From many meinies their mead-stools tore. (1. 5.)
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ut Gavin Bone fairly characterized his metric as‘barbarous and strange’, and ‘he will not budge aquarter of an inch to be intelligible’! The moremoderate and scholarly Gummere fared little better:of his translation, using ‘a rhythmic movement whichfairly represents the old verse’— For he waxed under welkin, in wealth he throve (1. 8.) —W. J. Sedgefield wrote’ that it confused main andsecondary stresses, was full of ‘impossible’ metricalforms, was distorted in vocabulary because of thenecessity to alliterate, and ‘it seems a pity to devoteso much time and labour to what is after all a pisaller’! Nor did the more recent imitative attempt ofKennedy escape: reviewing its alliterative measure—A baleful glare from his eyes was gleaming (1. 726.) Englische Studien, Vol. XLI (sgt0), p. 402 f.
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