The Composer of Beozculf 345 



(2) be expert in musical recitation (cf. 90, 496, 1063) of the 

 lays he knew ; 



(3) be quick and skilful in extemporizing on a new theme (cf. 

 Chadwick, pp. 83, 87). 



X. THE COMPOSER OF WIDSITH 



My brief discussion of Widsith may be introduced by a few 

 extracts, bearing chiefly upon the question of date, from Cham- 

 bers' edition of 1913. After an examination of various critical 

 remarks upon the poem, Chambers continues (pp. 150-1) : 'We 

 have an exceedingly early poem, belonging probably to the seventh 

 century, but reflecting the traditions of the fifth and sixth. . . . 

 Widsith has been interpolated. ... It may be well to make a list 

 of the passages open to suspicion. ... In this schedule of sus- 

 pected passages we must place the Biblical interpolation [82-4], 

 with the other lines condemned by Miillenhoff (11. 14-17, 75-87, 

 131-4),' etc. Again he says (pp. 178-9) : 'Widsith seems to belong 

 to a period . . . earlier than Bcozvulf or Genesis: that is, to the 

 seventh century. This, too. is the date which . . . has been 

 widely accepted, but not universally, because the view has hitherto 

 been entertained that the language and metre of Widsith pointed 

 rather to the eighth than the seventh century. . . . Our poem 

 owes its preservation, where so much has been lost, to the fact that 

 it interested a monkish scribe, prol:)ably because of its encyclopaedic 

 geographical information. But the world of this scribe was very 

 different from that of the tribal bard who first devised the lay.' 

 With reference to this scribe. Chambers identifies him (p. 4) with 

 the transcri])er of the Exeter Book, and in another place (p. 9) 

 speaks of 'the tenth-century English monk whom we suppose to 

 have interpolated lines 82-84.' 



Reduced to the barest outline, a summary of these statements 

 might be : 



(i) The opinions of the critics, for the most part, assign the 

 Widsith to the seventh or eighth century. 



(2) The interpolation of lines 82-4 may be as late as the tenth 

 century. 



Lines 82-4 are thus translated : 'With the Israelites I was and 

 with the Assyrians, with the Hebrews, with the Indians, and with 



