Anglo-Saxon Riddles of the Exeter Book/Annotated/11

This is a fairly close rendering of Aldhelm&rsquo;s hundredth and final riddle, De Creatura. The method is the same as that in 50 ( 35), q.v., which is based on Aldhelm&rsquo;s De Lorica and perhaps the same man was the translator: generally two lines for each of Aldhelm&rsquo;s hexameters&mdash;at least through l. 79. This use of two lines for one is responsible for the thinness of the style, as bald and unconvincing as the present version. For example, compare the opening lines of the Latin:


 * The Creator, who established the ages on eternal pillars, the Ruler of kingdoms, who bridles the lightnings by his law, while the heights of the widespreading universe are swaying to and fro into space, formed me in various shapes, when in the beginning he founded the world. (Wyatt&rsquo;s translation.)

The Anglo-Saxon translator omitted most of the classical allusions, except Vulcan (l. 56) and Zephyrus (l. 68), but retained the word pernix (Aldhelm l. 35), which he obviously did not understand. Then beginning at l. 83 there are further examples of his misunderstanding of the Latin, which suggests that a different translator took over. Moreover, after l. 79 there are two lines not in Aldhelm and then a skip of Aldhelm&rsquo;s ll. 43–61, though some of the lines omitted are picked up at the end. Altogether Aldhelm has 83 hexameters; Riddle 40 has 107 lines, having left out some 25 lines of the Latin, partly of course because our Anglo-Saxon text is incomplete.

2. An imaginary bird for Aldhelm&rsquo;s pernix aquilis (swift eagle). Chaucer, House of Fame,, 302, made partridges&rsquo; wings out of Virgil&rsquo;s pernicibus alis.

3. This line repeats l. 5 above.