Then, at a certain time in that year, came six hostile ships to Wight, and did much damage, both in Devon and elsewhere on the seaboard.  Then the King ordered that nine of the new ships should proceed thither.  And his ships blockaded the mouth of the passage on the outer-sea against the enemy.  Then the Danes came out with three ships against the King’s ships; but three of the Danish ships lay above the mouth, high and dry aground; and the men were gone off upon the shore.  Then the King’s men took two of the three ships outside, at the mouth, and slew the crews; but one ship escaped.  On this one all the men were slain except five; these escaped because the King’s ship got aground.  They were aground, moreover, very inconveniently, since three were situated upon the same side of the channel with the three stranded Danish ships, and all the others were upon the other side, so that there could be no communication between the two divisions.  But when the water had ebbed many furlongs from the ships, then went the Danes from their three ships to the King’s three ships that had been left dry upon the same side by the ebbing of the tide, and they fought together there.  Then were slain Lucumon, the King’s Reeve, Wulfheard the Frisian, and AEbbe the Frisian, and AEthelhere the Frisian, and AEthelferth the King’s companion, and of all the men Frisians and English, sixty-two; and of the Danes, one hundred and twenty.

But the flood came to the Danish ships before the Christians could shove theirs out, and for that reason the Danes rowed off.  They were, nevertheless, so grievously wounded that they could not row around the land of the South Saxons, and the sea cast up there two of the ships upon the shore.  And the men from them were led to Winchester to the King, and he commanded them to be hanged there.  But the men who were in the remaining ship came to East Anglia, sorely wounded.

Translation of Robert Sharp.

GABRIELE D’ANNUNZIO

(1864-)

An Italian poet and novelist of early promise, who has become a somewhat unique figure in contemporary literature, Gabriele d’Annunzio is a native of the Abruzzi, born in the little village of Pescara, on the Adriatic coast.  Its picturesque scenery has formed the background for more than one of his stories.  At the age of fifteen, while still a student at Prato, he published his first volume of poems, ’Intermezzo di Rime’ (Interludes of Verse):  “grand, plastic verse, of an impeccable prosody,” as he maintained in their defense, but so daringly erotic that their appearance created no small scandal.  Other poems followed at intervals, notably ‘Il Canto Nuovo’ (The New Song:  Rome, 1882), ’Isotteo e la Chimera’ (Isotteo and the Chimera:  Rome, 1890), ‘Poema Paradisiaco’ and ‘Odi Navali’ (Marine Odes:  Milan, 1893), which leave no doubt of his high rank as poet.  The novel, however, is his chosen vehicle of expression,