Aptronyms

27 March 2009

Mark Peters over at Good magazine has an article on aptronyms--names of people that reflect their profession, like a gardener named Allen Bloom.

Blogging Beowulf: Fit XXII, Lines 1473-1556

19 March 2009

Beowulf begins the fit by asking Hrothgar to look after his men, willing his possessions to Hygelac, the king of the Geats, and saying the sword Hrunting should be returned to Unferth should he die. Then Beowulf dives into the mere. He is immediately attacked by Grendel’s mother and by various other sea creatures, but is protected by his armor—reminiscent of the earlier story of the swimming contest. He reaches the bottom of the mere, where he finds himself in some sort of hall, glowing with fire-light.  Beowulf strikes at Grendel’s mother with Hrunting, but the blade has no effect. He tosses away the sword, intending to wrestle—much as he did with Grendel. He throws her to the ground, but she grasps him and he falls. She then leaps on top of him and draws a long knife, but again his armor protects him. Beowulf manages to throw her off him and stand up. What will happen to our hero? Tune in next time. Same Beo-time; same Beo-channel.

We see that despite the earlier claim that she is less of a warrior because she is female, Grendel’s mother poses a bigger problem for Beowulf than her son did. Beowulf had the upper hand on Grendel (heh! heh!) from the beginning of that fight, but Grendel’s mother proves to be a more formidable opponent.

We again get the pattern of Beowulf saying words, how he will prevail in battle, before going into the fight. He did it the evening before the fight with Grendel, and the poem makes the point that he in the midst of the fight he recalled those words. A hero is one whose deeds match his words. Here Beowulf says, “iċ mē mid Hruntinge dōm ġewyrċe, oþðe meċ dēað nimeð” (“I will work glory for myself with Hrunting, or death will take me”).

Note that Old English doesn’t have a future tense, nor does it use auxiliary verbs like will or shall to express futurity. The present tense doubles to express futurity, with context largely providing the indication of what is meant. Literally, this sentence reads, “I work glory for myself with Hrunting, or death takes me.” Technically, Modern English doesn’t have a proper future tense either; we use auxiliary verbs to mark the future—which we often call, somewhat inaccurately, the future tense. Old English doesn’t use auxiliary verbs in this fashion. The verb sculan, the root of our modern shall, denotes obligation more than simple futurity, and willan denotes desire for. Both auxiliary verbs were commonly used in future contexts, but denoting the future was not their primary purpose and the future could be implied without them. The obligation/desire distinction still exists in our Modern English shall and will, but the two words are becoming conflated and their primary purpose is to express futurity.

Also in Old English, the verb beon, to be, carried a sense of present action continuing into the future, as opposed to wesan, which denoted a simple present. In Modern English, these two forms have melded into our verb to be. See the Big List entry for more details.

Other things going on this fit:

Line 1495 says that Beowulf swam through the water for hwil dæġes before coming to the bottom of the mere. Literally, this means a while of the day. No one really knows how long the poet intended this to be. It is a period of time that, today, is indeterminate, although it could have had specific meaning a thousand years ago.

Grendel’s mother is referred to as a brimwylf in line 1506. This translates as she-wolf of the sea. Also, in 1511 the other sea-monsters are said to be hildetūxum, or with battle-tusks.

In line 1523, the sword Hrunting is called a beadolēoma, or battle-light, a neat kenning that appears several times in the poem.

Unlike her son, Grendel’s mother uses weapons. This makes her somewhat closer to human. In particular, the weapon she uses is called, in line 1545, a seax, a short sword (or long knife) that is the root of the ethnic name Saxon. The Saxons were literally people who used a seax in battle. The poet almost certainly did not intend to imply that Grendel’s mother was a Saxon; she simply used a knife. The specific choice of seax in this line is for alliteration.

Also in that same line, it says that Grendel’s mother ofsæt þā þone seleġyst (she ofsæt the hall-guest); she had just thrown Beowulf to the ground and has turned and attacked him. Exactly what ofsæt means is uncertain. It most likely means to beset or to set upon, but some have taken it to mean to sit upon, with the attendant sexual implications. While this may make sense with Angelina Jolie playing the role, any reading of sexual implication in the original poem is pretty far-fetched. There is almost no sexuality in Beowulf (lots about gender roles, but little or nothing about sexual acts or desires). It may mean that she leaped on top of him, but it’s a simple attack, not a rape.

While I implied in my summary above that there is a cliff-hanger ending to this fit, it’s not really the case in the poem, which tells us explicitly that Beowulf is going to win. Lines 1554-1556 read:

Ġewēold wīġsigor      wītiġ drihten;
rodera rædend      hit on ryht gescēd
yðelīċe,      syþðan hē eft āstōd.

(Brought about war-victory      the wise Lord;
the ruler of the heavens      decided it for the right one
easily,      once he stood up again.)

This is another example of the strange interplay between agency and fate that is going on in the poem. God is deciding who will win, but he only decides once Beowulf shakes off the attack of Grendel’s mother and gets back onto his feet.

Coming up next: Beowulf defeats Grendel’s mother with a bit of deus ex machina, he mutilates Grendel’s corpse, and returns to Heorot in victory.

Blogging Beowulf: Fit XXI, lines 1383-1472

18 March 2009

Beowulf responds to Hrothgar, saying he will kill Grendel’s mother. So Beowulf, Hrothgar, and a small army march to the mere where she lives. When they get there, they find Æschere’s head on a cliff above the mere. The water is filled with sea monsters and one of the Geatish bowmen kills one the creatures and drags it to shore. Beowulf puts on his armor for the swim. (Not the most realistic thing to do, but hey! This is a poem about monsters, so what do you want? It’s no more absurd than most Hollywood action movies.) Unferth, who insulted Beowulf when he first appeared at Hrothgar’s court, gives Beowulf a famous sword, named Hrunting, to use against the monster.

When I first read this section, I was immediately struck by the similarity with the scene in The Lord of the Rings before the gates of Moria. We have a pool, over hanging trees, sea monsters, and a fight with the sea monsters. Tolkien, of course, was an Old English scholar and intimately familiar with Beowulf. And evidently this specific terrain is a staple of Anglo-Saxon literature, appearing in a number of works. I have no doubt that this fit was in his mind when he penned that scene from LOTR. (I’ve avoided references to LOTR so far in this blog series, but the modern reader can’t escape it when reading Beowulf. Tolkien borrowed heavily from Old English in coming up with names and languages in his works, everything from Frodo (wise), to Theoden (king), Deagol (secret), and mearas (horse).)

There is some interesting language in the fit. At the beginning, Beowulf utters the gnomic statement, lines 1384b-85, “sēlre bið æġhwæm þæt hē his frēond wrece þonne hē fela murne.” (“It is better for one that he avenge his friend than he mourn too much.”)

There are a couple of kennings. Line 1429 has seġlrāde, or sail-road, for the sea. Line 1440 has wægbora, or wave-roamer, for sea monster.

The sword Hrunting is described in loving detail, and throughout the poem weapons get this treatment. Line 1459 tells us that it is ātertānum fāh, or decorated with poison-stripes. This is probably a reference to the serpentine-like patterns produced on pattern-welded steel. Line 1460 says the sword has been āhyrded heaþoswāte, or hardened with battle-sweat (i.e., blood). And lines 1463b-64 tell us that this upcoming fight næs þæt forma sīð þæt hit ellenweorc æfnan scolde (is not the first time that it had to perform a work of valor).

Finally, we learn a bit more about the mysterious Unferth (lines 1465-71a):

Hūru ne gemunde      mago Ecglāfes,
eafoþes cræftiġ,      þæt hē ær ġespræc
wīne druncen,      þa hē þæs wæpnes onlāh
selran sweordfrecan;      selfa ne dorste
under yða ġewin      aldre ġenēþan,
drihtscype dreogan;      þær hē dome forlēas,
ellenmærðum.

(Indeed, did not remember      the son of Ecglaf,
crafty of strength,      what he had said before
drunk with wine,      when he lent this weapon
to the better swordsman;      he himself did not dare
in a fight under the waves      to risk his life,
to perform bravery;      there he lost glory,
his fame for courage.)

It seems that some of the earlier negative commentary about Unferth may be from an after-the-fact perspective. At the time he was considered one of Hrothgar’s best, but his unwillingness to accompany Beowulf into the mere causes him to lose face.

Blogging Beowulf: Fit XX, Lines 1321-1382

16 March 2009

This is another short fit, only some 60-odd lines, but it has some goodies in it. Hrothgar laments the death of his chief thane, named Æschere. He skillfully lays the blame for the death at Beowulf’s doorstep—Æschere’s death is retaliation for his killing of Grendel—and says he will greatly reward Beowulf if he kills Grendel’s mother.

Hrothgar uses the words idese onlīcnæs, likeness of woman, in line 1351a to describe Grendel’s mother. The word ides is generally reserved for noble women and is a term of respect, similar to our use of lady today. The vowel alliterates with the other stressed vowel sounds in the line, so that may be reason for using this odd-choice of a word for a monster, but one can readily imagine that the line could also have been reconstructed to use a more generic term, like wif using a different alliteration scheme.

Then in the second half of the fit is what may be my favorite passage of the poem so far. It’s a description of the territory around the lair of Grendel’s mother. It’s very spooky and wonderfully evocative. It’s very Halloweenish and I keep picturing John Cleese playing Hrothgar, describing the Cave of Cairbannog, lines 1357b-1379:

                                    Hīe dyġel lond
wariġeað, wulfhleoþu,      windiġe næssas,
frēcne fenġelād,      ðær fyrġenstrēam
under næssa ġenipu      niþer ġewīteð,
flōd under foldan.      Nis þæt feor heonon
mīlġemearces      þæt se mere standeð;
ofer þæm hongiað      hrinde bearwas,
wudu wyrtum fæst      wæter oferhelmað.
Þær mæġ nihta ġehwæm      nīðwundor sēon,
fyr on flōde.      Nō þæs frōd leofað
gumena bearna,      þæt þone grund wite.
Ðēah þe hæðstapa      hundum ġeswenċed,
heorot hornum trum      holtwudu sēċe,
feorran ġeflymed,      ær hē feorh seleð,
aldor on ōfre,      ær hē in wille,
hafelan [beorgan];      nis þæt hēoru stōw.
Þonon yðġeblond      up āstīgeð
won tō wolcnum      þonne wind styreþ
lað ġewidru,      oð þæt lyft ðrysmaþ,
roderas rēotað.      Nu is se ræd ġelang
eft æt þē ānum.      Eard ġīt ne const,
frēcne stōwe,      ðæ¯r þū findan miht
sinniġne secg;      sēċ ġif þū dyrre!

                                    (They this secret land
guard, the retreats of wolves,      the windy bluffs,
the terrible fen-passage,      where a waterfall
under the mists of bluffs      departs downward,
a flood under the earth.      It is not far from here
measured by miles      that the mere stands;
over it hangs      a grove covered with frost,
a wood with firm roots      overhangs the water.
There one can each night      see a dreadful wonder,
a fire on the flood.      There lives none so wise
of the children of men      that knows the bottom [of the lake].
Though the heath-stalker      harrassed by hounds,
the hart with strong horns      seeking the forest,
is put far to flight,      he would sooner give up his life,
his life on the shore,      before he would wish [to go] in [the lake]
to save his head;      this is not a good place.
From there the tossing waves      climb up
dark to the clouds      when the wind stirs
the hostile weathers,      until the air chokes,
the heavens weep.      Now is help dependent on
you alone again.      You do not know the region,
the terrible place,      there you might find
the sinful man;      seek it if you dare!)