Bayeux Tapestry detail: Coronation of Harold, created by Myrabella, 2013, used under Creative Commons license
26 April 2009
The NY Times has a series a blog posts on Strunk and White’s Elements of Style and the damage it has done to generations of writers on it’s 50th birthday. Postings by Geoffrey Pullam, Ben Yagoda, Patricia O’Conner, Stephen Dodson (a.k.a. languagehat), and Mignon Fogerty (a.k.a. Grammar Girl).
24 April 2009
The episode/digression about Heremod, the bad king, continues. Heremod grows increasingly prideful and greedy. Eventually he dies, replaced by another king who doles out Heremod’s treasures to his people without regret. Hrothgar explicitly warns Beowulf not to be like Heremod. Hrothgar also examines his own rule, saying he tried to rule well and keep his kingdom safe—which apart from Grendel he did. And that he has even seen his kingdom delivered from the monster’s depredations, and unlike Heremod, he will share more treasure with Beowulf come morning. The next day, the Geats are eager to depart for their home. Beowulf returns the sword Hrunting to Unferth, saying it is a great sword, even though it did not avail him in this battle.
Hrothgar has some neat words about the transitory nature of glory and life—a very common theme in medieval literature, lines 1761b- 1768:
Nū is þīnes mæġnes blæd
āne hwīle; eft sōna bið
þæt þeċ ādl oððe ecg eafoþes ġetwæfeð,
oððe fyres fenġ, oððe flōdes wylm,
oððe gripe mēċes, oððe gāres fliht,
oððe atol yldo; oððe ēagena bearhtm
forsiteð ond forsworceð; semninga bið
þæt ðeċ, dryhtguma, dēað oferswyðeð.( Now is the glory of your might
[but] a little while; in turn soon will
sickness or blade deprive you of strength,
or fire’s grip, or flood’s welling,
or sword’s attack, or arrow’s flight,
or terrible age; or [your] eyes’ brightness
will fail and dim; at last will
you, warrior, be overcome by death.)
Line 1801 uses a black raven (hrefn blaca) as a sign of the dawn. This is highly unusual. Ravens in Anglo-Saxon literature are associated with death—they are carrion fowl, after all. Also, dawn is often an inauspicious time; it is the time of day when the evils that night has brought are discovered. But here the dawn and the raven are good things.
The reader of today is also drawn to the word collenferhð in line 1806. It has nothing to do with the actor Colin Firth; it is a poetic term meaning bold of spirit. It appears again later in the poem. It’s of no particular importance, except that it reminds one of the odd connections readers of a different era can make when reading old literature.
24 April 2009
One doesn’t usually associate Forbes magazine with linguistics and lexicography, but Forbes.com has put out a special report on neologisms. Ignore the intro which is based on crap about the “Global Language Monitor” and head straight to the articles by such people as Grant Barrett, Ben Zimmer, John McWhorter, and Mark Peters. There are audio and video features as well.
21 April 2009
The fit starts with Beowulf telling Hrothgar of the battle with Grendel’s mother and he gives the old king the hilt of the giant sword that slayed the monster. Hrothgar praises Beowulf and then launches into the story of Heremod, a Danish king who did not share his treasures with his men and, in fact, killed his own retainers in fits of rage. This is one of the many digressions, or “episodes,” that populate the poem. Hrothgar is giving a warning to Beowulf that he should not be like Heremod.
There’s not a lot to say about this fit as it’s pretty straightforward. But here are some notes.
In telling his story, Beowulf embellishes a bit. He claims to kill two monsters, not just one, although he could be conflating the two separate battles, with Grendel and with Grendel’s mother, condensing them into one. The relevant line is (l. 1165-66a), hyrdas is the accusative plural for keeper or shepherd:
Ofslōh ðā æt þære sæċċe, þa mē sæl aġeald,
hūses hyrdas.(I slew then in that battle, when opportunity permitted me,
the keepers of the house.)
There are some neat alliterative descriptions in this fit. Hrothgar is a harum hildfruman (hoary war-chief, l. 1678). The giant sword our hero uses to kill Grendel’s mother is a wundorsmiþa ġeweorc (work of wonder-smiths, l. 1681) and has a wreoþenhilt ond wyrmfah (hilt wrapped with ornamentation and with serpentine patterns, l. 1698). Grendel is a gromheort guma (hostile-hearted man, l.1682).
About the greedy Heremod it is said (l. 1718b-1719a):
Hwæþere him on ferhþe grēow
brēosthord blōdrēow.( Yet in his heart grew
a bloodthirsty breast-hoard.)
11 April 2009
It’s the 50th anniversary of Elements of Style, and Geoffrey Pullum lets Strunk and White have it in a posting over at the Chronicle of Higher Education.
The text of Wordorigins.org by David Wilton is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License