28 February 2009
Another short fit here, but one with lots of action as Beowulf’s fight with Grendel continues. When we last left our hero, he was locked in a death grip with the monster, a wrestling match that the monster was losing. As Beowulf’s men join in the fight, hacking away at Grendel with their swords to no avail), Beowulf maintains his grip on Grendel’s arm. We find out that there is a spell that protects Grendel from weapons—so Beowulf’s choice to fight bare-handed is fortuitous. Then a wound opens up on Grendel’s shoulder, and Beowulf rips the monster’s arm from its socket. Grendel, mortally wounded, flees back to his retreat in the fens to die. Beowulf is left victorious, and holding a bloody arm.
The language and the imagery it creates of the fight are compelling. Perhaps the most notable feature is pronominal confusion. As Beowulf and Grendel are locked in their death-grip, the poet’s lack of clear antecedents for the pronoun he makes difficult to disentangle who is being referred to—just as the fighters are locked in the struggle, their poetic identities also merge.
The second notable image is that of motion. While all around the edges of the fight there is wild motion—benches flying, men hacking away at Grendel with swords—the center of the fight, Beowulf and Grendel, is static. The name Beowulf means bear (literally bee-wolf, after a bear’s fondness for honey and its plundering of bee-hives), and the two fighters are locked in a deadly bear-hug, unmoving while all around them is confusion (lines 794b-804a):
Þær ġenehost bræġd
eorl Bēowulfes ealde lāfe,
wolde frēadrihtnes feorh ealgian,
mæres þēodnes, ðær hīe meahton swā.
Hīe þæt ne wiston, þā hīe ġewin drugon,
heardhicgende hildemecgas,
ond on healfa ġehwone hēawan þōhton,
sāwle sēċan: þone synscaðan
æniġ ofer eorþan īrenna cyst,
gūðbilla nan, grētan nolde,
ac hē siġewæpnum forsworen hæfde,
ecga ġehwylcre.
( There most sufficiently
Many a man of Beowulf swung his old, heirloom sword,
and would his lord’s life protect,
his famous chief, as they could.
They did not know, as they engaged in the fight,
the brave-minded warriors,
and from all sides intended to hew him,
to seek his soul: that the hostile attacker
from anywhere on earth the best of iron,
of war-swords, could not harm him
because he the victory weapons had made useless by a spell,
every one of the blades.)
Some notes on the language of this passage. First, the number of Beowulf’s men involved in the fight is confusing. Eorl Beowulfes, literally man of Beowulf, and the verb breġdan, to draw or swing, are singular. But then there is a shift to the plural. This is just something Old English does sometimes, uses an individual member to denote a collective. It can be confusing to the modern reader—presumably Old English readers were familiar with the convention. Also, the word eorl in Old English meant man, with a connotation of nobility or of heroic qualities; it did not have the modern sense of specific noble rank that earl does today, so by translating it as earl one can introduce anachronistic elements into the text.
Second, is the verb forsworen in line 804b. This verb literally means to falsely swear, to renounce an oath—the same meaning it holds in modern English. And indeed the OED2 includes this line as the first citation for this sense of the modern verb to forswear. But the verb is also glossed in a Latin-Old English glossary as meaning made useless by means of a spell. Now the sense of renunciation can work if one takes Beowulf as the subject (see the pronominal confusion above), but if the sense is Grendel the magical sense makes more sense. It is, of course, possible that the poet intends both senses, creating a double meaning for the sentence that works in Old English, but not in modern English.
Third, there is a lot of talk about old weapons in the poem. Ancient weapons had a different value to Anglo-Saxons than they do to us today. An old weapon is tried and true, not obsolete. Plus, it is a great honor to be given or to inherit a sword and armor. So a warrior with old weapons is a great warrior.
The passage describing the end of the fight is worth quoting for its gore-value (lines 815b-821a):
Līċsār ġebād
atol æġlæċa; him on eaxle wearð
syndolh sweotol, seonowe onsprungon,
burston bānlocan. Bēowulfe wearð
gūðhrēð ġyfeþe. Scolde Grendel þonan
feorhsēoc fleon under fenhleoðu,
sēċean wynlēas wīċ
( Bodily pain was felt
by the horrible adversary; on his shoulder appeared
clearly a great wound, sinews sprang asunder,
joints burst. Beowulf came
to be given glory in battle From there Grendel had to
flee mortally wounded under the fen-slopes,
joyless, to seek his home.)
Note the passive construction of Beowulf being given victory in the battle, presumably by fate or by God. This plays into the concept of determinism and that Beowulf wins because he is favored by some powerful, outside force, not because of anything he has done. The passage I have translated as “bodily pain is felt” is actually active voice in the original; I’ve translated it as passive to preserve the syntax of the half-lines.
