Good On Dare

6 March 2009

Mark Peters of Good online magazine has an article on the Dictionary of American Regional English.

Blogging Beowulf: Fit XIV, Lines 925-990

5 March 2009

We get a pair of speeches in this fit, one from Hrothgar and the other from Beowulf. Not much else happens here. There are two things of note here, however. 

The first is the question of whether Beowulf is a legitimate successor to Hrothgar. There is quite a bit of scholarly commentary on the question of kingship and succession in the poem and one particular passage draws attention, lines 946b-48a, where Hrothgar says: “nū iċ, Bēowulf, þeċ, secg bet[e]sta, mē for sunu wylle freoġan on ferhþe” (Now I will love you, Beowulf, the best of men, as a son in my heart ). Is Hrothgar adopting Beowulf here? It’s not an important point as far as the plot of the poem goes, but how you interpret the lines colors how you read the actions and words of Wealhtheow and the courtiers. For my part, I don’t think it’s meant as a formal adoption. Hrothgar is simply expressing affection for the man who rid him of the problem of Grendel.

The second thing of note is in line 973a, where Beowulf is describing his fight with Grendel. He refers to Grendel as fēasceaft guma (wretched man). The use of guma, man, is very interesting and highly unusual. Grendel has been described in all sorts of monstrous terms up to this point, but never referred to as a man. The line alliterates of / f /, so guma wasn’t chosen for metrical purposes. We’ll come back to this in the next fit, where there is an expansion of this and a discussion of Grendel, death, and salvation.

Blogging Beowulf: Fit XIII, Lines 837-924

4 March 2009

There isn’t much of a narrative of events in this fit. Instead, it’s a description of the celebrations over the death of Grendel. Nobles follow Grendel’s blood trail to a lake. There are horse races. A thane sings a song about the hero Sigemond. There was much rejoicing.

One passage is noteworthy for its poetic language. It’s about what the nobles see after they have followed Grendel’s blood trail and recounts the monster’s death, lines 847-852:

Ðær wæs on blōde      brim weallende,
atol yða ġeswinġ      eal ġemenġed
hāton heolfre,      heorodrēore wēol.
Dēaðfæġe dēog      siððan drēama lēas
in fenfreoðo      feorh āleġde,
hæþene sāwle;      þær him hel onfēng.

(The was with blood      water welling,
the horrible swirling of waves      all mingled
with hot gore,      battle-blood welled up.
It concealed the death-doomed one      when devoid of joys
in the fen refuge      he laid down his life,
his heathen soul;      there hell took him.)

(A note on my translations: I’m trying to translate each half-line separately so you, presumably without detailed knowledge of Old English, can see the connections between the Old English words and the modern ones—this is Wordorigins.org, after all. This often results in clunky modern language like, “there was with blood...” If I tried to render it in a syntax more in keeping with modern practice, it would be difficult to see the connections between the two vocabularies. Sometimes I can’t keep the half-lines intact and have it make any sense in modern English, then I will juggle the words and lines so the modern translation isn’t gibberish.)

Also of note is the thane singing the story of Sigemond, a Norse hero. The song, as described in the poem, is rather elliptical; the poet assumes the reader is familiar with the story and it’s a rather obvious comparison of Beowulf to the mythic hero. But beyond the association of Beowulf with the pantheon of Nordic heroes, even more interesting is the description of how the thane composes the song, lines 867b-874a:

                  Hwīlum cyninges þeġn,
guma ġilphlæden,      ġidda ġemyndiġ,
sē ðe eal fela      ealdġeseġena
worn ġemunde,      word ōþer fand
sōðe ġebunden;      secg eft ongan
sīð Bēowulfes      snyttrum styrian
ond on spēd wrecan      spel ġerāde,
wordum wrixlan.

(                  At times the king’s thane,
a man of glorious words,      mindful of songs,
he who well      of the old sagas
remembered a great many,      found other words
truly bound;      the man began again
the adventure of Beowulf      to recite with skill
and successfully to utter      the tale skillfully
varying the words.)

Since this passage comes immediately after the description of the horse races, one can assume the thane is on horseback. He is composing a new saga on the fly, as he is riding. He is creating a variant of the Sigemond story using new combinations of set poetic phrases (sōðe ġebunden, truly bound) to bring the adventure of Beowulf into the story. In this way, it’s not unlike modern improvisational jazz music or hip-hop rhyming. It’s a neat insight into how the Anglo-Saxons created and performed their poetry.

Finally I want to come back to the point made in an earlier blog entry about the virility and manliness of Hrothgar. Earlier, prior to the fight with Grendel, he retired to the women’s bed chambers. Here he appears again with the women, lines

                  swylċe self cyning
of brydbūre,      bēahhorda weard,
tryddode tīrfæst      ġetrume micle,
cystum ġecyþed,      ond his cwēn mid him
medostiġġe mæt      mæġþa hōse.

(                  Likewise, the king himself
from the women’s apartment,      the guardian of treasures,
trod full of glory      with a troop
well-known for excellence,      and his queen with him
traversed the mead-hall path      with a company of maidens.)

Again, we’re getting mixed signals about Hrothgar’s ability to lead. He is again with the women, but also in the company of a troop of excellent thanes. I’ve come to the conclusion that the poet intends to convey that Hrothgar, while once a strong and worthy king, is now old and coming to the end of his days. This will play out a little later on in the celebrations when there are conversations about who will succeed Hrothgar and what will happen to his two young sons, who are presumably too young to rule.

Blogging Beowulf: Fit XII, Lines 791-836

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.