Bede’s Strategy in Paraphrasing “Cædmon’s Hymn”

Daniel Paul O’Donnell
The Journal of English and Germanic Philology, Vol. 103, No. 4 (Oct., 2004), pp. 417-432

In Book 4, Chapter 24 of the Historia ecclesiastica, Bede provides a Latin translation of Cædmon’s first song:
Nunc laudare debemus auctorem regni caelestis, potentiam Creatoris et consilium illius, facta Patris gloriae: quomodo ille, cum sit aeternus Deus, omnium miraculorum auctor extitit, qui primo filiis hominum caelum pro culmine tecti, dehinc terram Custos humani generis omnipotens creauit.
(Now we must praise the Maker of the heavenly kingdom, the power of the Creator and his counsel, the deeds of the Father of glory and how He, since he is the eternal God, was the Author of all marvels and first created the heavens as a [gable of the] roof for the children of men and then, the almighty Guardian of the human race, created the earth.)
In sixteen copies of the Historia, including the two earliest-known witnesses (Cambridge, University Library Kk. 5. 16 [M] and St. Petersburg, National Library of Russia [formerly Leningrad, M.E. Saltykov-Schedrin Public Library], lat. Q. v. I. 18 [P]), Bede’s Latin “paraphrase” is accompanied by an Old English version of what is clearly intended to be the same text:

Nu scilun herga hefenricaes uard
metudaes mehti, and his modgithanc,
uerc uuldurfadur? sue he uundra gihuaes,
eci dryctin, or astelidae.
5 He aerist scop aeldu barnum
hefen to hrofae, halig sceppend;
tha middingard, moncynnaes uard,
eci dryctin, aefter tiadae
firum foldu, frea allmehtig.

(Now we must honor the Guardian of the kingdom of heaven, the might of the Creator, and his intent, the work of the Father of glory-as he, the eternal Lord, established the beginning of each of wondrous things. He, the holy Creator, first made heaven as a roof for the children of men; then the Guardian of mankind, the eternal Lord, the Lord almighty, afterwards appointed the middle earth, the land, for men.)

The relationship between Bede’s Latin translation and this Old English poem is problematic. On the one hand, the two texts clearly are related.
For the first five lines of the Old English, Bede’s “paraphrase” is nearly word for word. While there are some slight differences in word order, and while the two texts use terms for God that differ somewhat in connotation, Bede’s version nevertheless supplies an equivalent for almost every word in the corresponding Old English.

Daniel Paul O’Donnell – Bede’s Strategy in Paraphrasing ‘Cædmon’s Hymn’ by Venerabilis Bedae Studiosus on Scribd

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