This translation of the ELENE was made while reading the poem with a
post-graduate student in the session of 1887-88, Zupitza's second
edition being used for the text, which does not differ materially from
that in his third edition (1888). It was completed before I received a
copy of Dr. Weymouth's translation (1888), from Zupitza's text; but in
the revision for publication I have referred to it, although I cannot
always agree with the learned scholar in his interpretation of certain
passages. Grein's text was, however, used to fill _lacunæ_, and in the
revision the recently published (1888) Grein-Wülker text was compared in
some passages. The line-for-line form has been employed, as in my
translation of BÉOWULF; for it has been approved by high authority, and
is unquestionably more serviceable to the student, even if I have not
been able to attain ideal correctness of rhythm. I plead guilty in
advance to any _lapsus_ in that respect, but I strongly suspect that I
have appreciated the difficulty more highly than my future critics. The
ELENE is more suitable than the BÉOWULF for first reading in Old English
poetry on account of its style and its subject, which make the
interpretation considerably easier, and I concur with Körting, in his
_Grundriss der Geschichte der Englischen Litteratur_ (p. 47, 1887): "Die
ELENE eignet sich sowohl wegen ihres anmutigen Inhaltes, als auch, weil
sie in der trefflichen Ausgabe von Zupitza leicht zugänglich ist, als
erste poetische Lectüre für Anfänger im Angelsächsischen." This
statement is now the stronger for English readers because Zupitza's text
is in course of publication, edited with introduction, notes, and
glossary by Professor Charles W. Kent, of the University of Tennessee.
I have appended a few notes which explain themselves, and have
occasionally inserted words in brackets.
The translations of the JUDITH and the BYRHTNOTH were made in regular
course of reading with undergraduate classes, the former in 1886, and
the latter in 1887, the texts in Sweet's "Anglo-Saxon Reader" being
used, and compared with those in Grein and in Körner. The text of JUDITH
is now accessible in Professor Cook's edition (1888).
The translation of the ATHELSTAN has been added from Körner's text,
compared with Grein and Wülker, and in certain passages with Thorpe and
Earle. For fuller literary information than the Introduction provides,
the reader is referred to ten Brink's "Early English Literature,"
Kennedy's translation (1883), and to Morley's "English Writers," Vol.
II. (1888).