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Cædmon's Hymn
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Cædmon's Hymn
Cædmon's Hymn is a short Old English poem attributed to Cædmon, a supposedly illiterate and unmusical cow-herder who was, according to the Northumbrian monk Bede (d. 735), miraculously empowered to sing in honour of God the Creator. The poem is Cædmon's only surviving composition.
The poem has a claim to being the oldest surviving English poem: if Bede's account is correct, the poem was composed between 658 and 680, in the early stages of the Christianization of Anglo-Saxon England. Even on the basis of the surviving manuscripts, the poem is the earliest securely dateable example of Old English verse.
Correspondingly, it is one of the oldest surviving samples of Germanic alliterative verse, constituting a prominent landmark for the study of Old English literature and for the early use of traditional poetic form for Christian themes following the conversion of early medieval England to Christianity. One scholar has argued that Bede perceived it as a continuation of Germanic praise poetry, which led him to include a Latin translation but not the original poem.
The poem is also the Old English poem attested in the second largest number of known manuscripts — twenty-three — after Bede's Death Song. These are all manuscripts of Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People. These manuscripts show significant variation in the form of the text, making it an important case-study for the scribal transmission of Old English verse.
Cædmon's Hymn survives in Old English in twenty-two manuscripts, plus photographs of one destroyed in 1940, originally as marginal annotations to Bede's Latin account of the poem. Some of these manuscripts reflect the Northumbrian dialect of Bede and putatively of Cædmon, and some reflect the transfer of the poem into the West Saxon dialect. Whether due to change in oral tradition or scribal transmission, the text varies in different manuscripts. There is some debate as to the best translation of some of these variants.
The following Old English text is a normalized reading of the oldest or second-oldest manuscript of the poem, the mid-eighth-century Northumbrian Moore Bede (Cambridge, University Library, MS Kk. 5. 16). The translation notes key points of debate as to meaning, and variation in other manuscripts.
Nū scylun hergan hefaenrīcaes Uard,
metudæs maecti end his mōdgidanc,
uerc Uuldurfadur, suē hē uundra gihuaes,
ēci dryctin ōr āstelidæ
hē ǣrist scōp aelda barnum
heben til hrōfe, hāleg scepen.
Thā middungeard moncynnæs Uard,
eci Dryctin, æfter tīadæ
fīrum foldu, Frēa allmectig.
Now [we] shall honour / heaven-kingdom's guardian,
the measurer's might / and his mind's plan,
the work of the father of glory / as he of each wonder,
eternal lord, / the origin established;
he first created / for the children of men
heaven for a roof, / holy creator.
Then Middle-earth / mankind's guardian,
eternal Lord, / after bestowed
the lands to men, / Lord almighty.
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Cædmon's Hymn AI simulator
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Cædmon's Hymn
Cædmon's Hymn is a short Old English poem attributed to Cædmon, a supposedly illiterate and unmusical cow-herder who was, according to the Northumbrian monk Bede (d. 735), miraculously empowered to sing in honour of God the Creator. The poem is Cædmon's only surviving composition.
The poem has a claim to being the oldest surviving English poem: if Bede's account is correct, the poem was composed between 658 and 680, in the early stages of the Christianization of Anglo-Saxon England. Even on the basis of the surviving manuscripts, the poem is the earliest securely dateable example of Old English verse.
Correspondingly, it is one of the oldest surviving samples of Germanic alliterative verse, constituting a prominent landmark for the study of Old English literature and for the early use of traditional poetic form for Christian themes following the conversion of early medieval England to Christianity. One scholar has argued that Bede perceived it as a continuation of Germanic praise poetry, which led him to include a Latin translation but not the original poem.
The poem is also the Old English poem attested in the second largest number of known manuscripts — twenty-three — after Bede's Death Song. These are all manuscripts of Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People. These manuscripts show significant variation in the form of the text, making it an important case-study for the scribal transmission of Old English verse.
Cædmon's Hymn survives in Old English in twenty-two manuscripts, plus photographs of one destroyed in 1940, originally as marginal annotations to Bede's Latin account of the poem. Some of these manuscripts reflect the Northumbrian dialect of Bede and putatively of Cædmon, and some reflect the transfer of the poem into the West Saxon dialect. Whether due to change in oral tradition or scribal transmission, the text varies in different manuscripts. There is some debate as to the best translation of some of these variants.
The following Old English text is a normalized reading of the oldest or second-oldest manuscript of the poem, the mid-eighth-century Northumbrian Moore Bede (Cambridge, University Library, MS Kk. 5. 16). The translation notes key points of debate as to meaning, and variation in other manuscripts.
Nū scylun hergan hefaenrīcaes Uard,
metudæs maecti end his mōdgidanc,
uerc Uuldurfadur, suē hē uundra gihuaes,
ēci dryctin ōr āstelidæ
hē ǣrist scōp aelda barnum
heben til hrōfe, hāleg scepen.
Thā middungeard moncynnæs Uard,
eci Dryctin, æfter tīadæ
fīrum foldu, Frēa allmectig.
Now [we] shall honour / heaven-kingdom's guardian,
the measurer's might / and his mind's plan,
the work of the father of glory / as he of each wonder,
eternal lord, / the origin established;
he first created / for the children of men
heaven for a roof, / holy creator.
Then Middle-earth / mankind's guardian,
eternal Lord, / after bestowed
the lands to men, / Lord almighty.
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