Unknown

“ In any case, he improvises a lay on Beowulf’s adventure, as he rides along, and uses his store of traditional phrase and comment in the process. If the epithet applied to him by the epic, guma gilphlæden, means “a man laden with vaunts” and not simply “a warrior who had made many vaunts and performed them, that is, covered with glory,”—and the former rendering is preferable,—then yet another accomplishment of the Germanic warrior is indicated. He could probably sing his beot, or vaunt, in good verse. ”

“ A Danish warrior cuts down Froda in the fight, and takes his sword and armor, leaving them to a son. This son is selected to accompany his mistress, the young princess Freawaru, to her new home when she is Ingeld’s queen. Heedlessly he wears the sword of Froda in hall. An old warrior points it out to Ingeld, and eggs him on to vengeance. At his instigation the Dane is killed; but the murderer, afraid of results, and knowing the land, escapes. So the old feud must break out again. ”

“ Lifting buried gold is still an uncanny business, and folk-lore recounts its perils. Such gold brings the worst of luck; and it is noteworthy that the epic takes this view, v. 3163, and has all the dragon’s treasure heaped in Beowulf’s own tomb. ”

“ It is important to understand that the picture of the old king’s grief is hypothetical. There is no wergild, says the poet, and revenge is out of the question. For let one but fancy the feelings of a father who has caused his son to be hanged! ”

“ Not Thryth’s pride showed she,
folk-queen famed, or that fell deceit.
Was none so daring that durst make bold
(save her lord alone) of the liegemen dear
1935that lady full in the face to look,
but forgéd fetters he found his lot,
bonds of death! And brief the respite;
soon as they seized him, his sword-doom was spoken,
and the burnished blade a baleful murder
1940proclaimed and closed. No queenly way
for woman to practise, though peerless she,
that the weaver-of-peace [3] from warrior dear
by wrath and lying his life should reave! ”

“ The old emendation,—
⁠But Thrytho proved,
folk-queen fearsome, fell and cruel . . .
was rejected by recent editors because Thrytho is not a likely form of the name. Reading as the translation reads, one has a most likely bit of praise by negative, in the usual manner of this poet, for Hygd, who did not show the cruelty and haughtiness of Thryth, the legendary wife of Offa, king of the Continental Angles. With her legend is perhaps mingled a reference to the Anglo-Saxon queen of the Mercian Offa, Cynethryth. ”

“ The accretion theory is not ridiculous by any means; but it does not explain the Beowulf half so well as the assumption of a single author who wrote the present poem on the basis of old lays, and applied in its general construction the same methods of variation and repetition which obtain for every rhythmic period and almost for every sentence in Anglo-Saxon poetry at large. ”

“ Onela and Ohthere are sons of Ongentheow, and often raid Geatland (the mention of “wide water” makes for the Jutland theory of Beowulf’s home) ; Hæthcyn replies with a raid on Swedish soil. He seizes Ongentheow’s queen. But the old king follows the foe, defeats him, and kills Hæthcyn, whose men are in desperate case, surrounded by enemies, in Ravenswood. But now comes Hygelac with another Geatish army (not so favorable a fact for Jutland!) , defeats the Swedes, whose queen again is captured, and besieges Ongentheow in his citadel. ”

“ It is rather a report of the spirited way in which Beowulf carried off the laurels in the “hazing” of the guest by a competent official of the host. Probably this test was part of the formal reception; but it seems a strange survival in epic by the side of the courtly and extravagant complimenta exchanged between Beowulf and Hrothgar. In Scandinavian sources one gets the rough flyting in its coarseness and strength. See the Lokasenna, above all, and the cases reported by Saxo. In one the prizes are peculiar: a queen’s necklace, the man’s life. ”

“ Of force in fight no feebler I count me,
in grim war-deeds, than Grendel deems him.
Not with the sword, then, to sleep of death
680his life will I give, though it lie in my power.
No skill is his to strike against me,
my shield to hew though he hardy be,
bold in battle ”

“ A condemned or banished man, desperate, hides in the barrow, discovers the treasure, and while the dragon sleeps, makes off with a golden beaker or the like, and carries it for propitiation to his master. ”

“ Now, Beowulf, thee,
of heroes best, I shall heartily love
as mine own, my son; preserve thou ever
this kinship new: thou shalt never lack
950wealth of the world that I wield as mine!
Full oft for less have I largess showered,
my precious hoard, on a punier man,
less stout in struggle. Thyself hast now
fulfilled such deeds, that thy fame shall endure
955through all the ages. As ever he did,
well may the Wielder reward thee still!”
Beowulf spake, bairn of Ecgtheow:—
“This work of war most willingly
we have fought, this fight, and fearlessly dared
960force of the foe. ”

“ Talk of interpolation here is absurd. As both Beowulf and Hygelac know,—and the folk for whom the Beowulf was put together also knew,—Froda was king of the Heathobards (probably the Langobards, once near neighbors of Angle and Saxon tribes on the continent) , and had fallen in fight with the Danes. Hrothgar will set aside this feud by giving his daughter as “peace-weaver” and wife to the young king Ingeld, son of the slain Froda. But Beowulf, on general principles and from his observation of the particular case, foretells trouble. He even goes into particulars ”

“ It is worth noting that in Saxo the old warrior stirs his master by a lay of battle and vengeance which he chants at a banquet.—From the Widsith we know that Ingeld attacked Hrothgar later in Heorot, and was defeated by uncle and nephew in a bloody battle. ”

“ And Biarco (Bjarki) : “I will die overpowered near the head of my slain Captain, and at his feet thou also shalt slip on thy face in death, so that whoso scans the piled corpses may see in what wise we rate the gold our lord gave us!”—As to “remembering the mead,” see Finnsburg, vv. 39 ff. The very words of Wiglaf, however, are echoed in Maldon by Ælwine, as the faithful thane exhorts his comrades to fight on nor forsake their slain lord. ”

“ These “seafarers” are not necessarily sailors by profession, but any persons who fare over sea and bring the news; cf. v. 1818, “we seafarers” = Beowulf and his men. ↑ The nicor, says Bugge, is a hippopotamus; a walrus, says ten Brink. But that water-goblin who covers the space from Old Nick of jest to the Neckan and Nix of poetry and tale, is all one needs, and Nicor is a good name for him. Dan Michel in the fourteenth century renders sirens or sea-fairies by this word nicor. A glance, too, at Vigfusson’s Icelandic Dictionary, s.v. “Nykr,” is instructive. ”

“ Many at morning, as men have told me,
warriors gathered the gift-hall round,
folk-leaders faring from far and near,
840o’er wide-stretched ways, the wonder to view,
trace of the traitor. Not troublous [1] seemed
the enemy’s end to any man
who saw by the gait of the graceless foe
how the weary-hearted, away from thence,
845baffled in battle and banned, his steps
death-marked dragged to the devils’ mere. ”

“ The first announcement of Grendel’s coming emphasizes the fact that it is by night; the second lays stress on the start from the moor; the third brings him to the hall, and to the action. See the same sort of repetition for an arrival, vv. 1640, 1644, below. If we will only apply to the whole web of narrative what we know of the web of sentence and period, much of the supposed awkwardness, “poor mendings,” “patchwork,” and so on, will prove simply the habit of all that national epic.—See also Hart, Ballad and Epic, pp. ”

“ Historical song and epic strike the same note; and the testimony of Tacitus (Germania, c. xiv) is warm with praise and admiration of Germanic loyalty among the warriors of the first and second centuries. Cæsar, as one would expect, looks at the institution from a practical military man’s point of view. ”

“ Beowulf, he says, “had placed Grendel’s hand . . . (on some projection perhaps) above the door (outside) as high as he could reach.” But ten Brink (Beowulf, p. 63) takes for granted that the hand was placed inside the hall. ”

“ The rider sleepeth,
the hero, far-hidden; [8] no harp resounds,
in the courts no wassail, as once was heard.
↑ That is, Beowulf supports Eadgils against Onela, who is slain by Eadgils in revenge for the “care-paths” of exile into which Onela forced him. Bugge, relying on the Norse story, translates “by care-paths cold”; that is, Eadgils revenged himself by marches fraught with care or sorrow for Onela. As the battle in the Ynglingasaga takes place on the ice, Bugge reads “cold” literally. But it is the technical adjective for exile; “winter-cold exile,” e.g. ”

“ Saxo’s Frotho, succeed- ing to a depleted treasury, is told by a “native” about a dragon (serpens) who guards a mount (montis possessor) full of treasure. Its poison is deadly. Frotho must not seek to pierce its scales, but “there is a place under its belly” where his sword can thrust and kill.—Saxo, Bk. ”

“ Kinship true
can never be marred in a noble mind!
↑ This war must not be confused with the later hostilities between Geat and Swede in Heardred’s reign, already noted (vv. 2200 ff.) ; it deals with an older feud, the main course of which can be surmised from this passage and the long speech of the messenger (see v. 2922, below) who announces Beowulf’s death, and says that now not only will Frisians and Franks be bent on war, but the Swedes will surely renew the ancient strife. ”

“ It is unnecessary to turn it into a collar or other adornment. ↑ Beowulf returns to his forecast. Things might well go somewhat as follows, he says; sketches a little tragic story; and with this prophecy by illustration returns to the tale of his adventure. One will hardly agree with Müllenhoff that such a use by the poet of an old legend shows mere helpless imbecility of interpolation. In many other cases, say Gray’s Bard, the close of Dickens’s Tale of two Cities, Thomas of Ercaldoune,—to mention some very incongruous instances,—one praises the good art or artifice of narrative. ”

“ Together we twain on the tides abode
545five nights full till the flood divided us,
churning waves and chillest weather,
darkling night, and the northern wind
ruthless rushed on us: rough was the surge.
Now the wrath of the sea-fish [5] rose apace ”

“ I settled,
to the Wylfings sent, o’er watery ridges,
treasures olden: oaths he [4] swore me.
⁠Sore is my soul to say to any
of the race of man what ruth for me
475in Heorot Grendel with hate hath wrought,
what sudden harryings. Hall-folk fail me,
my warriors wane; for Wyrd hath swept them
into Grendel’s grasp. But God is able
this deadly foe from his deeds to turn! ”

“ There was hurry and hest in Heorot now
for hands to bedeck it, and dense was the throng
of men and women the wine-hall to cleanse,
the guest-room to garnish. Gold-gay shone the hangings
995that were wove on the wall, and wonders many
to delight each mortal that looks upon them. ”

“ Achilles had his tomb “high on a jutting headland over wide Hellespont, that it might be seen from far off the sea by men that now are and by those that shall be hereafter.” So the Odyssey, in Butcher and Lang’s translation of the last book. In Book XI, Elpenor asks for such a tomb. According to Vergil, Æn. VI, 232, Misenus was buried by Æneas on a huge mound on a cliff by the sea. ”

“ Nothing is said of Beowulf’s wife in the poem, but Bugge—whose restoration of the text is followed here—surmises that Beowulf finally accepted Hygd’s offer of kingdom and hoard, and, as was usual, took her into the bargain. In any case a praefica (with differences) belonged to the Germanic funeral, and chanted her vocero. Specimens of these laments, which often, as here, expressed forebodings for the future, may be found in the present writer’s Beginnings of Poetry. ↑ The close resemblance of these funeral rites to the ceremonies at Attila’s burial has often been noted. ”

“ But the present passage hardly needs this subtle interpretation, and evidently means that fate often spares a man who is not doomed, really devoted to death, if he is a brave man, in a word, favors the brave if favor be possible. Weird sisters and fey folk survived long in Scottish tradition. ↑ The Finnish folk, as Gering points out, we now call Laplanders. ↑ This speech of Beowulf’s is admirable. He has defended his own reputation, shrugs his shoulders at the necessity of referring to his prowess, and makes a home-thrust at Unferth. ”

“ Helper of Heroes, the hoard to open,—
even such a man as seemed to him meet.
↑ The line may mean: till Hrethelings stormed on the hedgéd shields,—i.e. the shield-wall or hedge of defensive war.—Hrethelings, of course, are Geats. ↑ Eofor, brother to Wulf Wonreding. As was noted above, this Homeric account of the fight is not difficult to follow. Wulf wounds Ongentheow, who replies with a terrific stroke, felling Wulf to earth, but not killing him. Eofor, the brother, avenges Wulf speedily, and gets his reward for killing the old hero-king. ”

“ The weaving, as in classical myths, is work of the Norns, or fates, but God disposes it as he will. Often, however, the Germanic fates stand alone at their loom. “Wyrd wove me this.” ↑ Beowulf,—the “one.” ”

“ But rescue came
with dawn of day for those desperate men
when they heard the horn of Hygelac sound,
tones of his trumpet; the trusty king
2945had followed their trail with faithful band.
↑ Nothing. ↑ Dead. ↑ Death-watch, guard of honor, “lyke-wake.” ↑ A name for the Franks.—“The fleet” (literally “fleet-army”) marks a viking’s raid; but does not make necessarily for the argument that Geats were Swedes. An expedition by boat from Jutland, using the large rivers for quick piratical assaults and plunderings, is likely enough. ”

“ Yea, death is better
for liegemen all than a life of shame!”
↑ What had been left or made by the hammer; well-forged. ↑ As usual, litotes for “none at all.” ↑ In Maldon the antitype of cowardice and false thaneship is furnished by the three sons of Odda,—Godric, who mounts his lord’s own horse when the chieftain falls, and flies to the woods and the fastness, Godwine, and Godwig. They will not stay to fall about their lord’s body, faithful in death, as do the rest. ↑ Trying to revive him. In the Anglo-Saxon Genesis, water “wakes” land into fertility. ”

“ This excess of strength is a favorite trait in certain lines of romance, runs into exaggeration, and lends itself to burlesque. In Hugh Spencer’s Feats in France, a poor popular ballad, the hero cannot tilt with any one French lance, his strength smashing it in his hand ”