These verses are examples of gnomic poetry, which was very popular in Old English literature. Miss Williams, in her _Gnomic Poetry in Anglo-Saxon_ (Columbia University Press, 1914), p. 67, says that this is the earliest gnomic expression in Old English for which a definite date may be set.
Text criticism: Charlotte D'Evelyn, "Bede's Death Song," _Modern Language Notes_, xxx, 31.]
Before leaving this life there lives no one Of men of wisdom who will not need To consider and judge, ere he sets on his journey, What his soul shall be granted of good or evil-- 5 After his day of death what doom he shall meet.
1. Bede, the author of the _Ecclesiastical History of England_, was the greatest figure in the English church of the seventh and eighth centuries.
[The poem readily divides itself into two parts: _Genesis A_, the bulk of the poem, and _Genesis B_, lines 235-853. The latter is a translation from the Old Saxon. The passage here translated is from _Genesis A_.
Critical edition of _Genesis A_: F. Holthausen, _Die ältere Genesis_, Heidelberg, 1914.
Translation: C. W. Kennedy, _The Cædmon Poems_, New York, 1916, p. 7.
Partial translation: W. F. H. Bosanquet, _The Fall of Man or Paradise Lost of Cædmon_, London, 1869.
Date and place: Early eighth century; Northern England. The author was obviously acquainted with _Beowulf_.
Source: Vulgate Bible; first twenty-two chapters.]