Cædmon’s Hymn

In Old and Middle English c.890–c.450, Elaine Treharne translates Cædmon's Hymn (from the gloss found in a
manuscript in St Petersburg) into modern English as:

Now we ought to praise the Guardian of the heavenly kingdom,

The might of the Creator and his conception,
The work of the glorious Father, as he of each of the wonders,
Eternal Lord, established the beginning.
He first created for the sons of men
Heaven as a roof, holy Creator;
Then the middle-earth, the Guardian of mankind,
The eternal Lord, afterwards made
The earth for men, the Lord almighty.

TRANSLATION NO. 2

Now we must praise the protector of the heavenly kingdom

the might of the measurer and his mind’s purpose,
the work of the father of glory, as he for each of his wonders,
the eternal Lord, established a beginning.
He shaped first for the sons of the earth
heaven as a roof, the holy maker;
then the middle-world, mankind’s guardian,
the eternal Lord, made afterwards,
solid ground for men, the almighty Lord.

The hymn is a work in praise of God. It grabs the reader from its opening word ‘Nu’, meaning ‘Now’,
making the poem feel immediate. From there it proceeds to celebrate all of creation in a mere nine lines. Like
all Old English verse, it uses musical alliteration. It closes, powerfully, with the word ‘allmectig’, ‘Almighty’, in
praise of God.

Bede’s point, in his story about Cædmon, is that poetry is transformational, mystical and God-given.
For, according to Bede, ‘no other English poets could compare’ with Cædmon, the humble late-comer not
trained by human teachers, whose poetry in turn transformed and inspired those who read it in the Anglo-
Saxon period and beyond.
 Bede’s text was written in Latin, but in several other manuscripts someone has added a translation
into Old English. This is known as a ‘gloss’. Perhaps these glossators (people who wrote the glosses) were
attempting to recover some of the 'beauty and dignity' of the original. It’s appropriate that the vernacular
version of the Hymn should be recorded in this way – unobtrusively tucked in between lines of Latin text, a bit
like the shy Cædmon who hid from the harp.

Caedmon’s dream was a sign he had become a poet. It was a signal of poetic vocation. A clumsy,
unschooled peasant is suddenly gifted with the power of song. His hymn, his only surviving composition, is a
praise poem to the almighty, like the Latin canticle Benedicte, omnia opera domini, which embraces all of
creation (“O all ye works of the Lord, bless ye the Lord: Praise him and magnify him forever”). It encapsulates
the basic form of Old English or Germanic poetry: two half-lines, each containing two stressed and two or
more unstressed syllables. Another way of describing this is as one four-stress line with a medial caesura. It
stacks two or three alliterations per line and piles up the epithets for God, who is guardian (“Weard”),
measurer (“Meotod”), glory-father (“Wuldor-Fæder”), eternal Lord (“ece Drihten”), creator or holy maker
(“Scyppend”), and almighty master (“Frea ælmihtig”). What came to Caedmon in a dream was not just a story,
which he would have known already, but also a new prosody.

Caedmon connects the energy of language with the power of divine spirit, and his religious poetry of
praise inaugurates a tradition. It’s possible, too, that Bede was promoting that tradition via Caedmon. This way
of connecting language to the divine looks backward to Genesis 1 and forward to Thomas Traherne, Henry
Vaughan, and Christopher Smart, who sings of the transcendent virtue of praise itself. Here, for example, is
stanza fifty of Smart’s eighteenth-century poem of benediction, “A Song to David”:

PRAISE above all—for praise prevails;

Heap up the measure, load the scales,
And good to goodness add:
The gen’rous soul her Savior aids,
But peevish obloquy degrades;
The Lord is great and glad.

Caedmon’s impulsive song looks forward to William Blake, Gerard Manley Hopkins, and even Walt Whitman,
who embraces and challenges us to embrace all the works of creation: “Divine I am inside and out, and I make
holy whatever I touch or am touched from” (“Song of Myself”). It stands flaming with inspiration: “nothing was
burning,” Caedmon cries out, “nothing but I, as that hand of fire / touched my lips and scorched my tongue /
and pulled my voice / into the ring of the dance.”behind W.H. Auden’s radiant and intricate sonnet of
instruction, “Anthem,” which begins: “Let us praise our Maker, with true passion extol Him.” And it inspired
Denise Levertov’s poem “Caedmon,” which concludes with the vision of a clumsy untutored clodhopper
suddenly
“Now we must praise,” Caedmon instructs us, and thus touches upon one of the primary and permanent
impulses in poetry—a calling to more life, a form of blessing, a way of cherishing a world that shines out with
radiant particularity.

ANALYSIS: FORM AND METER

Hymn in Alliterative, Four-Stress Verse

It's obvious the modern English translation of Caedmon's Hymn doesn't rhyme, but if you look more closely at
the Old English original, you'll notice that it doesn't rhyme either. In fact, none of Old English poetry rhymes.
Instead, lines are organized according to alliteration (when several words begin with the same sound) and
stress. Each line is split in the middle by a large space, signifying a strong pause, or a caesura. The two half-
lines have two stresses each, often with the first letter bolded.

Here are the ground rules for the same sounds in Old English poetry. And by "rules" we mean that in
the same way that a sonnet or a haiku has rules: The pattern of stress and alliteration became so widespread
among the Old English literary elites that writing any other way would have been seriously weird.

On to Caedmon! To simplify things, we're going to number the stresses, which are bolded in the line below.
"Sculon" and "heriġean" are the first and second stresses; "heofonriċes" and "Weard" are the third and fourth
stresses. All set? Okay, then let's take the first line of Caedmon's Hymn:

Nu sculon heriġean heofonriċes Weard

And now let's count!

 Rule one: At least two stresses must alliterate but three is also common. Four is not common.
 Rule two: If a line has only 2 alliterative stresses, they will either be the second and third or the first
and third stresses.
 Rule three: If a line has 3 alliterative stresses, they will be the first, second, and third stresses.
 Rule four: The fourth stress is rarely alliterative.
 Rule five: All vowels are alliterative. This means that in line 4 "eċe" alliterates with"or," even though in
modern English "ear" would not be considered alliterative with "oar."

What we do know is that the most obvious poetic techniques in this hymn—the four-stress lines, the
alliteration, and the caesuras—are common to all Anglo-Saxon poetry. But Caedmon was the first English
poet.

The Manuscript : This manuscript was made in the mid 8th to early 9th century, in Bede’s own monastery of
Wearmouth-Jarrow. Tragically, the manuscript was damaged in a terrible fire in 1731. You can see how the
edges of the pages are ragged and there is dark staining from water. Luckily for us, before the fire someone
made a copy of it (now in the British Library, Add MS 43703).

CRITICS ON CAEDMON’S HYMN-2

English poetry began with a vision. It started with the holy trance of a seventh-century figure called
Caedmon, an illiterate herdsman, who now stands at the top of the English literary tradition as the initial
Anglo-Saxon or old English poet of record, the first to compose Christian poetry in his own language.

The story goes that Caedmon, who was employed by the monastery of Whitby, invariably fled when it
was his turn to sing during a merry social feast. He was ashamed he had never had any songs to contribute.
But one night a voice came to Caedmon in a dream and asked him to sing a song. When Caedmon responded
that he had no idea how to sing, the voice commanded him to sing about the source of all created things (“Sing
to me the beginning of all things”). “Thereupon,” as the monk known as the Venerable Bede tells it in
his Ecclesiastical History of the English People (731), “Caedmon began to sing verses which he had never heard
before in praise of God the creator.”

Bede embedded a Latin translation of the Anglo-Saxon poem in his history. He probably translated it
into Latin in order to make the poem available to an international audience of clerics, but it’s also possible that
he was translating it from Latin. No one knows the priority of these texts—in manuscripts, the English version
survives alongside Latin translations. Here is the Anglo-Saxon text, and then a modern English translation of
the inspired poem called “Caedmon’s Hymn,” which was composed between 658 and 680.

Nu sculon herigean heofonrices Weard

Meotodes meahte and his modgepanc,
weorc Wuldor-Fæder, swa he wundra gehwæs
ece Drihten or onstealde
He ærest sceop ielda bearnum
Heofon to hrofe halig Scyppend
ða middangeard moncynnes Weard,
ece Drihten æfter teode
firum foldan Frea ælmihtig

Now we must praise the protector of the heavenly kingdom

the might of the measurer and his mind’s purpose,
the work of the father of glory, as he for each of his wonders,
the eternal Lord, established a beginning.
He shaped first for the sons of the earth
heaven as a roof, the holy maker;
 then the middle-world, mankind’s guardian,
the eternal Lord, made afterwards,
solid ground for men, the almighty Lord.

Variation and the Poetics of Oral Performance in Cædmon’s Hymn

 Authors : Peter Ramey (Article- First Online: 06 May 2011)

Abstract

The profuse and apparently redundant lexical variation of Cædmon’s Hymn has long been a critical problem,
resulting in a wide range of interpretations and evaluations of the hymn. This essay applies insights from
recent developments from Oral Theory, particularly the concept of multiformity, to argue that the hymn’s
variation reflects a poetics of oral performance in which poetic synonyms successively “perform” rather than
describe the hymn’s subject matter. Three aspects of this poetics are identified and discussed: its iterative
structure, traditional register, and temporality of continuous present. The role these aspects play in the
hymn’s ritual function are considered and illustrated with similarly-varied passages from Beowulf and the Old
English Creed. Finally, the meaning structures of the rhetorical figure of variation are evaluated in relation to
the eulogizing aspect of Old English verse as a whole, and contrasted to the use of metaphor in Old English
poetry.

Cædmon

Dennis Cronan

First published: 03 August 2017

Abstract

Cædmon was the first recorded English poet. An ordinary farm worker who was inspired to poetic composition
in a dream, he transformed the martial language of Old English heroic poetry into a medium suitable for the
composition of biblical and religious poems. Although he drew his subject matter primarily from biblical
narratives and the teachings of the New Testament, his compositions used the traditional form and poetic
language of Germanic alliterative verse. Bede presents his story of Cædmon as a narrative that authorizes the
use of Old English as a scriptural language. This story also bridges the cultural divide between orality and
literacy. Although Cædmon was an oral poet who could neither read nor write, his example inspired other
poets to compose Christian poems which were then recorded in manuscripts, producing an unusual
situation, for the period, where a vulgar tongue, Old English, was used in texts alongside Latin.

Very few of them could even read or write. So the sonic linkages and patterns in a poem would need to follow
a predictable pattern to make it stick in the listener's mind. This is a hymn, after all, which was meant to be
passed on orally. For that to happen, a set form had to be in place to make it "catchy".
Depending on how "faithful" the translation, modern English versions may try to replicate the alliteration and
the stresses. To see what this translation does, head down to the "Sound Check" section.

ANALYSIS: SOUND CHECK

It's tough to experience the true sound of Caedmon's Hymn unless you hear it in the original Old English (see
"Best of the Web" for some online recordings). A lot of the beauty of the original lies in the rich alliteration of
Caedmon's words in their rugged, what-the-heck-is-that-letter, ancient English. Some translations try to
replicate the alliteration of Anglo-Saxon poetry, since that is one of the fundamental organizing elements in
each line (see "Form and Meter" for further discussion). But others opt for a more literal translation, preferring
the most accurate to the more alliterative.

Let's take a closer look at our translation and how it stacks up to the original. In the first line, the Old English
alliterates "heriġean" and"heofonriċes"; the translation gives us "praise" and "heaven-kingdom's." Not quite.
What about the second line? In the original we've got three alliterative words:

"Meotodes,""meahte," and "modġeþanc." Right below the modern English delivers the same: "Measurer's,"
"might," and "mind-plans." Looking at the rest, you'll notice that this translation is mostly about the
accuracy—it doesn't reach for the alliteration but doesn't say no when "middle-earth and "mankind's" fall in its
lap.

So what's the effect of all these words with the same first letters? Most importantly, they serve as poetic
bricks, structuring each line around the long caesura or pause that splits it in the middle (see "Form and
Meter"). It's easy to lose your momentum in such a cavernous poem-hole, but the familiar sound of the words
in the second half haul you back to safety. They keep you firmly located.

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 9, 2010

Alliteration in Caedmon's Hymn

There’s alliteration all through out Caedmon’s Hymn and many common trends as seen in Beowulf. The first,
“Praise we the Fashioner now of Heaven’s fabric,” has alliteration to describe God who is described as the
fashioner of Heaven’s fabric. In Beowulf, he doesn’t hesitate to praise God and give thanks to him. The second
line, “The majesty of his might and his mind’s wisdom,” also has heavy alliteration. It’s further putting
emphasis on the power of God and what he’s capable of. The third line, “Work of the world-warden, worker of
all wonders,” we see a kenning for God, “world-warden,” which is very popular in Anglo-Saxon culture and is
all over the poem of Beowulf. Beowulf uses, “The Almighty making, the earth, shaping these beautiful plains
marked off by oceans, then proudly setting the sun and the moon to glow across the land and light it (line 7),”
to describe the making of the Earth. Much like Caedmon did in his hymn. It also contains alliteration as well.
The next line, “How he the Lord of Glory everlasting,” doesn’t contain any alliteration really or none that we
see in the previously line where it’s obvious. He’s known as “the Lord of Heaven and earth” in Beowulf. The
next line is “Wrought first for the race of men Heaven as a rooftree,” and has some alliteration in it. So far,
almost every line contains alliteration which was very common in Anglo-Saxon poetry and writing. The last
line, “Then made he Middle Earth to be their mansion,” talks about the creation of man and their domain on
Earth. Again, alliteration is seen. Literary elements in both pieces are very similar.

POSTED BY DEVON AT 9:29 AM

The story of Cædmon’s life

According to Bede, Cædmon was one of the greatest poets of his age, but you wouldn’t have guessed this from
his early life. He was so shy about singing or speaking in public that, according to Bede, when people began
singing at parties he would leave ‘as soon as he saw the harp approaching him’. It was only later in life that he
began to write verse and compose song. Bede describes how one night, when he was sleeping in the cowshed,
Cædmon had a vision. When he woke, he remembered the song he had sung in his dream, and later
performed it, astounding everyone at the Abbey with his beautiful poetry. Later on, he would impress the
monastery’s leaders, including the abbess St Hilda, with his capacity to compose poetry about difficult
theological topics.