Читать книгу Children's Stories in English Literature: From Taliesin to Shakespeare - Henrietta Christian Wright - Страница 7
ОглавлениеCAEDMON.
The old British songs and the story of Beowulf belong to the time before England received the name it is now known by, and when the tribes which inhabited the land were often hostile, and always jealous of the power which each held. But as years passed the land grew more peaceful, and even the old warriors who had fought so fiercely at length came to imagine a future when there should be harmony between the different tribes, and when their children's children should no longer look upon one another as rivals, but all should be joined together by mutual interests, and the word English stand for all the people who called that country their home.
And this time at last actually came, but in a way perhaps that the fierce sea-kings had never dreamed of, for the cause was so unlike anything that had ever influenced them, that it is no wonder they could know nothing of it. Differ as they might in many things, the Saxons and the Britons were all alike in their love for battle and the deep, undying hatred which they felt toward an invader of their homes. The British chieftain longed to die finally in battle, for his religion taught him it was the one glorious thing to do, and the Saxon chief was filled with the same desire, for the priests had taught him that only in this way could he win entrance to Valhalla, the Norseman's heaven.
But there had come to Britain from across the sea, many years before the first Saxons landed on its shores, a little band of men who neither were dressed in glittering armor, nor held in their hands the cruel weapons of war, but who wore coarse garments such as the poorest might have worn, and bore a banner on which was wrought the figure of a dove, the emblem of peace.
They were Christian missionaries who had heard of the cruel religious practices of the Britons, and their love of revenge, and they had come to the island with the hope of winning them to a purer religion. Their simple ways of life, their honest service to their faith, their kindness to the poor, and the hope they gave of a better life beyond the grave, made a deep impression upon their listeners, who admired their courage in coming among a hostile people, sympathized with them in their indifference to hardship and deprivation, and found a strange pleasure in the thought that the new religion offered a strong field for battle, though the fighting was not to be with sword or spear, but against the strong powers of selfish courage and savage greed of power, and with the weapons of self-denial and a love that seemed all the greater because of its humility.
Many converts were won, and from this time Britain contained here and there little bands of native Christians who tried to lead their more savage brothers into gentler ways of living. Gradually churches and monasteries were established and the Christian religion was acknowledged by many, and Christian communities could be found in various places; and so extensive was the conversion that British bishops sat in the Council that was held in Arles, France, in 314, to discuss matters of importance to the Church. When the Saxon tribes came to Britain, bringing with them their religion of war and bloodshed, and finally succeeded in driving the Britons away from many places where they made Saxon settlements, the Christian religion suffered greatly from the change, and many of the British Christians went back to their ancient faith. Still, in the north of England, where the Church was too firmly established to perish before heathenism, the invaders gradually adopted the religion of the conquered, and the country became gradually re-christianized. Long afterward Christian priests from Rome came to the Saxon settlements in the south and preached the new religion of love and mercy, and in time their doctrines won favor and the southern Saxons began again to accept Christianity and to dream of another life than one of continued fighting and feasting. Perhaps the listening warriors remembered the story of Beowulf, and how his great battle was fought with other weapons than they knew anything of, and how he met death gloriously while trying unselfishly to serve the people he loved; perhaps they remembered that their great gods Odin and Thor, whose service was fear, were after all less loved by them than the gentle Baldur, whose service was peace, because all nature loved him. At any rate, from whatever reason, the new religion gradually spread from one part of the island to another, heathen temples were pulled down, heathen gods were forsaken, and there came at last a day when England could be called a Christian land from shore to shore. And then all over the country arose monasteries and churches, and the people were more firmly united than they had ever been before, for the new faith bound one and all, high and low, in the perfect brotherhood which the monks meant to establish when they told the story of how the new faith was first preached, not to great kings or mighty warriors, but to the humble shepherds who were watching their flocks on the hillsides around Bethlehem.
This great change could not take place without affecting the nation in many ways. War ceased to be glorified, and was looked upon as a fearful necessity and not the object of life. And the old war-songs and battle-chants gave place to Christian hymns, and it became more common to hear the sweet voices of nuns singing matins and vespers, than to start at the sound of the war-trumpet. And so it is not strange to find that about the same time that the story of Beowulf was written to please the warlike chieftains, another great poem should be sung by a Christian monk, to glorify the mission of the Church of peace, and should have for its subject the stories and incidents which are found in the Bible.
The author of this poem, known to us as Caedmon, from the name given to him by the monks when he was received into the monastery of Whitby, was born in 625, and had been perhaps, before his entrance into the community, a tenant-farmer on some of the abbey lands. In those days the lowliest born and the highest were alike in their love for song, and when we consider that their lives were for the most part spent in hard, monotonous labor, or warfare, and that what is called the beautiful had very little share in them, we do not wonder that they cherished the gift of song as the one bright thing in their existence. And so common was this gift among all classes, that it was looked upon as a reproach not to be able to sing.
According to a popular legend, Caedmon had not the gift of song at all, and felt his deficiency deeply, and this sorrow grew upon him so that he used to rise and leave the room when the harp was passed around, so that no one should see how deeply he was hurt. Thus his life was very lonely, and often sad, and as he wandered with the cattle over the meadows and heard the lark beginning the day with its sweet song, or listened to the music of the nightingale singing in the dark, when he sought to escape from the jeers of his companions, he felt that all nature had a voice and that he alone was dumb. But one night, when his friends were even merrier than usual at the feast, and the harp passed rapidly from one to another, Caedmon arose as was his custom and left the room. It was his turn to watch over the cattle during the night, and he lay down on his bed of straw and closed his eyes. But as he lay sleeping, a stranger with a face and form more beautiful than he had ever seen before, came to him in a dream, and touched him, and said, "Caedmon, sing." And Caedmon answered, "I cannot." But the stranger insisted and said, "Thou must sing." And as Caedmon looked on him he felt the birth of a new power in his soul, and his heart leaped with joy, for his visitor had brought to him the thing that he had desired above all others—the gift of song.
Then he was as eager to sing as a captive bird to use its wings, and he said to the stranger, "What shall I sing?" And he answered, "Sing me the origin of all things." Then in his dream Caedmon sang words and music that he had never heard before, in praise of the Creator of the world. And when the dream left him he still kept the music in his mind, and in the morning told the vision to an officer of the town, who led him to the Abbess Hilda, who had charge of the monastery, and who was so well beloved that everyone called her Mother. Hilda listened to Caedmon's song, and then called together all the learned men of the Order to determine the nature of his gift; for in those days it was often believed that anything uncommon might bring evil to its possessor. But as Caedmon sang, the holy men at once decided that his gift had come from heaven, for the music seemed to them divine. Then they read to Caedmon some portions of the Bible, and asked him if he could turn them into melody; and the next day he came again to the monastery and sang the words that had been given him, turning them into such sweet music that the abbess became convinced that he had been called by God to another way of life. So she persuaded him to become a monk and received him into the minster, and bade the wise among the company teach him the words of the Bible, so that he might sing the Scriptures and thus bring greater glory to their religion. Caedmon listened to the accounts from the Bible and turned them all into song, so that a great part of the Scriptures became known to the people of that community through his singing, which was so unlike anything that had ever been heard before that he was looked upon as being especially endowed with the divine favor.
Caedmon lived in the monastery until he became an old man, loved by all the Order and the people of the neighborhood, and his fame spread abroad throughout all England, and many strangers came to Whitby, attracted only by the wonder of his voice. The monks wrote his songs down carefully, and they were learned by all the people, and became as familiar as the war-songs and love-ballads that were sung at their feasts. And though many other minstrels tried to sing of heavenly things and rival Caedmon, they could not, for his gift was the greater, and was considered by all to be divine from the manner of its coming to him. So his fame remained unrivalled, and after many years death came to him at last as the monks were singing nocturns, and so he had sweet music till the end.
Without accepting the miraculous part of this tradition we may easily see how the idea of paraphrasing the Scriptures may have come to Caedmon in a dream; and it has been conjectured that his never having sung before was due to religious scruple, fostered by the missionaries, against encouraging the warlike and unchristian feelings aroused by the minstrelsy of the time, and that he used his native gift as soon as he conceived the idea of singing the praises of religion with it. He was deeply religious, he lived where there had been the greatest mingling of the British and Saxon races, and though we cannot say positively that he was of Celtic blood, it is certain that he was inspired by the Celtic and missionary spirit, and was hostile to the traditions of the Saxon bards, who celebrated the victories of their chiefs and the deeds of Norse heroes.
Although the subjects of his verse were not original with him, yet in his Paraphrase Caedmon showed himself a true poet, at a time when the English race was considered almost as barbarian by the more enlightened nations. The literature of any other country was quite unknown to him, and it is from this fact that his poetry is peculiarly valuable, since we are sure that whatever beauty it possesses belongs to Caedmon alone.
Besides their literary value, his works are important because of the influence they exerted over the English nation at a time when all books were written in Latin, and Caedmon's verse alone could reveal to the unlearned both the glory of the new faith and the possible beauty that had lain theretofore almost unrevealed in their own language.
