Bookworm

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Revision as of 23:47, 22 May 2012 by Jargogle (talk | contribs) (Created page with "==Text== From Skeats' ''Anglo-Saxon Reader'', rev. C. T. Onions (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1933), 167. ''M''oððe word fræt; ''m''ē þæt þūhte ''w''rǣt''t''licu ''w''yrd,...")

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Text

From Skeats' Anglo-Saxon Reader, rev. C. T. Onions (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1933), 167.

Moððe word fræt; mē þæt þūhte

wrǣttlicu wyrd, þā ic þæt wundor gefrægn,

þæt se wyrm forswealg wera giedd sumes,

þēof in þȳstro þrymmfæstne cwide

and þæs strangan staþol: stælgiest ne wæs

wihte þȳ glēawra þe hē þām wordum swealg.


Translation

From The Anglo-Saxon World, tr. Kevin Crossley-Holland (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 247.


A moth devoured words. When I heard

of that wonder it sruck me as a strange event

that a worm should swallow the song of some man,

a thief gorge in the darkness on a great man's

speech of distinction. The thievish stranger

was not a whit the wiser for swallowing words.