How is Christ depicted as a hero in "The Dream of the Rood?"

In The Dream of the Rood, Christ is
not only depicted, but also proclaimed a hero. The best answer to your question is to be
found in the explanation of lines thirty-nine through forty-two which (in the
mondern-language translation) read:

The young
hero stripped himself--he, God Almighty--

strong and stout-minded. He mounted
high gallows, 40

bold before many, when he would loose
mankind.

I shook when that Man
clasped me. I dared, still, not bow to
earth,

Line 39 says that the 'young
hero' stripped himself. In other words, He was not stripped, but of his own
volition went unclothed so that we would not have to stand naked before the throne of
God. It also refers to the great emptying spoken of in Philipians 2:5 -
8:

5  Let this mind be in you, which was also in
Christ Jesus:
6  Who, being in the form of God, thought
it not robbery to be equal with God:
7  But made himself
of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness
of men:
8  And being found in fashion as a man, he
humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the
cross.

This great emptying, where Christ--God
Almighty--empties Himself of his supremacy, His holiness, His very divinity, and takes
upon Himself the likeness, humility, sinfulness, and humanity of mankind. He does this
voluntarily. Theologians do not make light of Christ's physical sufferings, His beating,
the way the onlookers plucked out His beard by the roots as He passed, the nails which
pierced His hands or the spear His side, but many often assert that His first and
greatest sacrifice of suffering was when He did empty Himself and voluntarily place
Himself under obedience--even obedience to the cross.

In
Line 40 the passage continues: Strong and stout-minded He mounted high
gallows...What a marvelous image of confidence and control, Christ mounts the
cross as a warrior mounts his steed; He is not coerced, or forced, but He goes
willingly, even eagerly.

Line 41: bold before many, when He
would loose mankind. He knew the result of His sacrifice, just as He knew the
requirement for the sin-debt of mankind. He knew the price of freedom and had come to
pay the cost of it.

In line 42, speaking as the
cross he says: I shook when that man clasped me... Again, Christ takes hold
of the cross, He was not bound to it, but bound the cross to
Himself.

In all of these lines, the poem depicts a person
who is in the process of deciding His own fate; fate is not decided for or pressed upon
Him. Additionally, the language depicts His choices as confident and masterful, He
'mounts' the gallows, he 'clasped' the cross.

In one of the
Wheel of Time books, one heroic character says, "When you go to the gallows, go with a
coin for the hangman, a joke for the crowd and a smile on your face." I think this
realistic depiction of Christ more than exemplifies this heroic
mien.

The Dream of the Rood is one of
the greatest Christian poems and the first to truly depict Christ as a conquering king
outside of the scriptures themselves.

Modern-language
translation of The Dream of
the Rood