"
II. The JUDITH is a fragment, but a very torso of Hercules. The first
nine cantos, nearly three-fourths of the poem, are irretrievably lost,
so that we have left but the last three cantos with a few lines of the
ninth. The story is from the apocryphal book of Judith, and the part
remaining corresponds to chapters XII. 10 to XVI. 1, but the poet has
failed to translate the grand thanksgiving of Judith in the sixteenth
chapter. The story of Judith and Holofernes is too well known to need
narration. The poet, doubtless, followed the Latin Vulgate, as we have
no reason to think that a knowledge of Greek was a common possession
among Old English poets; but, as Professor Cook says, "the order of
events is not that of the original narrative. Many transpositions have
been made in the interest of condensation and for the purpose of
enhancing the dramatic liveliness of the story."
The Old English text is found in the same manuscript with the BEOWULF
(Cotton, Vitellius, A, xv.), and, to my mind, this poem reminds the
reader more of the vigor and fire of BEOWULF than does any other Old
English poem; but its author is unknown. It has been assigned by some
scholars to the tenth century, which is rather late for it; but
Professor Cook has given reasons for thinking that it may have been
written in the second half of the ninth century in honor of Judith, the
step-mother of King Alfred.
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