The Annolied in English

Das Annolied - The Song of Anno.
A translation of the Early Middle High German Poem, from the edition "Opitz's Anno" by Graeme Dunphy.
German text
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SONG OF ST. ANNO
ARCHBISHOP OF COLOGNE.

Often have we listened to tales
of antiquity related in song;
how valiant heroes battled,
how powerful cities fell to them,
how close friendships were broken
and mighty kings brought down.
Now it is time for us to consider
how we ourselves shall end.
How many signs
has Christ, our good master given us,
as He did on the hill at Siegburg
in the person of that fine man,
the saintly Bishop Anno,
and for his sake,
that we might be vigilant.
For we shall yet journey
from this miserable life to an eternal one,
where we shall remain for ever.

In the beginning of the world,
when there was light and voice,
when the holy hand of God
fashioned the marvels of His so manifold creation,
God divided all His work in two.
This world is one part,
the other is spiritual.
Then God in His wisdom and skill blended
the two to make a single work, the human being,
who is both body and spirit,
and for this reason is closest to the angels.
All creation is combined in humanity,
as it says in the Gospel.
We should regard it as a third world,
as the Greeks say.
To this very honour Adam was created,
had he only remained steadfast.

When Lucifer turned his hand to evil
and Adam transgressed God’s word,
this angered God all the more
as He saw His other creations follow their appointed paths:
the moon and the sun
which emit their light with joy;
the stars maintain their courses,
bringing extremes of frost and heat;
fire draws upwards,
thunder and wind have their flight;
the clouds bear the showers of rain
and the waters pour downwards;
the fields adorn themselves with flowers,
the forest is covered with foliage;
the beasts live according to their kind
and the song of the birds is beautiful.
Everything would still have the order
which God ordained from the beginning
were it not for the two creations
which he made best.
These turned away to folly,
and this is the source of all suffering.

It is well known how the enemy enticed the man,
wanting him as a bondsman,
and thus led
all five worlds to Hell,
until God sent his son,
who redeemed us from sin.
He was offered as a sacrifice for us,
divesting death of its power.
Sinless, he marched against Hell
and took it by storm.
The Devil lost his dominion
and we were all declared free.
In baptism we were made vassals of Christ;
we have reason to love this liege lord.

Christ raised up the banner of his cross.
He sent the twelve apostles to the nations.
From Heaven he bestowed on them the power
to overcome heathendom.
Rome was conquered by Peter,
the Greeks by the wise Paul.
St. Andrew in Patras,
In India the righteous Thomas,
Matthew in Ethiopia,
Simon and Judas in Persia,
St. James in Jerusalem
(now he is buried in Galicia)
and John in Ephesus.
John was a fine preacher;
still today manna grows from his grave,
giving relief to many kinds of pain.
Many other martyrs
(proclaim it far and wide!)
fulfilled the plan of Christ
with their holy blood.
They came to their Lord suffering;
now he holds them in great honour.

The Trojan Franks
should always thank God
that he sent them so many saints,
as he did in Cologne.
Here rest so many
of St. Maurice's army,
and eleven thousand virgins
slain for the love of Christ;
likewise many noble bishops
who performed miracles there,
as is also reported of St. Anno.
For this we sing praise to Christ.

He was consecrated bishop at Cologne.
For this, the city will praise God forever,
that the most beautiful town
ever built in Germany
was governed by the most able man
ever to come to the Rhine.
Thus the town was rendered all the more prestigious
through being illuminated by such a wise ruler,
and his virtue shone all the brighter
for his guardianship of such a magnificent city.
Cologne is one of the greatest of cities;
St. Anno made its honour complete.

If you wish to know
the origin of cities,
hear now of the fierce heathens
from whom the ancient cities had their might.
Ninus was the first man
ever to engage in warfare.
He gathered shields and spears
(he longed for glory)
hauberks and byrnies
(he girded himself for battle)
and helmets of hard steel
(he marched out to war).
Until this time,
people had suffered little.
Each had his own tract of land
and no-one turned against the others.
They were unused to battle,
which suited Ninus nicely.

Ninus taught his men
to suffer trials,
to ride in armour,
to look danger in the face,
to use bow and sword;
he did not let them rest
until he had conquered
all the lands of Asia.
There he later built a city
a day's march wide
and three days' march long.
Great was his dominion.
He named the city after himself, Nineveh.
This was where the fish would later spew out Jonah.

His wife was named Semiramis.
She built ancient Babylon
from ancient bricks
fired by the giants
when the great Nimrod
foolishly advised them
against the command of God
to build a tower
from earth to Heaven.
For this reason God
in his might cast them down,
dividing them utterly
into seventy languages;
this is still the state of the world today.
From these building materials,
Semiramis fashioned
the walls of the city,
sixty-four miles square,
for the tower had stood
four thousand fathoms high.
The kings of this city
were later very famous;
it was the seat of
the fierce Chaldeans,
who devastated land after land
until they had razed Jerusalem.

In those days was fulfilled
what the wise Daniel had prophesied
when he told of his dreams,
and how he had seen
the four winds of this world
fighting amidst the great ocean,
until four terrible creatures
emerged from the sea.
The four winds represent four angels
who have the whole world in their care;
the creatures four kingdoms
which would encompass the world completely.

The first creature was a lioness
which had human understanding.
She represents all the kings
who were enthroned in Babylon.
Their power and their wisdom
made their empires very large.

The second creature was a wild bear.
He had three sets of teeth.
He destroyed everything he came across
and trod it under his claws.
He represented three kingdoms
which came together
in the days when Cyrus and Darius
defeated the Chaldean Empire.
These two mighty kings
destroyed Babylon.

The third creature was a leopard.
He had four eagle's wings.
He represented Alexander of Greece,
who marched with four armies through land after land
until he reached the end of the world,
which he recognised by the golden pillars.
In India he penetrated the desert,
where he spoke with two trees.
With two griffins
he took to the air,
and he had himself let down
into the sea in a glass.
Then his unfaithful vassals
threw the chains out into the water.
They said "If you want to see miracles,
you can roll around forever on the seabed."
There he saw many large fish
swimming past him,
half fish, half man.
He thought this quite terrifying.

Then the cunning man considered
how he might save himself.
The current carried him along in the depths
(through the glass he saw many wonders)
until with a little blood
he provoked the hostile sea.
When the waters sensed the blood
they threw the lord onto the land.
Thus he returned to his realm.
The Greeks gave him a splendid reception.
This same man feasted his eyes on many other wonders.
He won the three continents of the world for himself.

The fourth creature was a boar.
It stood for the courageous Romans.
It had iron claws
(no-one could capture it)
and terrible iron teeth
(how could that ever become tame?).
The wild boar clearly shows us
that the Roman Empire will be free.
The boar bore ten horns
with which he hewed down his enemies.
He was so large and frightening:
the whole world paid tribute to Rome.

Ten horns stood for ten kings
who rode into battle with the Romans.
The eleventh horn grew until it reached Heaven;
the stars fought it back;
it had eyes and a mouth;
we never heard anything like it before.
It said many things against God,
which he quickly avenged.
It represents for us the Antichrist,
who is still to come in this world,
whom God in his might
will send to Hell.
Thus was the course of the dream
as the angel from Heaven interpreted it.

The Romans wrote
on a golden tablet
the names of three hundred senators,
men of courtly conduct and good reputation,
who would deliberate day and night
how the honour of Rome might be upheld.
All the princes obeyed them,
for they did not want to have a king.
Then they sent out the noble Caesar,
after whom kings today are still called "Kaiser".
They gave him command of many divisions
and told him to wage war against Germany.
There Caesar struggled for more than a year
- this is true! -
as he could not defeat
the valiant men.
In the end, he won them all over to a treaty;
this was going to bring him glory.

He ordered flags to be hoisted at the foot of the mountains
which lie towards the land of the Swabians,
whose ancestors had once come with their armies
from beyond the seas.
With fighting men from many nations,
they pitched their tents
on Mount Suevo;
this is why they are called Swabians.
A people of wise counsel,
thoroughly eloquent,
who often distinguished themselves
as intrepid warriors,
marshalled and belligerent.
Yet Caesar overcame all their might.

When Bavaria dared to rise against him,
he at once besieged the famous Regensburg.
Here he found
helmet and byrnie,
and many bold heroes
who were defending their city.
The heathen books tell
what kind of warriors were there:
there we read "Noricus ensis",
which means, "a Bavarian sword",
for they believed
that no other blade had a better bite,
often slicing through a helmet.
This was always a brave people.
Their tribe came long ago
from the magnificent Armenia,
where Noah came out of the ark
when he received the olive twig from the dove.
The remains of the ark
are still to be found in the highlands of Ararat.
It is said that in those parts
there are still those who speak German,
far towards India.
The Bavarians always loved to go to war.
Caesar had to pay in blood
for his victory over them.

The inconstancy of the Saxons
was a cause of great trial to him:
no sooner did he think he had subjugated them
than they were resisting him again.
It is written that they were once all bondsmen
of the wondrous Alexander,
who travelled the whole world
to its end in twelve years.
When he died in Babylon,
four of his vassals divided the empire,
as all of them wanted to be king.
The others wandered the world
until some of them came with a fleet of ships
down to the Elbe,
home of the Thuringians,
who proudly marched out against them.
It was the custom in Thuringia
to call large knives "sahs".
The warriors carried many of these,
and slaughtered the Thuringians with them
treacherously when they had met
to discuss peace.
From these extraordinarily sharp knives
they came to be known as Saxons.
Yet determinedly as they began their resistance,
they all had to serve the Romans.

Caesar now approached
his old cousins,
the noble Franks.
The ancestors of both of them
came from ancient Troy
at the time when the Greeks destroyed the city,
when God's judgement so fell
upon both armies
that some of the Trojans fled,
while the Greeks did not dare to make their way home.
For during the ten years
they were quartered there,
all their wives at home had remarried
and were plotting against the lives of their husbands.
Thus King Agamemnon was slain.
The others became wanderers,
until the Cyclops in Sicily
devoured Ulysses' retinue;
Ulysses avenged himself with spears
with which he pierced his eye while he was sleeping.
At that time the race of the Cyclopes
was still living in Sicily;
they were as tall as pine trees
and had a single eye on their forehead.
Now God has driven them away from us,
to the forests which lie towards India.

The Trojans roamed the world
far and wide in search of a home.
The defeated Helenus
took the widow of the bold Hector,
through whom he gained
the realm of his enemies in Greece.
There they built a Troy
which could be seen long afterwards.
Antenor had left earlier,
when he realised that Troy would fall.
He founded the city of Padua for us,
by the river Timavus.
Aeneas won Italy for himself
where he found the sow with thirty piglets.
There they built the city of Alba,
from where Rome was later founded.
Francus and his men
settled by the distant Rhine.
There they took delight in building
a little Troy.
They named the stream Sante
after the river in their own land;
the Rhine served them as the sea.
This was the origin of the Franks.
They were all subjugated by Caeser,

When Caesar then returned to Rome,
they didn't want to receive him.
They said that his ambition
had lost them a large part of the army,
and that he had remained all this time
in foreign lands without permission.
Furiously he returned
to Germany
where he had made the acquaintance
of many able heroes.
He sent messengers to the nobles
of that realm,
complaining of the wrong he had suffered
and offering them fine red gold.
He said that he would gladly compensate them
if he had caused them any hardship.

When they heard his request,
they all gathered there;
from Gaul and Germania
they rallied to him in droves,
with shining helmets
and sturdy hauberks.
They brought many a fine shield.
They flooded into the land.
As he approached Rome,
many there became afraid,
for they could see
his vast throngs gleaming
as they bore their banners before them.
They all feared for their lives,
Cato and Pompey
fled from Rome
and the whole senate
absconded in consternation.
He pursued them, hunting them down
and slaying them
all the way to Egypt,
so great was the rout.

Who could count all the hordes
who rushed to meet Caesar
from all the lands of the East
like the snow falling on the Alps?
With divisions and with armies
like the hail falling from the clouds?
With a smaller army
he dared to face the larger one.
It was to be the fiercest battle,
so the book tells us,
that was ever fought
in this world.

Oh, how the weapons rang
when the stallions leapt at each other!
Battle horns blared,
blood flowed in streams,
the earth beneath thundered,
Hell flared up to meet them
as the noblest warriors in the world
came at each other with their swords.
Whole cohorts of warriors lay there
drenched in blood.
The bondsmen of the mighty Pompey
could be seen dying there,
their helmets hewn through,
When Caesar was victorious.

Then the young man rejoiced
that he had won every realm.
He rode in majesty
to Rome, as it pleased him.
When the Romans received him,
they instituted a new custom:
they addressed their overlord as "ir".
They invented this in his honour,
as he alone now had all the power
which previously had been divided among many.
He ordered that the Germans
should be honoured by being taught the custom.
In Rome he opened the treasury
and took out many valuables.
He presented those he loved
with furs and with gold.
Ever since, German warriors
have been loved and valued in Rome.

When Caesar died
and his excellent nephew,
the famous Augustus, inherited the empire
(Augsburg is named after him,
founded by none other than his stepson,
called Drusus),
Lord Agrippa
was dispatched to rule the land,
and to build a fortified city
so that the people would fear him.
He named the city Colonia
(since then it has been ruled by many lords);
it is also called Agrippina,
after his own name.

Regents from Rome
came regularly to this city,
men who had also previously commanded
other strongholds in that country:
Worms and Speyer,
which they had built during the time
when Caesar was in the country,
locked in battle with the Franks.
At that time he had built
his fortifications by the Rhine.
Mainz was a castle
which brought forth many a brave hero;
today it is the place where kings are crowned,
and seat of the papal court.
A vassal of Caesar,
called Mezius, founded Metz.
Trier was an ancient city,
an adornment to the grandeur of Rome.
From there, wine was sent
under the earth
far along stone channels
to the lords who sat in Cologne,
as a token of esteem;
great was their power.

In the days of Augustus it came about
that God looked down from Heaven.
Then a king was born
who was served by the angels of Heaven:
Jesus Christ, the Son of God,
born of the Virgin, St. Mary.
At once, God's sacred signs
appeared at Rome.
Pure oil sprang from the earth
and ran everywhere across the ground.
Around the sun there appeared a circle,
bright red like fire and blood.
For a new kingdom
was approaching,
bringing God's grace to all of us.
The whole world must succumb to it.

St. Peter, the sacred apostle,
defeated the Devil at Rome.
He set up the sign of the holy cross there;
he declared the city to be in the vassalage of Christ.
From there he commissioned three holy men
to preach to the Franks:
Eucharius and Valerius;
the third died on the cliffs.
The two returned
to tell St. Peter of the loss.
At this, he sent his staff;
they laid it on Maternus' grave.
They commanded him to rise from the dead
and accompany them to the Franks as St. Peter instructed.
When he heard his master's name
he obeyed them at once.
Then the dust parted
as God intended it to.
He took hold of the grass
and quickly pulled himself out of the grave
where he had lain for forty days.
He was to live for another forty years.
First they taught in Trier,
then they converted Cologne,
where the same man became bishop
who had risen from the dead.

There in Franconia they won over
many men to God's service
in a better war
than that in which Caesar had previously won them.
They taught them to battle against sin,
so that they would be good bondsmen to God.
This teaching was later practised diligently
by the bishops who came after them,
thirty three in all
until the reign of St. Anno.
Seven of these are now saints.
They shine down on us from Heaven
as seven stars do in the night.
St. Anno is shining, noble and good.
He added his radiance to that of the others
like a hyacinth in a golden ring.

Let us now take this excellent
man as our exemplum;
let those who wish to live in virtue and truth
regard him as a mirror.
When the Emperor Henry III
placed his trust in this lord
and the will of God was fulfilled
that he should be received with honour in Cologne,
he went with his entourage,
as the sun does in the sky,
passing between earth and Heaven,
shining on both of them;
thus walked Bishop Anno
before God and before men.
So powerful was he at court
that the whole empire was subject to him.
His conduct in God's service
was like that of an angel.
He was honoured right and left.
For this reason he rated among those who were truly great.

Few people really knew his goodness.
Hear now what his custom was.
His words were frank,
in the face of the truth he feared no-one.
Like a lion he sat before the princes;
like a lamb he went among the needy.
With the recalcitrant he was strict,
with the righteous he was merciful.
Orphans and widows
praised his manner highly.
His preaching and his absolution
could not be bettered by any bishop,
being so godly
that all people on earth
should by rights be satisfied.
He was very dear to God's heart.
The people of Cologne were greatly blessed
when they were found worthy of such a bishop.

At night when all the people were sleeping,
this exemplary man would rise
and seek out many churches
in which to kneel and pray earnestly.
He carried the offering with him.
He found plenty of poor
and homeless people
who were waiting for him.
Where the poor woman lay with her child,
cared for by no-one,
there the pious bishop went
and personally found her a modest bed,
so that he could rightly be known
as the father of all orphans,
so very merciful he was to them.
Now God has rewarded him for this.

The whole empire was in a happy state
when this good gentleman held court
during the time when he was regent
for the young Henry.
Far and wide it was known
what kind of ruler he was.
From Greece and from England
the kings sent him gifts,
as they did from Denmark,
Flanders and Russia.
He won many vassals for Cologne.
He decorated church buildings everywhere.
For the precious honour of God,
he himself founded four monasteries:
the fifth is Siegburg, the place which he loved;
his grave is now to be found there.

However, lest this great honour
should in any way tarnish his soul,
God treated him as a goldsmith does.
If he wishes to produce a fine brooch,
he melts the gold in a fire;
with great skill he ornaments it,
with the finest of gold wire.
Carefully he hones the topaz
and, by preparing it in many ways,
gives it the desired colour.
In the same way God honed St. Anno
with many trials.

Repeatedly the nobles attacked him:
in the end God turned this to his honour.
Many times he was betrayed
by those who should have protected him.
How many times was he derided
by those whom he had elevated to lordship!
In the end they did not stop
until they had driven him from the city by force of arms,
just as Absalom once
drove out his father,
the excellent David.
These two events were indeed very similar.
The virtuous lord suffered
many trials and tribulations
just like the example of the holy Christ.
God compensated him for this from Heaven.

After this, the bitter strife arose,
in which many men lost their lives,
when Henry IV's Empire
was reduced to chaos.
Murder, robbery and arson
devoured the churches and the land
from Denmark to Apulia,
from France to Hungary.
No-one could resist it,
though they would gladly have remained united in loyalty,
they conducted great campaigns
against their kith and kin.
The entire Empire turned its weapons
against its own intestines.
With a victorious right hand
it vanquished itself,
so that the corpses of Christians
lay discarded and unburied,
as fodder for the howling,
grey wolves.
When St. Anno saw no hope of reconciliation
he had no desire to live any longer.

He rode to Saalfeld in Thuringia;
there God revealed himself to him.
One day around nones,
Heaven opened magnificently.
In it he saw
the delights of God,
which he dared not impart
to any man in the world.
As he lay on his cart
and attended to his prayers,
he was embraced by a mighty force
as though sixteen stallions had been harnessed to the cart.
Then it seemed to him that he could see
everything that was to occur in the future.
The holy man was greatly shaken by this;
as a result he became sick.

One night the lord dreamt
how in a hall befitting a king
he came upon wondrous thrones,
as should by rights be in Heaven.
In his dream he perceived
how it was decorated with gold on all sides.
Precious stones glistened everywhere,
there was great singing and rejoicing of every sort.
There were many bishops seated there,
shining like the stars together.
Bishop Bardo was one of them,
St. Heribert gleamed like a topaz,
and many other lords;
they acted and thought as one.
One magnificent throne stood there empty.
St. Anno was filled with joy:
it had been placed there in his honour.
Now he praised God that this had happened.
Oh, how he would have loved to take his place there;
the pleasant seat, how he wished he could claim it!
The princes would not grant this
because of a stain upon his breast.

One of the lords named Arnold stood up.
Once he had been Bishop of Worms.
He took St. Anno by the hand
and led him aside.
He spoke to him kindly
and said, "Take comfort, my lord, beloved of God!
Bid this stain be gone!
Truly, the eternal throne is prepared for you.
This will shortly come to pass,
then these lords will welcome you.
You cannot remain among them now.
How pure a thing must be for them to tolerate it!
Christ has shown you these things.
Oh, my lord, what honour and grace awaits you!"
It distressed him very greatly
that he had to return to earth;
had things not stood at that moment as they did,
he would not have left Paradise for all the world,
such is the joy of Heaven;
we should ponder on this, old and young alike.
The lord awoke from his sleep
and knew well what he had to do.
He granted the people of Cologne his pardon;
it was entirely their fault that he had been in conflict with them.

When the time approached
when God planned to reward him,
he was tormented
as once the holy Job had been;
from his feet to his head
he was afflicted everywhere.
Thus the precious soul departed
from human suffering,
from this ailing body,
to the eternal Paradise.
The earth received the flesh,
the spirit soared up on high.
Our thoughts should always follow him there,
where we too will land in the end.

When he came into God's presence,
to eternal grace,
the noble-minded lord did
as the eagle does
when it wishes to entice its young to fly.
It hovers above them majestically,
it circles up on high,
and the young are then pleased to do likewise.
In this way he wished to entice us
to follow him where we should go:
he showed us here below
what life is like in Heaven.
By his grave, where people thought he was dead,
he wrought great miracles:
the sick and the lame
were healed there.

There was a worthy knight whose name was Arnold.
As governor, he had a liegeman named Volprecht,
who, by neglect of his feudal duty,
had lost his overlord's goodwill.
He despaired of God
and sought the help of the Devil,
choosing him as his governor
in place of Arnold.
One evening as he was walking
to his horse, the length of a field,
the Devil appeared openly to him,
proscribed the whole Christian faith for him
and forbade him to tell anyone
how he had seen him.
He said if he should mention it to anyone
he would utterly break him to pieces;
should he obey him, however,
he would certainly be kind to him.
With threats and with promises
he lead the foolish man astray,
so that he took the fiend at his word.
The time would come when he would regret this.

The following day he was riding with Arnold.
He was delighted about the Devil's promise.
He made various remarks
in which he blasphemed against God.
He went on to slander God's saints,
which no-one should dare to do,
and finally the enormously foolish man
also slandered St. Anno.
He said that he knew full well
that it was all deception and scandal;
Anno had always lived in sin;
what miracles would he ever do?
At once he had to pay
for this wanton calumny.
There on the spot, his left eye
spurted out like water.
When the unbelieving man
would not come to his senses
and desist from defaming St. Anno
he had to pay even more dearly for it.
A shock went through his head
causing him to fall to the ground;
like a shot his right eye
squirted out far before him.
Then he fell down on the grass,
screaming as befitted his plight.
People everywhere were very frightened by this.
Lying with outstretched arms, they prayed to God.

Arnold quickly sent
for priests to come
and lead him to a church.
They urged him to make confession,
until the suffering man
called on the name of St. Anno.
He asked him for mercy
and that he should restore him to health.
All who were present
witnessed a great wonder.
New eyes grew
in the empty sockets,
and that very hour he could see properly.
So marvellous is the power of God!

We know from the Old Testament
how once the ocean floor was opened
when Moses led the people of Israel
on a dry path across the sea
to the best of all lands
which the righteous shall also possess,
where the streams flowed with milk,
the sweet honey between them,
the oil sprang from a stone,
and right beside it a source of fresh water.
Bread rained from Heaven
and they had their fill of all good things.
God honoured Moses, the saintly man,
with miraculous signs
until only his own sister
spoke slander against him.
Oh how terribly the leprosy afflicted her
until her good brother came to her aid.
Likewise St. Anno came to the aid of this man,
so that he regained his health
in order that we might discern
the goodness of Almighty God,
how he rewards and recompenses
whatever is said about his favoured one,
who so gently leads us directly
to the beautiful land of Paradise.