;^;^S Beozviilf and IVidsith 



Ac velut ille canum morsu dc montihus altis 

 Actus aper, . . . 



. . . postquam inter retia ventum est, 

 Substitit, infremuitque ferox et inhorruit armos ; 

 Nee cuiquam irasci propriusque accedere virtus, 

 Sed jaculis tutisque procul clamoribus instant. 

 Ille autem impavidus partis cunctatus in omnis, 

 Dentibus infrendens, et tergo decutit hastas. 



An attentive comparison will show that this can hardly be 

 regarded as Aldhelm's original, however partial he is to Virg"il. 

 Any one of two or three passages from the Iliad would have served 

 as an exacter model. So this (17. 725-8) : 'Charged like hounds 

 that spring in front of hunter-youths upon a wounded zvild boar, 

 and for a while run in in haste to rend him, but when he wheeleth 

 round among them, trusting in his might, then they give ground, 

 and shrink back here and there.' Or this (11. 414-8) : 'And even 

 as zvhen hounds and young men in their bloom press round a boar, 

 and he cometh forth from his deep lair, whetting his ivhite teeth 

 between crooked jaws, and round him tJiey rush, and the soimd of 

 the gnashing of tusks ariseth, and straightway they await his 

 assault, so dread as he is,' etc. And it is entirely reasonable to 

 suppose that Aldhelm, who had been a pupil of Theodore,^ may 

 through him have become acquainted with Homer, whom Theo- 

 dore must almost certainly have read during his studious years at 

 Athens, if not earlier. 



As for the example which Aldhelm, in his capacity as author, 

 set the English people, it will be sufficient to quote these sentences 

 from Green^ : 'He had become a master of all the knowledge of 

 his day, and the rising scholar-world of Kent and Northitmbria 

 welcomed his Latin poems and prose. . . . He was the first 

 singer of his race. . . . The songs of Aldhelm led the \vay in 

 that upgrowth of popular poetry which was soon to fill the land 

 with English verse. Creed, prayer, riddle, allegory, acrostic, 

 Bible-story and saint-story, hero-tale and battle-tale, proverb and 

 moral saw, the longing of the exile, the toil of the seaman, the 



^ Cf . the subscription to Ceadwalla's charter of 680 {Cart. Sax. i. 83; 

 Ehwald, p. Sii) : 'Ego Aldhelmus, scolasticus archiepiscopi Theodori' ; 

 similarly, 'Theodori rethoris discipulo' (Ehwald, p. 51). On the possibility 

 that Aldfrith may have had some knowledge of Greek, see above, p. 311. 



' Cf . pp. 336-7- 



