nce of
another translation; moreover, in the last eighty-five years critical
scholarship has produced a greatly improved text of the poem.]

[Footnote 2: Aside from necessary omissions made for _Genesis B_, the
Sections are numbered consecutively in this translation (regardless of
vagaries in the original MS. numbering), on the assumption that each
illuminated capital in the MS. was intended to indicate the beginning of
a new Section. After the excision of _Genesis B_, the numbering has been
resumed with X instead of XV, because the XIII at line 440 in the MS.
must really represent VIII.--Cf. Note 8, page 59, inf. (page 199, inf.)]

[Footnote 3: ll. 39b-41a. _Wraecna_, gen. pl. with _bidan_, = _outcasts_; I
take _weardas_ as in apposition with it (the acc. being either a scribal
error or an anacoluthon), and then translate _wraecna_ as an adjective
for the sake of idiomatic fluency. For _gasta weardas_ as an epithet for
angels, though then unfallen, cf. line 12a, sup.--The passage has given
scholars much trouble and is unsatisfactory, at best.]

[Footnote 4: line 63b. I take aeethele as a form of aeethelu = nobilitas,
principatus, natales, origo, genus, etc. Grein's _Sprachschatz_, 1.52.]

[Footnote 5: line 168a. Three pages seem to be missing in the MS.
Doubtless the remaining events of the third day, with those of the
fourth, fifth, and perhaps first part of the sixth, days, including the
creation of man, (i.e., apparently the contents of Gen. 1.11-2.17,
incl.) were retold in these pages.]

[Footnote 6: line 186b. This line is apparently imperfect, metrically,
for the second hemistich seems to be wanting. As the sense is complete,
without emendation, I have not followed the various scholars who would
insert after "Adam's bride" some such clause as, "Whom God named Eve."]

[Footnote 7: ll. 221-224a. The text here is corrupt and scholars differ
widely in their conjectural emendations and interpretations. Since none
of their versions is satisfactory or convincing, I venture upon an
independent reading. _Hebeleac_, of course, is the Scriptural Havilah
(Gen. 2.11); _Fison_ is obviously Pison, and _Geon_, 230b inf., is
Gihon.]

[Footnote 8: ll. 226, 227a. I construe _the best_ with _gold and gems_,
rather than with _sons of men_, because of Gen. 2.12.]

[Footnote 9: ll. 235-851. After line 234 there is a break in the MS.
Sievers has shown that the following 617 lines, called _Genesis B_, were
written and interpolate