Abstract

The focus of the following note is a hitherto unrecognized word in line 396a of the Old English Advent, formerly called Christ I, a word concealed in the first place by an erratic spelling on the part of the scribe of the manuscript and further obscured by a time-honored but faulty emendation. The simple transposition of a letter in what the scribe wrote reveals a word that, in contrast to the traditional emendation, sharpens the sense and satisfies the meter. Its correctness, moreover, is confirmed by the distinctive reading of Isaiah 6.2 in the Vulgate, a portion of Isaiah's celebrated vision that is central to the poet's elaborate description of the Seraphim in the surrounding lines