia University Press, 1914), p. 80. 71.  Jager, “Invoking/Revoking God’s word” 314, note 24. 72.  Vickrey, ‘“Genesis’ 549–51 and 623–25,” 360.

Chapter VI 1. Sehrt, Vollständiges Wörterbuch, s.v. wundar: “1) Verwunderung, Wißbegier [‘curiosity’], in Verbindung mit wesan.” But in Genesis 595 no dative of person is present. Perhaps an anecdote is not inappropriate here. Some years ago I acquired the late Professor Jackson Campbell’s copy of Klaeber, Texts Relating to the Fall of Man. Here and there Professor Campbell had pencilled marginal comments. Beside lines 596–98 (p. 16) he wrote “Why?” 2.  Gustav Ehrismann, Geschichte der deutschen Literatur bis zum Ausgang des Mittelalters, Erster Teil: Die althochdeutsche Literatur (Munich, 1918), 169: ‘in his naive sense of justice, the poet seeks an explanation why eternal God allowed the subornation of the man through the devil, and finds no other than: that is a great wonder.’ 3. Hentschel, Die Mythen von Luzifers Fall, 63, note 57: ‘the believer cannot perform the service which a person loyally disposed to God sets about to perform without making the painful discovery that God permits the falling away from his will.’ 4. Kennedy, The Earliest English Poetry, 170. 5. Cherniss, Ingeld and Chris, 165. 6. Doane, Saxon Genesis, 288. Doane’s retention of þe 598b and his referral of þe to þegn 597 as antecedent means that the final clause of the passage cannot be seen to bear in any meaningful way on the poet’s wonderment. Did he follow my dissertation reading “that so many a thane who came for learning,” etc.? But that reading, as I hope I have shown, is an Irrlicht. 7.  Paul Cavill, “Notes on Maxims in Old English Narrative,” Notes and Queries, n.s. 33 (1986): 145–48. I rather disagree, as will become obvious, with his view that the micel wundor passage is uttered “querulously” by the poet.

284  •  Notes

  8.  Vickrey, ‘“Micel Wundor’ of ‘Genesis B,”’ 245–54.   9.  John F. Vickrey, “Genesis 598 þe for þam larum com,” Neophilologus 73 (1989): 454–60. A further point would be that the normal accommodation of verse endings to syntax might, if only rarely, have had to defer to—or rather, have been manipulated for the sake of—rhetorical considerations. 10.  K. W. Bouterwek, ed. and trans., Cædmons des Angelsachsen biblische Dichtungen (Gütersloh, 1854), 3 (text), 205 (translation), 301 (note): ‘were seduced by the lies of him who came on account of these deceits.’ See also Vickrey, “Genesis 598 þe for þam larum com,” 455 and 459, note 8. 11. Mitchell, Old English Syntax, II, par. 2355. 12. Behaghel, Die Syntax des Heliand, 304: ‘certainly it functions in by far the most cases as subject of the clause.’ It is unclear to me just what is the syntactical status of þe in Kennedy’s translation: is it part of the following or part of the preceding clause? Or part of both? 13.  For the incidence of indeclinable relative þe in Genesis B see Braasch, Vollständiges Wörterbuch, 128. Elsewhere in the poem than in line 598, þe occurs always as either nominative (16 x) or accusative (10 x); syntactically, at any rate, þe as it occurs otherwise in the poem affords no support for a reading ‘by one who’ in line 598. 14.  Vickrey, ‘“Genesis B’: A New Analysis and Edition”, 225. 15.  Vickrey, “Genesis 598 þe for þam larum com,” 454–55. 16. Gordon, Anglo-Saxon Poetry, 106. The reading of þe as ‘when they’ is rather suspect. Mitchell, Old English Syntax, II, par. 2596, concludes that “although the temporal use of þe is not established beyond all doubt, . . . it cannot perhaps be entirely dismissed.” Gordon’s reading compounds the problem by comprehending a personal pronoun with þe as conjunction. 17.  J. M. Evans, “Genesis B and Its Background,” RES 14 (1963): 113. 18.  Data for the Heliand and Genesis A are found, respectively, in Sehrt, Vollständiges Wörterbuch, 591–93; and in Braasch, Vollständiges Wörterbuch, 128. For the Heliand the ratio is an approximation mainly because of its two principal mss and therefore of variant readings. 19. Sehrt, Vollständiges Wörterbuch, 591–92: ‘as a relative particle the is attested with certainty . . . when it stands directly after a demonstrative pronoun . . . and when it appears in combination with the personal pronoun.’ Holthausen, Altsächsisches Elementarbuch, par. 524, Anm. 3 (193); or Cordes, Altniederdeutsches Elementarbuch, 2.111.2 (248), observes that “häufig—besonders im Nom. Sg. M.—sind die Partikel und die syntaktisch entsprechenden Formen nicht zu unterscheiden, so daß die Konstruktion zweideutig bleibt” (frequently. especially in the nominative singular masculine, the particle and the syntactically corresponding forms are not to be distinguished, so that the construction remains ambiguous’). 20. Doane, Saxon Genesis, 288. 21. Doane, Saxon Genesis, xi. 22. Krapp, The Junius Manuscript, 168; B. J. Timmer, The Later Genesis, 58; Vickrey, “Genesis B,” 221–25.

Notes  •  285

23. Klaeber, Texts Relating to the Fall of Man, 52, conflates lines 598b and 602b as þe (hire) for þam larum (dædum) com and adds “ = quod . . . factum est. (Cf. Hel. 581).” But Heliand 581 that al siðor quam ‘everything that came afterwards’ (Murphy, The Heliand: The Saxon Gospel, 23) isn’t much help here. Klaeber is taking þe as equivalent to that on no very good grounds. 24. Wallace-Hadrill, The Frankish Church, 143. 25. Wallace-Hadrill, The Frankish Church, 144. 26. As to the practice in Anglo-Saxon England, Margaret Deanesly, The PreConquest Church in England, 2nd ed. (London: Adam & Charles Black, 1963), 196, observes that “It was unquestioned that the conversion of the king’s subjects had to proceed from the top downwards: the minster as founded would serve as a Christian centre for the countryside, but no statement that the minster was founded to convert the countryside is found in any source.” 27.  James C. Russell, The Germanization of Early Medieval Christianity: A Sociohistorical Approach to Religious Transformation (New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994), 173; his reference is to Jan de Vries, “Das Königtum bei den Germanen,” Saeculum 7 (1956): 289–309, esp. 296–300. 28.  Goldberg, “Popular Revolt,” 471. 29.  From Max Weber. The Sociology of Religion, trans. Ephraim Fischoff (Boston: Beacon Press, 1963), 84–85, cited in Russell, The Germanization of Early Medieval Christianity, 155–56. 30. Russell, The Germanization of Early Medieval Christianity, 152. 31. Russell, The Germanization of Early Medieval Christianity, 212. 32.  Patrick Wormald, “Bede, ‘Beowulf’ and the Conversion of the Anglo-Saxon Aristocracy,” in Bede and Anglo-Saxon England, ed. Robert T. Farrell, British Archaeological Reports 46 (Oxford: British Archaeological Reports, 1978): 55 and 57. 33.  Hanns Rückert, Die Christianisierung der Germanen: Ein Beitrag zu ihrem Verständnis und ihrer Beurteilung, 2nd. rev. ed. (Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr [Paul Siebeck], 1934), 16: ‘the dominant attitude in which the Germanic person accomplished the conversion discloses itself in our sources time and again in the quite simple sentence: the God of Christianity is mightier than the old gods.’ Both passages cited here from Rückert and that cited just below from Schieffer are quoted in Russell, The Germanization of Early Medieval Christianity, 198, note 50. 34.  Theodor Schieffer, Winfrid-Bonifatius und die christliche Grundlegung Europas (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1980 [reprint, with corrections, of 1954 ed.]): 39: ‘The acceptance of Christianity took place accordingly as a change of the official tribal cult and to that extent was a political decision to which in many instances . . . the kings, with the assent of their chieftains, gave the signal. It arose not from the perception that belief in the former god was an unreal delusion but from the conviction that Christ had proved himself the stronger god.’ 35. De Vries, Altgermanische Religionsgeschichte, II, 3rd ed. (Berlin: Walter De Gruyter & Co., 1970): 437: ‘in many cases it is not at all the Christian preaching which brings about conversion to Christianity. The deciding question is rather,

286  •  Notes

whether the Christian or the heathen god is the stronger god’; and ‘but that prompts him to convert.’ 36.  Text and translation in (Colgrave and Mynors) Bede, Ecclesiastical History of the English People, ii. 9, 166, 167. 37. Russell, The Germanization of Early Medieval Christianity, 198. 38.  De Vries, Altgermanische Religionsgeschichte, II, 418: ‘almost two hundred years passed before paganism could be regarded as finally suppressed.’ 39.  Wormald, “Bede, ‘Beowulf’ and the Conversion of the Anglo-Saxon Aristocracy,” 59. 40. In þæt wæs feohleas gefeoht . . . 2441–43 Beowulf seems clearly to mourn that the slaying of Herebeald went unavenged, if only through non-payment of wergild. 41.  Wormald, “Bede, ‘Beowulf’ Anglo-Saxon Aristocracy,” 66. 42. Wallace-Hadrill, The Frankish Church, 247. 43. Wallace-Hadrill, The Frankish Church, 231. 44. Murphy, The Heliand: The Saxon Gospel, 95. See also G. Ronald Murphy, S. J., The Saxon Savior: The Germanic Transformation of the Gospel in the Ninth-Century Heliand (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989), 95–117. 45.  But this “aura” is only a possible one. Charles W. C. Oman, Castles (New York: Beekman House, 1978), 4–5, observes that “now both in Carolingian France and Anglo-Saxon England castellum was used in the eighth and ninth centuries . . . to mean merely an inhabited place, not always a small one.” 46. Murphy, The Heliand: The Saxon Gospel, 151, note. 47.  Enright, “The Warband Context of the Unferth Episode,” 306. 48. Green, The Carolingian Lord, 502. 49.  Van der Horst, “The Utrecht Psalter: Picturing the Psalms,” 79. 50. Green, The Carolingian Lord, 360–61. 51.  William A. Chaney, The Cult of Kingship in Anglo-Saxon England (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1970), 11. In pp. 13–14 Chaney seems clearly to endorse de Vries’ hypothesis. 52.  Van der Horst, “The Utrecht Psalter: Picturing the Psalms,” 23. 53. Wallace-Hadrill, The Frankish Church, 231. 54. Doane, Saxon Genesis, 288. 55.  De Vries, Altgermanische Religionsgeschichte, II, 442: ‘Germanic folk have . . . always regarded Christ as the God who triumphs, . . . as the mighty Chieftain with his warlike host of apostles, as the Old Saxon poem Heliand so clearly has pictured him.’ 56.  Old English ece ‘eternal’ presumably renders Old Saxon êwig. Old English æfre here is more difficult to explain. It finds no attested cognate form in Old Saxon. So far as I can see, the likely Old Saxon word would have been io/eo/gio, which, absent a negative, meant either ‘zu irgend einer Zeit’ or ‘immer, stets’ (Sehrt, Vollständiges Wörterbuch, 295). 57.  Murphy, Heliand: The Saxon Gospel, Fitt 58 (lines 4810b–4924) and Fitt 59, lines 4931–35.

Notes  •  287

58.  For a useful “brief sketch” of the Harrowing of Hell tradition see Merrel Dare Clubb, ed., Christ and Satan: An Old English Poem, Yale Studies in English 70 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1925), xxxiii–xxxiv, n.44. 59.  The translations are those of Murphy, Heliand: The Saxon Gospel, 36–37 and 118. 60.  These passages, together with the whole of Genesis B, are found in Klaeber, Texts Relating to the Fall of Man. For the translation of Heliand 1040–42 see Murphy, The Heliand: The Saxon Gospel, 37. 61. Murphy, The Heliand: The Saxon Gospel, 142, note 208: “Thus the possible Saxon question based on the observation that ‘that generation has passed away, and the predicted Day of Judgment has not happened’ has been avoided.” 62.  I noted this ‘possibility in “Genesis 598 þe for þam larum com,” esp. 57–58. 63.  De Vries, Altgermanische Religionsgeschichte, II, 442: ‘It is characteristic . . . that the Germanic person regards, as the great catastrophe which made the Redemption necessary, the fall of Lucifer and the wicked angels or the origin of evil spirits and the creation of hell, and that correspondingly the saving hour in the life of humankind was not, as for the Greeks, the birth of the God-Logos, or, as for the Romans, the Savior’s expiation-death on the cross, but was rather Christ’s descent into the hell-fortress and his victorious single-combat with the Old One of hell. One cannot therefore . . . regard the Germanic folk as a humanity enslaved by the demons. The consciousness of victory which one scarcely dared to hope from Oden was evident here in the figure of Christ. In hoc signo vinces was for Germanic folk also a phrase of Redemption which they gladly followed.’ 64. On the problems in taking þæt clauses as causal see Mitchell, Old English Syntax, II, pars. 3118–32. 65. Sehrt, Vollständiges Wörterbuch, s.v. bi 1) c) “kausal, wegen, aus” and s.v. for 1b) “causal, zur Bezeichnung des Anlasses oder Zweckes einer Handlung”; Toller, Anglo-Saxon Dictionary: Supplement, s.v. be A. III (15) “marking ground of action, because of, on account of” and s.v. for III (1) “marking cause, as a result of, as the effect of, owing to the action of, from, through.” 66.  Craig Williamson, in his A Feast of Creatures: Anglo-Saxon Riddle-Songs (Philadelphia: The University of Pennsylvanis Press, 1982), 41–42, identifies the riddling elements in The Dream of the Rood 28–49. 67. Mitchell, Old English Syntax, II, par. 3971. 68.  That humankind captive in Hell was the Devil’s treasure is an ancient and even biblical metaphor, a part of the lore of Redemption. See Vickrey, “‘Exodus’ and the ‘Herba Humilis,’” 25–54, esp. 30–32. 69.  And possibly even more understated than my translation as ‘he’ suggests; the emendation [s]e indicates a demonstrative, not a personal pronoun. 70. Krapp, Junius Manuscript, xx, notes the apparent use of small capitals “to mark the beginning of a minor division in the narrative.” Line 599 begins with a small capital H in Heo.

288  •  Notes

71. Bevington, Medieval Drama, 79. 72.  Eduard Sievers, ed., Heliand (Halle: Verlag der Buchhandlung des Waisenhauses, 1878).

Chapter VII  1. Bruce Mitchell, “1947–1987: Forty Years On,” in On Old English (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1988), 335–336 and 336.   2.  Magoun, “‘Praefatio’ and ‘Versus,’” 124.   3.  See further Russell, Germanization of Early Medieval Christianity, esp. 183–214.   4.  Evans, “‘Genesis B’ and Its Background,” 115.  5. Green, Carolingian Lord, 361–62.  6. Sehrt, Vollständiges Wörterbuch, s.v. neriand.  7. Vickrey, “Genesis B: A New Analysis and Edition,” 50–51.  8. Holthausen, Altsächsisches Elementarbuch, par. 328, note 5 (p. 114): ‘the dualforms in the Heliand are commonly replaced by plurals.’   9.  On the duals see especially J. R. Hall, “Duality and the Dual Pronoun in ‘Genesis B,”’ PLL 17 (1981): 302–07. 10.  See Thomas D. Hill, “Invocation of the Trinity and the Tradition of the ‘Lorica’ in Old English Poetry,” Speculum 56 (1981): 259–67. The translation of Azarias 155–57 is Hill’s. 11.  Van der Horst, “Utrecht Psalter: Picturing the Psalms,” 64, 65. 12. Doane, Saxon Genesis, 137. 13.  Vickrey, “Adam, Eve, and the ‘Tacen’ in ‘Genesis B,”’ passim. 14.  Of its twenty-three instances in the Heliand and Old Saxon Genesis, tecan/ tekan fails to alliterate just three times (Heliand 674, 776, 5621). Adjectival ênig (Vollständiges Wörterbuch, s.v. ênig 2 and 2a) alliterates just ten times in over seventy instances of the word. 15.  “Adam, Eve, and the Tacen in Genesis B,” 4. Forms of tecan/tekan and of (-) tôgian occur in Heliand 844, 1206, 2076, 2163, 2350, 3114, 5273, 5680, and—especially significant, since it shows the presumed usage in the parent of Genesis B—in Old Saxon Genesis 73. 16.  J. R. R. Tolkien, “Prefatory Remarks on Prose Translation of ‘Beowulf,’” in John R. Clark Hall, trans., Beowulf and the Finnesburg Fragment, Completely Revised with Notes and an Introduction by C. L. Wrenn (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1950), xxxvi. 17. Gordon, Anglo-Saxon Poetry, 105. 18. Sehrt, Vollständiges Wörterbuch, s.v. ênig 2a: ‘in combination with negating ni signifies “no.”’ Cf. Old Saxon Genesis 52 ni mag im ênig mann. 19.  Vickrey, “Adam, Eve, and the ‘Tacen’ in ‘Genesis B,”’ 5. 20. Doane, Saxon Genesis, 284. 21. Mitchell, Old English Syntax, I, par. 634. His reference is to J. M. Wattie, “Tense,” English Studies 16 (1930): 127.

Notes  •  289

22. Behaghel, Syntax des Heliand, Section 99 (p. 55): ‘single, effectively completed actions in the past, without consideration as to whether or not they stand in relation to the present.’ 23. Sehrt, Vollständiges Wörterbuch, 399: ‘. . . is often a paraphrase for the imperative.’ Ferdinand Holthausen, Altsächsisches Wörterbuch (Münster/Köln: Böhlau-Verlag, 1954), s.v. mugan, gives, besides ‘vermögen,’ also ‘Ursache haben’ (‘have cause’). 24.  ‘What givest thou as a sign, that we may see and believe?’ See Walter W. Skeat, ed, The Holy Gospels in Anglo-Saxon, Northumbrian, and Old Mercian Versions, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1871–87), 58 (St. John’s Gospel). 25. Julius Pokorny, Indogermanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch (Bern: Francke, 1959), I, 775–77. On Old Saxon *at- in (gi-)tôgian see Holthausen, Altsächsiches Elementarbuch, par. 116, note (p. 43): “für at- steht t- in tôgian ‘zeigen.’” 26.  Vickrey, “Adam, Eve, and the ‘Tacen’ in ‘Genesis B,”’ 6. 27. Ælfric, The Old English Version of the Heptateuch, ed. S. J. Crawford, EETS, OS 160 (London: Oxford University Press, 1922 [rpt. 1969]), 106–07. 28.  Vickrey, “Adam, Eve, and the ‘Tacen’ in ‘Genesis B,”’ 6. 29.  On the predicate têkan ôgian / (gi-)tôgian and tacen (-)iewan in Old Saxon and Old English and in Genesis B see Vickrey, “Adam, Eve, and the ‘Tacen’ in ‘Genesis B,”’4–8. 30.  In line 5679–80, the uuerod Iudeono was so hard-hearted that thar io sô hêlag ni uuarð / têcan gitôgid ‘that there so holy a sign was never shown.’ 31.  Among the studies of the past seventy-five years see, for example: Hentschel, Mythen von Luzifers Fall, 78; Evans, Paradise Lost and the Genesis Tradition, 181; Greenfield and Calder, A New Critical History of Old English Literature, 211; Overing, “On Reading Eve,” 56–57, 63. 32.  Ute Schwab, “Ansätze zu einer Interpretation der as. Genesisdichtung,” Istituto Universitario Orientale, Annali 17 (1974): 178–79, note 133. 33.  Doane, Saxon Genesis, 143, note 7. 34. Janet Schrunk Ericksen, “Legalizing the Fall of Man,” Medium Aevum 74 (2005): 205–20, but especially pp. 212–14. Her essay is a far-ranging study of the legal aspect of the Fall in Genesis B. On the chirographum as a legal document see also Wolfgang Keller, Angelsächsische Palaeographie: Die Schrift der Angelsachsen mit besonderer Rücksicht auf die Denkmäler in der Volkssprache, Palaestra 43, Teil 2, ed. Alois Brandl, Gustav Roethe, and Erich Schmidt (Berlin: Mayer & Müller, 1906, 1922). Brandl, in his Vorwort, sets forth the rationale of the cyrographum agreement: “Täuschen zu wollen durften sie deshalb nicht wagen, weil die Gegenurkunde mit gleichem Text und der genau an die wellenförmige Durchschneidung von ‘cyrographum’ passenden Form sich in der Hand der anderen Vertragspartei befand” ‘they did not dare to cheat, because the counter-charter with the same text and the exactly corresponding undulatory bisecting of [the word] cyrographum was there in the other signatory’s possession.’ Numbers 4–10 of Keller’s plates are cyrographum texts. 35.  Hubert Bastgen, ed., Libri Carolini, sive Caroli Magni Capitulare de Imaginibus, II, xxviii, in MGH, Legum Sectio III. Concilia. Tomi II Supplementum (Hannover and Leipzig: 1924; unveränderter Nachdruck, 1979), 89–90.

290  •  Notes

36. Green, Carolingian Lord, 377. 37.  Franz Joseph Dölger, “Beiträge zur Geschichte des Kreuzzeichens, VI” (“Contributions to the History of the Signum Crucis”), Jahrbuch für Antike und Christentum 6 ([Münster, Westfalen: Aschendorf] 1963): 23: ‘And conjointly with this word mark (the sign of) the cross on your brow. Thereby not only no person who encounters you but also not even the devil himself can effect an injury when he sees you appear with this armor. Take this counsel!—so that when you have embraced the seal and are an equipped soldier and have raised up the sign of victory against the devil you can receive the garland of victory.’ Dölger’s monograph was serialized in numerous issues of the Jahrbuch für Antike und Christentum from 1958 to 1967. 38.  The text here is that of P. O. E. Gradon, Cynewulf’s Elene (London: Methuen, 1958). On Cynewulf’s source(s) see pp. 15–22. 39.  The Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. 13 (New York: Robert Appleton, 1912), 787; and Ludwig Eisenhofer and Joseph Lechner, The Liturgy of the Roman Rite, trans. A. J. and E. F. Peeler and ed. H. E. Winstone (New York: Herder and Herder, 1961), 430. On the signum crucis generally in liturgy in Antiquity and in the Middle Ages see Eisenhofer and Lechner, pp. 94–96. 40.  Cyril of Jerusalem, “Lecture IV,” in Cyril of Jerusalem and Nemesius of Emesa, The Library of Christian Classics IV, ed. William Telfer (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1955), 106. 41. Origen, In Exodum homilia VI.8 (PG 12: 337); Hrabanus, Commentaria in Exodum 2.4 (PL 108: 72–73). 42.  Jonas of Orleans, De Cultu Imaginum, II (PL 106, 347): ‘Just as a coin of the emperor bears (his) image, so the signs of the heavenly prince are impressed upon the faithful: by this defense the multiformed devil is expelled and cannot by fraudulent machination overcome the one assailed, whom he has held captive through the suasion of the first man.’ 43. Otfrid. Otfrids Evangelienbuch, 5th ed., ed Ludwig Wolff, Altdeutsche Textbibliothek 49 (Tübingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag, 1965), V, ii (“De utilitate crucis”), 9–12. 44. Morris, Blickling Homilies, 243. 45.  Ælfric, “Sermo in Laetania Maiore [De Auguriis],” in Ælfric. Ælfric’s Lives of Saints, ed. Walter W. Skeat, EETS OS 82 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1881), 374. Skeat’s translation: ‘We should on every occasion and in every trouble / cross ourselves with true faith, / and by the sign of the Cross put to flight the wicked ones, / because the wicked devil was vanquished by the Cross, / and it is ever our beacon of victory against the fiend’ (p. 375). Also, Ælfric, “Exaltatio Sancte Crucis,” in Ælfric. Ælfric’s Lives of Saints, EETS OS 94 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1890), 152, 154. Skeat’s translation: ‘The heavenly sign of the Holy Rood / is our banner against the fierce devil. . . . forthwith the fierce fiend / will be terrified on account of the victorious token’ (pp, 153, 155). 46. Morris, Blickling Homilies (EETS 47). Morris’s translation: “‘Let us . . . not cease . . . to bless ourselves with the token (sign) of Christ’s Cross. Then the devil

Notes  •  291

will flee from us, because it is a greater terror to him than the sword may be to any man, if one were about to strike off his head’” (46). 47.  A Monk of Whitby, “Life of St. Gregory,” in Saints’ Lives and Chronicles in Early England, ed. and trans. C. W. Jones (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1947), 111. 48. Felix, Felix’s Life of Saint Guthlac, ed. and trans. Bertram Colgrave (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1956), 114, 115. 49.  See Hendrik Bergema, De Boom des Levens in Schrift en Historie (Hilversum: Schipper, 1938), Excursus IV (“Crux Christi Lignum Vitae”), 503–12. 50. Otfrid, Otfrids Evangelienbuch, 218. 51. Alcuin, De Divinis Officiis Liber, xviii (PL 101: 1208). Alcuin is following Augustine, Sermo de Symbolo, iii (PL 40: 1192). 52. Murphy, The Heliand: The Saxon Gospel, 188. 53. Sehrt, Vollständiges Wörterbuch, s.v. all and fruma (pp. 8–9, 154–55). 54.  An (anonymous) reader of the present text suggests that Adam, in referring to a tacen, was expressing only “a thane’s need for a token ring or other proof that his orders from a distant chief are legitimate.” Possibly so—my identification here of Adam’s tacen as the signum crucis must remain a suggestion—but the chapter’s numerous citations as to the nature and efficacy of the signum crucis would indicate that its display would be understood as proof of an interlocutor’s veracity. In Adam’s tacen as well as in the narrator’s micel wundor clause, martiality and Frankish Christianity might be indistinguishable. 55.  See Johannes Rathofer, Der Heliand: Theologischer Sinn als Tectonische Form, Niederdeutsche Studien 9 (Köln and Graz: Böhlau Verlag, 1962), Abb. 4. Each of the nine great letters spells out one or another name of the nine orders of angels. For the whole of De laudibus sanctae crucis see PL 107: 133–294. 56.  Monk of Whitby, Saints’ Lives and Chronicles in Early England, 107. 57. Crawford, The Gospel of Nicodemus, 24. 58. Crawford, Gospel of Nicodemus, 24. 59. Doane, Saxon Genesis, 284–85: “The demand for proof is made the more emphatic if we imagine that the devil is in snake form” 60. Augustine, De Genesi ad Litteram Libri Duodecim, VIII, 10, 19–23, considering the meaning of ‘cultivate’ and ‘guard,’ takes ‘guard’ to mean “he was placed there to guard this same Paradise for himself, so as not to commit any deed by which he would deserve to be expelled from it” (Taylor, St. Augustine: The Literal Meaning of Genesis, II, 48). The Latin, in Zycha, ed., De Genesi Ad Litteram Libri Duodecim, VIII, 10, p.247: custodiret autem eundem paradisum ipsi sibi, ne aliquid admitteret, quare inde mereretur expelli.

Chapter VIII 1.  My reading of the passage proposed in the Speculum article has not gone unchallenged. Gillian Overing notes my inference and its implication: “Vickrey suggests that the configuration of angels, God’s throne, and its southeastern location

292  •  Notes

would have been an obvious and immediately recognizable apocryphal description and, hence, a powerfully ironic ‘reminder of that day which must conclude human history, as, in a sense, Eve’s temptation of Adam begins it’” (“On Reading Eve,” 43). This summation is clearly and, with the exception perhaps of “suggests,” fairly put— “perhaps,” because Overing, in doubting the validity of my inference, takes no notice of the not inconsiderable evidence from Latin, Old Saxon, Old High German, and Old English texts which I adduced to support the inference and which, I think, goes well beyond suggestion and no little way towards validation. Her effort at refutation comes later when she asserts that “[Michael] Cherniss rejects Vickrey’s apocalyptic view of Eve’s vision and identifies its descriptive elements in Germanic heroic terms as a vision of the Lord surrounded by his comitatus” (“On Reading Eve,” 48). We can see why Overing might object to my “apocalyptic view of Eve’s vision.” Her view that Eve “comes finally to represent the ‘tacen,’” etc., cannot cope with a momentous and eschtological vision; it cannot stand up even to Cherniss’s “vision of the Lord,” which, though apparently not taken as eschatological, is still a vision of divine majesty. But although Overing obviously accepts what she takes to be Cherniss’s rejection of my apocalyptic view, she does not say whether she accepts his reading of Eve’s vision. Cherniss himself makes no such rejection as Overing says he does. What he says is only that “[t]he heaven which [Eve] sees looks like a Germanic comitatus—the lord is welan bewunden [‘encompassed in weal’] (668), his followers wereda wynsumast [‘most blissful of hosts’] (671).” (Cherniss, Ingeld and Christ, 166). He makes no reference whatsoever to my apocalyptic view, either in rejection or acceptance, nor does he speculate on his own as to what the chieftain might have been doing there. 2.  Milton McC. Gatch, “Eschatology in the anonymous Old English Homilies,” Traditio 21 (1965): 161. 3.  Vickrey, “Vision of Eve in ‘Genesis B,”’ 92–93. The text of Christ III here is that of Albert. S. Cook, The Christ of Cynewulf (Boston: Ginn and Company, 1900): 35; for Cook’s notes to the passage see 180–81. Cook observes that Syne beorg 875, 899 is “properly the Mount of Olives” (178). The definitive study on the “southeast” point is Thomas Hill, “Some Remarks on ‘The Site of Lucifer’s Throne,’” Anglia 87 (1969): 303–11. 4.  For the Corpus MS (MS CCCC 140) version of Matthew 25:31 see “The Gospel According to St. Matthew,” 206 (col. 1) in Skeat, Holy Gospels in Anglo-Saxon, Northumbrian, Old Mercian. 5. Peter Ilkow says of Old Saxon folk that “seine Grundbedeutung is nämlich ‘Kriegerschar’” (‘its basic meaning is, namely, ‘warrior-host’) and notes this sense in Heliand 3695 and in the Heliand compounds folk-togo ‘Herzog’ (‘army-leader’) and eorid-folk ‘Reitergeschwader, Reiterschar’ (‘cavalry squadron, -host’). Elsewhere in the poem werod bears out Doane’s gloss ‘(military) host’ (Ilkow, Die Nominalkomposita der altsächsischen Bibeldichtung, 129–31, 106–07; Doane, Saxon Genesis, 386). 6. Presumably, ærendian here gives Old Saxon ârundian ‘eine Sache, ein Geschäft besorgen, ausrichten’ (Sehrt, Vollständiges Wörterbuch), i.e., ‘attend to a matter, carry

Notes  •  293

out a piece of business.’ Perhaps ‘take care of our problem’ would come a little closer than ‘intercede’ to the Old Saxon sense (attested, however, just once in the Heliand).   7.  For an overview of the understanding of six ages see Augustine, Saint Augustine: the City of God Against the Pagans, Vol V (Books XVI–XVIII, chapters. i–xxxv), ed. Eva Matthews Sanford and William McAllen Green (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1965), ix–xv (The Loeb Classical Library).  8. De Vries, Altgermanische Religionsgeschichte, II, 441. For an English translation of the passage from Gregory see Bede, Ecclesiastical History of the English People (Colgrave and Mynors), 113, 115 (H.E., I, 32).   9.  Magoun’s translation, in “The Praefatio and Versus,” 127. Here is the Latin (p. 113): Coeperat a prima nascentis origine Mundi, quinque relabentis percurrens Tempora Secli, venit ad Adventum Christi, qui sanguine Mundum faucibus eripuit tetri miseratus Averni. 10. Wulfstan, The Homilies of Wulfstan, Dorothy Bethurum, ed. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1957): 278–82 (“The Eschatological Homilies”), surveys belief among the Christian Anglo-Saxons. The “six eschatological homilies” do not include the Sermo Lupi ad Anglos. 11. Bede, De Temporibus Liber, XVI. De Mundi Aetatibus, in Bedae Opera de Temporibus, ed. Charles W. Jones (Cambridge, Mass.: The Mediaeval Academy of America, 1943), 303: ‘(the) sixth, now in its course, by no means certain as to its extent of generations or times, but as an age itself ancient, to be ended in the death of the whole world.’ In the same volume see also De Temporum Ratione, X. De Hebdomada Aetatum Saeculi, 202; and Epistola ad Pleguinam, 307, 308; and Jones’s note to De Temporum Ratione, X, 345. 12.  For occurrences, derivation, and meaning of the word see Ilkow, Nominalkonposita . 318–320. Among the several etymologies put forward Ilkow prefers that of Kögel: “Kögel stellt das Vorderglied zu mu¯- ‘Erde (in ahd. mu¯werf ‘Maulwurf’) und das Grundwort zu dem Verbum as. spildian ‘zerstören, töten.’ “Muspilli” wäre dann ‘der Erdzerstörer.’ Diese Etymologie läßt sich mit der von Braune vorgeschlagenen Alternative der Grundbedeutungen ‘Ende der Welt’ und ‘Weltuntergang durch Feuer’ durchaus vereinbaren” (p. 320): ‘Kögel refers the first element to mu¯- ‘earth’ (in Old High German mu¯-werf ‘mole’) and the determinative to Old Saxon spildian ‘to destroy, kill.’ “Muspilli,” then, would be ‘the earth-destroyer.’ This etymology agrees completely with the choice of original meanings ‘end of the world’ and ‘worlddestruction through fire’ proposed by Braune.’ 13. Taeger, Heliand und Genesis, 156; Murphy, Heliand: the Saxon Genesis, 143. 14.  Eduard Sievers, Heliand (Halle: Verlag der Buchhandlung des Waisenhauses, 1878), 298–99. 15. Wolff, Otfrids Evangelienbuch, 249. 16. Albert Keiser, The Influence of Christianity on the Vocabulary of Old English Poetry, University of Illinois Studies in Language and Literature, nos. 1–2 (Urbana:

294  •  Notes

University of Illinois Press, 1919), 124–25, traces the Old English preference for the plural form heofnum to Latin influence. 17. Ilkow, Nominalkomposita, 178–79 (citation, p. 179): ‘in the Heliand, however, this development has not yet occurred; hean and himil express both concepts without distinction.’ For Old English heofon see Toller, Anglo-Saxon Dictionary: Supplement, s.v. heofon. 18. Doane, Saxon Genesis, 293. 19. Klaeber, Later Genesis, 67: ‘heaven (music?)’; Timmer, Later Genesis, ‘sky, heavens’; Taeger, Heliand und Genesis, 288: ‘Musik.’ Doane, Saxon Genesis, 293, in behalf of taking swegl here as ‘music,’ cites C. L. Wrenn, “Two Anglo-Saxon Harps,” in Studies in Anglo-Saxon Literature in Honor of Arthur G. Brodeur, ed Stanley B. Greenfield (Eugene: University of Oregon Books, 1963), 123–24. Wrenn‘s ‘music’ is anticipated by C. W. M. Grein in Sprachschatz der Angelsächsischen Dichter, ed. J. J. Köhler (Heidelberg, 1912), s.v. swegl ‘symphonia, melodia.’ 20. Sehrt, Vollständiges Wörterbuch, s.v. hôrian, 269; Behaghel, Die Syntax des Heliand, 169: ‘verbs of perception and thought.’ 21. Mitchell, Old English Syntax, II, 458: “hieran, ge-hieran (i) obey [someone] or [something] (dat.); (ii) hear [something] (acc.).” 22. Behaghel, Die Syntax des Heliand, 168. 23.  Or, it may be, the translator retained the Old Saxon genitive phrase as an “Old Saxonism,” which was later partially corrected by a scribe. 24. Pokorny, Indogermanisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch, I, 881; Sehrt, Vollständiges Wörterbuch, s.v. swigli. 25.  Bosworth and Toller, Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, 947: ‘bright as the sun, splendid, brilliant.’ 26.  Fred C. Robinson, “Lexicography and Literary Criticism: A Caveat,” in Philological Essays: Studies in Old and Middle English Language and Literature in Honour of Herbert Dean Meritt, ed. James L. Rosier (The Hague: Mouton, 1970), 106. 27. Cook, Christ of Cynewulf, 171, 179, notes that Christ 881 byman on brehtme renders Clangor tubae “in the alphabetic hymn quoted by Bede in his De Arte Metrica.” 28. Murphy, Heliand: The Saxon Gospel, 174: ‘so that He would become a joke.’ On taking Beowulf 1066 healgamen “to mean not the recounting of the incident but the incident itself” see John F. Vickrey, Beowulf and the Illusion of History (Bethlehem: Lehigh University Press, 2009), 100–03. 29. Cf. Christ 878–88; also Judgment Day I 50–52 ‘before that day of splendour announces with trumpets the burning heat of the fire, the overpowering terror,’ in Shippey, Poems of Wisdom and Learning, 123. See also Deering, Anglosaxon Poets on Judgment Day, 25–26. 30.  Note also that the present tense of Eve’s verbs throughout, mæg geseon, geseo, etc., means that her preview of Judgment is before us even as Adam hears her importuning and beholds his fatal importuner.

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31.  Christopher W. Monk, “The Older Brass Instruments: Cornett, Trombone, Trumpet,” in Musical Instruments Through the Ages, ed. Anthony Baines (Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin Books, 1963), 280; and Nicholas Bessaraboff, Ancient European Musical Instruments (Boston, Museum of Fine Arts, 1941), 135–99 (citation, p. 140). Or see Sybil Marcuse, A Survey of Musical Instruments (Newton Abbot and London: David & Charles, 1975), 744–826. As to loudness as a component of brilliance of timbre, Anthony Baines, European and American Musical Instruments (New York: The Viking Press, 1966), 125, remarks that “[t]he grand acoustic feature of a brass instrument is the fact that for every sound that it is able to produce, the uninterrupted length of the air-column from mouthpiece to bell is in a state of full contributory vibration.” Of medieval trumpets and trumpeters in particular, David Munrow, Instruments of the Middle Ages and Renaissance (London: Oxford University Press, 1976), 19, comments that “[l]ike modern buglers, [medieval trumpeters] must have compensated for any lack of musical variety by the volume and brilliance of their tone.” 32. Otfrid, Otfrids Evangelienbuch, 247; and Wihelm Braune, Althochdeutsches Lesebuch, 14th ed., ed. Ernst A. Ebbinghaus (Tübingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag, 1965), 88. 33. Deering, The Anglosaxon Poets on the Judgment Day, (Halle: Ehrhardt Karras,1890): 4–15 (“The Summons to Judgment”); and Padelford, Old English Musical Terms, 67, s.v. bieme: ‘a trumpet’ I. (‘Used as a signal’) E. (“At the Judgment Day”), cites instances from prose and poetry. For the Old English gospel versions of Matthew 24:31 see Gospel According to St. Matthew, 198–99, in Skeat, Holy Gospels in AngloSaxon, Northumbrian, Old Mercian, . . . Ohlgren, Insular and Anglo-Saxon Illuminated Manuscripts, 361 and 396, lists MS representations of horns and trumpets. 34.  The Old English Riddles 12 and 76 give some idea as to who owned horns and as to their utility. Note especially Riddle 76, lines 1–4: Ic eom æþelinges æht ond willa; ic eom æþelinges eaxlgestealla, fyrdrinces gefara, frean minum leof, cyninges geselda. ‘I am a prince’s property and joy, Sometimes his shoulder-companion, Close comrade in arms, king’s servant, Lord’s treasure.’ For the Old English see Williamson, Old English Riddles of the Exeter Book, 111; for the translation see Willliamson, A Feast of Creatures, 138. See also Padelford, Old English Musical Terms, 54–56. 35. Padelford, Old English Musical Terms, 67; see also 55. 36.  Translation in Murphy, The Heliand: The Saxon Gospel, 197. 37.  CI, 610. The translation is mine. 38. Doane, Saxon Genesis, 113.

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39. Krapp, Junius Manuscript, xli. In his text, however, he gives oðþæt. 40. Sehrt, Vollständiges Wörterbuch, s.v. ant-that, unt-that. 41. “[D]ie Handlung des oþ þæt-Satzes trägt eine neue Vorstellung in die Erzählung hinein, so daß der Temporalsatz psychologisch als Hauptsatz anzusehen ist.” So Mitchell, Old English Syntax, II, par. 2754; he is citing Möllmer, Konjunktionen und Modus, 89. See further Mitchell, “Old English ‘Oð þæt’” Notes and Queries 223 (1978): 390–94. 42.  Hill, “Fall of the Angels and Man,” 284. 43.  Even the usage syntactically of heorte here might have served to give rhetorical emphasis. Michael Phillips notes that apart from the Paris Psalter the word heorte occurs but rarely as subject in Anglo-Saxon poetry. See Phillips, “Heart, Mind, and Soul in Old English,” 137. Sehrt, Vollständiges Wörterbuch, s.v. herta 2) gives Herz, als Sitz der Seele, des Verstandes; Gemüt. 44. Doane, Saxon Genesis, 390, enters þe as conjunction ‘because’ together with þe as indeclinable relative particle. Mitchell, Old English Syntax, II, par. 3133, thinks that þy and þe ‘because’ “are both spellings for the neuter intrumental of se used as a causal conjunction.” 45. Sehrt, Vollständiges Wörterbuch, s.v. the, thiu, that: “1) absolute; a) auf ein Nomen oder den Inhalt des vorangehenden Satzes zurückweisend.” 46.  See Mitchell, Old English Syntax, II, par. 2884. On the problems in distinguishing “clause of result” from “clause of purpose” see Old English Syntax, II, pars. 2802–05. 47. Mitchell, Old English Syntax, II, par. 3959. 48. Mitchell, Old English Syntax, II, par. 3971. 49. Where sulik as disapprobative finds, of course, mighty assistance in egeslîc and morð and afhebbien. 50.  For syllepsis see Bede, “Bede’s ‘De Schematibus et Tropis,”; ed. Halm, 608–09; or Tanenhaus, “Bede’s ‘De Schematibus et Tropis’—A Translation,” QJS 47 (1962): 241. 51.  Vickrey, “Adam, Eve, and the ‘Tacen’ in ‘Genesis B,”’ 8–9. 52. Only uuamlosa uueros 215 shows a positive sense. 53.  Phillips, “Heart, Mind, and Soul in Old English,” 148, 149, 163. 54.  Robinson, “Eve’s ‘Weaker’ Mind in Genesis B, Line 590,” 125. 55. Doane, Saxon Genesis, 112. His reference is to Hill, “Fall of the Angels and Man,” 290. 56. Wallace-Hadrill, Frankish Church, 403–06 (citations, 404, 405). On p. 233 Wallace-Hadrill says of Agobard, archbishop of Lyon, that “his bugbear was the empress Judith [the second wife of Louis the Pious], and to him as much as to anyone else was due the widespread belief that she was the Scarlet Woman who had brought dissension among Christians.” 57. Doane, Saxon Genesis, 113.

Notes  •  297

Chapter IX   1.  My translation of grædige and gifre is a bit free. Doane correctly gives ‘greedy’ for both adjectives. But the Old Saxon Genesis here (line 3) has ginon gradaga ‘(to) yawn, greedy’ (gradaga ‘gefräßig; voracious’).  2. Auerbach, Mimesis, 130.  3. Jager, “Invoking/Revoking God’s Word,” 311, 315–16, 317 (twice), 318, 318–19, 319  4. Doane’s translation, Saxon Genesis, 297.   5.  Renoir, “Self-Deception of Temptation,” 63.  6. The Tempter’s hringa gesponne and the narrator’s gesæled echo Satan himself: me habbað hringa gespong, / sliðhearda sal, siðes amyrred 377–78.   7.  Renoir, “Self-Deception of Temptation,” 48.  8. Augustine, De catechizandis rudibus, 18.30, 46, 154: si peccata confessus ad recte uiuendum redierit, laudabilem inuenit per misericordiam indulgentiarum; and St Augustine: The First Catechetical Instruction, 59. At this point in the chapter Augustine has moved from considering Adam and Eve in particular to Christian persons in general, but there is no reason why his rationale should not apply to Adam.  9. Doane, Saxon Genesis, 104 and note 16. 10. Doane, Saxon Genesis, 149. 11.  Vickrey, ‘“Genesis B’: A New Analysis and Edition,” 250–59. 12. Doane, Saxon Genesis, 105 and note 17. 13. In Heliand 761, 2189, 3633, 4581, and 4619 wurd means, in effect, ‘death’; in Heliand 4778 and 5394 it is, respectively, ‘the executive force of God’ and ‘the will of God’ (Murphy, Heliand: The Saxon Gospel, 157 and 178, notes) which mandate the death of Christ. 14.  Hall, ‘“Geongordom’ and ‘Hyldo’ in ‘Genesis B,”’ 305. It seems possible that the boda’s gesture here has a moral implication. See Cherewatuk, “Standing, Turning, Twisting, Falling,” 537–44. 15.  Levin L. Schücking, “Heldenstolz und Würde,” Abhandlungen der Sächsischen Akademie der Wissenschaften. Philologisch-Historische Klasse, XLII, Nr. 5 (1933), p. 10: ‘Epic very often depicts a shout of triumph after success . . . (never, to be sure, so clearly) . . . a triumphant laugh of the devil, visibly accompanied by mimicry.’ 16.  Ericksen, “Legalizing the Fall of Man,” 205. 17. Doane, Saxon Genesis, 101–02. 18. Doane, Saxon Genesis, 139. 19. Doane, Saxon Genesis, 106. 20. Doane, Saxon Genesis, 106–07. But in the note to gegenge 743 in my dissertation I noted what I took to be “the poet’s acceptance of free will” (‘“Genesis B’: A New Analysis and Edition,” p. 259). Nor do I find that Woolf, at least in “Fall of Man” endorses a Gottschalkian position. 21. Doane, Saxon Genesis, 284–85; Evans, ‘“Genesis B’ and Its Background,” Part II, p. 121. Cf. Evans, Paradise Lost and the Genesis Tradition, 160: “Adam’s request for a ‘tacen,’” also 161: “the ‘tacen’ which [Adam] had demanded.”

298  •  Notes

22. Doane, Saxon Genesis, 105. 23.  Cf. Wallace-Hadrill, Frankish Church, 365: More than many, Hincmar had reason to appreciate the significance of the mid- c e n tury’s political collapse: what was it but moral collapse? The only hope lay in the reestablishment of order and discipline in society; and it was up to the bishops to protect their flocks from public discussions of deep issues that they could not understand. His clergy must cast forth Gottschalk’s writings, if they had them; and not only clergy but monks, who were perhaps more liable than clergy to harbour heterodox views and discuss them. As Hincmar saw him, Gottschalk was a-social, the enemy of social responsibility.

24.  My estimate is thus somewhat fewer than Doane’s “about 250 verses” in Saxon Genesis, 31. 25.  Magoun’s translation, in “‘Praefatio’ and ‘Versus,’” 123–24. Here is the Latin: Cum plurimas rei publicae utilitates Ludouuicus Piissimus augustus summo atque praeclaro ingenio prudenter statuere atque ordinare contendat, maxime tamen quod ad sacrosanctam religionem aeternamque animarum salubritatem attinet, studiosus ac devotus esse comprobatur, hoc quotidie solicite tractans, ut populum sibi a Deo subiectum sapienter instruendo ad potiora atque excellentiora semper accendat et nociva quaeque atque superstitiosa comprimendo compescat (p. 110).

26.  Magoun’s translation, in “‘Praefatio’ and ‘Versus,’” 124. The Latin: quatenus non solum literatis, verum etiam illiteratis, sacra divinorum praeceptorum lectio panderetur (pp. 110–11).

27. Both the Capitulatio and the relevant passage in Alcuin’s letter to Arn of Salzburg are translated in Stewart C. Easton and Helene Wieruszowski, The Era of Charlemagne (Princeton: Van Nostrand, 1961), 117–22. 28. Doane, Saxon Genesis, 52–53; Raw, “Probable derivation.” 148. 29.  Enright, “Charles the Bald and Aethelwulf,” passim. 30. Doane, Saxon Genesis, 107. 31. Wallace-Hadrill, Frankish Church, 231. 32.  Watkins, “Aspects of Indo-European Poetics,” 106. 33. Wallace-Hadrill, Frankish Church, 385, regards the inclusion of the Heliand in this (possible) gift as “the demonstration of the flow-back of teaching in literary vernacular from the continent to England.”

Chapter X 1.  Vickrey, “On Genesis 623–5,” 101. I included lines 595–98 as part of one such passage, but as Chapter VI above will show, my perception of the micel wundor clauses has changed a good deal.

Notes  •  299

 2. Allen J. Frantzen, The Literature of Penance in Anglo-Saxon England (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1983), 10. That at the end of Genesis B Adam and Eve will to undergo penance is also pointed out by P. S. Langeslag, “Doctrine and Paradigm: Two Functions of the Innovations in Genesis B,” Studia Neophilologica 79 (2007): 113–18. In his as well as Doane’s observations I have nothing to amend, but there is a good deal to add.   3.  Satan employs the predicate andan gebetan ‘(to) satisfy our vengeance’ 399 and, as we have seen, his boda the predicate betan heora hearran hearmcwyde ‘(to) amend malicious speech toward their lord’ 625 (Doane’s translations, in The Saxon Genesis, 363).  4. Frantzen, Literature of Penance in Anglo-Saxon England, 183.  5. Frantzen, Literature of Penance, 183, 176 (twice). Probably because his study is concerned with organized penitence, whether public or private, Frantzen does not mention Genesis B among the poems cited in the chapter “Penance as Theme and Image in Old English Poetry.” Also his study, published in 1983, antedates Doane’s edition, with its perception of the poem’s tropological dimension, through which Adam and Eve are not only the persons of Genesis 3 but in effect Christian persons, persons of the sixth age, as well, and for whom therefore, in their sinfulness, penance is necessary for salvation.  6. Wallace-Hadrill, Frankish Church, 283–84.  7. Augustine, De catechizandis rudibus, 18.30, 155; and St. Augustine: The First Catechetical Instruction, 59. A homily of Abbo of St. Germaine on the reconciliation of penitents explains what Adam did after his expulsion from Paradise: Certe longam penitentiam fecit per sexcentos annos et eo amplius. See Wulfstan, Homilies, ed. D. Bethurum, 369. This homily, Sermo in Cena Domini ad Penitentes, was the source for Wulfstan’s Homily XV, Sermo de Cena Domini. Bethurum gives Abbo’s Latin together with an AngloSaxon translation (not by Wulfstan) as Appendix I (366–73). For the sentence quoted from Abbo the translation gives gewislice he dide swyðe lange dædbote geond syx hundred geara fæc 7 þonne gyt mare (p. 368).  8. See Vickrey, “Some Hypotheses Concerning ‘The Seafarer,’ Lines 1–47,” 57–77.  9. Frantzen, Literature of Penance, 181. 10. Doane, Saxon Genesis, 300. 11.  Wilhelm Levison, England and the Continent in the Eighth Century (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1946), 36. 12.  For the prose lives, the one anonymous, the other of Bede, see Bertram Colgrave, ed. and trans., Two Lives of Saint Cuthbert (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1940), 78–83 and 188–91; for Bede’s metrical life see Bede, Vita Metrica Sanctii Cuthberti, PL 94, cols. 580–81. For Ælfric see his Homilies of the Anglo-Saxon Church, II, 138. 13.  Text and translation in Bede, Ecclesiatical History of the English People, v. 12, 496, 497.

300  •  Notes

14.  Dom Louis Gougaud, Devotional and Ascetic Practices in the Middle Ages, English ed. by G. C. Bateman (London: Burns Oates & Washbourne, 1927), 163. See the whole chapter, pp. 159–78, for other instances of ascetic immersion. 15.  My own translation; it is very close to Doane’s, in Saxon Genesis, 301. 16. Mitchell, Old English Syntax, II, pars. 3468–70. 17. Tanenhaus, “Bede’s ‘De Schematibus et Tropis’—A Translation,” QJS 47 (1962): 248. 18. Cf. Heliand 2638–39 an grund faren / hellie fiures, also 2601, 5429. Doane, Saxon Genesis, 301, amplifies grund ‘bottom’ 834 thus: “of the sea, with connotation of ‘abyss,’ ‘Hell?’” 19. A. H. Smith, ed., The Parker Chronicle (832–900) (New York: AppletonCentury-Crofts, 1966): 40. Dorothy Whitelock, ed. and trans., The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, 2nd ed. (London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1965), 53. 20. Is gewisade 850 subjunctive or indicative? Doane, Saxon Genesis, takes it, without comment, as preterite indicative (p. 395), a reading which would point to a translation of lines 850–51 as ‘and the good Chieftain instructed them how henceforth they ought to live in the light.’ My own sense is that gewisade is subjunctive (‘would instruct’), parallel to the obviously subjunctive forgeate 849. If waldend se goda did actually proceed to instruct them to live in the light of Christ I would think that the poet would have given more than two lines to the fact. 21.  Roberta Frank, “Some Uses of Paronomasia in Old English Scriptural Verse,” Speculum 47 (1972): 207–26 (citation, p. 225); reprinted in The Poems of MS Junius 11: Basic Readings, ed. Liuzza, 69–98 (citation, p. 86). The emphasis in the Old English passage is Frank’s. 22.  I concur here with Evans, ‘“Genesis B’ and Its Background,” 15. 23. Timmer, Later Genesis, 59–60. 24. Doane, Saxon Genesis, 56. 25. Timmer, Later Genesis, 60 and 111. Timmer’s iteration, 59 and 60, that the translator was “a congenial spirit” is also broadly true, as I have been trying to show, of the Old Saxon poet. 26. Green, Carolingian Lord, 106–07 and 109. 27.  Hill, “Fall of the Angels and Man,” explores the contrast between the falls throughout his study. 28. These passages are conveniently assembled in Evans, ‘“Genesis B’ and Its Background,” 113–14. 29. Sehrt, Vollständiges Wörterbuch, 461. 30. For word onwended Doane, Saxon Genesis, 384, gives ‘(the) disregarded command,’ which could be altered a little to ‘(the) command (to have been) disregarded.’ But ‘disregarded’ seems altogether too mild in the company of abrocen 783 and especially Adam’s own and emphatic forbræcon 798, the prefix for- of which “usually intensifies (especially in a destructive sense)” the action of the main element; so Quirk and Wrenn, An Old English Grammar, 110. In Heliand 1882 the M codex has auuardien but the C codex has auuendan; for its clause; Murphy, Heliand: The Saxon

Notes  •  301

Gospel, 64, gives ‘that human beings are not able to twist the thoughts of your heart or your will.’ The context of auuardien / auuendan here is distinctly reminiscent of the course of the second and third temptations in Genesis B. For a-wardian, a-werdian (and hence, presumably, a-wendan) Sehrt, Vollständiges Wörterbuch, 642, gives ‘verderben, zerstören,’ i.e., ‘destroy.’ 31. Evans, Paradise Lost and the Genesis Tradition, 60. 32.  Renoir, “Eve’s I.Q. Rating,”265–69. 33. Wallace-Hadrill, Frankish Church, 144. 34.  See Doane, Saxon Genesis, 152, 302. 35.  Bede’s allegorization is given in Sievers, Heliand, 246–47 (or see Bede, In Lucæ Evangelium Expositio, V, xviii; in PL 92:558). 36.  Translation in Murphy, Heliand: The Saxon Gospel, 119. 37. Sehrt, Vollständiges Wörterbuch, 342–43. Sehrt notes also an adverbial genitive liohtes ‘hell, glänzend.’ 38. Ilkow, Nominalkomposita, 261: ‘signifies, above all, “brightness, radiance” generally, then “sun(light)” or daylight in contrast to “shadow” or to “night, darkness”’ So too, I suspect, for Genesis 310–12 forþon he heo on wyrse leoht . . . sette sigelease ‘therefore [God] set [the rebel angels] victory-less in a worse leoht.’ I had read ‘world’ here in my dissertation. And following Alan S. C. Ross, “OE. ‘Leoht’ ‘World,’” N&Q n.s., 22 (1975): 196, Doane, Saxon Genesis, 264, reads ‘world’ for leoht. But it seems fairly clear that this leoht is worse morally as well as physically. Note also Toller, Anglo-Saxon Dictionary: Supplement, s.v. leoht ‘a light’ VII and VIIa. 39.  Hill, “Fall of Angels and Man” 290. Hill does say in the same paragraph that the poem “was in no sense heterodox”—a view I am questioning in regard to the poem’s last lines. 40. Whitman, Allegory, 5–6. 41.  Raw, “Oxford, Bodleian Library, Junius 11,” esp. pp. 195–96. 42.  On the ending of Genesis A see esp. Doane, Genesis A, 324–25. 43.  On the Afrisc meowle as the wife of Moses see Fred C. Robinson, “Notes on the Old English ‘Exodus,”’ Anglia 80 (1962): 373–78. On the ending of Exodus and on the figural implications of Afrisc meowle and gold and godweb, Iosepes gestreon see, respectively, Vickrey, ‘“Exodus’ and the Treasure of Pharaoh,” and Vickrey, ‘“Exodus’ and the Robe of Joseph,” SP 86 (1989): 1–17. 44.  I am taking wera in wera wuldorgesteald as objective genitive. The entire passage gold . . . wuldorgesteald 588–89a illustrates Robinson’s observation that in one type of variation in Old English poetry “a referent is designated at least once in literal terms and once by a figurative expression which might be mystifying were it not for the clarification provided by the second, unmetaphorical element.” See Fred C. Robinson, “Two Aspects of Variation in Old English Poetry,” in Daniel G. Calder, ed., Old English Poetry: Essays on Style (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1979), 130. One should avoid trying to find secular meaning in wuldor-. I have noted that “[t] he element wuldor(-), the most common of the terms for glory in Old English poetry,

302  •  Notes

is also . . . the most transcendent, being the only one that is reserved, or largely reserved, for divine or spiritual signification.” See Vickrey, Beowulf and the Illusion of History, 111. 45. For werigend ‘wearers’/’defenders’ see Bosworth, Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, s.v. werian ‘to clothe, to wear,’ etc.; and werian ‘to hinder, defend,’ etc. 46.  Unless, of course—is it too wild a surmise?—the author of Exodus was, say, Bede himself. 47.  Magoun, “‘Praefatio’ and ‘Versus,’” 127. The Latin: qui sanguine Mundum / faucibus eripuit tetri miseratus Averni. 48.  Magoun’s translations, in “‘Praefatio’ and ‘Versus,’” 124 and 125. The bracketed text is Magoun’s.

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Index

Adam and Eve, 2, 3, 248; descendants (see posterity); disobedience: error of judgment, 99; members of the Body of Christ, 23, 252; post-Fall actions, 240–45. See also Adam; Eve; exonerative interpretations; Fall; illustrations; Temptation Adam, 53, 61–73, 85; faith, 115, 243; fall, 218–19; God, seeing of, 52; as God’s, Christ’s, comitatus, 30; morale, 116, 253; as post-redemptive person, 211, 242; speech (first of three), 52, 271n3; speech (third of three), 240– 41; “Wisdom” in Genesis B, 57. See also ratio; temptation (first, third); illustrations Ælfric, 45, 186, 240, 289n27, 290n45, 299nn12–13 Alcuin, 42, 188–189, 232, 291n51, 298n27 allegorical narrative, 46, 75–81 allegory, 43–49, 75–81; and fallen angels, 226–27; and free will, 226–72 Allen, Judson, 101, 277n51  Ambrose, 84

Andreas poet, 186, 137–40 Angelomus, 269n44 angels, 134 angels, fallen, 10 Anglo-Saxons, 19, 32, 118, 168, 196, 204, 237, 240, 262 anomalousness of Genesis B, 1, 22, 23, 27 anon., 291n54 atonement, 18, 131, 254 audience (Anglo-Saxon and Old Saxon), 167, 190, 220, 257; noble, high-placed, 168 Auerbach, Erich, 41, 219, 269n37, 269n38 Augustine, St., 17, 28, 44, 53, 58–59, 61, 79, 84, 93, 96, 102, 127, 199, 205, 224, 238, 251, 269n44, 272n21, 277n44, 281n49, 291n60, 293n7, 297n8, 299n7 Augustine’s doctrine on ‘verba fidei,’ 53; practiced by Adam, 53 Augustinianism, 9, 17 Aulén, Gustaf, 111–112, 279n15 authoritarianism, 55–56, 64–69

315

316  •  Index

Baetke, W., 273n32 Baines, Anthony, 295n31 Bastgen, Hubert, 289n35 Bateman, G. C., 300n14 Bede [?], 43 Bede, 26, 36, 44–45, 67–68, 69, 151, 199, 240, 255, 257, 259, 271n10, 274n51, 286n36, 293n8, 296n50, 299n12, 300n17, 300n30, 301n35 Behaghel, Otto, 142, 202, 278n3, 284n12, 289n22, 293n11, 294n22 Benskin, Michael, 279n18 Bergema, Hendrik, 291n49 Berkhout, Carl T., 272n29 Bessaraboff, Nicholas, 204, 295n31 Bethurum, Dorothy, 293n10, 299n7 Bevington, David 165, 263 (Introducory Note), 268n36, 269n38, 288n71 Blickling Homilies poet, 18, Devil deprived of his possession, 18 Blickling Homily Dominica Tertia in Quadragesima 187 Blickling Homily S. Andreas 186 Bloomfield, Morton W., 130 the boda: appearance, 77–90; character, 124, 136; and Eve’s vision, 205; and free will, 226–27; as “God’s Ersatzmed¯om-gib¯o,” 63–64; as Satan’s alter ego , 105; life in Heaven, 134; mendacity of, 53, 109, 130; post-Fall reaction, 18, 27, 217, 222, 226–27, 244; Tempter’s vaunt, 16, 218–21, 225–27. see also gnome, pseudo; suggestio; temptation (first, second, third) Body of Christ, 23, 252 Bosworth, Joseph, 203, 276n30, 279n27, 282n59, 282n61, 294n25, 302n45 Bouterwek, K. W., 142, 284n10 Braasch, Theodor, 275n11, 284n13, 284n18 Brandl, Alois, 289n34

Braune, Wihelm, 295n32 Brown, Peter 66–67 Bruckner, 39, 43, 98, Budney, Mildred, 280,n34 Burchmore, Susan, 1, 47, 79, 83–84, 87, 94–95, 123, 133, 206, 274n3, 275n17 Cædmon, 26 Cain, Christopher M., 11, 16, 27, 32 Calder, Daniel G., 5, 6, 7, 21, 289n31, 301n44 Carolingian German language. See Old Saxon Catholic Encyclopedia, 290n39 Cavill, Paul, 140, 283n7 Chace, William M., 20 Chadwick, H. Munro, 107, 278n4 Chance, Jane, 118–122, 280n29 Chaney, William A., 155, 286n51 Cherewatuk, Karen, 281n44, 297n14 Cherniss, Michael, 140, 165, 281n49, 291n1 chiasmus (ring-composition), 108–109 Christ: as militaty chief, 151; as leader of comitatus, 30; in Genesis B, 163, 165, 252, 257. See also illustrations, psalter Christian beliefs (“common knowledge”), 168 Christian orthodoxy, 32, 151, 156–57 Chrysostom, John, St., 184–85 church and state, relationship of, 16, 152–53, 155, 167 Claudius of Turin, 43 Clubb, Merrel Dare, 287n58 Colgrave, Bertram, 286n36, 291n48, 293n8, 299n12 Colson, F. H., 269n46 comedic imperative, 2, 25, 26, 33–34, 60, 114, 137, 141, 147, 193 comedic poems. See poems, orthodox Christian

Index  •  317

the comedic, 25–34, 258; in ninth century religious poetry, 25–27; in Genesis B (see comedic imperative); as absent from Genesis B, 26–27 comitatus, 3–4, 15; gift-giving, 62–64; initiation, 63; and martiality, 64; reciprocal and unilateral obligations (chief:thane), 30–31; spirit of, 4 Cook, Albert S., 197, 292n3, 294n27 Cordes, Gerhard, 278n4, 284n19 Corpus MS 197–98 counter-theme (comedic), 33, 40, 153, 206, 219–222 Crawford, S. J., 266n37, 289n27, 291n57 Creed, Robert P., 265n29 Cross, J. E., 46 Cross, sign of the. See signum crucis cultural anomalousness, 4, 9 culturally aware interpretation, 1, 135, 167 culture: Carolingian and Frankish culture, 22, 167–68; Saxon social castes, 67; Saxon culture, 237 Cuthbert, St. 240 Cuttler, Charles, 116 Cynewulf, 18–19, 184, 290n38, 291n3, 294n27 Cyril of Jerusalem, 185, 189

disciples of Christ: as God’s, Christ’s comitatus, 30 disobedience, 10, 53–54, 70, 215. See also obedience Doane, A. N., 1, 3, 17, 28–29 30, 36–40, 45, 85, 88, 89, 91–92, 94, 102, 105–106, 109, 110, 112, 131–132, 137, 140, 145–46, 156, 165, 172, 181, 190, 201–202, 206, 209, 215, 218, 225, 227–29, 230–32, 239, 245, 254, 257, 260, 263 (Introducory Note), 264n8, 265n22, 270nn1–2, 271nn8–9, 273n34, 274n53, 275n9, 275n11, 275n16, 276n73, 276n29, 277n48, 277n51, 279nn11–12, 280n40, 281n47, 283n6, 291n59, 292n5, 294n19, 296n44, 296n55, 297n1, 297nn17–21, 298n2, 298n24, 298n28, 299nn2–3, 300n18, 300n20, 300n30, 301n38 Dobbie, Elliott Van Kirk, 263 (Introducory Note) Dölger, Franz Joseph, 183–84, 290n37 Doomsday. See Judgment Day dual identity. See under tropology dual predestination, 17 Duckett, Eleanor Shipley, 265n30

“Dame Philology,” 22 Damico, Helen, 270n56 damnation, 9, 213, 255 De Vries, Jan, 148, 150, 151, 157, 162, 199, 285n27, 285n35, 286n38, 286n55, 287n63, 293n8 Deanesly, Margaret, 285n23, Deering, Waller, 204, 294n29, 295n33 delectatio, 56 Denomy, Alex. J., C. S. B., 273n44 Deskis, Susan, 131, 282n55, 283n69 the Devil (Satan). See Satan. devils, 10; protection against (see signum crucis)

Ebbinghaus, Ernst A., 295n32 Eden, loss of, 240 Ehrismann, Gustav, 139, 165, 283n2 Eisenhofer, Ludwig, 184, 290n39 Enright, Michael J., 62, 121, 154, 232, 272n29, 280n32 “epic of redemption,” 27–28, 261 Ericksen, Janet Schrunk, 1, 181, 226, 275n10, 289n34, 297n16 Eriugena, Joannes Scottus, 84 Evans, J. M, 2, 6–10, 12, 19, 21, 27, 32, 40, 78, 97, 99, 143, 145, 229, 250, 277n46, 279n18, 289n31, 297n22, 300n28

318  •  Index

Eve: appearance, 54, 93; as blameless (see exonerative interpretations); effect on, of boda, 112–13; guilt mitigated by poet, 136; intelligence of, 13, 113, 114, 121; remorse, 236; morale, 123, 126; speech (l. 654– 83), 100; vision (see vision, Eve’s). See also sensus; temptation (second, third); illustrations exile. See peregrinatio Exodus, 19 exonerative interpretations, 4–12, 19, 40, 96–97, 175, 177, 180, 193 exonerative school, 2–5 faith, 53, 115, fall of the angels, 3, 60, 156 the Fall, 60, 81–91, 238–39, 250–51 Farrell Robert T., 285n32 Felix, 187, 291n48 feminist interpretations, 12–13. See also exonerative interpretations free will, 17, 218, 223–25, 227–29, 258 Finnegan, R. E., 1, 280n28 Fischoff, Ephraim, 285n29 Frank, Roberta, 243, 300n21, Frantzen, Allen J., 237–8, 265n26, 298n2, 299nn4–5 Frese, Dolores Warwick, 269n43 the fruit, 86, 219 Fulk, R. D., 11, 16, 27, 32 Gardner, John, 271n7 Gatch, Milton McC., 196–97, 199, 292n2 Genesis (poem in MS Junius 11, consisting of Genesis A and Genesis B). See Genesis A; Genesis B; Junius 11 Genesis 3 (Biblical Book of Genesis, chapter 3, the account of the Fall), 16, 27, 34, 39, 44, 65, 124

Genesis A (ll. 1–234 and 852–2935 of MS Junius 11), 4, 13, 16, 22 Genesis B (ll. 235–851 of MS Junius 11): history, 1, 4, 15, 20, 29 , 85, 262; lacuna at line 441, 246; Old English translation of the Old Saxon Genesis, 1, 6, 167 Genesis, The (Old Saxon) Vatican (the 26 extant lines of the Old Saxon Genesis), 1 Genesis, The Old Saxon (translation into Old English known as Genesis B), 11, 17, 73, 85 Glosecki, Stephen, 62, 273n30 gnome, pseudo (the boda’s), 126, 130, 132–36 gnomes and proverbs, 130 God, 12; benevolence, 28, 72, 161; fearsomeness, 129; inscrutability, 12, 17; as chieftain of comitatus; mercy, 258; as more powerful than pagan gods, 149–51; speed of movement, 107; vengefulness, 5; as warlord, 159–160; Godden, Malcolm, 8, 10–11, 16, 27, 32 Goldberg, Eric J., 67–68, 148 Gordon, R. K., 91, 143, 145, 146, 275n11, 276n32, 284n16, 288n17 Gottschalk (Saxon monk), 17, 32, 218–25, 227–29, 232 Gottschalkian theology, 17, 218, 223– 25, 227–29, 254; Genesis B poet’s view, 224 Gougaud, Dom Louis, 300n14 Gradon, P. O. E., 290n38 Green, D. H. 29, 30, 59, 65–66, 68–71, 154–55, 169, 183, 245–46, 274n53 Green, Willian McAllen, 293n7 Greenfield, Stanley B., 5, 6, 7, 21, 27, 175, 270n51, 289n31, 294n19 Gregory of Tours, 151 Gregory the Great, 18, 47, 199, 43, 44–45

Index  •  319

Grein, C. W. M., 294n19 Grimm, Jacob, 125 Gwara, Scott, 38 Hall, J. R., 1, 2, 27–28, 31, 259, 261, 288n9, 288n16, 297n14 Halm, Carolus, 268n25, 271n10, 274n51, 296n50 Hebert, A. G., 279n15 Heliand poet, 153, 158, 161, 199, 200 Hell, 10, 72, 219, 237; Harrowing of, 111, 162 Hentschel, Erhard, 35–36, 140, 165, 268n23, 283n32, 289n31 Heusler, Andreas, 107–108, 278nn7–9 hierarchy (German society), 149 Hill, Thomas, 1, 42, 208, 246, 257, 269n43, 288n10, 292n3, 296n55, 300n27, 301n39 Hincmar, 17, 218, 224, 229 Holmes, Urban T., Jr., 273n44 Holthausen, Ferdinand, 170, 278n4, 284n19, 288n8, 289n23, 289n25 Hrabanus, 3,17, 43, 189, 218, 224–25, 229, 290n41 humankind; and Hell, 220–23, 237; as “glory possession of men,” 262 hyldo, 30–31, 59, 72, 130, 237 Ilkow, Peter, 201, 256, 283n67, 292n5, 293n12, 294n17, 301n38 illustrations (reproductions of). See between pp. 73 and 75 illustrations (text about), 59–60, 81–91, 125 illustrations, psalter, 37, 151, 154–55, 172 imperative. See comedic imperative Incarnation, 145, 161–62, at beginning of the sixth (last) age, 199 indirect discourse, 105–111, 124 irony, 33–35, 126, 133, 204, 220 Isidor, 43

Jager, Eric, 1, 42, 53, 135, 220, 268n22, 271n4 James R. Mueller, 266n34 Jerome, 197 John, St, 188 Jonas of Orleans, 185, 290n42 Jones, Charles. W., 290n47, 293n11 Judgment Day, 190, 195–206, 215, 237 Junius 11 MS, 1, 27–28, 73, 101; as “epic of redemption,” 27–28, 261; marginialia (prayer), 129; See also poems, Old English, in Junius 11 MS; Keegan, John, 115 Keiser, Albert, 293n16 Keller, Wolfgang, 289n34 Kennedy, Charles W., 5, 6, 78, 140, 142, 165 Klaeber, Fr., 275n11, 285n23, 287n60, 294n19 Klinck, Anne L., 98 Kögel, 293n12 Krapp, George Philip, 207, 263 (Introducory Note), 284n22, 287n70, 296n39 Langeslag, P. S., 299n2 Lechner, Joseph, 184, 290n39 Leo the Great, 18 leoht, 255 “light of Christ,” 255–56 Lerer, Seth, 21 Leslie, R. F., 62, Levison, Wilhelm, 240, 299n11 Lewis, C. S., 56, 116 literary-critical anomalousness, 1 literary-critical interpretations, 1, 3 Louis the Pious (814–40) or his son Louis the German, 67 loyalty, 242 Luke, St. 255

320  •  Index

Mack, Maynard, 34 Magoun, Francis P., Jr, 68, 273n44, 288n2, 293n9, 298nn25–26, 302n47–48 Malone, Kemp, 3–4 Marcus, R., 269n46 Marcuse, Sybil, 295n31 martiality, 59–61, 64, 252, in Genesis B, 147–152; in Carolingian Christianity, 166, 250. See also comitatus Matthew, St., 198, 203, 204 micel wundor passage, 22, 40, 106, 139–148, 152–168, 178, 221, 251, 253–54; as comedic, 147 military discipline, 59. See also morale Miller,Thomas, 269n48 Milton, 114 Mintz, Susanah B.,13, 15, 91–93, 94, 97, 113–114, 118, 133 missio (Christian missionary efforts), 20, 67–68, 147–50 Mitchell, Bruce, 55, 142, 164, 167, 174, 207–208, 210, 266n42, 271n5, 278nn3–4, 287n64, 288n1, 288n21, 294n21, 296n41, 296nn46–48 Möllmer, H., 208, 296n41 Monk of Whitby 187, 191, 291n47, 291n56 Monk, Christopher, 204, 295n31 morale, 48; of Adam, 116, 253; of Eve, 123, 126 Morris, R., 266n37, 290n44, 290n46 Morris, William, 281n50 MS Junius 11. See Junius 11 Mueller, James R., 266n34, 282n65 Munrow, David, 295n31 Murdoch, Brian, 279n18 Murphy, G. Ronald, 153, 161, 277n37, 285n23, 286n44, 286n57, 287nn59– 61, 293n13, 294n28, 297n13, 300n30, 301n36 Mynors, R. A. B., 286n36, 293n8

Mystère d’Adam (Anglo-Norman drama), 57; references to Christ in Old Testament sections, 165 nergend user, vii, 51–52, 169–75, 182, 189, 221–22, 224, 235, 238 Nicholson, Lewis E., 269n43 Nicodemus, Old English Gospel of, 18 Noel, William, 268n27 O’Keefe, Katherine O’Brien, 32 obedience, 53–55, 57, 84, 230–33, 242, 259; a counter to Saxon unrest, 67– 69; asssociated with humility, 53; in Heliand, 69; and military discipline, 59; in Praefatio, 68–69; as a secular as well as a religious necessity, 68; a theme of Genesis B, 73. See also disobedience Old English passages and translations (all Genesis B): (by line numbers) 364–72 sorga mæst, 37–38; 446–49 wand him up þanon, 124–25; 453–60 twegin beamas, 75; 522–546 nergend user, 51–52; 538–42 ænig tacen, 191; 549–51 sceaðena mæst, 105, trans. 106; 564–67 selfes stol, 205; 583–86 engla gebyrdo, 134; 588–90 wyrmes geþeaht, 86; 595–98 micel wundor, 139, trans. 146; 623–25 hire eaforan, 126; 649–52 læstan his lare, 96; 659–66 his hyldo is unc betere, 198; 666–71 mid feðerhaman, 196; 704–706 idesa sceonost, 70; 708 and 713, 103; 717–19 ofetes noman, 239; 728–32 men synt forlædde, 235–36; 751–54 hate hweorfan, 248; 760–62 on þære sweartan helle, 222; 795–99 word forbræcon, 239; 828–35 ic to þam grunde genge, 240–41; 847–51 leohte forð libban sceolden, 243–44 Old High German passages and translations (all Evangelienbuch) V, i,

Index  •  321

11, 188; V, ii, 1–2, 186; V, ii, 9–12, 186; V, xx, 5–7, 200 Old Saxon Genesis. See Genesis, The Old Saxon Old Saxon passages and translations: Old Saxon Genesis 168–175, 72; Heliand 1035–43, 158; 3598–3600, 256; 3661–67, 255; 4378–83, 199– 200; 5710–13, 188 (Old Saxon) Vatican Genesis see Genesis, The (Old Saxon) Vatican Ohlgren, Thomas H., 275n15, 295n33 Old English literature, study of, 1, 14, 19–22 Olsen, Alexandra Hennessey, 270n56 Oman, W. C., 286n45Helliand (Old Saxon poem), 22, 26, 42; references to Christ in Old Testament sections, 9 Origen, 189, 290n41 Original Sin, 18, 109, 251 orthodox Christian interpretations, 1–2 orthodox Christian poems. See poems, orthodox Christian orthodox Christianity, 32 orthodox school, 2, 12 Otfrid, 29–30, 186, 188–189, 200, 204, 290n43 Overing, Gillian, 12–13, 15, 21–22, 266n45, 289n31, 291n1 Padelford, F. M., 204, 295nn33–35 Paetzel, Walther, 282n66 paronomasia, 243–44 passages, quoted, with translations. See Old English passages; Old High German passages; Old Saxon passages Paul the Deacon, 151, Paul, St., 18, 27, 203, 240, 250 “peace-weaver,” 118–22 Peeler, A. J., 290n39 Peeler, E. F., 290n39

penance, 237, 253–63. See also sea penance penitential wandering. See peregrinatio peregrinatio, 147, 240–43; evolution as missio, 148 Phillips, Michael Joseph, 123, 212, 280n39, 296n43 Philo, 44 philological analysis of specific passages. See under passages philological anomalousness, 1 philology and Genesis B, history of, 1, 22 phonocentrism, 53 poems, Old English, 26–28 poems, Old English, in Junius 11 MS, 27–28 poems, Old High German, 29 poems, Old Saxon. See The Heliand poems, orthodox Christian, 22, 26, 27–28, 171 poet, Heliand, 166, 255, 256–57, 259 poet, Old Saxon Genesis, 2, 15–16, 22, 31–33, 117, 127, 135, 160–61, 187, 189, 193, 204, 223–25, 227–28, 245, 253, 260–61 poet, Praefatio and Versus, 199, 231, 232, 261 Pokorny, Julius, 289n25, 294n24 Polomé, Edgar, 127–28, 279n13, 281n50 posterity, 106–107, 110, 126–127, 129–133, 136, 249; obligations of kinship, 107 Praefatio 261, 262. See also Versus; poet, Praefatio and Versus Praefatio A and B and the Versus, 68–69 Praefatio A., 231, 261 Praefatio B, 261 predestination, 17, 225. See also Gottschalkian theology predestination, dual. See Gottschalkian theology

322  •  Index

Prudentius, 47, psalter illustrations. See illustrations, psalter Quirk, Randolph, 271n2, 274n2, 300n30 quoted passages, with translations. See Old English passages; Old High German passages; Old Saxon passages Rathofer, Johannes, 291n55 ratio, 43–45, 47–49, 57, 59, 151 Raw, Barbara C., 82–83, 232, 259, 2 refs in ChI, nn15–16, reciprocity/unilateralism of obligations. See under comitatus reciter, 38, 135 redemption, 33, 161–62, 238 religion, Carolingian and Frankish, 22, 167 Renoir, Alain, 13–14, 15, 48, 55, 56, 97, 114–115, 117, 118, 122, 222, 251 riddles, 130, 163 ring-composition, 108–109 Robinson, Fred C., 123, 203, 213–14, 260, 294n26, 301nn43–44 Rosenfeld, H.-Fr., 283n67 Rosier, James L., 294n26 Ross, Alan S. C., 301n38 Rückert, Hanns, 150, 285n33 Russell, James C. 148, 149, 151, 285n27, 288n3 Sakenfeld, Katherine Doob, 266n34, 282n65 Saltair na Rann poet 240 salvation history, 28 salvation, 3, 23, 46, 141 Sanford, Eva Matthews, 293n7 Satan (the Devil), 3–4, 10–18, 36–38, 44, 51, 63, 83; binding of, 111; as comitatus war lord, 60;

defense against (see signum crucis); desertion of God, 108; feared by humankind, 129–30; loss of treasure (humankind), 17–19, 217; plan for revenge, 12 60, 88–89, 223; prayer against, 129; as sexist, 127; as suggestio, 46, 56; wærloga ‘covenantbreaker’ 4. See also under Hell Satan’s boda ‘messenger.’ See boda savior, 52, 169 sceaðena mæst, 105–11, 124, 137 Schieffer. Theodor, 150, 285n34 Schücking, Levin L., 226, 297n15 Schwab, Ute, 1, 181–82, 289n32 Scragg, D. G., 282n53 scribal influence, 33 a scribe, 129, 144 sea penance, 240–45, 260–61 Sehrt, Edward H., 93, 132, 144, 169, 174, 177, 202–203, 249, 255, 271n5, 272n17, 276n30, 277n39, 277n48, 278n4, 279n17, 279n27, 282n61, 283nn67–68, 283n1 (chap. 6), 284nn18–19, 286n56, 287n65, 288n6, 288n18, 289n23, 291n53, 292n6, 294n20, 294n24, 296n40, 296n43, 296n45, 300n29, 301n30, 301n37 semantic field, 29, 106, 109 sensus corporis animalis (sensus), 43–44, 47–48, 77, 98 sexism (male bias), 16, 44, 127–29, 215 Shepherd, Geoffrey, 4–5, 27 Shippey, T. A., 272n29, 294n29 Sievers, Eduard, 1, 166, 200, 288n72, 293n14, 301n35 sign (tacen), 5–6, 7–8, 21, 59, 64–65, 168–69, 173–193, 195–96, 215; Adam and, 7, 177, 214; and exoneration, 5, 180, 211; “two tacens,” 99, 195–96, 206, 221 signum crucis, 183–93, 195–96, 215, 257

Index  •  323

sin, 6, 54, 249–50; Original, 18, 109, 251 Sisam, Kenneth, 129, 281n53 sixth (final) age, 235 Skeat, Walter W., 289n24, 290n45, 292n4, 295n33 Sklute, Larry M., 119 Sleeth, Charles R. 62 Smith, A. H., 300n19 study of Old English literature, 1, 14, 19–22 suggestio, 56–57, 87, 89, 91, 94–96, 99 Suggs, M. Jack, 266n34, 282n65 Sweet, Henry, 270n49 tacen. See sign Tacitus, 4, 60–61, 119–120, 152 156, 280n31 Taeger, Burkhard, 263 (Introducory Note), 273n44 281n47, 293n13, 294n19 Tanenhaus, Gussie Hecht, 268n25, 274n51, 296n50, 300n17 Taylor, John Hammond , S. J., 272n21, 275n7, 276n36, 277n44, 291n60 Telfer, William, 290n40 temptation, first (of Adam), 51–64, 75–76, 99, 105 temptation, second, (first temptation of Eve), 77–79 the Temptation, 223; locations, 77. See also temptation: first, second, third temptation, third, (second Temptation of Adam), 43, 70, 91–103, 121, 137, 208 Tempter. See boda; Satan Tempter’s vaunt, see under boda The Old English Riddles, 295n34 theological (orthodox Christian) interpretations., 1–2. See also exonerative interpretations Thorpe, Benjamin, 270n50, 281n47

Timmer, B. J., 146, 245, 275n11, 279n20, 284n22, 294n19, 300n25 token. See sign; signum crucis Tolkien, J. R. R., 173, 210, 288n16 Toller, T. Northcote, 203, 276n30, 277n39, 279n27, 280n40, 282n59, 282n61, 294n25, 301n38 translations of passages. See Old English passages; Old High German passages; Old Saxon passages the translator (Genesis B), 140, 144–45, 167, 202, 245, 300n25 Trask, Willard, 269n37 Trees of Life and Death, 75 tribus modis rationale, 41, 43–47, 77– 103, 217; in other texts, 44–45; sex/ gender attitudes expressed by, 44, 45. See also tropology tropes, 36 tropology, 35–43; “disjunctions,” 35; dual identities (of Adam, Eve, and the boda), 3, 37, 111–12, 164, 172, 218, 235, 253. See also ratio, Adam; sensus, Eve; suggestio, the boda; tropology Tucker, S. I., 46 Tweddle, Dominic, 280n34 typology, 37, 250; examples, 260–61 Van der Horst, Koert, 37, 59, 155, 172, 286n49, 286n52, 288n11 Vatican Genesis see Genesis, The (Old Saxon) Vatican vaunt. See under boda Versus, 261, 293n9. See also Praefatio; poet, Praefatio and Versus Vickrey, John F., 229, 264n11, 266n33, 269n42, 270n53, 270n2 (chap. 3), 271n5, 271n12, 278n2, 279n10, 281nn46–-8, 281n51, 282n56, 283n72, 284nn8–10, 284nn14–15, 284n22, 287n62, 287nn68–69, 288n7, 288n13, 288n15, 288n19,

324  •  Index

289n26, 289nn28–29, 292n3, 294n28, 296n51, 297n11, 297n20, 298n1, 299n8, 301nn43–44 vision, Eve’s, 6–7, 175, 180, 195–203, 211–15; boda and, 205 visions, explained, 79, 84 Wallace-Hadrill, J. M., 147, 152, 155, 214–15, 230, 253, 265n32, 296n56, 298n23, 298n31, 298n33, 299n6 Watkins, Calvert, 109, 127–28, 232, 279n13, 281n50 Wattie, J. M., 174, 288n21 Weber, Max, 285n29 West Saxon language, see Old English Whitaker, G. H., 269n46 Whitelock, Dorothy, 107, 278n4, 300n19 Whitman, Jon, 57, 258, 270n54, 277n55

Widukind, 151 Willems, F., 29 Williams, Blanche Colton, 135, 283n70 Williamson, Craig, 287n66, 295n34 Winstone, H. E., 290n39 Wisssman, W., 283n67 wit, 34–35, 110, 225–6, 235, 262 Wolff, Ludwig, 290n43, 293n15 Woolf, Rosemary, 1, 30, 46, 127, 228, 281n49, 297n20 Wormald, Patrick, 149–50, 151, 285n32 Wrenn, C. L., 4, 15, 59, 241, 271n2, 274n2, 288n16, 294n19, 300n30 Wulfstan, 199, 293n10, 299n7 Wüstefeld, Wilhelmina C. M., 268n27 Zangemeister, Karl, 1 Zycha, Josephus, 272n21, 275n7, 291n60

About the Author

John F. Vickrey, Professor of English, Emeritus, at Lehigh University, was born in Chicago in 1924 and grew up in nearby Riverside. After serving in the U.S. Army, 1943 to 1946, he earned degrees in English literature at the University of Chicago (PhB, MA) and Indiana University (PhD). From 1957 to 1961 he taught at Rutgers University and from 1961 to 1995 at Lehigh. His academic specialties at Lehigh were Old English (including Beowulf) and History of the English Language. Besides reviews he has published about 30 articles, mostly on the Old English poems Genesis B, Exodus, The Seafarer, and Beowulf. In 2009 he published a book, Beowulf and the Illusion of History. He lives in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.

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