Conceivably it is a mere piece of machinery contrived so that Hrothgar can hear more about Beowulf. But other methods which do not run counter to the general situation could easily have been thought of: see the note on 300, while he was yet a boy. It is therefore quite possible that the poet was alluding to something quite specific and definite in the traditions about the relations of the three royal houses: an exchange of courtesies on some particular occasion, such as Hygelac’s marriage. Courtesies of that kind – not necessarily implying any change of diplomacy or ‘foreign policy’ – were not uncommon. In Old English times the English kings sent gifts to þance to many notable persons. Alfred for instance sent gifts as far away as to the Patriarch of Jerusalem.
But I do not agree with the usual editorial reading of the situation that Danes and Swedes were hostile naturally, while the relations of the Danish and Geatish royal houses were excellent. This view can only be held by ignoring the matrimonial alliance that is deliberately and pointedly alluded to by the poet as the very background of the political situation at Heorot (48–9, *62–3), and by blurring over the clear meaning of Hrothgar’s farewell words. It is due also to over-valuation of the Norse sources which reflect a later situation. After the downfall of the Hrethlingas and the absorption of Geatland, Danes and Swedes as powerful and aggressive neighbours naturally became hostile, and remained so into modern times. But in Beowulf we hear clear echoes of an earlier political situation, while Geatland was independent, at times ascendant, and the direct neighbours of the Danes. These (probably quite historical) traditions have, however, been somewhat altered by the intrusion of ‘legend’: Beowulf and Ecgtheow. Cutting across the politics is Hrothgar’s personal, almost avuncular, interest in the son of Ecgtheow, grandson of the Geatish king Hrethel.
The situation presented by the poet is not however necessarily confused and contradictory. It is certainly a leading trait in the character of Hrothgar as depicted (and likely enough was true to his character in history) that he was a cautious diplomatist, preferring to solve his external problems by negotiation. This trait is the essential machinery in the Heathobard tragedy – by which Hrothgar’s daughter Freawaru was married to the Heathobard prince Ingeld, heir to the bitterest of all the feuds against the Scylding house. And note: it was just at the time when danger had become acute again that Hrothgar tried with a stroke of policy (rǽd 2027) to avert war (1703–5, *2027–9). Ingeld, saved when his father was destroyed, had now grown up and reached the age when honour would require him to think of avenging his father. So it is possible enough, and in accord with Hrothgar’s political character (quite apart from Ecgtheow and his son) that it was just at the moment when the Geats became really dangerous that Hrothgar would try a policy of appeasement. Now that moment would be after the disastrous death of the old Swedish king Ongentheow and the accession of Hrethel’s third and very warlike and ambitious son Hygelac.18
There is evidence, external to Beowulf, that Ohthere, son of the slain king Ongentheow, did in fact only rule a very restricted realm, that he was buried in Vendel in Sweden and not in the great mounds of the kings at Old Uppsala, and that during his reign the Geats were in the ascendant, probably controlling much of Swedish territory. That was the situation until Hygelac made his rash and fatal raid into Frisia. At some appropriate time during that situation (Hygelac’s accession, or his marriage, or the birth of his heir) it would be quite in the Hrothgar manner to send a mission bearing gifts to the Geats to þance – to suggest that friendship between the two houses was possible and might be profitable.
Hrothgar need not have forgotten his sister; but she would, on this reading, be merely the wife of Onela, the second son of Ongentheow, a prince of a diminished house, merely the brother of a small king who had in any case two sons (Eanmund and Eadgils). The Swedish revival came with the downfall of Hygelac – but that was far in the unforeseen future at the time alluded to in lines 303–4, (*377–9). The accession of Onela, his driving out of his brother’s sons, his invasion of Geatland (while it lay under the disaster of the loss of its king, army, and fleet, and his slaying of the last Hrethling, Heardred, occurred after Hrothgar’s time. [See the note to 213, p. 199, footnote 3.] Then, when Sweden became dominant, and by the absorption of Geatland became the powerful and aggressive neighbour of Denmark, began that ‘essential hostility’ between the Danish and Swedish kings, reflected in Norse legend and history, and indeed enduring far into medieval and modern times.
305–6 the might and power of thirty men; *379–80 þrítiges manna mægencræft
Cf. ‘thirty knights (Grendel) seized’, 98, *123. An exaggerated fairy-tale number in both places: in neither by itself very significant, so that variation would have mattered little. There is no metrical necessity favouring þritig in either place (for a skilled writer), and it is a fair deduction that the identity of number was meant to be significant and to be noted (by the author’s audience. Very likely also, within the tale, by Hrothgar’s court.) Grendel was capable of killing thirty fighting-men at once (and carrying off at least most of their remains); Beowulf was as strong as thirty men. It was an equal number, with possible hope in it.
þritig is again mentioned in connexion with Beowulf, 1988–90, *2359–62: he escaped from the great defeat by the Franks by swimming, bearing off thirty suits of armour.
320–1 Leave here your warlike shields; *397 lǽtað hildebord hér onbídan
Note the prohibition of weapons or accoutrements of battle in the hall. To walk in with spear and shield was like walking in nowadays with your hat on. The basis of these rules was of course fear and prudence amid the ever-present dangers of an heroic age, but they were made part of the ritual, of good manners. Compare the prohibition against drawing a sword in the officers’ mess. Swords of course also were dangerous; but they were evidently regarded as part of a knight’s attire, and he would not in any case be willing to lay aside his sword, a thing of great cost and often an heirloom. But against this danger very severe laws existed protecting the ‘peace’ of a king’s hall. It was death in Scandinavia to cause a brawl in a king’s hall. Among the laws of the West Saxon king Ine is found:
Gif hwá gefeohte on cyninges húse, síe hé scyldig ealles his ierfes ond síe on cyninges dóme hwæðer hé líf áge þe náge.
‘If any man fight in the king’s house, he shall forfeit all his estate, and it shall be for the king to judge whether he be put to death or not.’
In spite of the verbal courtesies, until the two sides felt quite sure of (a) their welcome, (b) the errand of the strangers, the attitude was like that of a general receiving emissaries from another army, and of men visiting an enemy camp. Too often had desperate men made their way in for the prosecution of a blood-feud. Too often had men found themselves suddenly surrounded by armed foes in a hostile hall. So Beowulf sets a guard over their shields and spears (323–5).
329 Hail to thee, Hrothgar!; *407 Wæs þú, Hróðgár, hál!
Wes hál, usually with þú inserted, is the usual polite formula of greeting in Old English. They wished you good health on meeting you; we merely enquire after the symptoms: ‘how do you do?’ From wes heil the formula, altered under the influence of Norse and Norse drinking customs is derived our noun wassail. I know of no evidence that wes hál was specially associated with drinking-pledges in Old English. In *617 indeed the formula used by the Queen was apparently not wes hál, but béo þú blíðe (æt þisse béorþege) or the like [so bæd hine blíðne æt þǽre béorþege *617, ‘wished him joy at the ale quaffing’ 501–2].
329 ff.; *407 ff.
Beowulf at once reveals himself as proud and confident. But not ‘boastful’. To say that Beowulf is ‘boastful’ is due to a misapprehension of the situation, and to a lexicographical difficulty. Beowulf’s speech is certainly a gilpcwide (*640, ‘proud utterance’ 519), which you will find glossed ‘boastful speech’. But the gloss is false. Do people like to listen to ‘boasting’? Yet the poet says that the Queen was delighted with B
eowulf’s gilpcwide. And when the lexicographers come to gilpgeorn they feel themselves obliged to gloss it ‘eager for glory’ (and not for vainglory). The trouble is that while the Old English words gielpan and gielp were neutral, good or bad according to the situation, but normally good (since vainglory was not admired), we have not a neutral word, or one leaning to good. Boast is derived from a Middle English word meaning mere noise, while vaunt contains Latin vanum ‘empty’.
But gielp did not mean ‘empty brag’: that was idel gielp and contemptible. It meant proud speech, or exultation. And these things were not despised in certain circumstances. To utter a gielp after you had achieved something may seem to us to approach near to our ‘boasting’, but it had to be moderate and true. To utter one before the event was a serious matter, involving a promise to perform, the breaking of which meant ignominy. Advice on this point will be found in The Wanderer 69–72 and 112–13: ‘A wise man . . . must never be too eager for gielp, until he has full knowledge; a man shall pause when he utters a béot (another word often rendered ‘boast’, but more properly rendered ‘vow’), until, moved though his heart be, he knows clearly whither the thought of his mind is leading.’ And later: ‘Good is he that keeps his word; and never shall a man too rashly reveal the fierce emotion (O.E. torn) of his breast, unless he has already perceived how to accomplish the remedy with valour.’ That is, he must not say ‘I will kill you for that’, unless he means to do it, and sees a way commensurate with his means and will to do so.
The situation here is, of course, of a young man who has come a long way to do a difficult and dangerous task, that has so far defeated old and better men. He has already ‘sent in his card’, and though the poet has only in his selective way made Beowulf mention his errand to the coastguard, it is plain from Hrothgar’s words (306–9, *381–5) that a hint of it was given also to Wulfgar. He therefore needs credentials. He at once gives them. And note, he does not beat on his chest and bellow and offer to show off his strength in the primitive manner that from some commentators one would gather he shows.
334–5 as soon as the light of evening is hid beneath heaven’s pale; *413–14 siððan ǽfenléoht under heofenes hádor beholen weorþeð
[I give here my father’s discussion of the manuscript reading hador and the proposed emendation haðor in a slightly more concise form.]
The word hádor is an adjective meaning ‘clear, bright’, nowhere else used as a noun. It is used of sound (voice) at lines *496–7 (Scop hwílum sang hádor on Heorote), 403 ‘the minstrel sang clear in Heorot’); otherwise it is almost always found in reference to the sky (or sun and stars). But that association is in description of brightness; this on the other hand is a description of the coming of a (sinister) darkness, of the ‘hiding’ of sunlight, itself already dim compared with day.
Primarily for this reason I greatly prefer haðor. It also seems nonsense to say that the evening-light is hidden under the brightness of the sky. The noun haðor (like hádor a poetic word, but rarer) is found elsewhere in the form heaðor ‘(place of) confinement’. In Beowulf it occurs in the verb geheaðerod *3072, 2582, with the sense ‘shut in, enclosed in’. under was very frequently used in describing position within, or movement to within, a confined space, especially of enclosures or prisons, ‘within four walls’. Cf. *1037 in under eoderas (eoderas being the outer fences of the courts), 845 ‘in amid the courts’.
It must be remembered that men still in 800 A.D. retained more closely and vividly a ‘flat-earth’ imagination. We retain many items of flat-earth geocentric diction: the sun rises and sets, men go to the ends of the earth, and so on. Educated men knew then, at any rate as a matter of school-learning, that the earth was round, but that did not affect the images of poetry (nor very much the actual feelings of poets). The wide earth was lit by day by the sun; night came when it sank beyond the fences or rim of the earth, and went slowly down into the dark underworld, through which it journeyed until next morning it rose above the eastern fences again. I suppose it would be hard to find (in Europe) anybody who now thought of the sun or moon descending into darkness or wandering during night through dim abysses under the world – in so far as people think of such things at all: night is not very important, and urban men hardly look at the sky at all.
I think haðor here has a sense similar to that of eoderas (see above). Cf. eodera ymbhwyrft, line 113 in Juliana [a poem by Cynewulf], the whole encirclement of the earth within the ‘horizon’ – the boundary fence; also in the poem Exodus 251, leoht ofer lindum lyftedora bræc, ‘above the shields [of the host] light burst through the sky-fences’.19 The sky is there not the sun but ‘the pillar of fire’ which is imagined in the poem as a kind of miraculous sun or ball of fire by night.
We may therefore, reading haðor, translate under heofenes haðor beholen weorþeð ‘is hidden within heaven’s fences’.
[At the end of his discussion my father later wrote the following in pencil:]
The translation I offered ‘hid beneath heaven’s pale’ is a (perhaps not very laudable) effort to find an English word or words that might be connected with light, or with fences.
338–9 when I returned from the toils of my foes, earning their enmity; *419–20 ðá ic of searwum cwóm, fáh from féondum
This would probably not be difficult if we knew the tales alluded to. I do not believe that searu could have the sense ‘battle’. The Germanic sarwa- is of unknown or uncertain ultimate etymology, but evidently meant skill (the skill of a smith or artificer), any device which required skill to plan and make. It was specially applied to ‘arms’ upon which much cunning and skill was expended – no doubt particularly to the ring-mail, costly and difficult to make. But it could still be used of contrivance, skill, cunning, as in *1038, 846; *2764, 2324; also of evil devices, plots, machinations, or actual snares, though this is not exemplified in Beowulf, except in searoníð ‘cunning malice’. Cf. the derived verb syrwan, besyrwan to plot against, trick, ensnare.
Here the choice is, I think, between emendation to on searwum ‘in my war-gear’, or [retaining of] escaped from the ‘snares’ (evil devices) of my enemies. The latter is much more likely (especially in dealing with eotenas of whom Grendel was one; cf. 581–2 ‘he purposed of the race of men someone to snare’, sumne besyrwan *713.) In any case on searwum is a frequent phrase, and would not be likely to be altered to of.
Old English fáh is not properly (though usually) translated ‘hostile’ here: fáh does not mean ‘hostile’ but ‘hated’ – it properly describes the state of the offender with respect to the injured. So the implication here is that Beowulf had given his foe ‘something to remember’ – he had ravaged the eotena cyn. Translate: ‘when I returned from the snares (?or clutches) of (my) enemies, earning their hatred.’ See the Notes on the Text, p. 112, 338–9.
338–43; *419–24
It is sometimes said that there is a discrepancy between this passage and other accounts of Beowulf’s youthful exploits, the Breca episode, 447 ff., *549 ff., especially 466–7 ‘it was my lot with sword to slay nine sea-demons’, *574–5 mé gesǽlde þæt ic mid sweorde ofslóh niceras nigene. But even if the reference in both places were to the same exploit there would not be any actual discrepancy. For one thing, as this, the earlier passage, goes in our text, it refers already to more than one exploit. Beowulf claims to have accomplished many: ‘on many a renownéd deed I ventured in my youth’ 330–1, hæbbe ic mǽrða fela ongunnen on geogoðe *408–9, and he is only giving a selection. It would not be good policy to refer to the same events again when challenged, the same evening, by Unferth.
Nor would it be according to the author’s practice. When his narrative involves repetition he gives different details on each occasion. We do not hear about Beowulf being placed in an honourable seat in the hall, beside Hrothgar’s son, nor about his daughter Fréawaru, until Beowulf reports to Hygelac (1689 ff., *2009 ff.). But there is no discrepancy. We learn more, in due course.
It may be useful the
n to look at the earlier account more carefully. If so, we shall see that Géatmæcgum (*491, ‘the young Geatish knights’ 398) does not include Beowulf himself [see the Notes on the Text, p. 114, 398]. mæcg though often used loosely, as most ‘man’-words, was properly a boy, a young man, and is often so used, and never of a leader. So here it does not include the man who is called se yldesta (*258, ‘the chief’ 209), and aldor of the company (*369, ‘the captain’ 298); and in *829 (674) Géatmecga (léod) is not a tribal name (as in Weder-Géata léod etc.) but refers to the specific band led by Beowulf. And the placing of Beowulf in a special seat near to the king is not only a natural courtesy to the sister-son of a neighbouring king, but it explains Beowulf’s proximity to Unferth, ‘who sat at the feet of the lord of the Scyldings’. Unferth does not shout out his challenge down the hall, but speaks his words as to a neighbour, with no doubt the king’s ear specially in mind [see p. 211].
If we compare Beowulf’s two speeches we shall observe that the first [that addressed to Hrothgar] refers to an exploit against eotenas (which are not water-beasts) and another against niceras.
[I give here the Old English text of the former together with my father’s translation:
420
selfe ofesáwon, ðá ic of searwum cwóm
fáh from féondum, þǽr ic fífe geband,
ýðde eotena cyn, ond on ýðum slóg
niceras nihtes, nearoþearfe dréah,
wræc Wedera níð – wéan áhsodon –,
forgrand gramum;
337 they had themselves observed it, when I returned from the toils of my foes, earning their enmity, where five I bound, making desolate the race of monsters, and when I slew amid the waves by night the water-demons, enduring bitter need, avenging the afflictions of the windloving Geats, destroying those hostile things – woe they had asked for.]
Beowulf: A Translation and Commentary, together with Sellic Spell Page 21