29 April 2009
More speechifying here. Beowulf thanks Hrothgar and pledges that if the Danes are ever threatened again, he will come to their aid. Hrothgar, in turn, praises Beowulf and says that he will make a great king of the Geats, if Hygelac (the current king) dies. Hrothgar gives Beowulf more treasure. Hrothgar weeps, and Beowulf starts walking toward his ship.
This is a fairly unremarkable fit, both in narrative and language. There is a bit of foreshadowing in Hrothgar’s claim that Beowulf would make a worthy successor to Hygelac. The most significant happening, however, is Hrothgar’s tears—not an expected quality for a Germanic warrior-king.
Line 1872b says, hruron him tēaras (tears fell from him). And we get a more expansive description of the king’s emotional outburst at lines 1876b-80a.
(W)æs him se man tō þon lēof
þæt hē þone brēostwylm forberan ne mehte,
ac him on hreþre hyġebendum fæst
æfter dēorum men dyrne langað
born wið blōde.(The man was so dear to him
that he the breast-welling could not forbear,
but for him in his heart fast in mind’s bond
inwardly a longing for the dear man
burned in his blood.)
(Note: I swapped the order of lines 1879a and 1879b to make the modern syntax scan more naturally.)
A modern reader might put a homoerotic spin on this passage, but that’s a temptation that should be resisted. It’s clearly not a valid medieval reading. Hrothgar’s longing is akin to that of a parent whose child is leaving home. But in any case, the brēostwylm is not something that a good Germanic warrior would display in public. This is another indication that despite the platitudes heaped on Hrothgar throughout the poem, there is a sub-textual theme that he is too old to be a good warrior-king. This interpretation fits with the readings that say the poem is an elegy for a past age. The poem is set in the fading years of glory for the pagan, Germanic warrior-culture.
Dyrne usually means secret or hidden, often with a connotation of evil. The University of Toronto’s Dictionary of Old English gives this as the only example of the inwardly sense, indicating that this may have been a one-off usage, or at least not a common sense. The poet probably chose dyrne because it alliterates with dēorum, figuring that his audience would understand that he was not implying a secret or evil longing.
Line 1861b has as neat kenning, ganotes bæð, or gannet’s bath, for the sea.
