Solomon and Saturn

''Solomon and Saturn'' is the generic name given to four Old English works, which present a dialogue of riddles between Solomon, the king of Israel, and Saturn, identified in two of the poems as a prince of the Chaldeans.

On account of earlier editorial tendencies, the two poetical works, ''Solomon and Saturn I'' and ''Solomon and Saturn II'', have often been read as a single, continuous poem. They are considered some of the most enigmatic and difficult poems of the Old English corpus.

''Prose Solomon and Saturn''

The so-called ''Prose Solomon and Saturn'' in the Nowell Codex (the ''Beowulf'' manuscript) is a question-and-answer text dealing chiefly with issues of biblical or Christian lore. It shares much similarity with the later Old English prose dialogue '' Adrian and Ritheus'' and, later still, the Middle English '' Master of Oxford's Catechism''.

Poetic versions

Themes

''Solomon and Saturn I'', ''Solomon and Saturn II'', and the ''Pater Noster Solomon and Saturn'' in MS Cambridge, Corpus Christi College (CCCC) 422 are often compared to the ''Vafþrúðnismál'' and '' Alvíssmál'' and other similar poems in the Old Norse '' Poetic Edda''.

Kathryn Powell has described these poetic versions as an example of an " orientalist fantasy" which works to suppress anxieties about the English cultural identity. She argues that they attempt to minimise anxieties about the unstable condition of knowledge, the future of the kingdoms and the Christian faith by "displacing any lack of knowledge, political stability or faith onto the Eastern and pagan figure of Saturn and the Chaldean people he represents". Instead, Powell suggests, the dialogues' original readers would have been encouraged to identify with the figure of Solomon, who is constructed as a model of Christian ideals and behaviour.Kathryn Powell
, 'Orientalist fantasy in the poetic dialogues of Solomon and Saturn', ''Anglo-Saxon England'' 34 (2005), 117-143 Cambridge University Press

Date

As with most Old English poetry, the ''Solomon and Saturn'' poems have proven notoriously difficult to date. Patrick O'Neill has argued for a connection to the court of Alfred the Great (reigned 886 – 26 October 899) in the ninth century,Patrick O'Neill, 'On the date, provenance and relationship of the ‘Solomon and Saturn’ dialogues', ''Anglo-Saxon England'' 26 (1997), 139-168. whereas Daniel Anlezark sees the poem as fitting into the mid-tenth-century cultural milieu of Dunstan's Glastonbury.

The ''Solomon and Saturn'' texts are often considered the earliest forms of a wider European literary tradition that comprises similar works such as the dialogue between Solomon and Marcolf.

''Solomon and Saturn I''

''Solomon and Saturn I'' is one of the few Old English poems to survive in more than one manuscript. It appears in MS CCCC 41 and MS CCCC 422. Along with the ''Pater Noster Solomon and Saturn'', ''Solomon and Saturn I'' contains runes as a sort of riddling shorthand in which runic characters stand for the words in Old English that name them. From this, we know some of the names for the extended set of runes used to write Old English. The prose version has as one of its riddles: "Who invented letters? Mercurius the giant". The Anglo-Saxons routinely identified Mercury with Woden (known in Old Norse as ''Óðinn'', and widely today as Odin), who gave his name to Wednesday.J. S. Ryan
Othin in England: Evidence from the Poetry for a Cult of Woden in Anglo-Saxon England
''Folklore'', Vol. 74, No. 3. (Autumn, 1963), pp. 460-480. See p.476.

''Solomon and Saturn II''

''Solomon and Saturn II'', which is often regarded as having more aesthetic merit, contains a number of riddles, including two of the most obscure passages in Old English literature: the ''Weallande Wulf'' and ''Vasa Mortis'' riddles.

''Weallende Wulf''

Saturn's first riddle describes a dragonslayer named Wulf and the wasteland that arises after his death. The poem's earlier editor, Robert Menner, argued that the ''weallende Wulf'' passage ultimately stems from ancient Hebrew legends regarding Nimrod and the builders of the Tower of Babel. He interprets Wulf as the Babylonian god Bel, who is connected to Saturn in Isidore's ''Etymologies''. Andy Orchard has found similarities between Wulf and ''Beowulf''. And Daniel Anlezark has found the passage to participate in an " Avernian tradition", which describes impassable wastelands of ancient history. Tristan Major has suggested that the passage is an orientalist conflation of biblical and classic material, and that Wulf is to be identified with the mythological Perseus.

''Vasa Mortis''

The riddle describes a mysterious bird that will be bound until Doomsday; it has been bound by Solomon and is feared by the leaders of the Philistines. The final line of the passage names the bird as ''Vasa Mortis''. Robert Menner has argued that ancient Jewish origins on Solomon's struggles with demons are at the heart of the Old English riddle; he identifies the ''Vasa Mortis'' with the demon Asmodeus. Cilluffo sees parallels between the ''Vasa Mortis'' and the description of Fame in Virgil's ''Aeneid'', as well as the nocturnal monster in the Anglo-Saxon '' Liber Monstrorum'' and the griffin in the ''Wonders of the East''.Cilluffo, "Mirabilia ags."

References

Bibliography

Editions

*Anlezark, Daniel, ''The Old English Dialogues of Solomon and Saturn'', Anglo-Saxon Texts 7, Cambridge, 2009.
*Cross, James E. and Hill, Thomas D., ''The 'Prose Solomon and Saturn' and 'Adrian and Ritheus, Toronto, 1982.
*Dobbie, Elliott van Kirk, ''Anglo-Saxon Minor Poems'', Anglo-Saxon Poetic Records 6, New York, 1942.
*Foys, Martin ''et al.''
Old English Poetry in Facsimile Project
'' Madison, 2019.
*Kemble, John M., ''The Dialogue of Salomon and Saturnus'', London, 1848.
*Menner, R.J., ''The Poetical Dialogues of Solomon and Saturn'', MLA Monograph Series 13, New York, 1941.

Scholarship

*Anlezark, Daniel. "Poisoned places: the Avernian tradition in Old English poetry." ''Anglo-Saxon England'' 36 (2007): 103–126.
*Cilluffo, Gilda. "Mirabilia ags.: il Vasa Mortis nel Salomone e Saturno." ''Annali Istituto Universitario Orientale di Napoli Filologia germanica'' 24 (1981): 211–226.
*Dane, Joseph A. "The structure of the old English Solomon and Saturn II." ''Neophilologus'' 64.4 (1980): 592–603.
*Major, Tristan. "Saturn’s First Riddle in ''Solomon and Saturn II'': An Orientalist Conflation." ''Neophilologus 96 (2012): 301-313.
*Menner, R.J. "The Vasa Mortis Passage in the Old English Salomon and Saturn." In ''Studies in English Philology in Honor of F. Klaeber. Minneapolis, 1929.
*Menner, R.J. "Nimrod and the Wolf in the Old English ''Solomon and Saturn''." 'JEGP' 37 (1938): 332–54.
*Nelson, Marie. "King Solomon's Magic: The Power of a Written Text." ''Oral Tradition'' 5 (1990): 20–36.
*O'Brien O'Keeffe, Katherine. ''Visible Song: Transitional Literacy in Old English Verse''. Cambridge Studies in Anglo-Saxon England 4. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990. Ch. 3.
*O'Brien O'Keeffe, Katherine. "The Geographic List of Solomon and Saturn II." ''Anglo-Saxon England'' 20 (1991): 123–42.
*O'Neill, Patrick. "On the date, provenance and relationship of the ‘Solomon and Saturn’ dialogues." ''Anglo-Saxon England'' 26 (1997): 139-168.
*Orchard, Andy. ''Pride and Prodigies: Studies in the Monsters of the Beowulf Manuscript''. Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 1994.
*Paz, James. "Magic that Works: Performing Scientia in the Old English Metrical Charms and Poetic Dialogues of Solomon and Saturn." ''JMEMS'' 45.2 (2015): 219–43.
*Powell, Kathryn. "Orientalist fantasy in the poetic dialogues of Solomon and Saturn." ''Anglo-Saxon England'' 34 (2005): 117–143.
*Shippey, T.A. ''Poems of wisdom and learning in Old English''. Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 1976.
*Vincenti, A.R. von. 'Die altenglischen Dialogue von Salomon und Saturn mit historische Einleitung, Kommentar und Glossar. Leipzig: Deichert, 1904.

External links

(Old English)

{{Old English prose

9th-century poems
10th-century poems
Anglo-Saxon paganism
Anglo-Saxon runes
Old English poems
Riddles
Saturn (mythology)
Solomon
Chaldea
Orientalism
Alfred the Great
Glastonbury