[65.] Wita sceal geþyldig. Either bēon (wesan) is here to be understood after sceal, or sceal alone means ought to be. Neither construction is to be found in Alfredian prose, though the omission of a verb of motion after sculan is common in all periods of Old English. See note on nō ... meahte, [p. 140].
[75.] swā nū. “The Old English lyrical feeling,” says Ten Brink, citing the lines that immediately follow swā nū, “is fond of the image of physical destruction”; but I do not think these lines have a merely figurative import. The reference is to a period of real devastation, antedating the Danish incursions. “We might fairly find such a time in that parenthesis of bad government and of national tumult which filled the years between the death of Aldfrith in 705 and the renewed peace of Northumbria under Ceolwulf in the years that followed 729.” (Brooke, Early Eng. Lit., p. 355.)
[93.] cwōm ... gesetu. Ettmüller reads cwōmon; but see [p. 107], note on wæs ... þā īgland. The occurrence of hwǣr cwōm three times in the preceding line tends also to hold cwōm in the singular when its plural subject follows. Note the influence of a somewhat similar structural parallelism in seas hides of these lines (Winter’s Tale, IV, IV, 500-502):
“Not for ... all the sun sees or
The close earth wombs or the profound seas hides
In unknown fathoms, will I break my oath.”
[111.] gesæt ... rūne, sat apart to himself in silent meditation.
[114.] eorl ... gefręmman. Supply sceal after eorl.
[1] = Metodes.
[2] = earfoþa.