29 Nov 21 Beowulf – Ancient Epic, Segment 02

“     .  . . the clanging tread of a warrior in mail”

Beowulf 

Ground Level – The Mead Hall 

50,000-foot view - the first challenge initiated 

No Anglo-Saxon epic would be complete without a “mead hall,” a place of gatherings, a shelter, and a place of praise as well as punishment. The hall is a place of hero-warriors so naturally, we will find Beowulf with his Geats (retainers) standing in such a hall after his journey to meet the challenge of the bothersome, complex Grendel.

Here is part of the 50,000-foot view, for those who like to look ahead.

Beowulf is divided into three main sections and then into units (i.e., chapters). The first section is Beowulf as a young man, while the last section deals with his life as an old man where, like all of us mortals, he dies; however his death is not the typical. The middle deals with his three major heroic adventures. 

The Epic Opens: Hrothgar, king of the Danes, or Scyldings, builds a great mead-hall, or palace, in which he hopes to feast his liegemen and to give them presents. The joy of king and retainers is, however, of short duration. Grendel, the monster (?), is seized with hateful jealousy. He cannot brook the sounds of joyance that reach him down in his fen-dwelling near the hall. Oft and anon, he goes to the joyous building, bent on direful mischief. Thane after thane is ruthlessly carried off and devoured, while no one is found strong enough and bold enough to cope with the monster. For twelve years he persecutes Hrothgar and his vassals.

The central conflict of Beowulf arises as Beowulf, who embodies the ancient Northern European warrior code, comes up against the limitations of that code. He encounters these limitations during a series of combats.

SCYLD’S SUCCESSORS — HROTHGAR’S GREAT MEAD-HALL

II

Beowulf succeeds his father Scyld 

In the boroughs then Beowulf, bairn of the Scyldings,

Belovèd land-prince, for long-lasting season

Was famed mid the folk (his father departed,

The prince from his dwelling), till afterward sprang

5

Great-minded Healfdene; the Danes in his lifetime

He graciously governed, grim-mooded, agèd.

Healfdene’s birth.

Four bairns of his body born in succession

Woke in the world, war-troopers’ leader

Heorogar, Hrothgar, and Halga the good;

10

Heard I that Elan was Ongentheow’s consort,

He has three sons—one of them, Hrothgar—and a daughter named Elan. Hrothgar becomes a mighty king.

The well-beloved bedmate of the War-Scylfing leader.

Then glory in battle to Hrothgar was given,

Waxing of war-fame, that willingly kinsmen

Obeyed his bidding, till the boys grew to manhood,

15

A numerous band. It burned in his spirit

To urge his folk to found a great building,

A mead-hall grander than men of the era

He is eager to build a great hall in which he may feast his retainers

Ever had heard of, and in it to share

With young and old all of the blessings

20

The Lord had allowed him, save life and retainers.

Then the work I find afar was assigned

To many races in middle-earth’s regions,

To adorn the great folk-hall. In due time it happened

Early ’mong men, that ’twas finished entirely,

25

The greatest of hall-buildings; Heorot he named it

The hall is completed, and is called Heort, or Heorot.

Who wide-reaching word-sway wielded ’mong earlmen.

His promise he brake not, rings he lavished,

Treasure at banquet. Towered the hall up

High and horn-crested, huge between antlers:

30

It battle-waves bided, the blasting fire-demon;

Ere long then from hottest hatred must sword-wrath

Arise for a woman’s husband and father.

Then the mighty war-spirit[1] endured for a season,

The Monster Grendel is madly envious of the Danemen’s joy.

Bore it bitterly, he who bided in darkness,

35

That light-hearted laughter loud in the building

Greeted him daily; there was dulcet harp-music,

Clear song of the singer. He said that was able

[The course of the story is interrupted by a short reference to some old account of the creation.]

To tell from of old earthmen’s beginnings,

That Father Almighty earth had created,

40

The winsome wold that the water encircleth,

Set exultingly the sun’s and the moon’s beams

To lavish their lustre on land-folk and races,

And earth He embellished in all her regions

With limbs and leaves; life He bestowed too

45

On all the kindreds that live under heaven.

The glee of the warriors is overcast by a horrible dread.

So blessed with abundance, brimming with joyance,

The warriors abided, till a certain one gan to

Dog them with deeds of direfullest malice,

A foe in the hall-building: this horrible stranger[2]

50

Was Grendel entitled, the march-stepper famous

Who[3] dwelt in the moor-fens, the marsh and the fastness;

The wan-mooded being abode for a season

In the land of the giants, when the Lord and Creator

Had banned him and branded. For that bitter murder,

55

The killing of Abel, all-ruling Father

Cain is referred to as a progenitor of Grendel, and of monsters in general.

The kindred of Cain crushed with His vengeance;

In the feud He rejoiced not, but far away drove him

From kindred and kind, that crime to atone for,

Meter of Justice. Thence ill-favored creatures,

60

Elves and giants, monsters of ocean,

Came into being, and the giants that longtime

Grappled with God; He gave them requital.

[1] R. and t. B. prefer ‘ellor-gæst’ to ‘ellen-gæst’ (86): Then the stranger from afar endured, etc.

[2] Some authorities would translate ‘demon’ instead of ‘stranger.’

[3] Some authorities arrange differently, and render: Who dwelt in the moor-fens, the marsh and the fastness, the land of the giant-race.

Background – Translations: You won’t believe this!

Between the mid-eighteenth century and 2021, Beowulf has been translated hundreds of times. “Beowulf's Afterlives Bibliographic Database” lists some 688 translations and other versions of the poem such as film from Thorkelin's 1787 transcription of the text, and in at least 38 languages.  

Why are there so many translations of Beowulf?

The reasons for this keen attention are that the Beowulf manuscript is about 1,000 years old, and the poem itself may be considerably older. It is written in Old English, essentially a different language from Modern English. Arguably, it is also the first great epic poem so translated. Finally, the choice of the translators keeps the story line straight and true.

I’ve read a paltry half-dozen translations of Beowulf, and my personal favorite is the one by Seamus Heaney (1999) who hoped that translating Beowulf would result in "a kind of aural antidote," and a "linguistic anchor would stay lodged on the Anglo-Saxon sea-floor." 

Beowulf: A New Verse Translation (also known as Heaneywulf) is a verse translation of the Old English epic poem Beowulf into the modern English language by Seamus Heaney. Translated throughout the late 1990s, it was published in 1999 by Farrar, Straus, and Giroux and won that year's Whitbread Book of the Year Award.

Considered groundbreaking because of the freedom he took in using modern language, the book is largely credited with revitalizing what had become something of a tired chestnut in the literary world.

Heaney began work on the translation while teaching at Harvard, but a lack of connection to the source material caused him to take a break from the effort. The translation was reinvigorated once he realized connections between the form and manner of the original poem and his own early poetic work, including how his early poems diverted from the conventional English pentameter line and "conformed to the requirements of Anglo-Saxon metrics

Old English poetry, including Beowulf, did not rhyme, but instead had an alliterative structure, with each line split into two halves, with two metrical stresses per half. Heaney's translation reflects this, reproducing the strong rhythm and alliteration of the original poem. Heaney was first and foremost a poet, not a specialist in the Old English language. He was, quite naturally, basing his translation upon                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                decades of scholarship that agreed that “functions as an exclamation calling for immediate attention”, and in that respect his translation is very clever.

Perhaps every Anglo-Saxon scholar has his own theory as to how Beowulf should be translated. Some have given us prose versions of what we believe to be a great poem. Is it any reflection on the hundreds of translators who have tried their hands at this origination genesis of the Western epic and their failure to show a layman that Beowulf is justly called our first epic? Of those translators who have used verse, several have written from what would seem a mistaken point of view. Is it proper, for instance, that the grave and solemn speeches of Beowulf and Hrothgar be put in ballad measures, tripping lightly and airily along? Or, again, is it fitting that the rough martial music of Anglo-Saxon verse be interpreted to us in the smooth measures of modern blank verse? Do we hear what has been beautifully called “the clanging tread of a warrior in mail”?

NOTE: If any reader would like definitions of any words used in this or other segment of the poem, and/or a description of any character(s), and/or interpretation of notations, contact CatherineStenzel at catherineastenzel@gmail.com.

Exploration 1: Who is the warrior-kind, Hrothgar? Does he remind you of anyone in particular, be it an individual or an archetype?

Exploration 2: The “villain” appears in this, the second unit of tttt . Is it a bit early to introduce Grendel? Who do you think Grendel will turn out to be? Why is he/she/it jealous?

Exploration 3: Who is Heort? (spoiler alert: trick question)

Exploration 4: Consider: “To many races in middle-earth’s regions / To adorn the great folk-hall.” Does this remind you of any modern classic? If you guessed, note that the author of the modern story is an expert in Anglo-Saxon (also called Old English, to be distinguished from Middle English and its prime example, The Canterbury Tales by Chaucer). This modern author also took on a translation of Beowulf, publishing same in 2014.