Frea moncynnes,
Fæder and scippend.
Se there sunnan leoht
Seleth of heoionum, 20
Monan and thysum mærum

steorrum.
Se gesceop men on eorthan,
And gesamnade
Sawle to lice,
Æt fruman ærest.

25
Fole under wolcnum
Emn æthele gesceop,
Æghwilone mon.
Hwy ge thonne æfre,
Ofer oth re men,

30
Ofermodigen,
Buton and weorce,
Nu ge unæthelne
Ænig ne metath?
Hwy ge eow for æthelum 35
Up ahebben nu?
On thæm mode bith

Monna gehwilcum
Tha riht æthelo
The ic the recce ymb; 40
Nales on thæm fiæsce
fold-buendra.
Ac nu æghwile mon,
The mid ealle bith
His untheawum.

45
Underthieded ;
He forlæt ærest
Lifes frum-sceaft,
And his agene
Æthelo swa selfe ;

50
And eac thone sæder,
The hine æt fruman gesceop.
Forthæm hine anæthelath
Ælmihtig God,
Thæt he unathele

55
A forth thanan
Wyrth on weorulde,
Towuldre ne cymth.

All men and all women on earth

Had first their beginning the same,
Into this world of their birth

All of one couple they came :

Alike are the great and the small;

No wonder that this should be thus ;
For God is the Father of all,

The lord and the maker of us.

He giveth light to the sun,

To the moon and the stars as they stand; The soul and the flesh He made one,

When first he made man in the land.

Wellborn alike are all folk

Whom He hath made under the sky;
Why then on others a yoke
Now will

ye be lifting on high ?

And why be so causelessly proud,

As thus ye find none are illborn ?
Or why, for your rank, from the crowd

Raise yourself up in such scorn ?

In the mind of a man, not his make,

In the earth-dweller's heart, not his rank, Is the nobleness whereof I spake,

The true, and the free, and the frank.

But he that to sin was in thrall,

Illdoing wherever he can,
Hath left the first lifespring of all,

His God, and his rank as a man :

And so the Almighty down-hurld

The noble disgraced by his sin,
Thenceforth to be mean in the world,

And never more glory to win.

Unless one were to forage about for parallel passages, or to descant upon Alfred's good philosophy as texts; or to furnish tables of the words identical to both English and Anglo-Saxon, or to speculate upon the possibilities of metre, there really seems little reason to disturb the patient reader with many notes; let him, instead, have the satisfaction of knowing that our verse is no loose paraphrase, but a close rendering, and that several of these metres seem to be analogous with the short and tripping lines of early minstrelsy. It will be remembered that the true ballad line (as in Macaulay's Lays of Rome), though sometimes written longwise, is in truth an eight-syllable stanza of short lines, and not a four-syllable of long ones: that great German epic, the Niebelungenlied (lately translated with uncommon ability and closeness by William Nanson Lettsom esq.) is an instance strictly in point: and further on (see Metre XXVIII) we have rendered Alfred in a similar measure.

XVIII. OF SINFUL PLEASURE.

Habet omnis hoc voluptas, Stimulis agit furentes,

15

Eala thæt se ysla,
Unrihta gedeth,
Wratha willa
Woh-hæmetes,
Thæt he mid ealle gedræfth, 5
Anra gehwylces
Monna cynnes
Mod fulneah thon !
Hwæt sio wild beo,
Theah wis sie,

Eall forweorthan,
Gif hio yrringa
Awuht stingeth.
Swa sceal sawla gehwilc
Siththan losian,
Gif se lichoma
Forlegan weortheth
Unriht-hæmede;
Bute him &r cume
Hreow to heortan,
dr he hionan wende.

20

Alas that the evil unrighteous hot will
Of lawlessly wanton desire should still

Be a plague in the mind of each one !
The wild bee shall die in her stinging, tho'shrewd,
So the soul will be lost if the body be lewd,
Unless, ere it wend hence, the heart be imbued

With grief for the deed it hath done.

XIX. WHERE TO FIND TRUE JOYS.

Eheu, quam miseros tramite devio, Abducit ignorantia !

Oh! it is a fault of weight,

Let him think it out who will,
And a danger passing great
Which can thus allure to ill

Careworn men from the right way,
Swiftly ever led astray.

Will ye seek within the wood

Red gold on the green-trees tall ?
None, I wot, is wise that could,
For it grows not there at all :

Neither in winegardens green
Seek they gems of glittering sheen.

Would

ye on some hill-top set, When

ye

list to catch a trout
Or a carp, your fishing-net ?
Men, methinks, have long found out

That it would be foolish fare,
For they know they are not there.

In the salt sea can ye find,

When ye list to start and hunt
With your hounds, the hart or hind ?
It will sooner be your wont

In the woods to look, I wot,
Than in seas where they are not.

Is it wonderful to know

That for crystals red or white One must to the sea-beach go,

, Or for other colours bright,

Seeking by the river side
Or the shore at ebb of tide ?

Likewise, men are well aware

Where to look for river-fish;
And all other worldly ware
Where to seek them when they wish;

Wisely careful men will know
Year by year to find them so.

But of all things 'tis most sad

That they foolish are so blind,
So besotted and so mad
That they cannot surely find

Where the ever-good is nigh
And true pleasures hidden lie.