A Translation of the Old English Biblical Poem Judith

This translation of Judith, which has been written with reference to the Old English version of the text edited by R. D. Fulk, seeks to reproduce the meaning of the original as closely as possible, while capturing some of its style and diction. The Critical Preface preceding the translation sets out the poem’s manuscript context and discusses the text’s relation to the monstrous, its rendition of heroic values, as well as its affinities with the biblical and hagiographical traditions. The translation is also followed by an imaginative rendering of the lost lines of Judith, which opens mid-sentence in what must have been fitt IX. The philosophy behind this imaginative rendering is explained in the Critical Preface with reference, inter alia, to previous commentators’ views on the missing portion of the poem.