Runic Signature for Cynewulf’s “Fates of the Apostles”
By Cynewulf
Translated By V. Penelope Pelizzon
You who please your keenness with poems,
read closely here: can you discover
this verse’s framer?
finishes.
![](/images/features/runic-fortune.jpg)
Nobles enjoy it on earth, but not without end,
worldly ones.
must fail
![Rune: Winning](/images/features/runes-winning.jpg)
![Rune: Us](/images/features/runes-us.jpg)
their loaned treasure, like
trickling through fingers.
![](/images/features/runes-lakewater.jpg)
Then
and ear require
skill
![Rune: Candle](/images/features/runes-candle.jpg)
![Rune: Skill](/images/features/runes-skill.jpg)
in night’s narrow cell;
drives your craft,
![Rune: Need](/images/features/runes-need.jpg)
a kingly servitude. Now can you see
who shrewd words have shown to men?
Remember my name, O you who admire
the sound of this song; help succor me
and pray for my comfort. Soon I must pass
alone, away to look for a dwelling,
must travel so far (no telling where!)
beyond this world to a yet-unknown
place in the earth. So must each person,
unless he is granted God-sent grace.
Let us call to God again, more eager,
begging his blessing in this bright creation:
may we be welcomed to his warm halls,
his home on high. There is holiest happiness,
there the king of angels crowns the pure
with a perishless prize. Now his praise endures
masterful and marvelous, and his might extends
endless and ageless over all creation. finit.
![Key to runes used in poem text](/images/features/rune-key.jpg)
Source: Poetry (June 2011)