[Text used: Kluge, _Angelsaechsisches Lesebuch_.
This description of a ruin with hot baths is generally assumed to be of
the Roman city of Bath. The fact that the poet uses unusual words and
unconventional lines seems to indicate that he wrote with his eye on the
object.]
Wondrous is its wall-stone laid waste by the fates.
The burg-steads are burst, broken the work of the giants.
The roofs are in ruins, rotted away the towers,
The fortress-gate fallen, with frost on the mortar.
5 Broken are the battlements, low bowed and decaying,
Eaten under by age. The earth holds fast
The master masons: low mouldering they lie
In the hard grip of the grave, till shall grow up and perish
A hundred generations. Hoary and stained with red,
10 Through conquest of kingdoms, unconquered this wall endured,
Stood up under storm. The high structure has fallen.
Still remains its wall-stone, struck down by weapons.
They have fallen . . . . . . . . .
Ground down by grim fate . . . . . . . .
15 Splendidly it shone . . . . . . . .
The cunning creation . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . from its clay covering is bent;
Mind . . . . . . the swift one drawn.
The bold ones in counsel bound in rings
19 The wall-foundations with wires, wondrously together.
20 Bright were the burgher's homes, the bath halls many,
Gay with high gables --a great martial sound,
Many mead-halls, where men took their pleasure,
Till an end came to all, through inexorable fate.
The people all have perished; pestilence came on them:
25 Death stole them all, the staunch band of warriors.
Their proud works of war now lie waste and deserted;
This fortress has fallen. Its defenders lie low,
Its repairmen perished. Thus the palace stands dreary,
And its purple expanse; despoiled of its tiles
30 Is the roof of the dome. The ruin sank to earth,
Broken in heaps --there where heroes of yore,
Glad-hearted and gold-bedecked, in gorgeous array,
Wanton with wine-drink in war-trappings shone:
They took joy in jewels and gems of great price,
35 In treasure untold and in topaz-stones,
In the firm-built fortress of a far-stretching realm.
The stone courts stood; hot streams poured forth,
Wondrously welled out. The wall encompassed all
In its bright embrace. Baths were there then,
40 Hot all within --a healthful convenience.
They let then pour . . . . . . . . . .
Over the hoary stones the heated streams,
Such as never were seen by our sires till then.
Hringmere was its name . . . . . . . . . .
45 The baths were there then; then is . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . That is a royal thing
In a house . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
14-18. The text is too corrupt to permit of reconstruction. A literal
translation of the fragmentary lines has been given in order to show
the student something of the loss we have suffered in not having the
whole of this finely conceived lament for fallen grandeur. The line
numbers are those of Kluge's text.