226
•XXIII. THE. WANDEREB.
The poem entitled the "Wanderer" is representative of the lyrics
produced in the first (Anglian) period of Anglo-Saxon literature. Tie '
dominant note is that of sadness. The poet is full of the sorrows, of
bereavement and of exile ; he laments the death of protectors and of
friends, the passing away of the joys of comradeship ; his delusive .
dreams of past happiness deepen by contrast the gloom of the desolate
reality wrought by death, change and devastation, But although a
man cannot withstand fate, lie can 'in distress practise the restraint
and resignation of the tn\e hero. In the " Battle of MaMon " the
relation between a lord .and his men is seen, under tiie severest test ;
the " Wanderer," t>y the indirect touches of longing recollection, draws
a picture of the wmMatus in the joyous hall of the gift-dispensing
lord. .

The authorship of the poem is undetermined ; there is no reason for
assigning i't to Cynewull

160, 7. — hryre. "We should expect hryres, gen. depending on
gemyndig (Holthansea), - , • '. .

lēl, 4. — mlane wisse is perhaps best translated by 'niay show
(wltan) favor,' There is difficulty with the unusual word nilnne.*
Thorpe first suggested minne (for MS. mine), and Slevsrs, on metrical
grounds, has accepted it; Kluge, however, substitutes mildse, and
Holthansen suggests mildae. Sweet, in violation of metrical require-
ments, retains , mine, (or myne), to which he gives the meaning-
' memory, love.'

,182, 28. — fugel. According to īhorpe fugel is here used figura-
tively to denote 'ship'; of. the simile in the Beowulf (1. 218), flota
fāmighēals fugle gelicost,
'the foamy-necked sWp most like to a
bird.' But see Modern Language Notes, Vol. XIII,, p. 176.

163, 1.— ælda (sēlda), Anglian ; S. 169, 2,
XXIV. THE FEKENĪX.
The first,part of the Anglo-Saxon "Phoenix" (11. 1-380) is an
adaptation or paraphrase of a Latin poem attributed to Lāctantius
Firmianus (4th century). In Teafiel's History of Latin Literatim.-