"This stone which I have set up ... shall be called the house of God" (Gen. xxviii, 22).
CHAPTER IX
"Judith," a great poem founded on Scripture story. Authorship uncertain. Part of it lost. Quotations from it. Description of Holofernes' banquet as of a Saxon feast. Story of Judith dwelt on to encourage resistance to Danes and Northmen.
To-day we shall think about some more of the great poetry that was made before the Norman Conquest, and we shall first take one of the finest and most characteristic poems which remain to us, a poem founded on Bible story; the great poem, of which we have unfortunately only a part, the "Judith."
It is not certain who wrote this poem: it may have been Cynewulf; but we do not know.
The story of Judith is a well-known one; the story of the Hebrew lady who is described in the foreword to the Book of Judith as "that illustrous woman, by whose virtue and fortitude, and armed with prayer, the children of Israel were preserved from the destruction threatened them by Holofernes and his great army."
The earlier part of the poem is lost, so we can only guess how the poet told of the ravage wrought by the general of King Nabuchodonoser in the countries close to Palestine, and how submission was as vain as resistance to a power which, for the time being, was allowed to be so terribly great.
The poem, as we have it, begins where Judith has come, in the splendour of her beauty, and the might of her purity, and the power of her faith, to destroy the destroyer and set her people free.
The Prince of Glory gave her the shield of His hand in the place
Where she stood in her uttermost need of the highest Doomer's grace
To save her in peril extreme; and the Ruler of all things made,
The glorious Father in Heaven, He granted the prayer she prayed,
And, because of the might of her faith, He gave His help and His aid.
I have heard how his word went forth, how Holofernes bad
His men to the drinking of wine, and the splendid feast he had.
The prince he called his thanes and the shielded warriors best,
And the folk-leaders came to the mighty, all fain for the doing his best.
And now, since the coming of Judith, three days and three nights had been,
The woman wise in her heart, and fair as the elf-folk sheen.