The heroes of The Dream of the Cross and Beowulf In The Dream of the Cross, the poet added elements of idealized heroic death (as exemplified in Beowulf and The Battle of Maldon ) to the crucifixion. He also eliminated the details of the story that tend to make Christ a figure full of pathos, in order to favor the identification of Christ with the other glorious warriors of the Anglo-Saxon poems. When a hero meets death, for example, he is usually surrounded by faithful servants (like Byrhtnoth) or at least one faithful companion, like Beowulf's Wiglaf. The gospel clearly states that Jesus died ignobly, in the most humiliating way possible, and that his disciples stayed away from Golgotha ​​so as not to be implicated alongside him. The crowd mocked Christ with false veneration. The poet must realize, however, that his audience will not accept a Lord who did not die a radiant death and who was not universally mourned. Instead he says that "all creation wept, lamented over the death of the king: Christ was on the cross". After Jesus was deposed, the poet states that a tomb "of shining stone" was carved for him and that the soldiers sang a dirge for him in the evening. The men came "from afar, hastening towards the prince." [165] The cross enhances the shining beauty of the dying Christ. Very noble, but there is little biblical support for this tale. The subsequent gilding and raising of the cross is also rooted in the heroic tradition. Just as Beowulf asked that a "bright mound" be erected in his honor, and the gold in the dragon's cave become a monument to him, so the disciples dig up and gilded the cross. The idea of ​​God himself lacking an actual gold-covered tombstone was not subtle... half paper... and in most of these works, he tries to convince pagans to convert by co-opting the existing value system . Christ emerges as a mighty king who will suffer stoically for us and reward us at the cost of our piety. Sources cited and consulted Heaney, Seamus, trans. Beowulf: a new verse translation. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2000. Mitchell, Bruce, and Fred C. Robinson (eds.). "The Dream of the Cross: or a Vision of the Cross." A Guide to Old English, 6E. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2002. 256-263.O'Keeffe, Katherine O'Brien. "Heroic values ​​and Christian ethics". The Cambridge Companion to Old English Literature. Ed. Malcolm Godden and Michael Lapidge. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992. 107-125. Wheelock, Jeremy I. "The Word Made Flesh: 'Engel Dryhtnes' in The Dream of the Cross." Notes on the English language. March 2000, vol. 37 Edition 3: 1.