Beowulf - Delphi Poets Series Read online

  Beowulf

  (c. 700–c. 1000)

  Contents

  The Translations

  BEOWULF: BRIEF INTRODUCTION

  FRANCIS BARTON GUMMERE’S TRANSLATION

  WILLIAM MORRIS’ TRANSLATION

  The Old English Text

  THE OLD ENGLISH TEXT

  The Dual Text

  CONTENTS OF THE DUAL TEXT

  © Delphi Classics 2015

  Version 1

  Beowulf

  By Delphi Classics, 2015

  NOTE

  When reading poetry on an eReader, it is advisable to use a small font size and landscape mode, which will allow the lines of poetry to display correctly.

  The Translations

  Medieval map of Götaland, south Sweden — according to legend, Beowulf was of the North Germanic tribe called the Geats.

  BEOWULF: BRIEF INTRODUCTION

  Composed in Britain at some point between the eighth and early eleventh century, Beowulf is believed to be the oldest surviving long poem in Old English (consisting of 3182 lines) and is commonly cited as one of the most important works of Old English literature. The identity of its Anglo-Saxon author is unknown and the writer is usually referred to as the “Beowulf poet”.

  The events described in the poem take place in the late fifth century, after the Angles and Saxons had begun their migration to England, and before the beginning of the seventh century, a time when the Anglo-Saxon people were either newly arrived or still in close contact with their Germanic kinsmen in Northern Germany and Scandinavia and possibly England. Set in Scandinavia, the poem introduces the hero of the Geats, Beowulf, who comes to the aid of Hroðgar, the king of the Danes. Hroðgar’s mead hall in Heorot has been under nightly attacks by the monster Grendel. After Beowulf slays the beast, Grendel’s mother attacks the hall and is also eventually defeated. Victorious, Beowulf returns home to Geatland in Sweden, where he later becomes king of the Geats. After a period of fifty years, Beowulf defeats a dragon, though he is fatally wounded in the battle. Following his death, his attendants bury him in a tumulus, a burial mound.

  The full poem survives in the manuscript known as the Nowell Codex, located in the British Library. As the manuscript originally bears no title, it has become known by the name of its protagonist. In 1731 the Nowell Codex was badly damaged by a fire that swept through Ashburnham House in London. Since then, parts of the manuscript have crumbled along with many of the letters. Rebinding efforts, though saving the manuscript from further degeneration, have nonetheless covered up other letters of the poem, causing further loss.

  The poem was not studied until the end of the 18th century and not published in its entirety until Johan Bülow funded the 1815 Latin translation, prepared by the Icelandic-Danish scholar Grímur Jónsson Thorkelin. After a heated debate with Thorkelin, Bülow offered to support a new translation into Danish by N. F. S. Grundtvig. This resulted in Bjovulfs Drape’s 1820 book being the first modern language translation of Beowulf.

  Opinion differs as to whether the composition of the poem is contemporary with its transcription, or whether the poem was composed at an earlier time and orally transmitted for many years, and then transcribed at a later date. Most scholars argue that the poem was composed in the eighth century, on the assumption that a poem eliciting sympathy for the Danes could not have been composed by Anglo-Saxons during the Viking Age of the ninth and tenth centuries. The poem begins with a tribute to the royal line of Danish kings, but is written in the dominant literary dialect of Anglo-Saxon England, which for others points to the eleventh century reign of Cnut (the Danish king whose empire included all of these areas, and whose primary place of residence was in England) as the most likely time of the poem’s creation. However, some scholars argue that linguistic, paleographical and onomastic considerations support a date of composition in the first half of the eighth century; in particular, the poem’s regular observation of etymological length distinctions has been thought to suggest a date of composition in the first half of the eighth century.

  The poem blends the West Saxon and Anglian dialects of Old English, though it predominantly uses West Saxon. There is a wide array of linguistic forms in the Beowulf manuscript. An Old English poem such as Beowulf is very different from modern poetry. Anglo-Saxon poets typically used alliterative verse, a form of poetry in which the first half of the line (the ‘a’ verse) is linked to the second half (the ‘b’ verse) through similarity in initial sound. In addition, the two halves are divided by a caesura: “Oft Scyld Scefing \ sceaþena þreatum” (l. 4). This verse form maps stressed and unstressed syllables on to abstract entities known as metrical positions. There is no fixed number of beats per line: the first one cited has three (Oft SCYLD SCEFING, with ictus on the suffix -ING) whereas the second has two (SCEAþena ÞREATum).

  The poet has a choice of epithets or formulae to use in order to fulfil the alliteration. In Old English poetry, when considering the alliterative purposes, many of the letters are not pronounced the same way as they are in modern English. The letter “h”, for example, is always pronounced (Hroðgar: HROTH-gar), and the digraph “cg” is pronounced like “dj”, as in the word “edge”. Both f and s vary in pronunciation depending on their phonetic environment. Between vowels or voiced consonants, they are voiced, sounding like modern v and z, respectively. Otherwise they are unvoiced, like modern f in “fat” and s in “sat”. Some letters which are no longer found in modern English, such as thorn, þ, and eth, ð – representing both pronunciations of modern English “th”, as in “thing”, are used extensively both in the original manuscript and in modern English editions. The voicing of these characters echoes that of f and s. Both are voiced (as in “this”) between other voiced sounds: oðer, laþleas, suþern. Otherwise they are unvoiced (as in “thing”): þunor, suð, soþfæst.

  Kennings are also a significant technique of Old English poetry. These are evocative poetic descriptions of everyday things, often adapted to fill the alliterative requirements of the metre. For example, a poet might call the sea the “swan-track” or the “whale-road”; a king might be called a “ring-giver.” About a third of the words in Beowulf are kennings, amounting to over a thousand in number. The Beowulf Poet is much admired for the richness of his/her poetry, including the beautiful sounds of the words and the imaginative quality of the descriptions provided.

  The first folio of ‘Beowulf’, written primarily in the West Saxon dialect of Old English. Part of the Cotton MS Vitellius A XV manuscript currently located within the British Library

  Vendel era helmet, at the Swedish Museum of National Antiquities

  A reconstructed Viking Age longhouse in Fyrkat, giving an impression of Heorot

  Remounted page from the Nowell Codex, British Library

  ‘Queen Wealhþeow serving Hrothgar and his men’ from a 1908 children’s book

  A depiction of the hero Beowulf from ‘A Book of Myths’, 1915

  An illustration of Grendel by J. R. Skelton from ‘Stories of Beowulf’. Grendel is described as “Very terrible to look upon.”

  FRANCIS BARTON GUMMERE’S TRANSLATION

  Translated by Francis B. Gummere

  CONTENTS

  PREFACE

  BEOWULF

  PRELUDE OF THE FOUNDER OF THE DANISH HOUSE

  Footnotes

  I

  Footnotes

  II

  Footnotes

  III

  Footnotes

  IV

  Footnotes

  V

  Footnotes

  VI

  Footnotes

  VII

  Footnotes

  VIII

  Footnotes

  IX
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  Footnotes

  X

  Footnotes

  XI

  Footnotes

  XII

  Footnotes

  XIII

  Footnotes

  XIV

  Footnotes

  XV

  Footnotes

  XVI

  Footnotes

  XVII

  Footnotes

  XVIII

  Footnotes

  XIX

  Footnotes

  XX

  Footnotes

  XXI

  Footnotes

  XXII

  Footnotes

  XXIII

  Footnotes

  XXIV

  Footnotes

  XXV

  Footnotes

  XXVI

  Footnotes

  XXVII

  Footnotes

  XXVIII

  Footnotes

  XXXI1

  Footnotes

  XXXII

  Footnotes

  XXXIII

  Footnotes

  XXXIV

  Footnotes

  XXXV

  Footnotes

  XXXVI

  Footnotes

  XXXVII

  Footnotes

  XXXVIII

  Footnotes

  XXXIX

  Footnotes

  XL

  Footnotes

  XLI

  Footnotes

  XLII

  Footnotes

  XLIII

  Footnotes

  THE ATTACK ON FINNSBURG

  Footnotes

  PREFACE

  Old English epic in the specific sense is that ancient and wholly heathen narrative poetry which Englishmen brought from their continental home and handed down by the agency of professional singers. The material thus accumulated either kept its original form of the short lay, fit for chant or recitation at a banquet, full of immediate effects, often dramatic and always vigorous, or else it was worked over into longer shape, into more leisurely considered and more leisurely appreciated poems. This second class is represented by Beowulf, the sole survivor in complete form of all the West-Germanic epic. Waldere, of which two brief fragments remain, seems also to have been an epic poem; like Beowulf, it has been adapted both in matter and in manner to the point of view of a monastery scriptorium. Finnsburg, on the other hand, so far as its brief and fragmentary form allows such a judgment, has the appearance of a lay. Its nervous, fiery verses rush on without comment or moral; and it agrees with the description of a lay which the court minstrel of Hrothgar sings before a festal throng, and of which the poet of Beowulf gives a summary. Not English at all, but closely related to English traditions of heroic verse, and the sole rescued specimen of all its kind in the old German language, is Hildebrand, evidently a lay. By adding this to the English material, one has the entire salvage from oldest narrative poetry of the West-Germanic peoples in mass. Finally, there are two lays or poems purporting to describe at first hand the life of these old minstrels, who either sang in permanent and well-rewarded office for their king, or else wandered from court to court and tasted the bounty of many chieftains. These two poems, moreover, contain many references to persons and stories of Germanic heroic legends that appear afterward in the second growth of epic, in the Scandinavian poems and sagas, in the cycle of the Nibelungen, Gudrun, and the rest. Such is the total rescue from oldest English epic that fate has allowed. It deserves to be read in its full extent by the modern English reader; and it is now presented to him for the first time in its bulk, and in a form which approximates as closely as possible to the original.

  The translator is under great obligations to Professor Walter Morris Hart, of the University of California, not only for his generous aid in reading the proof-sheets of this book, but also for the substantial help afforded by his admirable study of Ballad and Epic. THE OLDEST ENGLISH EPIC

  BEOWULF

  I

  THE manuscript is written in West-Saxon of the tenth century, with some Kentish peculiarities; it is evidently based on successive copies of an original in either Northumbrian or Mercian, which probably belonged to the seventh century. Two scribes made this copy. One wrote to verse 1939; the other, who seems to have contributed those Kentish forms, finished the poem. There is some attempt to mark the verses, and a few long syllables are indicated; but the general appearance is of prose.

  The original epic seems to have been composed by a single author, not for chant or recitation to the accompaniment of a harp, but for reading, as a “book.” Libraries were then forming in England, and so edifying a poem as this could well find its place in them. Of course, the number of persons who heard the manuscript read aloud would be in vast excess of those who learned its contents through the eye. The poet may or may not have been a minstrel in early life; in any case he had turned bookman. He was familiar to some extent with the monastic learning of his day, but was at no great distance from old heathen points of view; and while his Christianity is undoubted, he probably lived under the influence of that “confessional neutrality,” which ten Brink assumed for the special instance, and which historians record for sundry places and times. Above all, the poet knew ancient epic lays, dealing with Beowulf’s adventures, which were sung in the old home of the Angles, and in Frisia, and were carried over to England; out of these he took his material, retaining their form, style, and rhythmic structure, many of their phrases, their conventional descriptions, and perhaps for some passages their actual language. Finnsburg and Hildebrand give one an approximate idea of these older lays, which were property of the professional minstrel, the gleeman or scop. This scop, or “maker,” is always mentioned by the epic poet with respect. His business was to recite or chant to the music of a harp the lays of bygone generations before king or chieftain in court or hall, precisely as our epic describes the scene. He must also on occasion compose, “put together” in the literal sense, a lay about recent happenings, often carrying it abroad from court to court as the news of the day. Out of such old lays of Beowulf’s adventures, our poet selected, combined, and retold a complete story from his own point of view. Comment, reflection, and a certain heightening of effect, are his peculiar work, along with a dash of sentiment and an elegiac tone such as one feels one should not meet in a Finnsburg, even if the whole of that lay were preserved. Attempts to prove that the poem was translated or paraphrased from a Scandinavian original have been utterly unsuccessful. Quite obsolete, too, as in the case of Homer, is the idea that Beowulf is primitive and “popular” poetry. Its art is highly developed; its material has been sifted through many versions and forms.

  The characters of this epic of Beowulf are all continental Germanic. The scene of action for the first adventure is in Denmark; and Hrothgar’s hall was probably at a place now called Leire, not far from the of Roeskilde. Where the fight with the dragon took place and Beowulf came to his death, depends on the opinion which one holds in regard to the home of the hero. There are two theo- ries; certainty, despite the recent proclamation of it, is out of the question. Beowulf is said to belong to the “Geatas”; and the majority of scholars hold that these Geatas were a tribe living in the southern part of Sweden. But some powerful voices have been raised for the Geatas as Jutes, who lived in what is now Jutland. In either case. Angles and Frisians, and whatever peoples were grouped about the Elbe, the Weser, and the Ems, would note with great interest, and hold long in memory, an expedition of Geatas which should proceed to the lower Rhine and there find defeat at the hands of a Frankish prince. Such an expedition actually occurred; it is the historical foundation not, to be sure, of the events of the epic, but of the existence of its characters. It is mentioned several times in the poem, and is also matter of sober chronicle; its date is in the second decade of the sixth century. Gregory of Tours, in his History of the Franks, says that Chochilaicus, king of the Danes, — in another and later story, say of the seventh century, this chieftain is called king of the “Getæ,” �
�� invaded Holland in viking fashion, took a good store of plunder, and got it later on his boats; but he was fought and killed by Theudebert, son of the Frankish king, his booty was recaptured, and many prisoners were taken. It is etymologically certain that Chochilaicus is the Hygelac of our epic, uncle to Beowulf; and there is no reason to doubt the tradition that the hero himself, though not mentioned by the chronicle, was with his kinsman and chieftain, and escaped after the defeat by a masterful piece of swimming. The poem tells this; and its exaggeration in loading Beowulf with thirty suits of armor is only proof that something of the sort took place. Legend is always false and always true. History invents facts; but legend can only invent or transpose details; and there is sure to be something real within the field of the glass which legend holds up to one’s eyes, let the distortions be as they may be. Surely some stirring epic lays were sung about fight and fall and escape; but in this phase of Beowulf’s career our poet was not interested. He mentions many feuds of Franks, Frisians, Langobards, of Danes, Geats, Swedes; and he gives a summary of the lay about one of these feuds which a gleeman sang to Hrothgar’s court. But these, too, were outside of his main interest.

  His interest in Beowulf seems to have centred in the hero’s struggles with those uncanny and demonic, but not highly supernatural powers, who either dwell by moorlands and under dismal waters, or else, in the well-known form of a dragon, haunt old barrows of the dead and fly at midnight with fiery trail through the air. Undoubtedly one is here on the border-land of myth. But in the actual poem the border is not crossed. Whatever the remote connection of Beowulf the hero with Beowa the god, whatever this god may have in him of the old Ingævonic deity whom men worshipped by North Sea and Baltic as god of fertility and peace and trade, whatever echo of myths about a destroying monster of invading ocean tides and storms may linger in the story of Grendel and his horrible mother, nothing of the sort comes out of the shadow of conjecture into the light of fact. To the poet of the epic its hero is a man, and the monsters are such as folk then believed to haunt sea and lake and moor. Hrothgar’s people who say they have seen the uncanny pair speak just as real rustics would speak about ghosts and strange monsters which they had actually encountered. In both cases one is dealing with folk-lore and not with mythology. When these crude superstitions are developed by priest and poet along polytheistic lines, and in large relations of time and space, myth is the result. But the actual epic of Beowulf knows nothing of this process; and there is no need to regard Grendel or his mother as backed by the artillery of doom, to regard Beowulf as the embodiment of heaven’s extreme power and good-will. The poet even rationalizes his folk-lore. Though there are traces of “another story,” traces which would doubtless lead to outright myth, the epic is told in terms of human achievement. Though its hero, in this record of adventure, neither fights other heroes nor leads armies, and though, like many celebrated champions of vast strength, he is not at ease with ordinary weapons, nevertheless he is for the poet that same Beowulf who always fought in the van with trusty blade, despatched the mother of Grendel with a sword, and killed Dæghrefn, — presumably the slayer of Hygelac, — in the fatal combat by the lower Rhine. Yet Dæghrefn, one is abruptly told, as Beowulf boasts of all his good blade has done and all it is yet to do, was not slain by the sword, but “his bones were broken by brawny gripe.”