Guthlac B 1278a and the saint’s honeyed outbreaths

 

It seems that there is only one instance in Old English (and indeed Germanic) of the verb hladan ("1. to pile something up, to load etc.; 2 to draw up (liquids, etc.)" being used in connection with breathing.1 The second meaning, to which the breathing usage appears to be related, is attested only in Old English and Old Saxon. The Old English example in question occurs near the end of the Exeter Book in a poem known as Guthlac B when Guthlac is slowly expiring, it being his penultimate day on earth. The phrase in question is oroð up hlæden (1278a). The Dictionary of Old English lists it as sense B.3. of hladan "in past participle, of breath: up hladen 'drawn, inhaled'." Toller in the Supplement to Bosworth's An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary 1921: 547b offers sense IV (2) 'to draw breath'.

§1 However, I believe that the meaning is rather the reverse of inhalation. The wider context is as follows:

Ða to þam wage gesag,
heafelan onhylde, hyrde þa gena [1270]
ellen on innan. Oroð stundum teah
mægne modig, him of muðe cwom
swecca swetast. Swylce on sumeres tid
stincað on stowum staþelum fæste
wynnum æfter wongum wyrta geblowene, [1275]
hunigflowende, swa þæs halgan wæs
ondlongne dæg oþ æfen forð
oroð up hlæden.

The sequence "him of muðe cwom / swecca swetast" seems decisive and is reinforced by "Swylce on sumeres tid stincað on stowum … wyrta geblowene." It is on the sweetness of his exhalations that the saint is being complimented and that sweetness is compared to the flowery scents of a summer's day. One may take it as a given that fragrance is indicative of blessedness and incorruption, as in the concept of the odour of sanctity.

"Then he sank against the wall, his head bowed; courage still braced him internally. The brave one took breath laboriously, with effort; (but) from his mouth came the sweetest of fragrances. Just as in time of summer, flowering plants, firm in their roots, emit scent, flowing with honey, delightfully throughout the meadows, so was the saint's breath drawn aloft the whole day into the evening."

Given the situation, it would appear that the up is to be understood here as referring to the breath—appropriately enough as he is dying—departing upwards from the body rather than entering into it.

We may note that at line 1271b, which describes his laborious inbreaths, the verb tēon is used, as also in lines 1023b–24a ("sona ne meahte / oroð up geteon" "he could not immediately draw in breath") and 1154b–5a ("wlo ne meahte / oroð up geteon" "indeed he could not draw in breath").

§2. This interpretation is purely the result of studying the Old English text. It is supported by Felix's Latin Life, which Guthlac B closely follows (Roberts 1979: 36: "there is general agreement that the main source for Guthlac B is Felix's fiftieth chapter"). The Vita says (ed. Colgrave 1956: 156, 158):

Dixerat, et cervicem parieti flectens longa suspiria imo de pectore traxit, refocillatoque rursus spiritu, cum parumper anhelaret, velut melliflui floris odoratus de ore ipsius processisse sentiebatur, ita ut totam domum, qua sederet, nectareus odor inflaret.
 
"Having said that, and leaning his head against the wall, he drew long sighs from deep within his chest and, having revived his spirit again, while gasping for a short time, it seemed there had issued from his mouth an odour as of a sweet-smelling flower, so that the scent of nectar filled the whole building in which he sat."2

§3. Scholarly opinion is divided on the interpretation of "oroð up hlæden," so I am by no means the first to understand outbreaths. Indeed, inhalers are in the minority. But because the false lore is found in the two main dictionaries, it seem justified to publish this note. Inhalers include, in addition to the DOE and Toller: Warren 1906: 50, "So all day long until the evening he drew in his breath"; Kennedy 1910: 301, "So all that day long until the evening that holy man drew breath."

Exhalers feature among earlier scholars in particular: apparently, Thorpe 1842: 178, although the phrasing is a little obscure, "so was this holy man's the livelong day, until even forth, breath drawn up"; Grein 1857–59: II 101, "so ward des Heiligen Athem / all den langen Tag bis zu dem Abend fort / aufwärts gezogen"; Gollancz 1895: 181,183, "so was that saint's breath drawn aloft throughout the livelong day until evening"; Spaeth 1922: 115, "So all day long, till evening fell, this breathed sweetness still uprose from the lips of the saint"; Olivero 1942: 261, "così fu l'alito di quel santo / tratto in alto per tutto il giorno / fino alla sera"; Gordon 1954: 277, "So did the holy one's breath mount up the livelong day on till evening"; Hostetter offers "so that saint's breath was drawn forth the whole day long until the coming of evening" (458b–460a in his numbering).3

Roberts in the Glossary to her 1979 edition has the entry "ūphladan 'draw up' (p.p. uphlæden 1278)," which is unclear as it stands. She kindly informs me that she understands the passage as "the holy man's breath was drawn up."

§4. Thus we can conclude two things.

One, that the reference in Guthlac B 1278a is to exhalation.

Two, that the verb hladan is, strictly speaking, not used to describe breathing as such, but, in this instance, the rising of the breath. An analogous use of hladan is seen in Christ B (Ascension), ASPR III, 568–69a: "þær he of hæfte ahlod huþa mæste / of feonda byrig" "when he drew/brought out of captivity the greatest spoils [i.e., the souls liberated by Christ at the Harrowing of Hell], from the city of his foes."

 

References

ASPR = The Anglo-Saxon Poetic Records. (1931–1942). I–VI. ed. George Philip Krapp and Elliott van Kirk Dobbie. New York: Columbia University Press.

Colgrave, Bertram (1956) ed. Felix's Life of Saint Guthlac. Cambridge: University Press.

Dictionary of Old English (DOE) 1986 – . Toronto: University of Toronto. Online.

Gollancz, Israel (1895) ed. The Exeter Book: An Anthology of Anglo-Saxon Poetry. Part I. (EETS os 104). London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner.

Gonser, P. (1909) ed. Das angelsächsischen Prosa-Leben des hl. Guthlac. (Anglistische Forschungen 27). Heidelberg: Carl Winter.

Gordon, Robert K. (1926) transl. Anglo-Saxon Poetry. (Everyman’s Library). London: Dent. (Revised edition, 1954).

Grein, C. W. M. (1857–59) transl. Dichtungen der Angelsachsen stabreimend übersetzt. Two volumes. Göttingen: Geoerg H. Wigand.

Hostetter, Aaron K. (c. 2009) Translation of Guthlac B, at LINK.

Kennedy, Charles W. (1910) transl. The Poems of Cynewulf. London: George Routledge & Sons; New York: E.P. Dutton.

Olivero, Frederico (1942) "Sul Poemetto Anglosassone Guthlac." Memorie della Reale Accademia delle Scienze di Torino, Serie II, 70 parte seconda: 223–65.

Roberts, Jane (1979) ed. The Guthlac Poems of the Exeter Book. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Spaeth, J. Duncan (1922) transl. Old English Poetry. Translations into Alliterative Verse. Princeton: University Press.

Thorpe, Benjamin (1842) ed. Codex Exoniensis. A collection of Anglo-Saxon Poetry. London: Society of Antiquaries.

Toller, T. Northcote (1921) An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary. Supplement. Oxford: University Press.

Warren, Kate M. (1906) ed. A Treasury of English Literature. Book I: Old English Literature From its Beginning to the Eleventh Century. London: Archibald Constable; New York: Dodge.