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OUR FIRST SPEECH. Our first recorded speech begins with the songs of Widsith and Deor, which the Anglo-Saxons may have brought with them when they first conquered Britain. At first glance these songs in their native dress look strange as a foreign tongue; but when we examine them carefully we find many words that have been familiar since childhood.
Another reference may probably be supplied by the much debated lines 14-16 from the Anglo-Saxon Deor, of which the most satisfactory translation seems to be: "Many of us have heard of the harm of Hild; the Jute's loves were unbounded, so that the care of love took from him sleep altogether."
Deor. i. 67; de Fat. 2; Dialog. de Orat. 31, 32. Lucullus, 6, 18; de Orat. ii. 38, iii. 18. Quint, Inst. xii. 2. Numen. apud Euseb. Præp. Evang. xiv. 6 and 8.
Quæst. i. 27; de Div. ii. 72; pro Milon. 31; de Legg. ii. 7. Fragm. de Rep. 3; Tusc. Quæst. i. 29. Tusc. Quæst. i. passim; de Senect. 21, 22; Somn. Scip. 8. De Div. i. 32, 49; Fragm. de Consolat. Tusc. Quæst. i. 30; Som. Scip. 9; de Legg. ii. 11. De Amic. 4; de Off. iii. 28; pro Cluent. 61; de Legg. ii. 17: Tusc. Quæst. i. 11; pro Sext. 21; de Nat. Deor. i. 17. De Senect. 23.
The very form of the universe the sphere is the most perfect of all forms, and therefore suited to embody the Divine. Deor. ii. 34. Paley's Nat. Then Cotta who though, as Pontifex, he is a national priest by vocation, is of that sect in philosophy which makes doubt its creed resumes his objections. He is no better satisfied with the tenets of the Stoics than with those of the Epicureans.
DEOR'S LAMENT. In "Deor" we have another picture of the Saxon scop, or minstrel, not in glad wandering, but in manly sorrow. It seems that the scop's living depended entirely upon his power to please his chief, and that at any time he might be supplanted by a better poet.
It must, however, be an ancient legend; and the hero Hedin belongs to one of the old Germanic heroic races, for the minstrel Deor is a dependent of the Heodenings in the Old English poem to which reference will be made later. The legend is that Hild, daughter of Högni, was carried away by Hedin the Hjathning, Hjarrandi's son. Högni pursued, and overtook them near the Orkneys.
See a striking passage from Cicero's Academics, preserved by Augustine, contra Acad. iii. 7, and Lucullus, 18. De Nat. Deor. passim; de Div. ii. 72. "Quorum controversiam solebat tanquam honorarius arbiter judicare Carneades." Tusc. Quæst. v. 41. De Fin. ii. 1; de Orat. i. 18; Lucullus, 3; Tusc. Quæst. v. 11; Numen. apud Euseb. Præp. Evang. xiv. 6, etc. Lactantius, Inst. iii. 4. De Nat.
Deordie, climb up behind, and hold back my hair, there's a darling, while I fasten off. Oh! Deor, you're pulling my hair out. Don't." "I want to make a pig-tail," said Deor. "You can't," said Tiny, with feminine contempt. "You can't plait. What's the good of asking boys to do anything? There! it's done at last. Now go and ask Mother if we may go.
Deor had this experience, and comforts himself in a grim way by recalling various examples of men who have suffered more than himself. The poem is arranged in strophes, each one telling of some afflicted hero and ending with the same refrain: His sorrow passed away; so will mine. "Deor" is much more poetic than "Widsith," and is the one perfect lyric of the Anglo-Saxon period.
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