268

…following a Christian tradition in reading…Lactantius (ca. 260-340) allegorically…Old English tradition in translating and adapting a Latin original
 

…adapt different sources…these sources vary considerably in both content and intention.
 

…homogeneous poem out of…diverse material                    
 

…English poet…adapted the original to suit his own ends.
 

269

The Phoenix is verbose, and one might almost say diffuse, whereas the Carmen is precise and compact. Latin poem states briefly…blessed spot is to be found in the far east. But the English poet…opens his poem with a flourish…typical epic formula…habbe ic gefrugnan.
 

…felix locus (blessed place)…athelast londa…English poet to make his landscape noble
 

…not so much interested in the land’s beauty…always affected by the allegorical implications.
 

…aethele, wlitig…aenlic…none of these attributes…in the Latin
 

…paves the way for the allegorical interpretation which is to follow. What is implicit in the first half in made explicit in the second.
 

…nis (ne)…ac construction…not accessible to any man, but it is barred to all sinners….multiply the negatives in the first half of the construction.
 

…the Carmen’s statement that the land was not visited by summer’s heat or winter’s cold is extended by the English poet to include…rain, snow, frost, fire, and hail. Consequently, …effect…incantation…
 

270

…paradise is described in negative rather than positive terms.
 

…opening lines…a further difference…God dominates the poem which is firmly and unashamedly Christian…Carmen, however, there are references only to heathen gods and goddesses,…included for rhetorical purposes alone
 

…no suggestion in the Carmen that there is one deity
 

…He made his work explicitly Christian and he tried to relate it to the Old English heroic background…exemplified in…earlier poetry.
 

The English poet has not attempted, however, to shift the scene…form the far and the near east…phoenix is said to visit Syrwara lond (166).
 

271

…leaving out all that might be considered classical…set…against a Christian Germanic background.
 

…copious references to …Day of Judgment
 

…medieval allegory…world…creation of the divine logos…every created thing was an expression of the divine thought; the world in fact was a book written by the hand of God in which every creature is a word charged with meaning. By reading nature aright, the wise man can look beyond the material form and penetrate to the divine thought…whole world is a symbol.
 

Phoenix…a symbol of a divine truth.
 

…written in order that we might realize what this truth was.
 

…phoenix in itself…neither more nor less important than the story…allegory keeps on appearing in the first half…symbol…interpretation…divine thought…expression of that thought in a material form
 

…real purpose, the revelation of the Christian message to be found in a created being.
 

272

…take only…served his purpose
 

…Germanic background
 

Old English epic opening
 

Instead of he classical gates of heaven, the sea which appears so often in Old English poetry is introduced
 

…frequent reference to both sun and sea.
 

…reminiscent of more vigorous and bloodthirsty exploits
 

…to make plain the correspondence between the life of the phoenix and that of man…poet tends to anthropomorphize the phoenix.
 

…blessed who will come through the purgatorial fire purged of their sins.
 

273

The earlier poets portrayed nature in its sternest moods
 

…vigorous and positive
 

The Phoenix…imaginary, ideal landscape. Everything is pleasant, nothing is harmful…none of the reality of those in…earlier poetry…portrays the land in…negative terms
 

274

…painted the garden in more symbolic terms than…his source.
 

…principal source, the Carmen
 

Ambrose’s Hexameron…used in the second half…Christian and allegorical already.
 

…not certain whether he had learned of these from written or oral sources.
 

…allegory opens with…expulsion of our forefathers…until Christ by his death…reopened it.
 

…expulsion of Adam and Eve…resembles the flight of the phoenix form its home when it is old…the phoenix…rejuvenated…man wanders…afflicted by the powers of evil.
 

…some men…obey the commands of Christ…comparing…tree in which the phoenix built its nest with Christ. If a man shelters in Christ, nothing can harm him, as nothing could harm the phoenix in its nest
 

…man must build a nest by means of his good works, which correspond to the spices used by the phoenix…
 

…at his death he is buried and waits …till Doomsday…all are led before God in judgment and the world is consumed by fire
 

…metrical paraphrase of Job…certain he will rise again at the Day of Judgment, just as the phoenix…from its ashes
 

…allegory….slightly different emphasis.
 

In heaven the blessed follow Christ around…as the birds had followed the phoenix
 

…like the phoenix, the blessed live in glory and…shining garments.
 

276

…phoenix…at first all men who will rise again at Doomsday, then more narrowly all good men who will go to heaven, and finally Christ himself…rebirth foreshadows man’s future resurrection, …also a symbol of Christ’s past resurrection…blesses…sometimes compared with the phoenix and sometimes with the birds which follow the phoenix
 

Christ is represented…either by the tree or by the phoenix itself…poet has failed to select and arrange his material satisfactorily…overlapping interpretations sometimes confuse the reader
 

…fault may well be that the poet knew too many different interpretations of the phoenix and attempted to include them all