Preamble: ‘The Ābēcē of the DOE’

A (1538)

A is for ān, that’s, like, both an and one,

And also ābēcēdē, mainly in Byrhtferth!

Adl's an ailment, but afol is strength,

Hey, if a had been easy, then a’d have come first!

It's also an affix, annoying to edit,

As in ādrincan, so let's drink to that.

Æ (628)

Æ was a cakewalk, easy to edit,

It's one single letter that stands for THE LAW,

Æl is an awl, but ǣl is an eel,

Ǣlc is each one of us here this good æfen.

And ælf isn't ALF, like the alien, but elf.

And Æscleah, ur-editor, endlessly missed.

B (2268)

B was a bastard to bring to the book.

There's bær as in bare, and bǣr as in bore,

And bār is a boar, but bera's a bear.

And bēo's a bee, but ic bēo's I be!

There's bǣdling, a bum-boy (that's blurry and bitchy),

But beor is beer, so booze up and bealcettaþ!

C (1409)

C's where I came in, a killer for sure,

‘Cause camp is a field, but gecamp is a fight!

There's cunnan, and cunnian, cūþa and cynn,

There's queens, cows, and cucumbers, chickens, and churns,

But we said ‘yes I can,’ and we could, and we did.

Let's finish with clǣnsung-drenc, purgative drink.

D (922)

D was the first in the fascicle set,

McDougalls did that one (well, Dave, with some help).

Their button said dæg, and that's day, for some dollars.

They delved, dipped, and drove on, and did daring deeds,

And, dāl's not like, dal, but the deal that went down.

And drinc, dranc, and druncen are obvious –drink!

E (1486)

E wasn't easy, it quickly got eald.

Sure, ēadig's happy, and eall says it all,

But ealdre is older, while ealdor's the boss,

And ēa's a river, but eage's eye.

It makes you say ēalā, earfoþ (that's woe),

But luckily ealu's ale, so let's go.

In the chapter she has contributed to the current volume, M. J. Toswell gives a pen-portrait of an ideal writer of a dictionary:

Those who read this passage will picture Professor Antonette diPaolo Healey perfecting the music of lexicography by working on one Old English word after another. Indeed, Professor Healey and other editors at the Dictionary of Old English project have produced thousands of lexicographical symphonies (that is, word entries) and enriched our field through the publications of word-albums (that is, fascicles). Every time we look up a word in the Dictionary of Old English (DOE), we can recognize the efforts of Toni and her colleagues to strike a balance among various components to create perfect harmony.

We are therefore very proud to present Professor Healey with this volume as ‘a small token’, to borrow from Roy Liuzza's chapter, of our ‘great gratitude – far more than words can express here – for her exemplary scholarship as well as her friendship and encouragement’ (p. 198). Professor Healey is many things to members in the field of Old English studies. Stephen Pelle reminds us that she has also published the editio princeps of the Old English Vision of St. Paul, a text that is of great interest not only to Anglo-Saxonists but also to scholars in many other fields (p. 80). As Damian Fleming points out, she is ‘an exceptional classroom teacher’ who ‘has surely earned a place in the field as exalted as Bede or Ælfric‘(p. 199). But above all, Professor Healey is without doubt the Old English lexicographer of our time: as Donald Scragg writes, ‘she will go down in the history of our subject with Joseph Bosworth and Thomas Northcote Toller’ (p. 228).

The current piece offers a translation of the Old English Vision of St. Paul from the edition provided in Professor Antonette diPaolo Healey's monograph of 1978. In so doing, I am at length returning to the wish-list I made in 1986, when I was introduced to this prose piece as a Masters student. I was greatly intrigued by the apocalyptic text in part because of its association with Beowulf, which I was at the time reading in Professor Healey's graduate course. And yet, I confess, I was unable to read the Old English Vision in its entirety back then, because much of my energy was spent on deciphering the longest poetic narrative in Old English. Wouldn't it have been so useful, I remember thinking, if there had been a translation of the Old English Vision for the classroom? My desire for such a modern text became even stronger when I realized, sometime later, that the Visio Sancti Pauli was so popular that its Old English rendition was only one of the many translations made in medieval languages: a translation of the Anglo-Saxon version would be of much use not only to students of Old English but also to scholars interested in the textual transmission of this New Testament apocalypse.

I hope that this short chapter and a small piece of translation will be a tribute worthy enough for Professor Healey, who is a caring teacher and a devoted scholar for the dissemination of knowledge in Old English studies and in medieval studies at large. My translation, which is provided at the end of this piece, includes not only all of the extant Old English Vision of St. Paul but also portions of the material that occurs immediately before and immediately after the Vision in the manuscript – Oxford, Bodleian Library, MSS Junius 85 and 86. In so doing, I am following Professor Healey's recommendation that the Old English Vision be read in its manuscript context. As will be discussed in detail below, the quire containing the sole extant Old English version of the Visio Pauli is inserted into what was originally a separate homily dealing with the theme of the address of the soul to the body.