Ebook: Elene

"Elene" is a poem in Old English, that is sometimes known as "Saint Helena Finds the True Cross." It was translated from a Latin text and is the longest of Cynewulf's four signed poems. It is the fifth of six poems appearing in the Vercelli manuscript, which also contains "The Fates of the Apostles," "Andreas," "Soul and Body I," the "Homiletic Fragment I" and "Dream of the Rood." The poem is the first English account of the finding of the Holy Cross by Saint Helena, the mother of Emperor Constantine. The poem was written by Cynewulf some time between 750 and the tenth century. It is written in a West Saxon dialect, but certain Anglianisms and metrical evidence concerning false rhymes suggest it was written in an Anglian rather than Saxon dialect. It is 1,321 lines long.

The aim of this edition has been to sift the mass of criticism, emendation and speculation which has grown up round the text. In order to bring the work into conformity with the requirements of the series in which it is published it has been necessary in view of the length of the text to reduce the apparatus to a minimum; but it is hoped that the bibliography will afford sufficient guidance to the considerable literature on the text.