[Footnote 1: Thorpe's translation of the _Genesis_, published with his edition, in 1828, was not accessible to the present writer and presumably will not be accessible to the general public, so that on the mere score of availability it seems high time for the appearance of another translation; moreover, in the last eighty-five years critical scholarship has produced a greatly improved text of the poem.]
[Footnote 2: Aside from necessary omissions made for _Genesis B_, the Sections are numbered consecutively in this translation (regardless of vagaries in the original MS. numbering), on the assumption that each illuminated capital in the MS. was intended to indicate the beginning of a new Section. After the excision of _Genesis B_, the numbering has been resumed with X instead of XV, because the XIII at line 440 in the MS. must really represent VIII.--Cf. Note 8, page 59, inf. (page 199, inf.)]
[Footnote 3: ll. 39b-41a. _Wræcna_, gen. pl. with _bidan_, = _outcasts_; I take _weardas_ as in apposition with it (the acc. being either a scribal error or an anacoluthon), and then translate _wræcna_ as an adjective for the sake of idiomatic fluency. For _gasta weardas_ as an epithet for angels, though then unfallen, cf. line 12a, sup.--The passage has given scholars much trouble and is unsatisfactory, at best.]
[Footnote 4: line 63b. I take æðele as a form of æðelu = nobilitas, principatus, natales, origo, genus, etc. Grein's _Sprachschatz_, 1.52.]
[Footnote 5: line 168a. Three pages seem to be missing in the MS. Doubtless the remaining events of the third day, with those of the fourth, fifth, and perhaps first part of the sixth, days, including the creation of man, (i.e., apparently the contents of Gen. 1.11-2.17, incl.) were retold in these pages.]
[Footnote 6: line 186b. This line is apparently imperfect, metrically, for the second hemistich seems to be wanting. As the sense is complete, without emendation, I have not followed the various scholars who would insert after "Adam's bride" some such clause as, "Whom God named Eve."]
[Footnote 7: ll. 221-224a. The text here is corrupt and scholars differ widely in their conjectural emendations and interpretations. Since none of their versions is satisfactory or convincing, I venture upon an independent reading. _Hebeleac_, of course, is the Scriptural Havilah (Gen. 2.11); _Fison_ is obviously Pison, and _Geon_, 230b inf., is Gihon.]