Brightest Beacon
Christ’s cross promises to take away the fear of Judgment Day.
800
Anglo-Saxon Britain 410-1066
Christ’s cross promises to take away the fear of Judgment Day.
800
Anglo-Saxon Britain 410-1066
In ‘The Dream of the Rood’, Cynewulf (possibly the 8th century bishop of Lindisfarne) imagines the Cross of Christ finding voice and recounting the experiences that great Friday. Here, the Cross speaks of the Day of Judgment and the comfort and assurance the very thought of it brings to mankind even at that late hour.
freely translated from the Old English
NOW I bid thee, dear braveheart, tell this vision unto all men, spread the word that this is that glorious tree on which Almighty God suffered for the manifold sins of men, and for what Adam did long ago. Death he tasted there; yet afterwards the Lord arose to give men his mighty aid. Then he ascended into heaven.
Hither shall he, the Lord himself, Almighty God with his angels, haste again, to this Middle Earth on the Day of Doom, seeking out mankind, that he who wieldeth doom might declare it upon each and every one as he in this fleeting life hath earned it.
No man should feel unafraid at the doom that the Wielder shall declare. For he shall inquire who among that company would for his Lord’s name taste bitter death, as he once did upon that tree? And they shall tremble with fear, and few shall think of any answer they could give to Christ.
Yet no man there need feel afraid if he bear in his breast this best of beacons; and every soul that thinketh to dwell with the Wielder must seek the heavenly realm through that Rood, forsaking the paths of earth.
freely translated from the Old English
1. What is the author aiming to achieve in writing this?
2. Note any words, devices or turns of phrase that strike you. How do they help the author communicate his ideas more effectively?
3. What impression does this passage make on you? How might you put that impression into words?
Based on The English Critic (1939) by NL Clay, drawing on The New Criticism: A Lecture Delivered at Columbia University, March 9, 1910, by J. E. Spingarn, Professor of Comparative Literature in Columbia University, USA.