382 ST. MARK’S REST

for ever of simple English minds-tells of a warrior whose names, like St. George’s, are “Husbandman” and “Glorious,” whose crowning deed was done in battle with the poisonous drake. Even a figure very important in St. George’s history-one we shall meet in the third of these pictures-is in this legend not without its representative-that young kinsman of the Saxon hero, “among the faithless” earls “faithful only he,” who holds before the failing eyes of his lord the long rusted helm and golden standard, “wondrous in the grasp,” and mystic vessels of ancient time, treasure redeemed at last by a brave man’s blood from the vaulted cavern of the “Twilight Flyer.” For Beowulf indeed slays the monster, but wins no princess, and dies of the fiery venom that has scorched his limbs in the contest. Him there awaited such fires alone-seen from their bleak promontory afar over northern seas, as burned once upon the ridge of Œta, his the Heraklean crown of poplar leaves only, blackened without by the smoke of hell, and on the inner side washed white with the sweat of a labourer’s brow.* It is a wilder form of the great story told by seers † who knew only the terror of nature and the daily toil of men, and the doom that is over these for each of us. The royal maiden for ever set free, the sprinkling of pure water unto eternal

* There was in his People’s long lament for Beowulf one word about the hidden future, “when he must go forth from the body to become....” What to become we shall not know, for fate has struck out just the four letters that would have told us.¹

† Beowulf was probably composed by a poet nearly contemporary with Bede. The dragon victory was not yet added to the glories of St. George. Indeed, Pope Gelasius, in Council, more than a couple of centuries before, had declared him to be one of those saints “whose names are justly revered among men, but whose deeds are known to God only.” Accordingly the Saxon teacher invokes him somewhat vaguely thus:-

“Invicto mundum qui sanguine temnis

Infinita refers, Georgi Sancte, trophæa!”

Yet even in these words we see a reverence similar to Carpaccio’s for St. George as patron of purity. And the deeds “known to God alone” were in His good time revealed to those to whom it pleased Him.

¹ [The MS. of the poem is among the Cottonian MSS. in the British Museum: see above, p. 204 n.]

[Version 0.04: March 2008]