“ Long time, O Andrew, hast thou been well versed
In arts of sorcery; thou hast deceived
And led astray much people; but thou shalt
No longer now have power upon such works,
For grievous torments are decreed for thee
According to thy deeds. With weary heart,
Joyless, degraded, thou shalt suffer woes,
The bitter pangs of death. My warriors
Are ready for the battle; they will soon
Deprive thee of thy life by valiant deeds. 1370
What man on earth so mighty that he may
Release thee from thy bonds, if I oppose? ”

“ Of ocean-stream grew calm. Then laughed our soul,
When under heaven's course our eyes beheld
The winds and waves and Terror of the deep
Affrighted by the Terror of the Lord.
Therefore I say to you in very sooth,
The ever-living God does not forsake
A man on earth, if courage fail him not." 460
Thus spake the holy champion, wise of heart,
He taught his thanes, that blessed warrior;
He stablishèd his men, till suddenly
Sleep came upon them weary by the mast.
The sea grew still, the onset of the waves
Turned back again, rough tumult of the flood. ”

“ Hast thou no store of bread
To comfort thee upon the ocean-road,
Or pure drink for thy thirst? The life is hard
For him who journeys far upon the flood."
In answer then did Andrew, wise in wit,
Unlock to him the treasure of his words:—
"It is not seemly that with arrogance
And words of taunting thou demand reply,
When God hath given thee abundant wealth
And worldly fortune; better for each man 320
That with humility he kindly greet
A traveler bound to other lands far off,
As Christ commanded, Lord most glorious.
We are His thanes, chosen as champions ”

“ Straightway He lifted up His voice and said:—
"If, as thou sayst, thou art indeed a thane
Of Him who sits enthroned in majesty,
All-glorious King, expound His mysteries,
How 'neath the sky He taught speech-uttering men. 420
Long is this journey o'er the fallow flood;
Comfort the hearts of thy disciples; great
Is yet our way across the ocean-stream,
And land is far to seek; the sea is stirred,
The waves beat on the shore. Yet easily
Can God give aid to men who sail the deep." ”

“ In glorious brightness went beneath the waves.
Then yet a fourth time those fierce-hearted foes,
The leaders of the folk, brought back the prince
Unto his prison; for they hoped to turn 1460
In the dark night the hero's mighty soul.
Then came the Lord unto that prison-house,
Glory of warriors, and with words of cheer
The Guide of life, the Father of mankind,
Greeted His thane and bade him once again
Soundness enjoy:—"From henceforth and for aye
Thou shalt no more bear woe from armed men." ”

“ Oh why hast Thou forsaken me, I pray?'
Torments most cruel I have had to bear
For three long days. I beg thee, Lord of hosts,
That I may give my soul into Thy hands,
Thy very hands, Thou Nourisher of souls!
For Thou didst promise by Thy holy word,
When Thou didst stablish us, the chosen Twelve,
That we should ne'er be scathed by foeman's sword, 1420
No member of our bodies be destroyed,
No bone nor sinew left beside the way;
That no lock should be lost from off our heads,
If we would keep Thy teachings faithfully. ”

“ We see the conversion of England in the very process of its accomplishment. We see the beauties of Paganism and those of Christianity blending with each other, much as the Medieval and the Renaissance are blended in Spenser. In the one aspect Andrew is the valiant hero, like Beowulf, crossing the sea to accomplish a mighty deed of deliverance; in the other he is the saintly confessor, the patient sufferer, whose whole trust is in the Lord.
If we compare the poem with the other epics of its class, its most formidable competitors are the anonymous Judith and Cynewulf's Christ. ”

“ The flood, and swallowed up the fallow waves,
The struggling sea—the abyss devoured it all. 1590
Yet not the waves alone it swallowed up;
But fourteen men, worst caitiffs of the throng,
Went headlong to destruction with the flood
Under the yawning earth. Then sore afraid
Was many a heart at that calamity;
They feared the slaughter both of men and wives,
A yet more wretched season of distress,
When once those sin-stained cruel murderers,
Those warriors fierce, plunged headlong down the abyss. ”

“ With fiendish craft urged on the folk to fight:—
"Now do you hear the foeman of your tribe,
Him who has wrought most harm unto this host!
Andrew it is, who thus disputes with me
In cunning words before the throng of men." 1200
Then to the townsmen was the signal given;
Up leaped they valiant with the shout of hosts,
And to the city-gates the warriors thronged
Bold 'neath their banners; with their spears and shields,
In mighty troops they pressed unto the fight. ”

“ Straightway did Andrew answer him again:—
"Why dost thou impudently teach this folk,
And urge them unto battle? Hast thou felt
The fiery torment hot in hell, and yet
Leadest an army forth, a troop to war?
Thou art a foe to God, the Lord of hosts ”

“ The Andreas is complete, and, if we except the long dialogue of Andrew and the Lord at sea, moves steadily towards the end with considerable variety of action. If the characterization is crude, the descriptions are vivid, the speeches are often vigorous, and the treatment of nature is throughout charming. It seems to me eminently suited by its subject and manner to stand as an example of the Old English religious epic, an example of a form of literature with which every serious student of our English poetry should be familiar. ”

“ The action of the story brings in a voyage, which the Greek narrative dismisses with a few words, merely as a piece of necessary machinery. The Old English poem, on the contrary, expands the incident into many lines. A storm is introduced and described with great vigor; we see the circling gull and the darting horn-fish; we hear the creaking of the ropes and the roaring of the waves. [2] Every mention of the sea is dwelt upon with lingering affection, and described with vivid metaphor. It is now the "bosom of the flood," now the "whale-road" or the "fish's bath." ”

“ From that fierce folk to give him back his life. 1130
Those monstrous fiends had sought hostility;
It was their purpose that the sword's sharp edge
Made hard by blows, and stained with marks of fire,
In foeman's hand should take his life away.
But Andrew thought it grievous, hard to bear,
A public wrong, that one so innocent
Should forthwith lose his life. That people's hate
Was very fierce; the warriors, valiant thanes 1140
Lusting for murder, rushed upon the youth;
They wished straightway to break his head with spears. ”

“ Where in Achaia holy Andrew dwelt,
Guiding his people in the way of life, 170
A voice was heard from out the heavens above.
To him, that steadfast saint, the Lord of hosts,
Glory of kings, Creator of mankind,
Unlocked the treasure of His heart, and thus
In words He spake:—"Thou shalt go forth and bear
My peace, and journeying shalt fare where men,
Devourers of their kind, possess the land,
And hold their home secure by murderous might. ”

“ How shall we rank the Legend of St. Andrew among the other poems of the Anglo-Saxons? and what are its chief merits as a work of art? The Old English epics may be divided into two general classes: the heroic epic, of which the Beowulf is the chief example; and the larger group of religious epics, including the poems of Cynewulf, of Pseudo-Cædmon, the Judith, and the Andreas.
In spite of occasional Christian interpolations the Beowulf is essentially pagan, the expression of English sentiments and ideals before Augustine led his little band of chanting monks through the streets of Canterbury. ”

“ Straightway did Andrew answer him again:—
"Why dost thou question me with crafty speech,
My dearest lord, thou who dost truly know 630
By virtue of thy wisdom every hap."
The Ruler of the waves replied to him:—
"'Tis not in blame that I thus question thee,
Nor to insult thee on the ocean-road. [1]
My mind is blithe and blossoming with joy
At thy most noble speech; not I am blithe
Alone, for every man is glad in heart
And comforted in soul who far or near
Remembers in his heart what that One did,
God's Son on earth. Souls unto Him were turned ”

“ Saint Andrew, thanked the noble Counselor,
Upon the ocean, on the oar-swept sea:—
"For this repast may God, the righteous Lord,
Ruler of hosts, who sheds the light of life,
Grant thee reward, and give thee for thy food
The bread of heaven, e'en as thou hast shown
Good will and kindness to me on the deep. 390
My thanes, these warriors young, are sore afraid;
Loud roars the raging, overwhelming sea;
The ocean is all troubled, deeply moved ”

“ The homily could not have been drawn from the poem, nor the poem from the homily, for in each we find facts and phrases of the Greek not contained in the other. For example, both in the Greek and in the homily, the flood which sweeps away the Mermedonians proceeds from the mouth of an alabaster image standing upon a pillar, while in the poem it springs forth from the base of the pillar itself. On the other hand, most of the dialogue between Andrew and the Lord on shipboard, as well as other important incidents, are wanting in the homily. ”

“ I have said, too, that he was a devout churchman. Many of the noble hymns and prayers with which the poem abounds are largely original, expanded from a mere line or two in the Greek. Many and beautiful are the epithets or kennings which he applies to God, taken in part from the Bible, and in part from the imagery of the not wholly extinct heathen mythology.
Thoroughly English is his love of violent action, of war and bloodshed. Andrew is a "warrior brave in the battle"; the apostles are Thanes of the Lord, whose courage for the fight Failed never, e'en when helmets crashed in war. ”

“ It follows closely, though not slavishly, the Acts of Andrew and Matthew, contained in the Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles. [1] Like the great English poets of the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries, the poet of the Andreas has borrowed his story from a foreign source, and like them he has added and altered until he has made it thoroughly his own and thoroughly English. We can learn from it the tastes and ideals of our Anglo-Saxon forefathers quite as well as from a poem wholly original in its composition. Most clearly do we discover their love of the sea. ”

“ The disciples of Andrew are so terrified by the sea that the Lord (disguised as a shipmaster) suggests that they shall go ashore and await the return of their master. In the Greek the disciples answer: "If we leave thee, then shall we be strangers to those good things which the Lord hath promised unto us. Therefore will we abide with thee, wherever thou go." ”

“ Yet I trust that even an imperfect rendering of one of the best of the Old English poems will in some measure contribute towards a wider appreciation of our earliest literature, for the poem is accessible to the general reader only in the baldly literal and somewhat inaccurate translation of Kemble, published in 1843, and now out of print.
I have chosen blank verse as the most suitable metre for the translation of a long and dignified narrative poem, as the metre which can most nearly reproduce the strength, the nobility, the variety and rapidity of the original. ”

“ He reaches the prison, the doors of which fly open at his touch, and rescues Matthew, whom he sends away with all his company (990-1057) . The Mermedonians, confronted with famine, choose one of their number by lot to serve as food for the rest. He offers his son as a substitute, but, as the heathen are about to slay their victim, Andrew interposes and causes their weapons to melt away like wax (1058-1154) . Instigated by the Devil, they seize Andrew, and for three days subject him to the most cruel torments (1155-1462) . On the fourth the Lord comes to his prison and heals him of his wounds. ”

“ It only remains to give a brief synopsis of the poem. It has fallen to the lot of Matthew to preach the Gospel to the cannibal Mermedonians; they seize him and his company, binding him and casting him into prison, where he is to remain until his turn comes to be eaten (1-58) . He prays to God for help, and the Lord sends Andrew to deliver him (59-234) . Andrew and his disciples come to the seashore and find a bark with three seamen, who are in reality the Lord and His two angels. On learning that Andrew is a follower of Jesus, the shipmaster agrees to carry him to Mermedonia (234-359) . ”

“ Five thousand of mankind with fishes twain 590
And with five loaves; the companies sat down
With hearts fatigued, rejoicing in their rest,
All weary after wandering; on the ground
Where pleased them best the men received their food. ”

“ Unto those youths who in the ocean-stream
Had lost their life within the flood's embrace,
So that their souls, forsaken by the Lord,
Shorn of their glory, had been borne away
To death and torments in the power of fiends.
Saint Andrew's prayer was pleasing unto God, 1620
Almighty One, the Counselor of men;
He bade the youths, those whom the flood had slain,
Rise up unscathed in body from the ground.
Then straightway stood there up among the throng
Many an ungrown child, as I have heard ”

“ Of heathens, and the warriors' martial might.
Even to-morrow with the early dawn, 220
At the sea's border thou shalt straightway go
On shipboard, and upon the waters cold,
Over the ocean [1] , break thy speedy way.
Thou hast My blessing over all the earth,
Wherever thou shalt fare!" The Holy One,
Ruler and Guardian, archangels' King,
The world's Defense, betook Him to His home,
That glorious home, where souls of righteous men
After the body's fall shall life enjoy. ”

“ That home most blessèd, where thou mayst enjoy
Glory and bliss to everlasting life.
Suffer this people's cruelty; not long
Can faithless men afflict thee sinfully
With chains of torment by their crafty wiles.
Straight will I send unto this heathen town 110
Andrew to be thy comfort and defense;
He will release thee from thine enemies.
Thou hast not long to wait ”