position. Most clearly do we
discover their love of the sea. The action of the story brings in a
voyage, which the Greek narrative dismisses with a few words, merely
as a piece of necessary machinery. The Old English poem, on the
contrary, expands the incident into many lines. A storm is introduced
and described with great vigor; we see the circling gull and the
darting horn-fish; we hear the creaking of the ropes and the roaring
of the waves.[2] Every mention of the sea is dwelt upon with lingering
affection, and described with vivid metaphor. It is now the "bosom of
the flood," now the "whale-road" or the "fish's bath." Again it is the
"welter of the waves," or its more angry mood is personified as the
"Terror of the waters." In the first 500 lines alone there are no less
than 43 different words and phrases denoting the sea.

[Footnote 1: _Acta Apostolorum Apocrypha_, ed. Tischendorf. Leipzig,
1851, pp. 132-166. (For a translation of part of the _Acts of Andrew
and Matthew_, see Cook's _First Book in Old English_, Appendix III.)]

[Footnote 2: See 369-381.]

Daybreak and sunset, too, are described with much beauty, and in one
passage at least with strong imagination. We can have no doubt that
the poet was a close watcher and keen lover of nature. We can imagine
him walking on the cliffs beside his beloved ocean, watching for the
sunrise, rejoicing in the glory of the sky,

As heaven's candle shone across the floods.[1]

[Footnote 1: See 243.]

I have said, too, that he was a devout churchman. Many of the noble
hymns and prayers with which the poem abounds are largely original,
expanded from a mere line or two in the Greek. Many and beautiful are
the epithets or kennings which he applies to God, taken in part from
the Bible, and in part from the imagery of the not wholly extinct
heathen mythology.

Thoroughly English is his love of violent action, of war and bloodshed.
Andrew is a "warrior brave in the battle"; the apostles are
Thanes of the Lord, whose courage for the fight
Failed never, e'en when helmets crashed in war.
and their missions are rather military expeditions than peaceful
pilgrimages.

One concrete example will serve well to show in what spirit the author
has dealt with his original. The disciples of Andrew are so terrified
by the sea that the Lord (disguised as a shipmaster) suggests that
they shall go ashore and await the return of their master. In the
Greek the disciples answer: "If we