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.
