350 And the blisses of heaven, through his blessed mercy.
THE PHŒNIX
[Text used: Bright’s Anglo-Saxon Reader. The Latin source is also printed there.
Alliterative translations: Pancoast and Spaeth, Early English Poems; William Rice Sims, Modern Language Notes, vii, 11-13; Hall, Judith, Phœnix, etc.
Source: First part, Lactantius, De Ave Phoenice; second part, application of the myth to Christ based on Ambrose and Bede.
In summing up scholarly opinion up to the date of his own writing (1910) Mr. Kennedy says [The Poems of Cynewulf, pp. 58-59]: “In general, however, it may be said that, while the question does not submit itself to definite conclusions, the weight of critical opinion leans to the side of Cynewulf’s having written the Phœnix, and that the time of its composition would fall between the Christ and the Elene.”
The first part of the poem is among the most pleasing pieces of description in Anglo-Saxon.]
I.
I have heard that there lies a land far hence
A noble realm well-known unto men,