Heroic Identity in the World of Beowulf (Medieval and Renaissance Authors)

Heroic Identity in the World of Beowulf

Medieval and Renaissance Authors and Texts Editor-in-chief

Francis G. Gentry Emeritus Professor of German, Penn State University

Editorial Board

Teodolinda Barolini (Columbia University) Cynthia Brown (University of California, Santa Barbara) Marina Brownlee (Princeton University) Keith Busby (University of Wisconsin-Madison) Craig Kallendorf (Texas A&M University) Alastair Minnis (Yale University) Brian Murdoch (Stirling University) Jan Ziolkowski (Harvard University and Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection)

VOLUME 2

Heroic Identity in the World of Beowulf by

Scott Gwara

LEIDEN • BOSTON 2008

This book is printed on acid-free paper. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Gwara, Scott, 1962– Heroic identity in the world of Beowulf / by Scott Gwara. p. cm.—(Medieval and renaissance authors and texts, ISSN 0925-7683 ; v. 2) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-90-04-17170-1 (alk. paper) 1. Beowulf. 2. Heroic virtue in literature. 3. Epic poetry, English (Old)—History and criticism. 4. Heroes in literature. I. Title. II. Series. PR1585.G93 2009 829’.3—dc22 2008040583

ISSN 0925-7683 ISBN 978 90 04 17170 1 Copyright 2008 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Hotei Publishing, IDC Publishers, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers and VSP. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill NV provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change. printed in the netherlands

THIS BOOK IS FOR PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE STAFF OF THE DICTIONARY OF OLD ENGLISH, UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO

CONTENTS Acknowledgments ....................................................................... Author’s Note ............................................................................. Abbreviations ..............................................................................

ix xiii xv

Introduction

A Contested Beowulf .......................................

1

Chapter One

The Wisdom Context of the SigemundHeremod and Hunferð Digressions ...............

59

The Foreign Beowulf and the “Fight at Finnsburh” ......................................................

135

Chapter Three The Rhetoric of Oferhygd in Hroðgar’s “Sermon” ........................................................

181

Chapter Two

Chapter Four

Beowulf ’s Dragon Fight and the Appraisal of Oferhygd .......................................

239

King Beowulf and Ealdormonn Byrhtnoð ....

311

Conclusion ..................................................................................

351

Bibliography ................................................................................

375

Chapter Five

Indices Index of Passages Cited from Old English Verse Texts ........ Index of Old English Words, Affixes, and Collocations Discussed ............................................................................. Index of Latin and Greek Words and Collocations Discussed ............................................................................. Index of Old Icelandic Terms Discussed .............................. General Index .........................................................................

397 405 409 410 411

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS My research on Beowulf would not have been possible without generous subsidy from the University of South Carolina and its Department of English Language and Literature. Major sections of this book were drafted during a sabbatical semester in 2001. In 2002 the Department of English awarded me research leave to pursue what, at the time, was meant to be a much shorter book on the digressions of Beowulf. I am grateful to the department chairman (now Associate Dean) and Louise Fry Scudder Professor of English, Steven Lynn, and to the Research Professorship committee members, for sustaining a project of such duration. Also, unfailing and gracious cooperation from the divisions of Circulation (Tucker Taylor), Reference (Sharon Verba), Special Collections (Patrick Scott), Off-Site Storage, and Interlibrary Loan at the Thomas Cooper Library enabled me to work efficiently: for the years this book was in production I was the chief user of university library resources campus-wide. I also wish to thank a number of scholars who read this book in draft and offered explicit and judicious comments on it. In 2004 I met with Michael J. Enright, Professor of History at Eastern Carolina University, and we spent a day together explicating the warband context of Beowulf. Michael convinced me how important the comitatus was in the poem, and his influence is obvious in these pages. His 1998 article “The Warband Context of the Unferþ Episode” transformed my own thinking about Beowulf ’s identity. Michael Drout, William C. H. and Elsie D. Prentice Professor of English at Wheaton College (MA), shared his own insights and doubts over the direction I was taking, as did John M. Hill at the United States Naval Academy. Both made me re-think and ultimately justify more than a few positions I had staked, especially in regard to the potentially negative Beowulf I envision. I also owe a significant debt to Tom Shippey, Walter J. Ong Professor of English at Saint Louis University, for reading several chapters and offering cogent corrections and points of departure. My greatest thanks, however, are due to Rob Fulk at Indiana University, who read every line of my penultimate drafts for chapters 2–4 and offered pages of advice and corrections with enthusiasm or skepticism, wherever appropriate. Rob’s learning saved me from countless errors,

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acknowledgments

and this book is far better because of his input—even if his own reaction to Beowulf differs quite substantially from mine. Finally, my retired colleagues at the University of South Carolina, Trevor Howard-Hill, and Philip B. Rollinson, commented on every word and nuance of the manuscript. Their impressions encouraged me to re-think more than a few statements I made in contradiction of the received interpretation of Beowulf. One’s best friends seldom make the most searching critics, but mine held me to account. A few scholars whose work I have drawn on deserve special mention here. This book has been evolving for a long time. Parts of it date to 1984–86, when I was an undergraduate at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. There I learned much from Richard North, my tutor in Old Norse (now Professor of English at University College London). I think of Richard’s 1990 and 1991 articles as some of the very best recent forays in Beowulf and Maldon scholarship, and his research launched my own thinking about digressions in the poem. I arrived at Yale in 1986, a year after Fred C. Robinson had published Beowulf and the Appositive Style. The ingenuity of this book convinced me immediately, and twenty years later I still rate Appositive Style as one of the most important books on Old English. Andy Orchard influenced my thinking in a different direction. His Pride and Prodigies made room for Anglo-Saxonists to think skeptically about the depiction of Beowulf. Orchard’s chapter on Grettir’s Saga defined Grettir as monstrous, an Achilles in the Germanic setting. No one reading the saga comes away unconflicted about Grettir, and I have always wondered, from Robinson’s perspective, how we should appraise Grettir’s “Miniver Cheevy” born-too-late-ism. Grettir lived at the end of the Viking Age and during the transition to Christianity—at a time, one might say, similar in social context to the backwards-looking Beowulf. For more than two decades the question has pursued me: If Beowulf is the closest analogue to Grettir’s Saga, shouldn’t we also feel conflicted about Beowulf ? Orchard’s views suggested my approach to Beowulf in ways distinct from an earlier generation of Christianizers. My approach to Beowulf leans towards the “anthropological” or “ethnological” analysis that John M. Hill pioneered in The Cultural World in Beowulf. Hill’s book proposes that Germanic cultural identity, hypothetically stable and consistent, is realized in—and can be quarried from—Old English literature. Anglo-Saxon kin relationships, marriage ties, warrior identities, kingship and other social idioms may likewise be paralleled in modern cultures with similar social structures. Hill

acknowledgments

xi

contends that Beowulf accurately renders an idealized Germanic society, which in turn directs much of the poem’s meaning. His second opinion is that the ethnological details make sense of the poem. Although Hill’s endorsement of ethnology reflects my own understanding of Beowulf, his methodology differs slightly from mine in philosophy and focus. First, I make no claims that anthropological observations derived from Beowulf represent any reality other than the aesthetic—even if they might actually do so. In my mind the Beowulf poet could have rendered an invented culture. Second, my position is that characters in Beowulf discern themselves, reflect on their own cultural anxieties, and dramatize both personal feeling and political instinct. In the public social currents that Hill discerningly locates in Beowulf, I find private eddies, subtle literary meditations on the fictive society of the poem. By complex analogies and overlapping narratives, the poet himself critiques the institutions he defines. Writing about Beowulf has been immensely gratifying, and I remain deeply indebted to all the critics whose works I have consulted—many more than are listed in the Bibliography. Of those critics I do acknowledge, I should mention my particular indebtedness to works by Alfred Bammesberger, George Clark, Dennis Cronan, J. E. Cross, Michael Enright, Roberta Frank, R. D. Fulk, Stanley B. Greenfield, Elaine Tuttle Hansen, John M. Hill, Thomas D. Hill, Ida Masters Hollowell, Edward B. Irving, Jr., Frederick Klaeber, Johann Köberl, John M. Leyerle, Bruce Mitchell, John D. Niles, Richard North, Andy Orchard, Fred C. Robinson, T. A. Shippey, Eric Stanley, John Tanke, and Dorothy Whitelock. It is a pleasure at last to dedicate this book to the past, present, and future staff of the Dictionary of Old English project at the University of Toronto. Ongoing now for three decades, the Dictionary of Old English is the premier philological mission in Anglo-Saxon studies, an inspiring intellectual monument to the industry and brilliance of its collaborators. The Dictionary and its offshoots have generated, and will continue to beget, the most significant and fundamental research on Old English language and literature. Scott Gwara June 2008

AUTHOR’S NOTE With the exception of Beowulf, and unless otherwise noted, all Old English verse texts are cited from The Anglo-Saxon Poetic Records, ed. George Philip Krapp and Elliot Van Kirk Dobbie, six volumes (New York: Columbia UP, 1931–53). Beowulf is cited from the monumental fourth edition of Klaeber’s text, Klaeber’s Beowulf, ed. R. D. Fulk, Robert E. Bjork, and John D. Niles (Toronto: U of Toronto P, 2008). The standard short titles for Old English poems are taken from Bruce Mitchell et al., “Short Titles of Old English Texts,” ASE 4 (1975), 207–21; emended by the same authors in “Short Titles of Old English Texts: Addenda and Corrigenda,” ASE 8 (1979), 331–3. Translations in all languages are my own unless otherwise stated. “Bosworth-Toller” refers to Joseph Bosworth and T. Northcote Toller, An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, enlarged edition, ed. Alistair Campbell (Oxford: Clarendon, 1972). “DOE” refers to the Dictionary of Old English, ed. Antonette diPaolo Healey et al. (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies and U of Toronto P, 1986–). I am grateful to Fordham University Press for permission to re-print a version of my article “The Foreign Beowulf and the ‘Fight at Finnsburg’ ” (Traditio 63 [2008]) as chapter 2 of this book; to the editor of Mediaeval Studies for permission to cite passages from my article “Forht and Fægen in The Wanderer and Related Literary Contexts of AngloSaxon Warrior Wisdom” (Mediaeval Studies 69 (2007), 255–98) in several places throughout; and to the editor of Neophilologus, for permission to re-print my note “Beowulf 3074–75: Beowulf Appraises His Reward” (Neophilologus 92 (2008), 333–38) in Chapter 4.

ABBREVIATIONS ANQ ASNSL ASE BGDSL BJRL CCSL CL CSEL EETS OS, SS ELN ES JEGP LSE MÆ MGH AA MLN MLR MP Neophil NM NQ PBA PLL PMLA RES SBVS SN SP SS TRHS ZfdP

American Notes and Queries Archiv für das Studium der neueren Sprachen und Litteraturen Anglo-Saxon England Beiträge zur Geschichte der deutschen Sprache und Literatur Bulletin of the John Rylands Library Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina Comparative Literature Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum Early English Text Society Original Series, Supplemental Series English Languages Notes English Studies Journal of English and Germanic Philology Leeds Studies in English Medium Ævum Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Auctores Antiquissimi Modern Language Notes Modern Language Review Modern Philology Neophilologus Neuphilologische Mitteilungen Notes and Queries Proceedings of the British Academy Papers on Language and Literature Publications of the Modern Language Association of America Review of English Studies Saga Book of the Viking Society Studia Neophilologica Studies in Philology Scandinavian Studies Transactions of the Royal Historical Society Zeitschrift für deutsche Philologie

INTRODUCTION

A CONTESTED BEOWULF Insisting that Beowulf is a great poem sounds like making a virtue of necessity, since it might be said that the uniqueness of Beowulf accounts for its modern prestige as a succès d’estime. Sui generis in length, structure, action, versification, and diction, the work confounds standards that attend most readings of Old English poetry and figuratively straddles every conceivable generic classification, as folktale, heroic verse, epic, elegy, saga, and the like.1 In other words, few native literary parallels can illuminate so distinctive a poem. Because of this inherent historical and cultural ambiguity, Beowulf criticism has been marked by persistent contradictions, chief of which is the relevance of the poem’s Christian elements. Even the very last word lofgeornost “most eager for praise” (designating Beowulf ) is the target of apologists who debate whether the social milieu of Beowulf is “essentially” Christian, secular, or mixed.2 Disagreements over the Christian-versus-secular emphasis typically arise whenever Beowulf ’s motivation or attitudes are scrutinized. Most readers sense that anachronistic Christian values are meant to clarify Beowulf ’s judgment, but for others an unyielding ambiguity always seems to qualify his virtue. Beowulf especially seems to succumb to pride (or its Germanic equivalent), a notorious vice inimical to Christian humility. Despite a solid consensus that idealizes Beowulf, then, doubts over any universal approval we ought to have of him and his feats continue to surface. The minority view generally challenges the positive orthodoxy—a pseudo-Christian idealization—and disputes whether we should characterize Beowulf as a “noble pagan” or an ignoble one. As a pre-Christian archetype, then, is Beowulf to be indicted, lionized, or pitied? Unsurprisingly, the obvious questions about Beowulf ’s motivations (vainglorious or charitable?) and temperament Sisam, Structure 27. On the general context, see the references gathered in Chickering, “Lyric Time” 492 note 7; Richards, “Reexamination”; Stanley, “Hæþenra Hyht” 148; see the assessments by Mitchell, “Literary Lapses” 16–17, Orchard, Pride and Prodigies 56, and Cronan, “Lofgeorn.” Cronan reveals that lofgeorn in prose translates Latin prodigus “(overly) generous” and shows that the word could have a positive sense in Beowulf. 1 2

2

introduction

(ruthless or benign?) have had no unconditional resolution. In this book I shall argue that they are not meant to. Both as a hero and king, the potentially reckless Beowulf coexists in the same text, and often in the same verses, as the potentially generous and wise Beowulf. Judgments of the Geat’s motivation are a matter of perspective. Some readers look outside Beowulf to settle the fundamental ambivalence that I theorize for it. Identifying, dating, and localizing the poem and its hypothesized audience (as much as a work probably composed and transmitted in an oral tradition could allow) might resolve the discrepant accounts of Beowulf ’s character. An early aristocratic audience, the notion goes, might find virtues in Beowulf where monks given to Benedictine Christianity would see faults. The assumption again yields no purchase on the ethical valences of Beowulf, for two reasons. First, even a monastic audience need not have disparaged the poem’s vigorous secularism, as Patrick Wormald has shown.3 Second, Beowulf has resisted any firm dating. Although the manuscript Cotton Vitellius A.xv can be dated paleographically no later than ca. 1010,4 scholars have ventured a point of originary composition anywhere between ca. 650 and 10165 and have backed Northumbria, Mercia, Wessex, and East Anglia as a place of origin.6 Where Beowulf originated has no bearing

Wormald, “Anglo-Saxon Aristocracy.” Dumville, “Beowulf Come Lately.” 5 By “originary composition” I mean a form of the text generically similar to the one that survives. Oral-formulaic theorists have defeated decisive chronologies. From Katherine O’Brien O’Keeffe (Visible Song) we have learned that every written transmittal is a potential scribal performance. Relying on the hypotheses of Roy Michael Liuzza (“Dating of Beowulf ”), Michael Lapidge (“Archetype of Beowulf ” 37) has conjectured that over 600 lines in the poem could reflect scribal intervention from generations of copying. Yet the degree of interference may be slight, depending on how one views the matter; see Fulk, “Argumentation” 16–25. 6 Proposals for the poem’s historical setting are gathered in Bjork and Niles, Handbook 13–34. Sam Newton (Origins of Beowulf ) has proposed pre-Viking East Anglia; Dorothy Whitelock (Audience of Beowulf ) suggests late eighth-century Mercia; Michael Lapidge (“Beowulf, Aldhelm”) recommends mid-eighth-century Wessex for two main reasons: 1. the mention of Hygelac in the Liber monstrorum, whose Anglo-Saxon author shared a rare source with Aldhelm of Malmesbury (d. 709), and 2. place-names in the vicinity of Malmesbury; A. S. Cook (“Beowulf 2523”) and Ritchie Girvan (Beowulf and the Seventh Century) proposed Northumbria, Girvan for reasons of a theorized warband polity; Frank (“Skaldic Verse”) backed ninth-century Wessex because of Skaldic parallels in Beowulf; the date was later affirmed (Frank, “Germanic Legend”) on the assumption that pan-Germanicism is not attested any earlier. Stanley (“Lordlessness in Ancient Times”) alleges interesting historical contexts for these periods. Few observe that the names from Beowulf seem to have been popular in ninth-century Northumbria, as 3 4

a contested BEOWULF

3

on my interpretation of it, but the date is more crucial, and, for the moment, recent scholarship has pushed the composition back to the pre-Viking Age. In 1992 R. D. Fulk investigated Kaluza’s Law, which governed metrical patterns in compounds terminating certain verses, and noted that “Beowulf is unique in respect to the great ease and regularity of the poet’s ability to distinguish long and short endings.”7 He concluded, “Beowulf almost certainly was not composed after ca. 725 if Mercian in origin, or after ca. 825 if Northumbrian.”8 This remarkable finding gained support from Michael Lapidge’s more recent analysis of scribal errors in Beowulf.9 Many, he explains, arose from misreading an alphabet called Cursive Minuscule, which fell out of use by ca. 800. Therefore, while a date for Beowulf cannot be firmly assigned, a convergence of evidence now indicates a poem written no later than ca. 800. Admittedly, however, strong minority opinions still confute this early chronology. Unfortunately, neither the early date for Beowulf nor a conjectural mixed audience can easily explain its presentation of an inchoate Christianity. Although Beowulf exclusively treats pre-Christian Germanic figures, its references to Cain, a “flood,” and heathen devil-worship, not to mention a host of ostensibly Christian words, idioms, and collocations, presuppose a poet familiar with, but not necessarily steeped in, Christian doctrine.10 In an edifying article that frames the debate, Edward B. Irving, Jr. has traced the contradictory positions on the poem’s Christian references.11 He reminds us that the poet’s Christianity engages Germanic heroism, not “paganism” per se: A third sense of pagan lies in the realm of ethics and morality, and this is the area that has caused the most argument. Here matters might often be clarified if we used terms like secular or non-Christian (or possibly Germanic or

recorded in the Liber vitae of Durham: Biuuulf, Hyglac, Heardred, Ingeld (Ingild), Heremod, Sigmund, and Hroðuulf appear among priests, deacons, and monks (Dumville, Liber Vitae Dunelmensis). Roy Liuzza (“Dating of Beowulf ”) has valuably summarized the scholarship on the dating question. In addition to the work listed above, landmarks in the dating effort also include Amos; Chase, Dating of Beowulf; Wetzel; Dumville, “Beowulf Come Lately”; Fulk, Old English Meter; Kiernan; Lapidge, “Archetype of Beowulf.” 7 Fulk, Old English Meter 164. 8 Ibid. 390. 9 “Archetype of Beowulf.” 10 For a recent view of Christian components in the poem, see Irving, “Nature of Christianity.” 11 Irving, “Christian and Pagan Elements.”

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introduction heroic) for pagan . . . The fundamental ethical code of the poem is unmistakably secular: it is the warrior code of the aristocracy, celebrating bravery, loyalty, and generosity, with the hero finding his only immortality in the long-lasting fame of great exploits carried out in this world.12

Irving observes, “in certain strict Christian contexts . . . some of these secular virtues can be seen as vices: especially pride in the frank display of strength and the open pleasure taken in material wealth.”13 With this important reservation Irving describes the prevailing view of the poet’s narrow Christianity, “not so much primitive,” he says, “as either deliberately or unconsciously tailored to the dimensions of heroic poetry.”14 In other words, Christianity moderates the poem’s triumphant secularism. The pagan characters of Beowulf espouse this anachronistic “tailored” Christian virtue and that their actions should be measured against it, as sanitizing or authorizing.15 The argument has wide appeal, as Irving concludes, but it introduces problems related to audience.16 Since the narrator delivers all the verifiably Christian references, the audience seems to enjoy a privileged Christian knowledge, if not a point-of-view, clearly distinct from that of the characters. Irving trivialized this complication in 1989 by simply arguing that the “border-line” between the audience’s and the characters’ Christian knowledge is “sometimes hard to trace.”17 He proposed, for example, that an anonymous scop sings the Genesis version of creation but that the Danes do not know about Grendel’s descent from Cain. Some have disagreed. Yet more troubling in Irving’s model is how inadequately it accounts for the characters’ behavior. Irving identified Hroðgar and Beowulf as the most pious characters, since

Ibid. 180. Ibid. 14 Ibid. 186. 15 Christians, it must be said, have no monopoly on virtue, and some critics have affirmed Beowulf ’s rectitude in secular terms, alleging that the Christian element is overemphasized. Those who envision Beowulf as a “noble pagan” found evidence in the Icelandic sagas, especially Njáls Saga; see Lönnroth, “Noble Heathen.” Larry D. Benson reasons that the poet’s secularism reflects tolerant attitudes towards eighth-century continental pagans, who were pitied but respected (“Pagan Coloring”). Halverson, Moorman, and Cherniss (all are discussed in Irving’s article) affirm that the poem’s rarified Christianity does not fundamentally affect its secularism. 16 Irving (“Christian and Pagan Elements” 191) submits, “apparently a consensus is now forming, or has formed, on the subject: namely, that Beowulf is at all points a smooth blend of pagan/secular elements with Christian ones, with its chief purpose to express and celebrate the heroic ethic.” 17 Irving, “Nature of Christianity” 9. 12 13

a contested BEOWULF

5

together they express thirty percent of the religious allusions in the poem.18 Irving defines a religious allusion as an expression like “ece drihten” (“Eternal Lord”) or “god ælmihtig” (“Almighty God”) which occur chiefly in Christian contexts outside of Beowulf. Hroðgar utters such “Christian” sentiments three times more often than Beowulf, Irving calculates, but Irving nevertheless disapproves of Hroðgar’s “passivity.”19 By contrast, Beowulf seems beyond reproach. When, for example, the density of Christian language drops off measurably in the dragon-fight section, Irving projects a “patchwork” text or “awkward questions” created by Christian expectations at Beowulf ’s death—but not any qualms over Beowulf ’s behavior.20 What pseudo-Christian secularism explains Irving’s impression of Hroðgar’s weakness, even when Hroðgar imparts such religious zeal? What religious scruples get submerged at Beowulf ’s death? Evaluating Beowulf ’s motivation in Christian terms still appears unresolved. Opposed to Irving’s position is Fred C. Robinson, whose book Beowulf and the Appositive Style insists on the distinction between diegetic and intradiegetic narrative.21 Robinson’s ideas convincingly extend a position first voiced (as far as I am aware) by R. M. Lumiansky, in a paper subsequently refined by Alain Renoir and Marijane Osborn.22

18 Ibid.: “If we first tabulate the utterers of these Christian words, we find that it is the poet-narrator who, in his 61.7% of the poem, makes about 65% of the references. The poet is not the most Christian speaker, however; though Hrothgar’s speeches comprise only 8% of the poem, they contain nearly 17% of the religious allusions. Beowulf ’s speeches make up 18% of the poem, but he makes only 13% of the Christian allusions. To re-state these important differences more clearly: the narrator makes one Christian reference every sixteen lines; Hrothgar makes one every eight lines or twice as often; Beowulf makes one every twenty-four lines or only one-third as often as Hrothgar. The remaining speakers as a group, with 12% of the lines, are the least Christian of all: they make only 5% of the Christian references, or one every forty-three lines. Only the young warrior Wiglaf has any significant number.” 19 Ibid. 14: “Hrothgar’s religion is that of the passive person, one who depends on God to rescue him and even grumbles at one point that God could easily have done so earlier if he had had a mind to . . . When Beowulf . . . makes the hall-floor clatter with his decisive movements, it sets off by contrast Hrothgar’s helpless passivity.” 20 Irving, “Christian and Pagan Elements” 186. 21 By no means has Robinson’s book met with universal approval. His recent collaboration with Bruce Mitchell boasts a section “Two Views of Beowulf ” in which Mitchell opposes Robinson’s position: “[ Bruce Mitchell] finds it hard to believe that the poet was always in such firm control of his material and maintained throughout the poem such a clear understanding of the strategy [ Fred C. Robinson] detects” (Beowulf: An Edition 34). 22 Lumiansky; Renoir 245. Lumiansky proposed that the characters in the world of the poem impart reactions that the omniscient audience cannot have. Donahue

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Osborn’s more enlarged argument rests on the simple proposition of a “double point of view in Beowulf —what they know in the poem and what we know outside it.”23 For a single passage she observes how attentively the poet differentiates between the knowledge of his enlightened Christian audience and that of his benighted pagan Danes. This superior understanding generates the poem’s situational ironies, especially those in which the narrator places heathen suffering in the cosmic feud: Cain’s murder results in Grendel’s depravities, but the pagan audience only senses the action of wyrd or “fate.” The runic inscription about the flood that Hroðgar reads on the giant sword hilt may reference the Flood of Genesis, but Hroðgar has no knowledge of the biblical context. As he sees it, a band of giants encounters a flood and drowns. Exploring this dual consciousness more fully, Robinson resolved a handicap in Osborn’s elaboration of the double audience in Beowulf, and prophetically rebutted Irving’s identification of specifically “Christian” utterances, by theorizing bivalent references in the poet’s language. Holding the strict division between the Scandinavian and English settings, Robinson maintained that the poet’s sententious commentary on Christian pre-history reveals a consistent dramatic irony. He argued persuasively that terms like “ælmihtig, alwalda, dryhten, god, metod and waldend” express a context-dependent polysemy. Borrowed from a pagan lexicon to express Christian concepts, these words describe an “all-powerful being,” a “creator,” a “lord,” or a “ruler” who is both inconspicuously pagan in Beowulf ’s Scandinavian society but faintly, if anachronistically, “Christian” in the Anglo-Saxon audience’s imagination. The Old English word god, Robinson explains, should be parsed “a god” for the Geats and Danes, but recall the Christian God—capital G—for those admiring of Beowulf ’s or Hroðgar’s piety. When Beowulf and his retainers “gode þancodon” (“thanked a god/god/God,” 227b), they literally acknowledge a heathen god in language that sounds familiarly Christian to a Christian audience. But not only does the poet freight equivocal language with dual meanings, more importantly he also avoids words and expressions with

extended Renoir’s ideas, and Osborn (“Great Feud”) argued them in even greater detail. Famously, Benson suggested that Beowulf expresses a pagan “coloring” that derives from continental models. On the basis of a passage in the Life of St. Anskar, Andersson (“Heathen Sacrifice”) has argued that the Danish apostasy of lines 175–88 makes sense for a community of recent Christian converts. Andersson accepts the anachronism. 23 Osborne, “Great Feud” 974.

a contested BEOWULF

7

prominent and therefore obtrusive Christian associations, such as: 1. “the popular system of God terms consisting of a base word combined with the genitive engla”; 2. “two-part terms meaning ‘God’s Son’ ”; 3. “the terms nergend and hælend.”24 Furthermore, “[the poet] never alludes,” Robinson observes, “to the Incarnation, Crucifixion, Eucharist, Redemption, Cross, church, saints, New Testament, and other cardinal elements of Christianity.”25 The poet’s reluctance to voice overt Christian references, a curiosity long attended by critics, can be expounded as the avoidance of ideologies with no feasible pagan resonance. Because the two social systems—secular/heroic/pagan and the Christian—were not coterminous, the secular was engineered to parallel the Christian. One’s revulsion becomes less automatic.26 For this reason, I find it unconvincing that the Scandinavian world in Beowulf could be deemed an unadulterated expression of pre-migration pagan culture, however much the poet endeavors to depict it as authentic. The suppression of flagrant paganism—the reluctance to name pagan gods, to report (invent, if you will) any details of potentially offensive rituals, to parade the term hæðen as consummately disparaging—lies in the poet’s ambition to evoke a moral or religious proximity between Beowulf ’s world and that of the audience. (Nevertheless, just enough paganism survives in the poem to remind Anglo-Saxons that the characters were benighted, if not doomed.)27 In these ways, the Beowulf poet can be said to have inflected the religion and moral behavior of his pagan characters in terms similar, if distant, to those Irving alleges. Irving unfairly mischaracterizes Robinson’s argument by describing this linguistic duality as “wigwagging secret messages to his Christian audience over the heads of his characters.”28 On the contrary, this ingenious encryption subtly validates secular attitudes coincident with

Robinson, Appositive Style 43. Ibid. 26 See Robinson, “Language of Paganism” 182 note 13: “My own view, expressed repeatedly in the past, is that the poet is careful not to go into detail when he refers to pagan elements, for while it is important to his purpose to affirm the paganism of his characters, it is equally important not to dwell on these elements, for to do so would make it difficult for his Christian audience to admire the heroism of his characters.” 27 Bazelmans 87–9. 28 Irving, “Christian and Pagan Elements” 188; Irving had earlier concluded: “. . . Hrothgar does not see . . . the story of God’s use of the flood to punish the ancient giant-race that is written or pictured on the sword-hilt Beowulf brings back from the mere. At least he makes no comment on it; it seems a message to us over his head, so to speak” (1989 10). 24 25

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Christianity by making them appear Christian and by emphasizing the heathen Beowulf ’s moral enlightenment. From the Beowulf poet’s perspective pagan Danes, Swedes, Geats, and Frisians cannot discern anything of Christianity, despite their tendentious piety. Yet the narrator can magnify the Christian God’s eternal intervention, even in the pagan world, and negotiate a coincidental religious empathy for his characters. Robinson shows how the double perspective of Beowulf (between character and audience) expresses the poet’s emphatic regret for the pagan past, not Irving’s “gloating over the pitiable or pathetic condition of the benighted characters.”29 On the contrary, the Beowulf poet admires these fictional men and women, and he wants to redeem them by making their virtues look Christian. In these terms the poet may have moderated offensive heroic ideals with a ration of Christian humility, as Irving proposes. Two Beowulfs Robinson’s study contemplates how the Beowulf poet was deeply moved by the strength, generosity, wisdom, and eloquence of secular heroes. He defines the theme of Beowulf using the words “admiration” and “dignity,”30 and his argument requires a beneficent, righteous Beowulf such as Tolkien imagined in his lecture on “The Monsters and the Critics” (although Tolkien famously changed his mind about Beowulf ’s virtue). Nor is Robinson’s position unorthodox. Reactions to Beowulf as a literary figure have been chiefly positive, and notional Christianity in the poem (or pseudo-Christianity or secularism, however one wishes to pose it) seems to have licensed the critics’ views. Even after eighty years, Frederick Klaeber’s assessment of Beowulf ’s heroism summarizes the prevailing opinion: “Beowulf rose to the rank of a truly ideal hero, and his contests were viewed in the light of a struggle between the powers of good and evil.”31 Major writings on Beowulf sanction this extravagant sympathy. Arthur Brodeur speaks of Beowulf ’s “gallant stand” and “valiant fight” in Frisia,” his “sacrificial and triumphant

29 30 31

Irving, “Christian and Pagan Elements” 188. Robinson, Appositive Style 11, 13 resp. Klaeber, Beowulf cxviii.

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death.”32 Robert Kaske’s famous essay on sapientia and fortitudo in Beowulf sets out to recover wisdom and strength in the hero along the lines of Roman virtus.33 Eric Stanley proclaims him “all but flawless.”34 George Clark claims that “the hero’s lasting fame, more enduring than monuments, confirms the value of a heroic life.”35 John Niles, who sees the controlling theme of Beowulf as “community” subverted by an ineffable mutability, relates: . . . Beowulf . . . praises a life lived in accord with ideals that help perpetuate the best features of the kind of society it depicts . . . Most notably they include the notions of unflinching courage in the face of adversity; unswerving loyalty in fulfilling one’s duty to one’s king, one’s kindred, and one’s word, and in carrying out one’s earned or inherited social obligations in general; and unsparing generosity, particularly on the part of kings and queens.36

Having acknowledged opposing views “based on the notion of the hero’s faults,” Niles protests that, “such negative verdicts concerning the value of the hero’s final self-sacrifice maintain an appeal whose attractiveness is chiefly a priori rather than based on the text.”37 Like Irving, Niles believes that the poet has blunted Beowulf ’s secular heroic values by reference to Christian ethics. This judgment seems moderate compared to Christian allegorical readings like Maurice B. McNamee’s: “The character of Beowulf is . . . a complete verification of the Christian notion of the heroic or magnanimous. . . .”38 The valedictory overwhelms, to such an extent that one seeks intellectual shelter in Roberta Frank’s salutary quip,

Brodeur, Art of Beowulf 72–3. Kaske, “Sapientia et Fortitudo.” 34 Stanley, “Hæþenra Hyht” 203. 35 Clark, Beowulf 142. 36 Niles, Beowulf 236. 37 Ibid. 237–8. Here I must situate Stanley B. Greenfield’s article “Judgement of the Righteous,” which systematically rationalizes three “volatile centers that have produced negative perceptions of the hero” (395): 1. Hroðgar’s “sermon”; 2. implications of greed in Beowulf ’s speech (2518b–37); 3. Wiglaf ’s criticism of Beowulf ’s resolution to face the dragon. Greenfield reasons that Beowulf is “fallible in judgement (his only flaw)” (396), so that the poet’s audience could “empathize with the ‘tragic situation’ ” (397). I see the same potential flaw but find it more egregious. 38 McNamee, Epic Hero 109 (cited in Niles, Beowulf 302); the view summarizes that of McNamee, “Allegory of Salvation”; see also Robertson and Cabaniss for allegorical views of Beowulf as a Christ figure. Bazelmans 71–110 adroitly critiques the various positions on the Christian-versus-secular influences that have been intuited in the poem. 32 33

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introduction Scholarly tradition wants us to speak well of the works we study; there would be little point in talking about something that was not beautiful and truthful, not ‘interesting.’ Germanic legend has interest, almost too much so, but its beauty is not in the usual places.39

A minority of skeptical scholars disputes Beowulf ’s latent “Christian” virtue, and their negative evaluations of Beowulf also exploit Christianity as an ethical yardstick. The critics fall into two dominant groups. The first condemns heroic values in general, suggesting that, while Beowulf may be good on his own terms, his cultural debts compromise his deeds.40 For these writers Beowulf does not, and cannot, acknowledge his moral deficiency, since he is shackled to his governing social ideology. A subset of these critics considers Beowulf to be morally flawed, but they focus narrowly on the dragon fight where they insist Beowulf ’s egotism is most transparent. By contrast, Beowulf ’s actions in the first half of the poem reveal more genuine selflessness, and the movement of the poem entails a moral decline. This reading alone proposes a mixed account of Beowulf ’s heroism, rather than a purely positive or negative one. It likewise assumes that Beowulf resists the potentially negative values dominating secular heroism by reference to the sublimated Christianity I have outlined. The second group of critics, mostly the Christian allegorists, likewise reads Beowulf ’s heroism in terms of pride, but for them Beowulf consistently expresses vanity associated with heroic secularism right from the start.41 Whether or not Beowulf is a victim of his civilization, he still fights for all the wrong reasons: glory, empire, wealth. In other words, Beowulf disregards the pseudo-Christian canons implicit in the poem’s delicate syncretism and charges into profane error and damnation. Both the positive and negative assessments of Beowulf in this “Robertsonian” tradition have recently been discounted, since few now credit the alleged theological sophistication of the imagined audience. Frank, “Germanic Legend” 88. Stanley, “Hæþenra Hyht”; Leyerle, “Beowulf the Hero”; Berger and Leicester; Huppé, Earthly City; Bolton, Alcuin and Beowulf; Fajardo-Acosta. 41 Bolton, Alcuin and Beowulf; Goldsmith, “Christian Perspective,” Mode and Meaning. Goldsmith’s and Bolton’s volumes approach Beowulf ’s characterization by imagining a Christian world-view against which his deeds could be read. Goldsmith’s historical pastiche broadly evokes Christian intolerance for anything pagan. By contrast, Bolton intuits what the Anglo-Saxon cleric Alcuin may have thought of Beowulf, since Alcuin expressed disdain for heroic poetry in a famous letter to Bishop Speratus (Unuuona) of Leicester (“Quid Hinieldus cum Christo?”); see Bullough. Reviews of these books were exceptionally derogatory, no doubt partly because of the strongly positive views of Beowulf current at the time. 39 40

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Andy Orchard has lately revived the skeptical tradition, at least in perspective if not precisely in methodology. He interprets Beowulf as he imagines Anglo-Saxon Christian readers might have done, whether monastic or lay.42 Extending Kenneth Sisam’s description of the Nowell Codex as a liber monstrorum,43 Orchard examines protagonists in an alleged Nowell “anthology”:44 Alexander the Great, St. Christopher (a cynocephalus or “dog-head”), anthropomorphs and other beasts of the Liber monstrorum. He finds pre-Christian sources critical of Alexander the Great. If Greeks and Romans could view some of Alexander’s behaviors as immoral (vainglorious, specifically), an Anglo-Saxon could just as easily condemn Beowulf for similar failings—especially because their own outlook on Alexander was largely negative. Orchard likewise delves into Grettir’s Saga, an anonymous work from early fourteenth-century Iceland that portrays the protagonist Grettir as a misanthropic troll.45 He alleges the author’s condemnation of Grettir’s freakish strength and fierce sociopathy. Parallels drawn between Beowulf and his monster adversaries and between him and Cain, Alexander the Great, and Grettir Asmundarson make Beowulf ’s deeds unrighteous.46 Orchard concludes that Anglo-Saxons would probably have regarded Beowulf rather more cynically—as the victim of pride—than most critics do today: “The heathen warriors and monster-slayers, such as Hercules, Alexander, Beowulf, and Grettir, have themselves become monsters in Christian eyes.”47 Yet Orchard steers clear of positing any internal Christian atmosphere—the imaginary secular or pagan perspective I have been describing—in the heathen setting. Instead, he appraises the poem from the standpoint of a hypothetical Christian audience evaluating the poet’s imitative Germanic secularism, which betrays little of the moderation that Robinson, Irving, Niles, and others have inferred. The extensive evidence for Beowulf ’s “pride” that Orchard has gathered exemplifies the problematic disposition that Beowulf imparts in my reading of the poem. When Orchard outlines the separate traditions of pride-versus-glory associated with Alexander the Great in Anglo-Saxon reception, he does not propose that Alexander has a

Orchard, Pride and Prodigies. Sisam, Studies 65–96. 44 On a different view of the Nowell anthology, see Howe, Writing the Map 151–94. 45 Orchard, Pride and Prodigies 140–68. 46 The view that Beowulf is monstrous himself is an old one, but rather benign prior to Orchard’s publication; cf. Pettitt; Dragland; O’Brien O’Keeffe, “Transformations.” 47 Orchard, Pride and Prodigies 169. 42 43

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mixed nature susceptible to prejudicial misinterpretation. On the contrary, he suggests that Christian readers emphasized Alexander’s pride in mistrust of it as a sinful, monstrous indulgence. Orchard’s chapter “The Kin of Cain” affirms Christian misgivings for heroic conduct by associating Grendel with the proud tyrants of Genesis. These “mighty men” are unequivocally imperious. Because Beowulf acts at times like Grendel, Orchard deduces that Beowulf ’s heroism is troublingly arrogant. His take on Grettir is similar. For Orchard, Grettir embodies a monstrous avatar that makes him “a type of Antichrist” at his death.48 At the end of his “five-act tragedy” Grettir’s arrogance will consume him.49 By comparing Beowulf to this portrait of Grettir, Orchard concludes that the Beowulf poet himself set out to criticize his hero and that referents to pride in the poem have been routinely slighted in favor of Beowulf ’s presumed virtue. By contrast, my own reading proposes that characters in Beowulf debate Beowulf ’s motivation, which is only potentially proud. This ambivalence is expressed throughout Grettir’s Saga, when, for example, Grettir’s maternal uncle Jökull Bárðarson urges Grettir not to fight the revenant Glámr.50 Jökull’s advice sounds much like Germanic “wisdom” in Beowulf that recommends moderation over recklessness, and this discourse, I reason, challenges any confident assertion of Beowulf ’s pride. The Wreccan of Beowulf From the foregoing discussion one might ask why the Beowulf poet described the hero’s behavior so evasively that completely opposed views of Beowulf ’s motivations could be entertained. As Stephen C. Bandy remarks, “. . . the question remains why Beowulf should repeatedly attract such dark suspicions, so many challenges of his motives.”51 Quite understandably, critics fall back on some indeterminate cultural paradigm (such as the “heroic code” or latent Christian morality), either affirming or disputing the hero’s virtue, when, in fact, this dual consciousness comprises the poet’s subject. Robinson’s position on the internal and external audiences of Beowulf accounts for this ambivalence, 48 49 50 51

Ibid. 154. Ibid. 142. Ibid. 155. Bandy 244.

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which is generated by contradictory appraisals of Beowulf ’s identity and motivation. Outside the poem an audience of Christian Anglo-Saxons weighs Beowulf ’s deeds from the superior, but not condescending, viewpoint of Christian dogma. The narrator himself validates this nominal Christian outlook. In the fictional world of Danes and Geats, however, characters of imperfect capacity and discernment appraise Beowulf ’s ambition, judgment, and potential. Such figures contemplate Beowulf ’s exceptionality in light of his desire for glory (dom) or praise (lof ), and some react guardedly. By no means do all the inhabitants of Beowulf ’s Germanic world approve of his “confidence,” especially in the Grendel fight, and some worry about the consequences of his success. At the inflection point of heroic eminence, then, Beowulf ’s motivations engender anxieties about his present and future conduct—the potential for immoderation that he seems to express. While some are satisfied with Beowulf ’s sense of heroic proportion, more skeptical observers fear the prospect of latent recklessness that can accompany matchless strength and uninhibited zeal. These characters mistrust Beowulf ’s potential for excessive ambition, as much for themselves as for him. For them Beowulf is an enigmatic figure whose incommensurate power they admire and fear. As I shall show, their views of Beowulf occasionally confront the Christian audience’s superior awareness and the narrator’s sympathy for his hero. The notion of Beowulf ’s latent arrogance or recklessness will no doubt surprise some readers of the poem, because most critics endorse the position of Beowulf ’s generous heroism. Yet the characters observing Beowulf hold conflicting and therefore inconclusive views of him. Beowulf represents a liminal figure of pre-eminent ability whose potentially courageous actions can also seem just as potentially reckless, especially to those who lack his gifts. A key impediment to entertaining this motivational—and hence moral—ambivalence stems largely from defining the social (or literary) phenomenon of Germanic heroism as distorted by the poet’s projected Christian morality. Apart from hæle or hæleð and perhaps the loanword cempa, Old English has no equivalent word for “hero,” a loan from Greek heros first attested in 1387 but popularized in its present-day meaning only in the sixteenth century. The “hero” as we moderns imagine him typically conjures the pretensions of late medieval chivalry: decorous, devoted, fearless, etc. This description does not comfortably suit Germanic heroes like Beowulf, who could belong to any number of identifiable social positions, temporarily or intermittently. The categories “nobleman” (æþeling,

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eorl ), “retainer” ( þegn, gesið, guma, monn), “warrior” (wiga, cempa, freca, etc.), “lord” (dryhten), or “king” (cyning, þeoden) arguably characterize Beowulf, who yet has a special status in addition to these.52 Coming from abroad, Beowulf should be classified as a peripatetic warrior or adventurer, not in the strict sense of “mercenary” but as a sound, if untested, fighter eager to earn a reputation for his “warfare.” In other words, Beowulf intends to distinguish himself at a famous court. Some critics have doubted this heroic rationale, as if offended by martial glory devoid of any altruistic context. John M. Hill, for example, alleges that Beowulf comes to Heorot for selfless reasons: “Is [ Beowulf ’s] quest simply for glory, despite the great risk? Or is there something in the idea of ‘need’ that a right-minded, ethical warrior cannot ignore?”53 Hill, I sense, identifies a tension occasioned by the poem’s dual audiences. Where the external Christian audience may intuit God’s “right-minded” deputy, the pagan characters see a champion motivated by glory, a fundamental and honorable incentive for heroic action in Beowulf ’s world. Abundant evidence contradicts the implication that an “ethical” Beowulf merely wishes to rescue Hroðgar. On the contrary, Beowulf has sailed from home to earn fame by killing Grendel. Critics have largely neglected Beowulf ’s status as a foreigner in Denmark, even though nomadic fighting men like him differ in standing from Hroðgar’s native retainers who are largely anonymous in the poem.54 If historical records are any guide, the presence of foreigners

For a thorough analysis of the relational terms found in Beowulf see Bazelmans 114, 136. 53 Narrative Pulse 11 (my emph.). The phrase “despite the great risk” implies that Beowulf is foolhardy and must have a better reason to fight Grendel than “mere” glory. On the contrary, the great risk attracts Beowulf. Much of Hill’s position is staked on comparisons to Andreas 307–14 (see 13–14) and on passages from the Odyssey. The Andreas passage confirms my own intuition about Beowulf ’s bivalent motivation, for Christ in disguise questions Andreas about the recklessness implicit in his overseas venture. Andreas’s reply downplays the risks in fatalistic terms, suggesting that Christ himself will determine the outcome of the journey. Andreas illuminates the character of Beowulf ’s own mission as potentially reckless, an observation made by some men in his world, and Andreas’s divine mission corresponds to Beowulf ’s exercise of divine will in killing Cain’s spawn. 54 The failure to disambiguate this special status in studies like Bazelmans’ surprises (see 112 (“powerful lords often attracted followers from outside their realm”) and 141 set against the identical categorization of native and foreign warband members, 115 note 15, 136–7). Bazelmans also suggests that “a prominent retainer should undertake without the king adventurous endeavours (siðas, journeys, enterprises, expeditions) in the world outside the kingdom in order to show his strength and courage” 175–6. By this 52

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in a king’s warband was normal. Stephan S. Evans points out that as war-leaders gained reputations for winning riches, men flocked to their banners. Guðlac’s late seventh-century warband attracted fighters “of various races” (“diversarum gentium”),55 no doubt from many different tribes.56 Evans goes on to describe Bede’s account in the Historia ecclesiatica, that King Oswine of Deira recruited noblemen from neighboring provinces once his reputation had been established: “ad eius ministerium de cunctis prope provinciis viri etiam nobilissimi concurrerent.”57 The make-up of these historical courts matches Hroðgar’s legendary one. In Heorot at least, foreign fighters seem to hold high offices, possibly because they were ranking nobles in their homelands, or else pre-eminent fighters. Wulfgar, described as a “prince of the Wendels (or Vandals?)” (“Wendla leod,” 348b), has an important position as a counselor to Hroðgar, his authority implicit in the terse way he advises the king: “No ðu him wearne geteoh//ðinra gegncwida” (“Do not refuse him your reply,” 366b–7a). Moreover, Wulfgar’s “courage is known to many” (“his modsefa/manegum gecyðed,” 349a–b), an expression that implies a pan-Germanic reputation. This “modsefa,” literally “spirit” or “zeal,” is glossed by the variand “war and wisdom” (“wig ond wisdom,” 350a), a phrase emphasizing Wulfgar’s prudence and reliability. Another foreign soldier, Hunferð, holds the office of þyle (defined below, pp. 87–92), but Hunferð represents a different kind of adventurer with a more sinister reputation. Because Hunferð had a hand in the death of his brothers, he may belong to the social category of wreccan, a term translated variously as “exiles,” “outcasts,” or “adventurers.” Described as “wræcmæcgas” (“banished men”) in Beowulf, the Scylfing princes Eanmund and Eadgils may exemplify Hunferð’s status. They seek Heardred’s protection after rebelling against their king, Onela:

formulation, he deduces that Beowulf “has brought honour to Hygelac’s people by his actions” (183). No doubt this turns out to be true, but why would any king risk losing a prominent thane in the first place? In fact, John M. Hill emphasizes Beowulf ’s potential to leave Hygelac’s service and become Hroðgar’s thane (Cultural World 106). 55 Colgrave, Felix’s Life 80 (XVII). 56 Lords of Battle 28. 57 Ibid. 33. HE III.14: (“to his service flocked the most noble men from nearly all the provinces.”).

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introduction Hyne [ Heardred ] wræcmæcgas ofer sæ sohtan, suna Ohteres; hæfdon hy forhealden helm Scylfinga, þone selestan sæcyninga þara ðe in Swiorice sinc brytnade, mærne þeoden. (2379b–2384a) The sons of Ohthere—banished men—sought [ Heardred ] over the sea. They had rebelled against the protector of the Scylfings, the best sea-king who had ever dispensed treasure in Sweden, a glorious prince.

Although some critics have concluded that Onela “usurped” the Swedish throne from Eadgils,58 the circumstances of the nephews’ exile confirms Onela’s legitimacy: he was already the Scylfing king. As the “best king” in Swedish history, a “glorious prince,” he dispensed treasure liberally. Eanmund and Eadgils have wronged their generous lord. Even though, like Wulfgar, Hunferð is trusted and his reputation widespread (“widcuðne man,” 1489b), his implicit status as a man like Eanmund and Eadgils brands him as potentially dangerous. Both Wulfgar and Hunferð have strength, courage, and zeal for glory. The difference between them lies in the way they express these heroic endowments in their behavior, either sensibly or rashly. OE wrecca derives from the verb wrecan “to force or impel” and, among a host of other usages, describes warriors “forced out” or exiled from their homelands, mostly because of rivalrous dispositions and impetuous violence. The identity is socially liminal, for wreccan are exiled for the same ruthless ambition that motivates other foreign fighters seeking glory abroad. The forcibly exiled wrecca can attach himself to a foreign retinue, one reason why powerful kings manage to rule relatively vast dominions. In Beowulf the foreign wrecca Hengest joins a Danish warband, which, on the evidence of the Finnsburg Fragment, also includes a man named Sigeferþ, “a prince of the Secgan and an ‘exile’ widely known” (“Secgena leod,//wreccea wide cuð,” 24b–5a). This is the same language used of Wulfgar and Hunferð. Interestingly, the custom of kings recruiting exiles like Germanic wreccan is documented even in the Iliad, where Phoenix and Patroclus gain patronage from Peleus. Phoenix chooses exile after threatening to kill his father, but Patroclus

Klaeber’s Beowulf lx: “. . . upon Ohthere’s death, Onela seizes the throne, compelling his nephews Eanmund and Eadgils to flee the country” (my emph.). Even in Beowulf the king’s eldest son is not automatically enthroned after his father’s death. On the passage see Bazelmans 132 (“the two sons . . . challenge Onela’s accession”). 58

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is banished for a murder committed over a game. Both become leading men in Phthia. While Beowulf himself is not exiled from Geatland, his appearance at Heorot prompts a conspicuous appraisal of him as one of these two types of mercenary fighters. Wulfgar resolves that Beowulf has come “for wlenco/nalles for wræcsiðum” (“for reasons of glory, not at all because of exile,” 338). In my view, Wulfgar’s verdict first introduces a key anxiety that frames Beowulf ’s ambition—that he could, in light of his pre-eminence and ambition, cross the behavioral threshold separating wreccan from other adventurers. For this reason, one may be tempted to render Wulfgar’s laconic statement as mild sarcasm: “I suppose you have sought Hroðgar for ‘glory’—‘majesty of mind’, as it were—and not because of ‘exile’ ” (“Wen’ ic þæt ge for wlenco,/nalles for wræcsiðum//ac for higeþrymmum,/Hroðgar sohton,” 338a–9b). The prominent foreign leaders in Hroðgar’s host, the implicit profile of Hunferð as a wrecca “widely known,” and Wulfgar’s pointed evaluation of Beowulf ’s voyage to Denmark for wlenco rather than wræcsið draw attention to Beowulf ’s problematic identity. Even more evidence, however, broadens this characterization. Beowulf ’s father Ecgþeow resembles a wrecca himself. Ecgþeow caused a “great strife” (“fæhðe mæste,” 459b) among the Wylfings when he slew Heaþolaf (459a–61a), a conflict which Hroðgar settled by payment of wergild. One wonders what business took Ecgþeow to such a distant corner of the Baltic.59 In no way am I suggesting that Ecgþeow was exiled from Geatland, but he may represent the soldier-of-fortune whose behavior triggered powerful hostilities abroad. While the lack of detail about the Wylfing feud prevents any conclusive understanding of Ecgþeow’s identity, the suggestion seems clear: does Beowulf, like his father, also have the potential for such violence? Furthermore, the long-recognized association between the wrecca Grendel and Beowulf has suggested a kind of congruent identity.60

59 Following the settlement, Ecgþeow may have attached himself to Hroðgar’s retinue, joining Hroðgar before or after his marriage to Hreðel’s only daughter (374b–75a). Under these hypothetical circumstances, Ecgþeow either switched his loyalty to the Geatish court or served Hroðgar for a time, given that royal marriages in Beowulf are rewards for exceptional military service. On the possibility that Ecgþeow was a Scylfing, see Wardale. Kemp Malone formulated an ingenious argument that Ecgþeow had himself been a Wylfing and fled to Hroðgar because Wealhþeow was likewise a member of that tribe (“Ecgtheow”). Paul Beekman Taylor (“Beowulf ’s Family”) offers some speculations on Ecgþeow’s marriage. 60 Orchard, Pride and Prodigies 30–4.

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Like other exiles in Beowulf, Grendel “has trodden the paths of exile” (“wræclastas træd,” 1352b) “deprived of joy” (“dreamum bedæled,” 721a; “dreame bedæled,” 1275a), a wretched being (“wonsæli wer,” 105a). Johann Köberl has lately pointed out that Grendel is not just an “exile” but, ironically, a “hall-thane” (“healðegnes,” 142a) and a “hall-guardian” (“renweardas,” 770a).61 He has, in appreciation of the verb rixode (“ruled,” 144a), become the king of Heorot.62 This subtle metaphor has suggested to Johann Köberl that Grendel and Beowulf share a co-extensive identity, Beowulf serving as Grendel’s “alter ego.”63 In fact, Andy Orchard had investigated this convincing parallel in Pride and Prodigies, drawing particularly on Norse evidence of Beowulf ’s monstrous identity. On the basis of this suggestive evidence, identifying Beowulf as a “wrecca” would be imprecise, as Wulfgar acknowledges. But to say that Beowulf is compared to wreccan reflects the poet’s conscientious strategy of disinterest in the exploration of his hero’s liminal identity. The implicit identification of Ecgþeow as a wrecca and the potential relevance of this bloodline for Beowulf ’s conduct become significantly meaningful when Beowulf is later compared to three famous (or, depending on one’s sympathy, notorious) exiles: Sigemund, Hengest, and Heremod. In multiple analogous stories characters scrutinize Beowulf ’s present motivation and, by extension, foretell his future. The digressions function as exempla. All of them take wreccan as their subjects, actually identifying the warriors and kings they profile as “exiles.” The explicit comparisons strongly suggest that some observers in the world of the poem consider Beowulf to have the traits of a wrecca. Beowulf ’s potential status as one of these Germanic champions marks him as a figure of supreme ability whose motivations remain arguably impulsive, solitary, and socially marginal. This alleged identity generates an extraordinary anxiety over the possibility of Beowulf ’s leadership. Because his deeds in Denmark as well as his aristocratic heritage distinguish him as a future king of Geats, the prospect of tyranny remains a foremost worry for all the characters in the poem, especially Hroðgar. Comparison of Beowulf to prominent wreccan suggests the liminal behavior that characterizes Beowulf ’s exceptionality. Attending this

61 62 63

Indeterminacy 97. Ibid. Ibid. 98.

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focus on heroic identity not only enables us to reconcile the contradictory judgments of Beowulf ’s deeds made by internal characters (and modern critics), but also to understand the bearing of Grettir’s Saga for Beowulf. Both works explore the intersection of heroic prominence and social disruption. The early fourteenth-century Grettir’s Saga has often been advanced as the closest analogue to Beowulf, and quite clearly Grettir represents the Beowulfian parallel.64 It would seem relevant, then, that Grettir earns exile for his first killing, a savage murder over a food bag. Details from the saga reveal the innocent circumstances under which Grettir and the servant Skeggi lost their supplies, but the recovered food bag may have belonged to either man. Skeggi’s reluctance to show the bag looks suspicious. Grettir insists on seeing it, but Skeggi then insults Grettir by recalling an earlier humiliation that Grettir suffered. Skeggi attacks first and swings at Grettir with an axe, but Grettir ends up killing Skeggi with the same weapon. Exiled for the killing of Skeggi at the Althing, Grettir sails to Norway, proving his strength, if not obviously his virtue, time after time. Grettir later becomes the most famous exile in Iceland—respected, tolerated, or despised—for almost twenty years. Grettir’s ambiguous motivation and the contradictory appraisals of it indicate that the saga characters cannot fathom his violence. The central ambivalence characterizing Grettir, his impetuous aggression, reflects my own reading of Beowulf ’s conflicted portrayal. Although Beowulf should in no way be thought to have committed any crime before venturing to Denmark, some Danes perceive a Grettir-like potential in Beowulf ’s confidence and pursuit of glory. Grettir’s life as an exile from the community of men invites comparison to Beowulf ’s life as a future exile, in consideration of latent arrogance. My comparison of Beowulf to Grettir in support of Beowulf ’s potential conceit may likewise explain Beowulf ’s “inglorious youth,” subject to flagrant dissembling because it ostensibly confirms a failing of sorts. Right after Beowulf has reported his success in Denmark, honored Hygelac, and bestowed Hreðel’s war-gear on him, the narrator mentions 64 At a glance, the resemblances between Grettir and Beowulf seem remote, since Grettir’s arrogance is devoid of the civility, at least, that Beowulf arguably expresses as a thane and king. A provocative recent study by Magnús Fjalldal postulates no genetic connection between the two works, although Fjalldal’s findings only address moments in Beowulf thought to be related to long-held folktale analogues. He finds these parallels impressionistic, although they quite convincingly explained Beowulf ’s behavior as described in Orchard, Pride and Prodigies.

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that Beowulf was “hean” (“humiliated,” “abject”) for a long time (2183b), since the “Geata bearn” or (“sons of the Geats,” 2184a) thought him immature (“unfrom,” 2188a),65 shiftless (“sleac,” 2187b), and unworthy of much honor on the mead-bench (2185a–b): swa hyne Geata bearn ne hine on medobence dryhten Wedera swyðe wendon, æðeling unfrom. tireadigum menn

Hean wæs lange, godne ne tealdon, micles wyrðne gedon wolde; þæt he sleac wære, Edwenden cwom torna gehwylces. (2183b–9b)

[ Beowulf ] was abject for a long time, since the sons of the Geats did not consider him good, nor would the lord of the Weathers make him worthy of much on the mead-bench. They earnestly presumed that he was immature, a cowardly prince. A change came to the victory-blessed man for each of those indignities.

Although these lines voice disapproval and OE hean regularly describes exiles,66 anything disparaging about Beowulf is invariably downplayed. Raymond Tripp, Jr., for example, denies any “inglorious youth” and charges that the narrator expresses a Geatish view of Beowulf ’s antiheroic temperance.67 The Geats therefore mistake Beowulf ’s pacifism for passivity. The parallel in Grettir’s Saga answers some critics of the passage, as “indolence” indeed characterizes Grettir’s youth. Lazy, impetuous, and hostile, young Grettir the “coal-biter” scorns work that does not flatter his self-esteem, such as herding geese, scratching his father’s back, or herding the mare Kengala. He kills many goslings, injures his father with a wool comb, and flays Kengala. Furthermore, while sailing to Norway aboard Hafliði’s ship, Grettir is accused of being shiftless because he will not help bail. Only when the ship is swamped will Grettir intervene and leverage his miraculous rescue for maximum prestige. “Humiliated” by women’s work and by the general disregard for his heroic genius, the “shiftless” Grettir suggests why Beowulf is thought to be “abject” and “slack”: he will not perform any chore beneath his heroic dignity. Some characters in the saga think little of 65 I back this reading uncomfortably, but note that “unfrom” occurs elsewhere only in a verse from the Paris Psalter (138.14: “unfrom on ferhþe”) where it glosses imperfectum, perhaps “immature.” 66 Greenfield, “Theme of Exile” 203. 67 Tripp, “Inglorious Youth” 133–4. The passage is generally explained by a “principle of contrast” in which present accomplishments are magnified by a recollection of past miseries; see Klaeber’s Beowulf note to line 2183b ff. (236).

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Grettir—a position, one might say, that reflects Hunferð’s opinion of Beowulf. Grettir’s presumption, sensitivity, and willingness to resort to extreme brutality characterize him throughout the saga, but every case of violence seems moderated by provocations or other special circumstances. Kathryn Hume contends that Grettir cannot adapt to the lawful, agrarian (or commercial), and Christian society that Iceland became and that, inevitably, to most Icelandic settlers, “Grettir is a frightening, ugly-minded bully.”68 Grettir’s heroism needs to be managed under the right circumstances: When the [social] context is congenial, Grettir is portrayed as nearly ideal, and he can coexist peacefully with men of good will, and they approve of him. He is also able to control his temper when happily circumstanced.69

According to Hume, Grettir exhibits self-restraint when some authority—specifically a man of the “lordly type”—validates him with the “grand gesture.”70 In other words, Grettir’s ideal patron acts much like an ancient king whom Grettir would serve as a prominent thane (the simile is Hume’s). Without such indulgence Grettir would appear irascible and arrogant. The narrative homologies between Beowulf and Grettir’s Saga merely suggest that Beowulf might express an identity with similarly ambiguous contours. In fact, Beowulf is not a wrecca, but he is compared to them because, to some observers, he seems to betray their temperament. The burden of proof lies with me to show that Beowulf may exhibit the negative characteristics associated with wreccan, and in the chapters which follow I lay out the evidence for a cynical fear surrounding Beowulf and his accomplishments. Beowulf ’s prospective identity as a wrecca hinges significantly on his perceived temerity, his arguably reckless feats, and the notable but sociopathic wreccan to whom he is compared. The Limits of Heroic Glory OE wrecca begot Modern English “wretch,” while its continental antecedent gave rise to Modern German Recke (“hero”). Each reflex characterizes 68 69 70

Hume, “Thematic Design” 473. Ibid. Ibid. 474, 472 resp.

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the ambivalent personality of the Germanic “hero” represented by Beowulf: always glorious, fearless, and solitary on the one hand; potentially spiteful, vain, barbaric, even murderous, on the other. The combination of isolation and habitual violence, I suppose, make the wrecca a “wretch.” Heroic literature abounds in the kind of individual potentially represented by Beowulf. Achilles epitomizes the type: acutely defensive of any slight to his honor, rebarbative, hateful, and violent, yet the most outstanding fighter among the Greeks. Only with Achilles can the Argives hope to win the Trojan War; they have to accommodate him. In the Norse tradition the best-known figure corresponding to the Anglo-Saxon wrecca would be Starkaðr. The late thirteenth-century Gautreks Saga traces his ambiguous personality to an altercation between Óðinn and Þórr over Starkaðr’s fate. While Óðinn magnifies Starkaðr’s powers, a curse from Þórr makes each of his attributes a hardship:71 . . . skapa ek þat Starkaði, at hann skal hvórki eiga son né dóttur ok enda svó ætt sína. Óðinn svaraði: Þat skapa ek honum, at hann skal lifa þrjá mannzalldra. Þórr mællti: Hann skal vinna níðingsverk á hverjum mannzalldri. Óðinn svaraði: Þat skapa ek honum, at hann skal eiga en beztu vópn ok vóðir. Þórr mællti: Þat skapa ek honum, at hann skal hvórki eiga land né láð. Óðinn mællti: Ek gef honum þat, at hann skal eiga of lausafjár. Þórr mællti: Þat legg ek á hann, at hann skal alldri þikjazt nóg eiga. Óðinn svaraði: Ek gef honum sigr ok snilld at hverju vígi. Þórr svaraði: Þat legg á hann, at hann fái í hverju vígi meizlasár. Óðinn mællti: Ek gef honum skálldskap, svó at hann skal ei seinna yrkja en mæla. Þórr mællti: Hann skal ekki muna eptir þat er hann yrkir. Óðinn mællti: Þat skapa ek honum, at hann skal þikja hæztr enum göfguztum mönnum ok hinum beztum. Þórr mællti: Leiðr skal hann alþýðu allri. . . . [Þórr spoke:] I ordain this for Starkaðr, that he shall have neither a son nor a daughter, and his issue will end with him. Óðinn spoke: I ordain for him that he shall live for three lifespans. Þórr pronounced: He shall commit treachery in each of them. Óðinn spoke: I ordain this for him, that he shall have the best weapons and clothes. Þórr pronounced: I ordain this for him, that he shall have neither land nor territories. Óðinn pronounced: I give him this, that he shall possess treasure. Þórr pronounced: I lay this on him, that he shall never think he has enough. Óðinn spoke: I give him victory and renown in every battle. Þórr spoke: I lay this on him, that he shall have serious wounds in every battle. Óðinn pronounced: I give him the art of poetry, so that he shall compose verses

71

Ranisch 28–9.

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as he speaks. Þórr pronounced: He shall never remember afterwards what he composes. Óðinn pronunced: I ordain this for him, that he shall be thought foremost by all the noblest and best men. Þórr pronounced: All the common people shall despise him.

Admired by kings but despised by commoners, Starkaðr represents the consummate soldier. He exchanges kingship (the responsibilities and limitations of power) for the glory and the visible display of clothing and weapons. Much like Achilles’s own zeal, Starkaðr’s drive for preeminence makes him commit three great crimes, suffer repeatedly from battle wounds, and guard his reputation with a jealous vigilance. The motivation for Starkaðr’s ferocity is the same as Achilles’s: glory. No modern English term quite captures Beowulf ’s motivation, which in Greek epic might be expressed as thymos, a quality associated with one’s personal ambition for honor and a touchy regard for its public acknowledgment. One approximation in Old English might be mod, a word for “spirit,” “courage,” or “high-mindedness” that has lately been called an aristocratic virtue.72 Here my interest involves the underlying motivation for one’s deeds, not in the terminology describing the deeds themselves. Thus OE ellen means “courage” but does not describe the incentive to express courage. OE mod belongs to kings, noblemen, retainers, and other elites, but more precision is required for Beowulf, whose mod should be distinguished as that appropriate to his liminal exceptionality. I suggest that OE wlenco, a term for “pride” or “dignity,” could express both the magnitude and the ambiguity of Beowulf ’s heroism, that wlenco may be the silent term by which Beowulf ’s behavior is contested as “courageous” or “arrogant.” Within a spectrum of motivations OE wlenco has context-specific boundaries that determine its ethical value, and precisely because of its bivalence, T. A. Shippey calls wlenco “the quality of a hero—or of a meddler.”73 Dennis Cronan comes closest to my own position that wlenco reflects a mental state, and he has lately expressed the range of behaviors associated with its positive and negative manifestations:

Highfield. Shippey, Old English Verse 39. The same bivalence also characterizes OE mod; see Godden 287: “mod seems to convey to many Anglo-Saxon writers not so much the intellectual, rational faculty but something more like an inner passion or willfulness, an intensification of the self that can be dangerous.” 72 73

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introduction . . . wlenco denotes a daring bravado which shades into the recklessness that can impair a person’s judgement. Wlenco thus appears to have been a greatspirited courage which could lead one to daring undertakings for the good of others or to reckless endeavours that produce unnecessary risk.74

Heroic and homiletic sources document this semantic equivocacy.75 Even Saint Guðlac can seize his mountain hermitage from devils “for wlence” (“in daring,” 208a) in the Exeter Book poem. And yet in Genesis A the Shinarites also build the Tower of Babel “for wlence” (“in arrogance,” 1673a). Both audacity and greatness of accomplishment can be implied in the term. On its own, being wlonc might mean being either “proud” or “dignified,” but the nature and outcome of one’s social interactions will determine the aspect of wlenco. Dangerous or rash behavior verges on “pride” when one’s conduct merely establishes social supremacy, enhances personal prestige, or unnecessarily endangers the group. In fact, especially hazardous (one might say “aggressive”) physical or verbal behavior intended for one’s own social or material profit often establishes the limit at which wlenco turns negative. Avenging a kinsman, however, or defending one’s territory would characterize the positive kind of wlenco, in which a moral or civic duty calls for sacrifice. This same motivational bivalence figures in Beowulf, where the noun wlenco occurs three times. In Wulfgar’s speech “wlenco” seems to have a positive sense: Beowulf has come seeking glory, not refuge as an exile (338a). In line 508a, however, Hunferð accuses Beowulf of a committing a reckless stunt with Breca “for wlence,” and in this case the term is pejorative. The same derogatory usage describes Hygelac’s Frisian raid, which the King of Geats undertakes “for wlenco” (1206a). The narrator himself makes this judgment, and given the outcome of the invasion, the verdict hardly evokes praise for glorious deeds. A similar case can be made for the usage of OE wlonc, either “dignified” or “arrogant.” When Wulfgar and Beowulf meet, both are described as “wlonc,” portending a formal, confident dignity (331b, 341a). After Beowulf has killed the dragon, the narrator remarks that it will no longer visit its lair, “proud in its treasured possessions” (“maðmæhta wlonc,” 2833b). This usage

Cronan, “Poetic Words” 34. Cronan’s remarks refer to Beowulf 338 and 1202–7. The primary and most comprehensive study is by Michael von Rüden, who has documented this ambivalent sense for OE wlonc and wlenco in all genres: prose, poetry, and glosses. 74

75

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expresses a degree of arrogant overconfidence. Quite clearly, being “wlonc” means having “wlenco,” and both terms seem to encompass the semantic ambivalence of Modern English “proud” and “pride.” While the term wlenco is found in Beowulf in exactly the indefinite sense that characterizes my understanding of Beowulf ’s liminal action, it never comprises part of a behavioral or moral system like the one I theorize. In other words, the Beowulf poet never explicitly says, “Beowulf expressed wlenco when he challenged Grendel” or “Beowulf was wlonc when he confronted the dragon.” From convergent conclusions reached in these pages, I observed that OE wlenco perfectly approximates the uncertain ambition motivating Beowulf ’s feats. Nor is OE wlenco ever associated with the conduct or deeds of wreccan in any specific expression. I propose the affiliation because the usage of OE wlenco throughout the corpus describes Beowulf ’s bivalent potential. In other words, while wlenco specifically may not have motivated Beowulf to fight Grendel, the poet has conveyed a similar motivation of equivocal virtue. What thought-category he had in mind is impossible to discover, but OE wlenco captures the bivalent nature of this heroic confidence. In Beowulf one encounters elites apparently motivated by glory, but wreccan are a special case. Simply because wreccan are disposed to maximize their prestige, the motivation they express may resemble “pride” more often than “dignity,” “arrogance” more often than “sacrifice.” Their deeds therefore look more “foolhardy” than “courageous,” especially when men of lower status, ambition, and skill suffer for their zeal. I must be forthright, however, about Beowulf ’s alleged status: the poet never accuses him of arrogance. It is my view that doing so would tip his hand, for he aims merely to hint of Beowulf ’s potential arrogance as a prospective wrecca, to improvise phantom reservations, to discredit certainties. This inconclusiveness should not imply a dearth of evidence, only that symptoms of Beowulf ’s negative potential are subverted by signs of possible magnanimity (on Beowulf ’s part) or misjudgment (on the characters’ part). Sometimes the evidence suggests that Beowulf resembles a vainglorious wrecca, and sometimes it suggests that he resembles an honorable foreign champion defending Danes and Geats. In my view, the poet’s explicit indecision over Beowulf ’s motivation—the charge of generosity or pride—explains the poem’s general ambivalence.

26

introduction Ambivalent Heroism and Indeterminacy

The competing perspectives, arguments, and counter-arguments for Beowulf ’s ambivalent identity give rise to a subtle contrapuntalism, a discourse of ratiocination. I do not mean to imply that the poet has laid out evidence pro and con in daisy-chain fashion, but that he has presented multiple alternative readings of Beowulf ’s character. While his method invites deliberation, however, it does not concede resolution, only conjectures formulated in reaction to preferred interpretations. My treatment of the Hunferð digression illustrates the method of this internal debate: charge and rebuttal that, on each occasion, have no clear-cut factual proof. In answer to Hunferð’s accusation of temerity, Beowulf states that he was young. Are we satisfied that he is less impetuous now? He says that he killed water-monsters in a struggle that Hunferð could never win. Does that validate his alleged rashness? Does Beowulf ’s public condemnation for Hunferð’s “murder” mean that Hunferð must be biased, or is Beowulf just using the flyting convention of distorted sarcasm to demean his opponent? The implicit “argumentation” that characterizes the Hunferð episode has an extensive corollary in the dragon fight, where the poet has frustrated any conclusive ruling on Beowulf ’s motivation. The poet has not, in fact, established an incontrovertible outcome, but one shaped by debate. He has both posed and rebutted the most subtle reactions to Beowulf ’s death in a way that demands full engagement with the paradox of it. This frank ambivalence invites readers of Beowulf to settle the poem’s open-endedness: an audience was meant to judge Beowulf ’s motivation and rationalize the poet’s equivocacy, the position of arrogance that some readers have over-emphasized and others dismissed. As I see it, the uncertainty of Beowulf ’s ambition motivates the poem by inviting judgment: “how is Beowulf a good king?” The ambivalence of heroic action in Beowulf and the consequent rationalization that such indeterminacy would entail have been the subject of a recent book called The Indeterminacy of Beowulf. Johann Köberl proposes that the poem’s ambiguities have yielded “over-determined” interpretations foreclosing its intentional open-endedness. Köberl generally locates this ambivalence in the text of Beowulf as construed by its Anglo-Saxon audience, rather than intradiegetically, in the imperfect awareness of its characters. Explaining the potential impiety of heroic archetypes for an Anglo-Saxon audience, he remarks,

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. . . it may also be speculated that Anglo-Saxon society is characterised by an ambivalent attitude towards its own pre-Christian past. If a society keeps alive the memory of its ancestors because of their heroism and is then faced with the possibility that those ancestors are doomed to an eternity in hell, it may well develop a way of talking about its past in terms that do not unambiguously sing the praises of those ancestors.76

The poet’s sublimation of offensive pagan associations has atheticized Beowulf ’s heroism and therefore encourages such an evaluation. For Köberl Beowulf yields thematic oppositions enhanced by nuanced linguistic amphibolies (polysemous words like lofgeornost, fah/fag, gæst) that not only prevent hermeneutic closure but also draw attention to the oppositions themselves—the “anxiety” that I would locate in Beowulf ’s liminal identity. Even so, Köberl’s global account of narrative misprision in Beowulf also concedes both the narrator’s and the characters’ perspectives. At times, Köberl addresses the subjective viewpoints of characters like Hunferð in establishing the valences of indeterminacy. In other words, Köberl’s position may be applied to the narrower thesis of heroic identity that I allege for the poem as a whole. In a chapter on “The Search for a Theme” Köberl conjectures that ambivalences in the dichotomy individual-versus-collective and king-versus-subject cannot be resolved in favor of one domain, but must recognize that both exist coterminously. Grounding this notional ambivalence in the wider context of fate, transience, and mortality, Köberl concludes that “the text’s discourse on the final things, death, judgment, heaven and hell, refuses to be authoritative.”77 Instead, the poet juxtaposes competing views of heroic identity, unresolved in their argumentative equipoise: a warrior’s eternal glory is meaningful in response to heroic Fatalism but antithetical or irrelevant to the Christian afterlife, from which perspective its ideologies are offensive, if not odious. While I find this situational and semantic polyvalence nearly identical to my own understanding of the poet’s rhetorical strategy, I perceive a different emphasis on heroic action as a human ideal but subject to defects of proportion that exceptional mortals exhibit. The ambivalence that Köberl theorizes for heroic action in Beowulf centers on an ambiguously rendered ethos that is uncertainly resolved.78 76 77 78

Indeterminacy 9. Ibid. 82. Ibid. 81: “Is [Beowulf ] about a celebration and glorification of heroic life, or is it

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Critical of the interpretive judgmentalism that reduces many latent oppositions to a single reading, he reasons that both positive and negative aspects of heroism remain salient to the poet’s audience. Choosing one position, Köberl argues, forecloses a deliberate equivocation: “The disputed issue of heroism need not be resolved in terms of glorification or condemnation. The poem’s presentation of heroism oscillates between approval of its search for glory and disapproval of its inherent instability, its feud-and-revenge ethics, its materialism, and its consequent ignorance if, and disregard for, Christian values.”79 Köberl describes an “oscillation” of perspective that I have characterized as a logical “contrapuntalism” centered on the poet’s presentation of Beowulf ’s ambiguous motivation. In contrast to Köberl’s wider sense of indeterminacy, I do not claim that the poet distrusts heroic action per se, only its expression in the hero Beowulf. The difference is significant. Köberl envisions a positive Beowulf who “has managed to keep royal and heroic qualities in balance,”80 such that any ambiguity rests on valuing or devaluing Beowulf ’s accomplishments, as well as Germanic heroism more generally. In my view, the accomplishments themselves—killing the dragon, above all—are equivocated as possibly springing from excessive ambition. Köberl, I imagine, would see my own position as a kind of narrative closure, although the indeterminacy I theorize in the dragon fight challenges the Anglo-Saxon audience as much as the characters. At times throughout the poem internal and external perspectives overlap. The Function of Fate in Heroic Prominence A primary reason why Beowulf is theoretically indeterminate results from its presentation of heroic restraint as a function of Fatalism. No boundary seems to separate right action from excessive action. The incentive to earn glory motivates a pretense of Germanic heroism, that a fighter’s utmost courage sometimes enables him to prevail against otherwise impossible odds, as Beowulf remarks:

a condemnation? The indisputable fact that these—and other—thematic ambivalences have not been resolved in all the years of Beowulf criticism may well lead to the conclusion that any resolution can only be temporary, since the ambivalences are actually characteristic of the whole text and are, therefore, ultimately unresolvable.” 79 Ibid. 176. 80 Ibid. 95.

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Wyrd oft nereð þonne his ellen deah! (572b–3b)

Fate often protects an undoomed nobleman when his courage is strong!

The statement is not tautological. No amount of courage saves a doomed man, of course, but exceptional valor can forestall an unanticipated death that might come about through momentary weakness or doubt. An ambiguity in this system of belief lies in gauging the unknowable boundary of success, since the riskier the deed, the greater the honor and likelihood of fatality. Somewhere between sheer cowardice and certain death one finds a point of comfortable risk—a coordinate of multiple social variables beyond which one exhibits immoderation by overestimating the chances of survival relative to one’s legitimate obligations.81 An acceptable risk, it must be said, depends as much on the situation as on one’s own prowess and motivation. The motivational dimension includes such public and private terms as revenge, kinship, duty, wlenco, or emotions like love and hate. The situational dimension could be called “luck.” For example, we are led to speculate that Beowulf would have died fighting Grendel’s mother if the giant sword had not been hanging within reach in her cave. Now, before the fight the poet notes that Beowulf is the strongest man alive (196a–8a; cf. 379b–81a), so his prowess cannot be impugned. Moreover, the narrator specifically says that Grendel’s mother is weaker than Grendel (1282b–4b)—a deduction that Beowulf might have made himself— although Beowulf is handicapped by fighting her underwater and in her lair. Yet prowess alone did not save Beowulf, nor did the foresight of wearing a mailcoat. Fortune also favored him, and if not for the arguable motivation of avenging Æschere’s death, one might question Beowulf ’s prudence: Did he express courage for a just cause or pride for a rash enterprise? The poet defers judgment. As I shall show, the fight with Grendel’s mother does not acquit Beowulf of pride–the desire for glory—but does vindicate the encounter, since Beowulf endangers no one but himself. Like the legendary Sigemund, who fights his dragon solo, Beowulf confronts Grendel’s mother alone, the only appropriate circumstance in Beowulf for men to convey reckless “heroism.” Beowulf straddles the margin separating permissible and excessive zeal— is perceived, in fact, as inclined to violate the social decorum governing wlenco as “courage” and to be driven by a potential recklessness.

81

Gwara, “Forht and Fægen.”

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Judged either by secular or Christian principles, his ambition for glory could, but need not, violate standards of moderation and self-control common to Germanic warriors. Therefore, the contested Beowulf I describe in these prolegomena conveys the crisis of resolving Beowulf ’s motivation, of keeping it centered on the social virtues that Germanic warriors safeguard. Beowulf serves an apprenticeship of sorts at Heorot, as Hroðgar, I argue, teaches him a conduct of moderation and responsibility especially appropriate to kingship. The old king’s lessons countervail the potential for Beowulf to fall into the unrestrained ambition and violence that distinguish Germanic “exiles” as a class. Warrior Wisdom: The Language of Self-Restraint, Humility, and Reticence Two contingent questions emerge from my stance on Beowulf ’s transgressive personality: how does recklessness arise, and how can it be recognized and prevented? It should come as no surprise that the Anglo-Saxons, like the Greeks, developed an ars heroica or art of heroic behavior, components of which were codified in Old English “wisdom verse.” Old English “wisdom poetry” comprises a hodgepodge of sententious lore disseminated in maxims, exempla identifying good and bad behavior, and utterances about the competitive warrior life in a Germanic hall. I shall have more to say in detail about aspects of the wisdom verse, but for my current purposes I need only mention that much of it offered advice on controlling one’s “willa” or “desire.”82 In fact, it has become commonplace to imagine that Germanic warriors adhered to a golden mean or rule of moderation (a native understanding of “righteous behavior”): not too boastful, not too lustful, not too aggressive, not too talkative, etc. The problem lies in the boundary of excess implied by the adverb “too.”

82 Even the most tentative research on Anglo-Saxon literary presentations of mind confirms the tension between a mental faculty of “desire” and one of “restraint.” Citing metaphors of “holding or binding the mind” in Maxims I, Homiletic Fragment II and The Wanderer, Godden concludes, “such expressions invite us to see a distinction between the conscious self and some other, inner power which we might legitimately gloss as ‘mind’ though it could also be translated in particular contexts as ‘passion’, ‘temper’, ‘mood’ ” (288). Elsewhere he affirms, “the thought of the heart stems from an inner self with its own volition, which a man needs to learn to understand and anticipate, since it can, presumably, dictate his actions in spite of his conscious self ” (292).

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In Old English verse “wisdom” or snyttru takes the form of “warning,” and being wise means restricting ambition in recognition of a social ethic, what is “right,” “jural,” or even achievable. We need only read certain “wisdom” passages that advocate the heroic mean to know that self-restraint was a prized virtue.83 In The Seafarer, for example, the “exile” concludes, “scyle monna gehwylc/mid gemete healdan//wiþ leofne ond wið laþne” (“a man ought to treat friend and foe with moderation,” 111a–12a). Presumably one should be neither too trusting of friends nor too hateful of enemies. Both extreme situations are imprudent and potentially reckless, a point made by M. R. Godden about the poem’s depiction of a bipartite mind: “[The Seafarer] distinguishes two centers of consciousness: an inner, urgent, passionate personality and a more reluctant self which controls action.”84 In The Wanderer the same virtue of moderation is expressed more fulsomely: ne sceal no to hatheort ne to wac wiga (ne to forht ne to fægen), ne næfre gielpes to georn, Beorn sceal gebidan, oþþæt collenferð hwider hreþra gehygd

Wita sceal geþyldig, ne to hrædwyrde, ne to wanhydig, ne to feohgifre ær he geare cunne. þonne he beot spriceð, cunne gearwe hweorfan wille. (65b–72b)

A wise man ought to be patient, not too hot-tempered, nor too hasty in speech, nor too weak a warrior, nor too reckless (neither too fearful nor too eager), nor too greedy nor too ready to boast before he knows for certain. A man ought to wait whenever he speaks a boast until, stout-hearted, he readily understands whither the thought of his breast will turn.

Conjoining “wisdom” and “moderation,” this passage emphasizes selfawareness, the capacity for regulating a vice that approximates pride.

Kindrick suggests exactly this formulation of wisdom as restraint and moderation. In reference to Beowulf, for example, he remarks, “the governing or restraining aspect of wisdom finds vivid expression in . . . portions of the poem” (6). Kindrick explores multiple political contexts in which restraint functions “as the prince’s responsibility for the welfare of his subjects.” Although I have notably different views of Beowulf ’s moderation, Kindrick’s intuition that restraint motivates political objectives related to social amity is fully explored in this book. Furthermore, the parallels Kindrick adduces in “Hávamál” support his general conclusion that Beowulf centers on “wisdom, restraint, social consciousness, and strategy” (13), and his deduction that “Germanic culture was developing its own set of restraints on unchecked valor and wild heroism” (ibid.) is precisely the claim I examine here. 84 Godden 294. 83

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The poem called Vainglory focuses entirely on identifying, and avoiding, a proud individual, the sort of man who would manifest excess in drunkenness, ridicule, lust, and greed. In just this way one should honor comrades as “friends” or trusted co-equals in battle, presumably of legal responsibility, and not as jealous rivals. The Old English poem Precepts also clarifies Beowulf ’s prospective recklessness. In 1982 Elaine Tuttle Hansen drew important parallels between Hroðgar’s instruction in his “sermon” and Precepts, a central apothegm of which reveals that moderation is the soul of Germanic wisdom: “Hæle sceal wisfæst//ond gemetlice” (“A warrior should be wise and moderate,” 86b–7a). Precepts takes the form of a wise “father” (probably an aristocratic father: a king or retainer) warning his “son” to be loyal to friends, to avoid drunkenness and indiscreet remarks, and to recognize good and evil. Responsible or proportionate action informs wisdom poems like Precepts, where what is “good” is not to drink, speak, or desire in excess. “Evil” is defined as intemperance. The father furthermore enjoins his son to heed the advice of parents, elders, and the wise—by which terms compliance might be said to characterize the humble. The humble warrior can learn restraint from his teachers because he already expresses patience, while the arrogant soldier embraces habitual self-regard. One immediately sees the utility of the wisdom verse for inhibiting recklessness, either in the beer-hall or on the battlefield. Although some who see the Anglo-Saxon warriors as barbaric and fatalistic might imagine that recklessness was encouraged, in fact it was thought to be a vice. Circumspection was encouraged. Wisdom poetry taught warriors to judge whether they could achieve the deeds they promised to undertake. Death was the surest sign of recklessness, and the motivation of recklessness was an insatiable craving for glory. Unrestrained and unwise acts spurred by immoderate ambition distinguish “pride” from “dignity,” and the wrecca was most given to this excess. With the capacity for violence, the extreme sensitivity to dishonor, and the drive to excel in every combat, a wrecca arguably expresses a judgment barely governable by the ordinary conventions of warrior wisdom. In the Anglo-Saxon tradition the experience of adversity begets wisdom. As the poem Precepts puts it, Seldan snottor guma swylce dol seldon ymb his forðgesceaft,

sorgleas blissað, drymeð sorgful nefne he fæhþe wite. (54a–6b)

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Seldom does a wise man rejoice without having experienced some sorrow; likewise the fool rarely rejoices over the future with any sense of anxiety unless he should understand violence.

Having suffered no setbacks that might teach him moderation—the limits of his ambition—a fool foresees no edwenden or reversal and rejoices too confidently in his prospects. This same attitude defines the fatalistic world of Beowulf, in which recklessness arises through a succession of victories in encounters of increasing boldness. Victory follows victory until the warrior begins to think that he will always win any engagement, no matter the risk. Wlenco or “pride” arguably makes a man seek greater glory, of course, but such ambition can shade into arrogance or presumption when the warrior can no longer assess the odds of his victory. Death often results from overestimating one’s chances against an enemy—the very antithesis of warrior wisdom. Without exercising restraint, one could eventually, but not inevitably, come across a superior enemy or encounter impossible circumstances—at which point one becomes fæge or “doomed.” Consider, for example, that glory tempts an otherwise moderate man to sail a boat in a storm. If the sailor survives, providence may be said to have saved him, no matter how strong or experienced he was. Providence in this scenario is nothing more than the concatenation of circumstances that led to his survival. A god does not literally rescue the sailor, even if a god is thought to have been behind the circumstances of his miraculous survival, in some abstract sense (as “Wyrd,” capital W). If the sailor thinks that surviving the storm was solely his own doing, he may then be tempted to paddle a canoe in a hurricane. If he lives, he may acknowledge providence for his escape and end his risk-taking, or else continue to test his skill—and luck—until the day he “goes too far” and dies. “Going too far” means that the sailor encounters an unexpected circumstance, a rogue wave let us say, that he could have handled in his boat but not in his canoe, even when he exerts himself to the utmost. If his canoe sank because of this wave, a god should not be seen to deliver a punishment for arrogance by creating a storm, although a god, as ruler of the universe, could be said to determine in some dispassionate sense the fate of the proud. What emerges from this (deliberately simplistic) illustration of Anglo-Saxon fatalism is nothing less than a rationale for moderating one’s desire for glory in the moral universe of Germanic heroism. If the sailor represents a warrior and the confluence of rogue wave and canoe a hopeless engagement, arrogance would characterize the

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warrior’s motivation. He would have misjudged his advantage, and death would prove his recklessness. Yet a significant vexation in Beowulf is that exceptional men, including wreccan, perform under different constraints. Rather than enacting cultural ideals, they challenge them. Men like Beowulf contravene the expectation of responsible or appropriate action because they survive encounters likely to result in death for other, less capable men. Their solitary ventures are both admired as magnificent accomplishments and scorned as impetuous and arrogant–not “heroic” in the modern sense of the term as “sacrificial.” To ordinary men fighters like Beowulf challenge the definition of wisdom as restraint, and explicit social boundaries regulate their seemingly insatiable ambition. Killing human adversaries seems too easy for these liminal “heroes,” unless they encounter many of them, like the wrecca Waldere does, or credible national champions like Beowulf (against Dæghrefn and the Franks). In fact, so transcendent are some warriors—like Sigemund and Beowulf—that they must fight superhuman foes such as trolls and dragons. Only against these foes can the ambitious translate their audacity into fame. Therefore, a solitary fighter may legitimately pursue what looks like “suicidal” combat, and his unlikely victory would confer immense glory in Germanic terms. Theirs is a distinctive mentality, not merely the extension (and hardly the apotheosis) of a Germanic warrior profile. Beowulf ’s Prospective Kingship and Subaltern Anxiety In the first half of the poem and especially in the Grendel duel, some Danes imagine Beowulf to behave like a wrecca, or else expect him to become like one because of a latent predisposition. The tension that emerges in the appraisal of Beowulf as potentially reckless is further magnified by Beowulf ’s potential to become king of Geats. The complication of this status for Beowulf explains the conspicuous emphasis in the poem on wisdom. Kings differ from exceptional warriors and wreccan in responsibility, as the Rune Poem relates: Feoh byþ frofur fira gehwylcum. Sceal ðeah manna gehwylc miclun hyt dælan gif he wile for drihtne domes hleotan. (1a–3b) Treasure is a comfort for every man. Yet a man [or: retainer] must give it freely if he intends to obtain glory as a lord.

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All men (including warriors) want to earn treasure, the anchor of their security, while kings (also men) must learn to dispense it in rejection of personal frofor. In these terms, disgracing one’s retainers by jealously withholding their rewards not only represents a failing of generosity but also manifests a clash of incompatible identities. Hence, in becoming a stingy king, Heremod does not transcend the competitive warrior outlook that earns him exile. A second failing of warrior-kings derives from unnecessary, ever escalating risk that subordinates the national good to the attainment of personal glory. Such kings become tyrants subjecting their people to ruinous warfare.85 In light of this premise, recognizing and preventing Beowulf ’s potential recklessness means acknowledging the social expectations of Germanic kingship as represented in the poem.86 The poet deflects whether Beowulf might express the immoderation of a wrecca by focusing instead on whether and how the future responsibility of kingship necessitates inhibiting any immoderation he might possess. Beowulf appears in Heorot at the head of a “warband,” whose members with one exception are anonymous. I say “warband” advisedly because the terms typically used of such retinues (dryht, duguð, gesiðas, gesteallan, etc.) never describe Beowulf ’s followers. The poet is careful to show that Beowulf need not be responsible for this group of men as a “dryhten” might be for a warband. Beowulf ’s troop, of course, does nothing against Grendel or Grendel’s mother and has always seemed a vestigial “blind motif,” or else a foil highlighting Beowulf ’s prowess. From this moment, however, the war-leader Beowulf will be evaluated as a potential king, and the imagined obligations to his men and his kingdom should regulate his own valor. Partly for this reason Hunferð condemns Beowulf ’s presumption, and the story of Breca warns Geats and Danes that Beowulf is unfit because he unthinkingly endangers his men. Hunferð’s criticism invites us to conclude that Beowulf ’s leadership would translate into disaster for any nation that has him as king,

85 Köberl 80, citing Howe, Migration (see 152–3); see Bazelmans 127–8 on the king’s duty to exercise restraint: “Knowing that his rule is granted him by God, he is obliged to ensure a prosperous reign, not by the unfettered use of power, but precisely by observing closely the limits of that power” (128). 86 Jackson (Hero and the King 26–36) proposes that Beowulf, like epic in general, frequently addresses “the conflict between ruler and hero . . . as much a conflict of values as of personalities” (4). Regarding Beowulf as an outsider or “exile,” he envisions the Grendel fight as a challenge to Hroðgar’s authority.

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although Hunferð’s jealousy impugns his credibility. Moreover, King Hroðgar works actively and persistently to teach Beowulf how to recognize and limit excessive ambition in kingship. As I shall show, Hroðgar’s “sermon” teaches Beowulf to shun the kind of heroic recklessness that ignores one’s own responsibilities and other men’s capacities. The Oferhygd Complex Aspects of the Anglo-Saxon wisdom tradition that identify excessive zeal, curb immoderation, or recommend self-restraint underlie implicit and explicit criticisms of Beowulf ’s behavior. Germanic “wisdom” promotes ideal kingship by advocating methods preventing recklessness associated with leadership. For Germanic kings, ambition can yield “over-confidence” or “immoderation,” concepts expressed by the term oferhygd in Beowulf. Oferhygd defines a kind of Germanic psychosis specific to leaders. Superficially, it means “excessive spirit” or “impetuosity,” although it may be best to think of it as a leader’s excessive ambition. Casting a long semantic shadow over Beowulf ’s heroic mentality in the first half of the poem, OE oferhygd in Beowulf reflects a specific propensity for something like arrogant overconfidence. In the context of Beowulfian kingship, it is expressed in warfare and in relations with the comitatus. The prospect of Beowulf ’s oferhygd would handicap his leadership because excessive zeal in a king translates into blind intolerance that portends fatal misjudgments. “Glory,” in other words, tempts one to take chances otherwise hazardous for the comitatus, and accelerating successes generate over-confidence to the point where annihilation becomes certain. The weaker men subordinate to a tyrant of peerless strength and unbounded oferhygd would find themselves, like the nation as a whole, exposed to risks they could not possibly master. Some have suggested that the poet presents such warfare as socially determined—the outcome of feud, specifically—but the poet’s criticism falls chiefly on kingship as an extension of personal ambition.87 The identical concern is raised in my appraisal of two other kings afflicted by oferhygd: Nebuchadnezzar and Belshazzar. In fact, Hroðgar’s mental taxonomy of overconfidence perfectly describes arrogant kingship in the Old English Daniel.

87

Berger and Leicester; Leyerle, “Beowulf the Hero.”

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This view of Beowulf ’s potential egotism is nearly identical to that voiced by John Leyerle, who suggested a “fatal contradiction at the core of heroic society”: “The hero follows a code that exalts indomitable will and valour in the individual, but society requires a king who acts for the common good, not for his own glory. The greater the hero, the more likely his tendency to imprudent action as king.”88 Even Maxims I seems to stipulate the contrary opinions of Anglo-Saxon kings whose prestige derives from plunder or (in times of peace) tribute: lað se þe londes monað,

Cyning biþ anwealdes georn; leof se þe mare beodeð. (58b–9b)

A king is eager for dominion, hated when he claims land but beloved when he offers more of it.

While I agree that “indomitable will and valour” could motivate a heroic champion, even suicidally, I discern a deterrent to recklessness in heroic wisdom, as well as an intentional ambiguity in Beowulf ’s susceptibility to oferhygd. Furthermore, the heroic king beset by the oferhygd psychosis has no conscious awareness of his breakdown: he does not literally choose “imprudent action.” He falls into it as a consequence of his security and renown—the success that comes from being exceptional. As I have said relative to heroic recklessness, ignoring the limits of one’s power will generate escalating, potentially fatal, risks. The Instructional Function of the Digressions The Christian allegorists have exaggerated, and the secularists underestimated, the potential for Beowulf ’s immoderation in the Grendel section of Beowulf, and oferhygd in the dragon fight, for an understandable reason: the poet delivers criticisms of Beowulf indirectly in conversation or asides. In fact, most of the evidence for Beowulf ’s potentially reckless behavior actually comes from characters in the fictional Scandinavian world: from Hunferð, Hroðgar, Wiglaf, and a number of unnamed poets who memorialize Beowulf ’s exploits. As it turns out, criticism of Beowulf ’s faults—those of the Germanic hero and of the social institution of heroism, in fact—are expressed largely in the poem’s digressions,

88

Leyerle, “Beowulf the Hero” 89.

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which often take the form of analogies.89 The digressions of Beowulf therefore resemble exempla, a modus legendi that contemplates a man’s future and directs his conduct by historical or legendary precedent coextensive with present circumstance. One might call the digressions “counsels,” for they are meant to guide behavior, as intradiegetic commentary. As such, they were not intended merely to “entertain” but to depict choice as a function of wisdom, to anticipate the hero’s fate by his attitude, to impart behaviors that promote success, and to expose conduct that invites disaster. Hence, the pagan Scandinavian audience of Beowulf weighs Beowulf ’s intentions and prospects after his feats, which might be deemed opportunities for reflection.90 Without this reflection, I contend, Beowulf would appear uncritically righteous, for the poet’s intentional ambiguity would lack its defining antitheses: dignity versus pride, proportionate action versus recklessness, responsibility versus fame, the group versus the individual. I take pains to analyze the digressions in Beowulf as extended analogies or exempla because comparing Beowulf to his heroic antecedents generates internal reflections on immoderation and oferhygd, and on the clash between the social identities of wrecca and cyning. Interestingly, some digressions in Beowulf are called gidd in the poem or implicitly identified as gidd: the lay of Finnsburh, the story of Sigemund and Heremod, Heremod’s story in Hroðgar’s “Sermon,” and Beowulf ’s meditation on the death of Hreðel. Dictionaries and translations render the well-attested vocable gidd multifariously as “account, dirge, lament, lay, maxim, poem, proverb, reason, reckoning, riddle, saying, sentence, sermon, song, speech, story, tale, verses or words.”91 In Beowulf, however, the meaning of OE gidd in these contexts may be 89 On the digressions in general, see Bonjour, Digressions; Leyerle, “Interlace Structure”; Bjork, “Digressions and Episodes.” Bonjour theorized thematic “links” between the digressions and moments in the main narrative, or between two or more digressions themselves, all of which constitute “parallels” or “parallelisms.” Most of the episodes are “contrasts” or else “counterbalance” incidents or themes in the main narrative. The digressions can be “prophetic,” “ironic,” “premonitory” or, most commonly, “anticipatory.” In other words, they highlight social or philosophical backgrounds of “portentous significance” (73). This epic mode of discourse is widespread in ancient Greek literature, especially in the Iliad. On digressive analogy and the way it functions in the Iliad, and correspondingly in Beowulf, see Gwara, “Misprision” and Alden. 90 Michael D. Cherniss (“Oral Presentation”) makes a similar case, that the digressions ought to be meaningful in their immediate context. He assumes that an audience hearing Beowulf would expect digressive matter to comment on, or respond to, local narrative. 91 On the meaning of the term, see Parker; Howlett; North, Pagan Words; Reichl.

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extended to embrace a “didactic or prophetic comparison” between a figure or event from the past and one in the present. For example, the gidd of Sigemund and Heremod describes wreccan from the legendary and historical past, respectively. The Finnsburh story recalls an episode from British history concerning the wrecca Hengest, almost certainly the Jutish or Anglian commander of Vortigern’s mercenary “Saxons,” and the events surrounding his leadership of a group of Danes. In these narratives, Sigemund illustrates a distinguished precedent that Beowulf could become if he adopted Sigemund’s policy of fighting alone. By contrast, Beowulf should avoid the failings of Heremod and Hengest. Heremod destroyed the Danes with the kind of unrestrained ambition that brought glory to Sigemund. The story of Hengest, by contrast, exemplifies the danger of Beowulf ’s potential kingship for the Danes. As a non-Danish leader of Danes, Hengest hesitates too long in fulfilling the sacred obligation of vengeance for the Danes’ fallen lord. Other episodes are structured analogically but never called gidd. Like the other digressions, they also compare people or events in illustration of a present circumstance. For example, the story of Fremu (formerly thought to be Modþryð or Modþryðo) evokes the ambivalence characterizing Beowulf in the Grendel fight. Having described Hygelac and his queen Hygd, the poet launches into a description of the arrogant queen Fremu whose venality was tamed by marriage to King Offa. The digression, I will argue, refers not to Hygd but to Beowulf whose attendance on Hroðgar has reined in Beowulf ’s own potential truculence. Interestingly, the poet-narrator makes this analogy outside the Scandinavian world of the poem—invisible to its inhabitants, in other words—probably as confirmation of Beowulf ’s new-minted political maturity. In most respects the digressions in Beowulf function like paradeigmata or ainoi in the Iliad. In Book 9 of the epic, the ambassadors Odysseus, Ajax, and Phoenix approach Achilles with gifts intended to assuage his anger and bring him back into the war. When Achilles declines the bribe, Phoenix tells three stories in illustration of the choice that awaits Achilles. He first recounts his own biography, his own feud with his father Oeneus, the attempt on Oeneus’s life, his self-imposed isolation, and flight. This paradeigma analogizes Achilles’ stated decision to return home by describing Phoenix’s parallel experience and illustrating the outcome for Achilles should he choose this fate. Phoenix’s comparandum is his own life experience from the recent past. Later, however, Phoenix will tell the paradeigma of Meleager, a hero from past generations

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and hunter of the Calydonian boar. Like Achilles, Meleager abandons his comrades in wartime, taking to his bed in a fit of pique for a curse laid down by his mother. By recalling the scenario, Phoenix illustrates how another hero hesitated to fight and lost magnanimous gifts that were offered but rescinded. Of course, Phoenix is trying to win Achilles’ trust and bring him back to the Argive ranks, but his method of persuasion is narrative analogy, not direct appeal. He describes the outcomes of choices made by other great men in similar situations. Phoenix’s analogies are discernible on the level of the characters, but Homer has himself embedded parallel narration in the chariot race of book 22. The dispute that arises between Menelaus and Antilochus after the chariot race re-plays, and significantly re-interprets, the events of book 1. This focalization recalls the story of Queen Fremu, which, I claim, analogizes Beowulf ’s own experience abroad. Because it has been told by the narrator, the audience—not the characters—attends the narrative parallel between Fremu and Beowulf. Obviously, moments like the Fremu episode refine our perception of Beowulf ’s conduct. Perhaps the most important example of such characterization is the flyting, or verbal debate, between Beowulf and Hunferð. The Hunferð episode in Beowulf yields evidence of Beowulf ’s possible recklessness and alleges his potential for oferhygd. Described as a þyle or “spokesman,” Hunferð is, I will argue, a ranking counselor charged with teaching retainers the traditions of Germanic warrior wisdom. One of his arts is the assessment of a warrior’s motivation—the “intention of an evil man,” as the Old English poem Precepts puts it. Beowulf contextualizes Hunferð’s position when he deploys the language of Hunferð’s office sarcastically: Vainglory tells the warrior how to recognize and avoid oferhygd in terms that recall Hunferð’s charge of rash action against Beowulf. In other words, Beowulf accuses Hunferð of a failure of judgment, the þyle’s key faculty, and the narrator even suggests that Hunferð could have misjudged Beowulf out of jealousy. Nevertheless, while Beowulf seems to “win” the flyting with Hunferð, the victory makes him uncertainly righteous, as a survey of flytings in Scandinavian sources reveals. We are left wondering whether Hunferð’s estimation of Beowulf could still be accurate in part. Hunferð levels two charges that originate in observing Beowulf as a potential wrecca and as a leader of daring volunteers. On the one hand, he criticizes Beowulf for provoking Grendel, since the Danes have learned to stop their losses by giving up the hall before the monster shows. They know their enemy. Because Beowulf does not know anything about Grendel’s size and strength, his boast sounds arrogant

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and offensive. On the other hand, if only Beowulf were endangered, the boast would be less repugnant, but Beowulf risks his Geatish comrades, too. Hunferð proposes, then, that Beowulf lost the venture with Breca and that he will lose against Grendel. Yet he also emphasizes Beowulf ’s eagerness to endanger Breca “because of wlenco” (“for wlence,” 508a) and on account of a “foolish boast” (“for dolgilpe,” 509a). Not only was Breca a king with towns and treasure, but the escapade was also deemed a “sorhfullne sið” (512a). This collocation literally means “sorrowful venture,” but in Beowulf it designates a “venture almost certain to end in sorrow,” i.e. reckless and irresponsible. Implicit in the critique is Beowulf ’s unfitness for leadership, especially kingship, because of impetuosity. As Bazelmans formulates this provision of wisdom, “no one, nor any group either, may be seen as separate from another or others.”92 Hunferð’s evaluation of Beowulf ’s recklessness appears confirmed when Hondscioh dies and when the other Geats find themselves incapable of piercing Grendel’s hide. Perhaps by claiming so confidently that he could kill Grendel with a sword (680b), Beowulf wrongly encouraged their involvement. His confidence may have caused one man’s death. Or did it? The narrator divulges that Beowulf intended to gauge Grendel’s strategy by watching how the troll would proceed, but Grendel moved faster than Beowulf expected. Even this excuse, however, does not justify Hondscioh’s death, for reasons I shall outline later. Clearly, the poet carefully alternates arguments for and against Beowulf ’s excessive wlenco, and characteristically undercuts each argument, so that neither position can be substantiated and fully believed: Beowulf is arrogant . . . Hunferð is jealous . . . Beowulf lost a competition . . . Beowulf actually killed watermonsters . . . Beowulf endangers his men unnecessarily and Hondscioh dies . . . Beowulf was assessing Grendel’s ambush. Despite his status and objections, Hunferð has been deemed rancorous, a “jester” or “coward,” and his criticisms are unsympathetically demeaned. He may be jealous, as the narrator remarks, or responsible for the death of kinsmen, or incapable of exploits like Beowulf ’s, but the full context of Hunferð’s challenge still disparages Beowulf ’s ambition. Making bold claims to kill a powerful demonic adversary is reckless but especially so when other men’s lives are at stake. Understanding the digressions as analogical commentary enables us to read searchingly their relevance in Beowulf, but reading them on two levels complicates the matter of Beowulf ’s motivation. The digressions

92

Bazelmans 123 (italicized in the original).

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speak not only to the narrator’s Christian audience but also to the audience in the world of the poem. Because the Anglo-Saxon spectators know a Christian truth (and very likely the outcome of the poem), their evaluation of an episode may be thought to supersede the secular “Christianized” dogmas endorsed in the narrative. An unresolvable tension therefore arises between the two perspectives, internal and external, although the Christian view is never satisfyingly transparent. In other words, because we know so little of the secular world glimpsed in Old English literature, we cannot appreciate what anachronistic “Christian” precepts the heathen Beowulf is made to embrace, although we may theorize that they relate to moderation or humility. On account of this ambiguity, scholars have tried to evaluate Beowulf ’s behavior or attitude by Christian principles, and have ransacked the Patrology for evidence of his failings or virtues. My own view is quite different. The moral judgments in Beowulf (I think of them as “Christianized,” for they are no doubt influenced by notional Christian ethics) coincide with heroic ideologies centered on responsible leadership. Ethical conflicts arise in the world of the poem as the “hero” Beowulf competes with the subaltern in his own heroic domain. The subaltern position manifestly derives from the comitatus, the source of group identity, and the foundation of a king’s prosperity, and the focus of his responsibility. In most respects, the digressions exemplify this subaltern voice, that of the minor characters whose opinions, I speculate, represent a customary point of view relative to warrior identity, politics, kingship, and Germanic wisdom. The anonymous singers, the coast-warden, Hunferð, Wiglaf, and (to some extent) Hroðgar voice the aristocratic values of community and peace—of “mondream” or “joys of fellowship.” The Subaltern Voice As authorial critiques, the Beowulfian digressions, including the gidd, figuratively direct a social discourse about heroic fanaticism in the social institution of Germanic kingship. The tension between wrecca and king that I locate in Beowulf centers principally on the warband (comitatus in Latin, duguð in Old English). Superficially, this group of men comprises the king’s retainers and fighting force, but as an institution it also betrays a complex “psychological” identity. Scholars now agree that institutionalized kingship emerged as a consequence of expanded tribal jurisdictions in the post-migration period. As characterized in Tacitus’s Germania, however, the king and comitatus enjoyed a “horizontal”

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power-sharing relationship, perhaps something akin to the roving Viking bands whose leaders in one ninth-century source described themselves as coequals.93 By the Anglo-Saxon period, however, the “horizontal” relationship yielded to a more strongly “vertical” one, in which retainers in the warband owed service to a king who rewarded them for loyalty. The ensuing problem is, how does one negotiate responsibilities shared by the individual (a king) and the group (a warband) when the individual’s priorities–glory as embodied in status and wealth—derive from his own ambition? While it is true that a Germanic warrior seeks status—the honors attached to gifts and the glory of reputation–as a member of a retinue, he ultimately answers to the king’s ambition. In fact, he earns honor primarily by being “hold” or “loyal.” But because glory drives the economy of heroism, however, thanes have a right to earn status. In this quid pro quo, the king’s wishes must accommodate his men’s inclinations and abilities, and his own ambition has to be tempered by institutions emphasizing reciprocity, especially gift-giving. The king’s men will fight more willingly for his causes in recognition of mutual obligations. Although the king’s authority was paramount, he undoubtedly took counsel from the ranking members of his warband. One can legitimately speculate that they voiced a subaltern opinion to the king, and the king, in turn, would ideally acknowledge these subaltern views in decisions affecting the group’s prosperity. Because the nation relied on the warband for its security and wealth, the king had to respect the warband’s capabilities and objectives. They may not have shared the same ambitions, but the successful king negotiated power with his retainers, regardless of his absolute authority. The unsuccessful king, by contrast, would fail to consult his men—or at least appreciate their political stake in decisions that jeopardized their lives or prestige. One might therefore say that the primary resistance to ideal kingship derives from an antithetical heroic vanity. I am not suggesting that Beowulf belongs to Hroðgar’s warband as a thane in any sense, although Beowulf ’s implicit status inflects the poem’s fundamental tensions. I do propose that certain warrior-kings at least challenge, if not confound, the pattern of royal obligation and retainer allegiance, and that Beowulf is thought by some to have the potential for such tyranny. The Beowulf poet represents this kind of king as a tyrant given to oferhygd.

93

North, “Tribal Loyalties” 28.

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In the Gautreks Saga passage I have cited above, Óðinn says of Starkaðr, the Norse equivalent of a wrecca, “I ordain this for him, that he shall be thought foremost by all the noblest and best men.” Þórr counters with a curse: “All the common people shall despise him.” An uncanny parallel to the sentiment emerges in Beowulf, where the relationship between the king and his retainers, the duguð or comitatus, foregrounds the evaluation of Beowulf ’s behavior. One might say that the Germanic warband gains a voice in Beowulf, at least as part of a system of kingship constituted by warband reciprocity. An eminent warrior born into the royal lineage, Beowulf could expect to become king of the Geats. Hroðgar even speaks of kingship as a kind of election, and he predicts that Beowulf ’s valor will make him a prominent candidate. Before this eventuality, however, Beowulf must learn to curb his ambition in acknowledgment of a king’s responsibility towards his warband. Kingship demands reciprocity, which the poet emphasizes from the start when he describes how Beow (18a), Scyld’s son, earns the trust of his men even before his father dies: Swa sceal geong guma gode gewyrcean, fromum feohgiftum on fæder bearme, þæt hine on ylde eft gewunigen wilgesiþas, þonne wig cume, leode gelæsten. (20a–4a) So should a young warrior perform good deeds with lavish gifts in his father’s company, so that in maturity willing companions will support him—the people sustain him—should war come.

The stress here on Beow’s willing companions (“wilgesiþas,” 23a) and his national advocacy make it plain that future kings owe retainers recognition as much as they owe service to their own lords, at least to guarantee loyalty in old age. Depictions of reciprocity in Beowulf prove that the king-warband relationship was similarly based on the material exchange observed in Beow’s conduct above. The extent of this reciprocity—the king’s generosity, significantly—determined the stability of the warband relationship and the corresponding strength of the kingdom. But bestowing lavish gifts was only one dimension of a king’s responsibility to his warband, although intertwined with the obligation to foster the group’s well-being. A significant duty of the king was to intuit the group’s will relative to his own. In fact, one senses the conflict between Hroðgar’s own will and the group’s when he says,

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Ful oft ic for læssan lean teohhode, hordweorþunge hnahran rince, sæmran æt sæcce. (951a–3a) Very often have I bestowed a reward for less, hoard-honor to a lowlier warrior weaker in battle.

Hroðgar’s admission betrays some reluctance for past generosity, as if to suggest that the other men who faced Grendel did not (in his view) earn their rewards. The allusion to Heremod, who did not reward his men at all, reveals Hroðgar’s diplomacy in suppressing his own obsession for Grendel’s death. Because he will not risk lesser men against so powerful a foe, Beowulf ’s appearance inspires his hope. The Heremod narrative succinctly expresses the king’s neglected duty to his warband. In this digression Hroðgar explains the cause of oferhygd as progressive overconfidence and moderation as the result of moral vigilance. When kings forget that providence bestows success, progressive victories magnify their audacity, until they think that no enemy can ever harm them. Just as excessive ambition would tempt a wrecca to pursue fatal risks, oferhygd would cause a king to endanger his men and, by extension, his nation. Heremod’s status as a kingturned-wrecca evokes Beowulf ’s potential for a similar destiny. Said to be troubled for a long time by “sorhwylmas” (“anxieties,” 904b), this wilful king (“swiðferhþes,” 908a) led his nation to disaster because of oferhygd. The laments his people utter are reminiscent of those expressed by Ermanaric’s Goths in the poem Deor. Ermanaric’s chronic warfare was so brutal that his own men lived in expectation of extermination, the outcome that one expects from a king afflicted by oferhygd. Heremod’s men regretted his behavior, too, and he became a terrible burden on their lives. Unlike Hroðgar, who rewarded his men in their failed assaults against Grendel, Heremod seems to have stopped rewarding his retinue for the risks they took in his campaigns. As a result, Heremod’s own retainers banished him. He was killed amongst his enemies and, like Grendel, conveyed “into the power of devils” (“on feonda geweald,” 903a). The message could not be plainer: the potential for recklessness could grow unintentionally from heroic vanity. The subaltern voice in Beowulf manifests the hero’s egotism, but it is important to understand that named and unnamed warriors level charges of recklessness against Beowulf. The narrator’s own judgment of Beowulf is more circumspect. I have mentioned, for example, how the Fremu digression functions as the narrator’s oblique statement of

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Beowulf ’s growth into responsible kingship. It is crucially important to keep the distinction between the pagan inside and Christian outside, simply because the judgments made about Beowulf in his own world reflect a deliberate ambivalence. Collapsing the perspectives confounds the poet’s strategy. Hence, Beowulf ’s description, manna mildust leodum liðost

. . . wyruldcyninga ond monðwærust, ond lofgeornost (3180b–2b)

. . . among the kings in this world he was the mildest of men, the gentlest, the kindest to his people and the most desirous of praise.

issues from the mouths of his hearth-companions (“heorðgeneatas,” 3179b) and is subject to the dissembling that undercuts Beowulf ’s glory throughout. Readers who disregard the pessimistic view of Beowulf ’s motivations fail to appreciate the poet’s imitation of moral doubt in Beowulf ’s own universe. Offering no resolution to the ultimate fate of his pagan lords, the Beowulf poet makes reflection the vehicle of judgment. The subaltern views of social cohesion and benevolent leadership happen to coincide with the poet’s arguable “Christian” emphasis. Nevertheless, in the world of Beowulf the subaltern should be thought of as wholly secular (albeit Christianized), and any alignment between its values and arguable Christian resonances derive in all likelihood from the poet’s amelioration of heroic excess. The same position holds for Beowulf ’s actions, which may or may not be antagonistic to his subalterns. At times Beowulf ’s choices appear to clash with the expectations of the comitatus for security—a function of warrior moderation—but his actions turn out to be justifiable, at least to the audience. But if Beowulf recklessly confronts Grendel and Grendel’s mother, why does he survive? The poet implies that he survives because his enemies happen to be enemies of the eternal Christian God, the kin of Cain united in a cosmic feud against the Almighty. For the audience, this coherence strongly endorses Beowulf ’s righteousness as a divine avenger and legitimizes the monster fights in Beowulf ’s world on the grounds of moral authority.94 This divine validation recalls a curious and neglected parallel illuminating Grettir’s own heroic motivation. Like Beowulf, Grettir’s Saga looks

94 On the Grendelkin as literally demonic, see Orchard, Pride and Prodigies 39–45 and Russom “Center of Beowulf.”

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back to a pagan age, and its author situates Grettir’s actions relative to Christianity in the way Fred C. Robinson describes Beowulf ’s religious expression as conforming to anachronistic Christian precedents. Born prior to the Conversion in 999 AD, Grettir is quite certainly pagan but expresses no overt heathen (Odinic) identity separate from his fatalistic belligerence.95 He worships no god and utters no prayers. Until the introduction of Christianity to Iceland, Grettir expresses a retrospective Viking “heroism” judged by social custom, law, and (one presumes) an unstated moral pretense. In the post-Conversion setting, however, the sagaman makes Grettir’s significant feats coincide with Christianity, although Grettir remains ignorant of their moral valence. For example, the pagan Swede Glámr demands food during the Christmas fast, upon which he becomes possessed by a demon. When a priest is present, Glámr’s body cannot be found. Grettir defeats God’s enemy, then, although the audience alone appreciates the function of this narrative congruity. Grettir appears either uninterested in religion or ignorant of Glámr’s contempt for Christianity. Coincident moments between Grettir’s motivation and the furtherance of Christianity recur throughout the saga. When Snorri’s son promises to kill Grettir, Grettir remembers a past kindness and spares the gangly boy’s life. The fact that Snorri is a Christian priest is never said to motivate Grettir’s mercy. When two women cannot cross a flooding river, Grettir carries them. His aid is never attributed to their need to attend a feast day Mass, and in fact he stays behind and kills two trolls. When Grettir fails an ordeal to clear his name, the narrator excuses his violence by saying that the boy who incited Grettir was possessed by a demon. Like Beowulf, therefore, Grettir’s Saga expresses a discrete separation between the hero’s motivations and the audience’s perception of them. This unacknowledged Christianity may validate Grettir’s most significant fights in the same way it does Beowulf ’s against Grendel. Hroðgar, however, has a fatalistic interpretation of Beowulf ’s triumph. From his position, Beowulf survives because providence suffered him to survive, not by intervening in the combat but by engendering him, endowing him with profound strength, and bringing him to Heorot, as it were, to confront the Grendel plague. A fatalistic Dane, Hroðgar envisions a detached god whose intervention in the world approximates

95 On this peculiar dimension of Grettir’s coincidental Christianity see Orchard, Pride and Prodigies 153–5.

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providence but whose omniscience seems to enact deliverance. The simple reason why Grendel does not crush Beowulf is that Grendel has encountered a stronger force, in fact, the strongest force he has ever encountered. For Beowulf, Grendel’s death assures glory. To Hroðgar, however, Beowulf ’s victory looks like a god’s special protection for the Danes and, indeed, a god’s future special protection for Geats—as long as Beowulf does not continue to “tempt fate” by assuming ever greater risks until he meets his own predestined terminal force. In this way, Hroðgar elevates Beowulf ’s heroism, pointing it away from personal indulgence towards community protection. Yet the Christian audience perceives even more behind Beowulf ’s success. They understand that Beowulf is God’s agent of revenge and that, in some special circumstances, the nature of one’s enemy or the status of a conflict (revenge, say) legitimates glory-seeking, even if it appears excessive to the poem’s benighted onlookers. Of course, Beowulf cannot know about Grendel’s ancestry, but he can be taught to direct his ambition and undertake “righteous” deeds that coincidentally suit this ineffable “Christian” imperative. What I blandly call “righteous deeds” should be understood as Hroðgar understands them: for a hero, deeds that promote individual glory and imperil no one else; for a king, deeds that benefit the security of others, especially the tribe or nation. Beowulf ’s Dragon Fight: Responsible Kingship or Reckless Heroism? Part of the problem we have in decoding Beowulf ’s conduct, especially in the dragon fight, derives from his treatment by critics as a static character. He does not start out exemplary and remain so. The poem implicitly asserts Beowulf ’s progression to kingship as the cultivation of wisdom (i.e. restraint)—the consequence, to be sure, of the many digressions and exhortations, especially those made by Hroðgar. The old king indoctrinates Beowulf in the protocols of kingship passively, in the gracious behavior he himself exhibits, and actively, in the lessons of moderation and discretion he utters. One can only assume that Beowulf learns Hroðgar’s lessons of moderation, since his return to Geatland is marked by exceptional generosity and his rule by obvious prosperity. What happens later will challenge this ideal. Beowulf falls into three (or more) parts: 1. the fight with Grendel and Grendel’s mother; 2. the homecoming; 3. the dragon fight. All of the

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intradiegetic digressions appear in the first division, and these warn against excessive ambition in the quest for glory. Yet the homecoming affirms Beowulf ’s promise. The digression concerning Queen Fremu repeats the same expressions of venality used to describe Heremod, but Fremu’s reform under her husband Offa’s supervision conjures Beowulf ’s own rehabilitation in Denmark. Revealingly, Beowulf now praises Hondscioh’s valor, when before he never mentioned the dead thane, and his own generosity to Hygelac, as well as his declaration of loyalty, defy precedent. The narrator then moves swiftly to commemorate Beowulf ’s generous reign—and to introduce one final crisis, the dragon. Having achieved distinction as a liberal king and having defeated all his enemies, Beowulf faces a moral test in the dragon epilogue. OE oferhygd arguably constitutes the silent term by which his fight is evaluated as righteous or arrogant. An extraordinary coda, the dragon episode swings between evidence of recklessness and heroism in expression of the poet’s mannered ambivalence—just as it did in the Grendel section. Characteristically, however, the poet’s elaboration of Beowulf ’s potential oferhygd is deliberately inconclusive. He dodges, undercuts, and invalidates any position that can be formulated on the question of Beowulf ’s charge as a king versus that of his heroic ego—a significant reason why both Beowulf and the dragon must die. An authority’s judgment of oferhygd depends significantly on outcome, and “recklessness” only explains the hero’s death, and the nation’s jeopardy, if motivated by vanity. By fixing the boundary between courage and recklessness in the duties of Germanic kingship, therefore, Beowulf emphasizes ideal social contexts for a heroic prodigy—for which reason the poet sympathizes with Beowulf in a manner that simultaneously confounds his admiration. When Hroðgar establishes the mental contours of oferhygd in his “sermon,” we become immediately sensitized to Beowulf ’s future predicament in the dragon episode, especially because wlenco accounts for Hygelac’s death and oferhygd misled Heremod. Inquiry into Beowulf ’s possible oferhygd explains the poet’s enigmatic and paradoxical analysis of intent relative to kingship and heroism. The poet has laid out the signs of Beowulf ’s potential irresponsibility as reminiscent of his immoderate heroic wlenco, and opposed them to the gestures of his righteousness as a responsible protector of Geats. This strategy often generates frustrating contradictions that scholars typically account for by adopting one sense or the other of Beowulf ’s motivation. Beowulf is either honorable or ignoble, but not both. Because most readers resist a negative Beowulf,

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virtue trumps doubt, and the poet’s ethical symmetry is submerged. In the dragon fight, however, the narrator does not intend to relieve any of our doubts. What most bedevils readings of the dragon episode is the absence of any Christian horizon that previously guided the reception of Beowulf ’s fight against the Grendelkin. Symbolically, any dragon could represent evil generally, or the Satanic evil of Revelation, and in Beowulf at least, it seems clearly allied to insatiable greed and immoderate vengeance, the draconitas that Tolkien foresaw. Is this dragon therefore the enemy of God? Or, as the poet also proposes, is the dragon simply an animal with a correspondingly bestial disposition? It sniffs round the barrow like a dog, after all. We feel the loss of guidance at the conclusion of Beowulf because our self-conscious arbitration imitates the condition of the subject. In a moment of contemplation Beowulf justifies his attack on the dragon, yet we remain unsure whether the terms of his reflection validate the risk. Moreover, one should not confuse Beowulf ’s conduct in the dragon episode with his exemplary rule. Hygelac, we should recall, was a laudable king until he ventured to Frisia in search of glory. Despite the potentially negative sense of “lofgeornost,” therefore, the overall impression remains that Beowulf ruled well until one final ambiguous incident. The poet so carefully complicates Beowulf ’s motivation and so thoroughly disarms criticism of him that the poem appears to define the inflection point of socially compatible heroism. The most explicit criticism of Beowulf emerges when Wiglaf protests Beowulf ’s decision to fight the dragon. Beowulf has died by this time, but Wiglaf recalls that he and the other retainers tried to dissuade Beowulf from an attack: Oft sceall eorl monig anes willan wræc adreogan, swa us geworden is. Ne meahton we gelæran leofne þeoden, rices hyrde ræd ænigne, þæt he ne grette goldweard þone, lete hyne licgean, þær he longe wæs, wicum wunian oð woruldende. (3077a–83b) Many an earl must often suffer ruin for the desire of a single man, as has happened to us. We could not teach our dear prince, protector of the kingdom, any counsel that he not meet the gold-guardian, just let him lie where he had been for so long, dwell in the precincts until the world’s ending.

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Again, critics have undercut or undermotivated the statement because they see Beowulf as a figure whose virtues the poet applauds. For example, John Niles (following Klaeber) proposed that “anes willan” could mean “for the sake of one man” and that “wræc adreogan” really describes the present condition of grief. He would translate, “many an earl must often endure pain for the sake of one man.” Yet willa + genitive does not mean “for the sake of,” and wræc is what nations commonly endure from kings given to oferhygd. In fact, the signs of oferhygd as voiced in Hroðgar’s “sermon” pervade the dragon episode. In the case of Wiglaf ’s accusation, the casual reading is the right one: Wiglaf deplores Beowulf ’s decision, which seems to have jeopardized the nation’s defense. My view does not mean, however, that Wiglaf ’s position has to be correct, for the poet deliberately complicates our judgment of Beowulf ’s actions. The poet achieves this goal in large part through the curse on the treasure, about which Wiglaf can know nothing. Ignorant of the spell, Wiglaf cannot entertain the proposition that Beowulf died not from oferhygd but from the lingering effects of pagan witchcraft. Of course, not even the spell answers all the questions about Beowulf ’s motivation for fighting the dragon in the first place. The poet invokes the curse simply to compound the uncertainty over Beowulf ’s motivation, just as he had infused uncertainty into Beowulf ’s success against Grendel by an unknowable “historical” precedent: the cosmic feud between God and the descendants of Cain. The poet’s deliberate ambivalence explains a whole series of textual challenges in the dragon episode: God’s ability to lift the curse (was it lifted?), the claim that gold can easily “overcome” (“oferhigian,” 2766a) any man (greed?), the assertion that Beowulf “oferhogode” (“scorned,” 2345a) the dragon’s might (presumption?), the need to bring a warband but not to let them engage, the reason for the retainers’ flight. Once the vacillation between oferhygd and heroism is recognized, the poem is seen to encipher an irresolvable tension. While Wiglaf condemns Beowulf for fighting the dragon, his criticism is merely one observation highlighting Beowulf ’s potential oferhygd. Other accusations and exonerations derive from the circumstances and the narrator’s commentary. Taken together, the argument they manifest embodies the contrapuntalism that characterizes the poem’s implicit argumentation: Is the dragon a persistent or one-time threat? If a one-time threat, did Beowulf seek an unnecessary quarrel (“sohte searoniðas,” 3067a) out of pride? Or was vengeance called for? Is the

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dragon merely an animal, therefore, or is it consciously evil? Is Beowulf overconfident when he “scorns” to seek the dragon with an army? Doesn’t Beowulf show restraint when he wields an iron shield and refuses to enter the dragon’s lair? Is Beowulf seduced by the gold? If so, is it for himself or for his people? Does Beowulf unfairly involve his retainers in an impossible fight? Why would he bring them and make them stay in hiding? Does Beowulf thereby acknowledge that he may be endangering them unnecessarily? Do they need to fight for him in such a lopsided encounter? Does the dragon fight enable Wiglaf to achieve greater courage than he would have otherwise? Would any other man have done as well? Or does Wiglaf act because of loyal kinship? Does Beowulf die from the curse? If so, his death could not necessarily be attributed to oferhygd. But if God can lift the curse, could he then be said to die from oferhygd? Perhaps Beowulf merely dies because he was too strong and broke his sword. Or was his judgment poor when he hit the dragon’s head in the first place? The poet formulates these questions to guide reflection on Beowulf ’s potential oferhygd, but he also interposes other kinds of evidence for and against Beowulf ’s overconfidence. First, Beowulf justifies his decision to fight the dragon in a long meditation which suggests both lingering doubts and moral judgment. Beowulf likewise recalls Hygelac’s ruin on a foolhardy raid, which the narrator had earlier said was undertaken “for pride” (“for wlenco,” 1206a), and possibly prefigures his own motivation in fighting the dragon.96 Yet Beowulf ’s reprisal for Hygelac’s death reminds his men that even the foolhardy deserve vengeance. Or do they? This passage in particular harks back to Hroðgar’s warning that a succession of ever greater victories often leads to oferhygd. One at a time Beowulf recalls his successful battles in a way that makes him seem presumptuous. He concludes, “I ventured many wars in my youth, so will I seek out this feud and earn glory” (“Ic geneðde fela// guða on geogoðe;/gyt ic wylle, // . . . fæhðe secan//mærðu fremman” (2511b–14a). None of this evidence proves oferhygd, as the poet piles vagueness upon nuance in the dragon fight. To heighten the uncertainty he omits any coincident Christian overlay. While he does speak knowingly of the treasure’s origin and of the curse, he does not draw the dragon as God’s adversary, as he does with Grendel. Instead, he

96 On a possible historical context for this raid see the remarks in Storms, “Hygelac’s Raid.”

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invites us to regard the sniffing dragon either as a serpent or a Satanic enemy, as an intermittent danger or a chronic one, and by doing so qualifies Beowulf ’s motives as arguably righteous and just as arguably compromising. This reading of Beowulf ’s dragon fight has two significant advantages. First, it explains why the fight itself should be depicted so ambiguously. Wiglaf ’s criticism, Beowulf ’s doubts, the double death of Beowulf and his adversary, the eccentric detachment of twelve fighters, the anticipated extinction of the Geats, the magical curse, and the immolation of the vast treasure make little sense if the poet had proposed only a positive context. One would have to find reasons (as scholars have done) to dismiss the narrative elements that do not support a virtuous Beowulf. Yet I sense that this procedure represents exactly half the strategy intended by the Beowulf poet. The alternative view is to acknowledge the possibility that Beowulf expressed oferhygd and that his death resulted from reckless self-confidence. In this event the contrary case in favor of oferhygd and against Beowulf ’s virtue would need to be made. The second advantage conferred by reading a morally ambiguous Beowulf stems from the thematic unity it provides for the entire poem. In the poem’s first half Beowulf could be said to reveal a potentially harmful immoderation, which is suppressed through Hroðgar’s instruction. The dragon fight then poses the question whether Beowulf succumbs to the kingly reflex of excessive ambition called oferhygd when he confronts the dragon and dies. Yet it is important to recall that both portions of the poem defy certainty, that the limits of heroic excess are debated in these bivalent terms. Heroic Parallels The dual motivation that I see in Beowulf ’s dragon fight, the admixture of potential virtue and skepticism, sounds like an inconceivable poetic strategy. How could one manage the competing arguments for Beowulf ’s ambition and justify either? The answer is, while we are invited to assess the relative merits of Beowulf ’s decision to fight the dragon, we are not meant to reach any consensus about his motivation. Unprecedented? No. I claim that the Beowulf poet’s strategy occurs elsewhere in Old English heroic verse. Although there are only five heroic poems from pre-conquest England, two of them adopt the strategy of juxtaposing ambiguous moral states and inviting resolution.

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Like Beowulf, Battle of Maldon describes an old leader, “Earl” Byrhtnoð, taking a stand against a fiendish Viking enemy. His choices of fighting or buying off this horde closely resemble Beowulf ’s choices of engaging or ignoring the dragon. Furthermore, subalterns in Battle of Maldon stand in opposition to Byrhtnoð, whose men are arrogant, insouciant, or woefully unprepared to face the enemy. After Byrhtnoð’s death the retainers act heroically like Wiglaf or gutlessly like the “shirkers” in Beowulf. Even the specter of national calamity ensues from the failed Maldon campaign, for the English faced years of Viking onslaughts and extortion afterwards. I would be reluctant to allege that the Maldon poet knew Beowulf, but the situational parallels suggest to me that his models were not obviously Scandinavian drápur. A problem in Maldon criticism has always been the treatment of an ancient warband ethic described in Tacitus’s Germania: the case of “men dying for their lord.” The willingness to die for one’s fallen lord is unmotivated in Tacitus, and in Maldon it has always been deemed both sacrificial and derivative of the obligation for vengeance. For reasons of homology scholars have assumed that Scandinavian analogues, especially in court poems called drápur, influenced the tradition of warrior sacrifice in Maldon. They may be right that certain details of “men dying with their lord” come from Norse traditions, but the trope itself functions in Beowulf ’s dragon fight. I shall argue that the ethic of “dying with one’s lord” motivates Wiglaf, who expects to face certain death alongside his own lord, Beowulf. Wiglaf ’s intervention is no rescue. One verbal parallel between Maldon and Beowulf has always stood out. Readers will recall that Byrhtnoð is said to suffer from “ofermod,” a term parallel in morphology to OE oferhygd.97 Scholars have had trouble defining OE ofermod in Maldon, and definitions range from “highmindedness” to “pride.” The natural impulse to translate “ofermod” in a positive sense and exonerate Byrhtnoð comes from his apparent Christian humility (so argued), the praise he receives from the narrator and characters, and the sacrifice of his men. Yet as in Beowulf internal contradictions defy any positive meaning for the term. Byrhtnoð seems to act like a glory-seeking warrior rather than a king—or at least a king’s

97 On the apparent interchangeability of oferhygd and ofermod, see the table following page 140 in Schabram, where the glosses to superbia in the Anglo-Saxon psalters are collated.

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ealdormonn. Throwing his victory open to God’s intervention, in fact, evokes the whole context of the cursed treasure in Beowulf: has God lifted the curse and still made Beowulf lose his life? Similarly, why has God bestowed victory on pagan Vikings and death on the Christian Byrhtnoð? Byrhtnoð’s “mistake” in generalship does not, however, compromise his long and successful career, although it does illustrate the manner of his death. A major confusion in the ofermod complex comes from Viking deceit. It might be said that they gull Byrhtnoð into a state of ofermod, for which reason he might be exonerated. For Beowulf the broken sword, the heathen curse, or the failure of his men might function in just this way, explaining why Beowulf himself might not be thoroughly guilty of oferhygd. Accusations and exonerations are so carefully managed in both poems that the obfuscation of ethical motivation must represent a prominent tradition of Anglo-Saxon heroic verse. Beowulf ’s Doom: Reflections on the Final Achievement of a Good King Only a potentially negative Beowulf is suggested in this book, for the Beowulf poet has engineered a deliberate equivocacy—an indeterminate text in Köberl’s parlance. It has seemed to me that others may have observed the same potential in other ways. For example, in an article on narrative technique in Beowulf Michael Lapidge has reasoned that “knowledge . . . is always a matter of retrospection and re-interpretation.”98 “There is no doubt,” he continues, “that the poet intended the audience of the poem to reflect, retroactively, on the narrated events and their relationships during the course of the telling.”99 While Lapidge connects the distinction between “physical perception and mental realisation” to an “awareness of transience,”100 I prefer to see it as one of ethical judgment. The Beowulf poet’s idiosyncratic narrative style, especially the tendency to interweave flashback and anticipation, reflects his aim to manifest conduct and motivation comparable to Beowulf ’s. The characters’ realization of transience imitates their deliberation: why should malevolence occur, and what can be done about it? How do

98 99 100

Lapidge, “Beowulf and Perception” 87. Ibid. 88. Ibid. 87.

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men’s acts influence mutability? Andrew Galloway has posed this same question perceptively in an article emphasizing the “varieties of choice” in Beowulf. In a published reply to comments made on his paper, he explained his intention “to trace the slippage between ideas of perception and choice in a number of medieval and ancient languages and to note that although in some cases a root sense of ‘perceive’ in words for ‘choice’ explains this . . . in other cases one must consider the way concepts of choosing and perceiving intermix.”101 In his article, Galloway demonstrates how anomalous it is that choice is dramatized in Beowulf, for, while surviving heroic literature reveals choice, it rarely discloses the mental process of choosing. Galloway attributes this idiosyncracy to Christian attitudes concerning moral deliberation: It is precisely by means of what seems to us to be choice in the political realm that Beowulf offers a mediation between the heroic and the devotional traditions of choice, though it is also in this middle range that choice is most difficult and full of risk, both to achieve and to judge. This middle range bridges inner ethical struggles with their contexts and consequences in the social world. The poem demonstrates the interaction of context, choice and consequence rather than a flatly causal relation among them.102

For Galloway, volition (the enactment of choice) drives the poem’s contemplative polarity, and his statement that “with this perspective on choice, Beowulf stands in a generically and ethically complicated position”103 reflects exactly my own view of the poem, with one exception. For me, the choices facing Beowulf do not necessarily emerge from compelling political contexts but rather from moral distinctions made about heroic motivation. The right kind of attitude (the mechanism of volition) always fosters the right kind of choice, which in turn drives political success in the world of the poem. The delicate and sometimes imperceptible boundary between moderation and recklessness represents the moral crux by which Beowulf ’s choices ought to be judged. The ambiguity of motivation surrounding Beowulf results from deducing his motivation only from his choices rather than from the poet’s omniscient judgment. We must perceive Beowulf ’s deeds, hear the opinions of other characters, and determine Beowulf ’s motivation and potential. This process of judgment of course arises from Beowulf ’s preeminence, 101 102 103

Galloway et al. 311. Galloway 203. Ibid. 204.

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his implicit depiction as the greatest hero-king of his age and therefore most prone to a breach of conscience related to wlenco. Convincing evidence of Beowulf ’s moderation can be found, but I will spend little time rehearsing Beowulf ’s virtues, so thoroughly and convincingly have they been expressed. Instead, I show first that excessive ambition could compromise Beowulf ’s presumed virtue, second that elements of Old English wisdom poetry emphasize Beowulf ’s potential recklessness, third that Hroðgar works to suppress any potential faults deriving from immoderation, and fourth that during the dragon fight Beowulf may have relapsed into the ambition he repressed under Hroðgar’s tuition. Criticisms of Beowulf are made in the digressions which act as commentaries or exempla. By analogous story Beowulf is counseled to remember the duty he has towards the warband and, by extension, the tribe or nation. Kings defend, expand, and rule nations by the strength of a warband, and the soldier’s competition with his fellow warrior should not be extended into kingship, where lavish generosity yields power. Sometimes a named critic like Hunferð, but most often anonymous poets or commentators, admonish Beowulf for the kind of leadership that could endanger the group. Extraordinary, if not actually unique in Old English poetry, is the manifestation of what I designate the “subaltern” voice, the expression of the ordinary soldier or warband member. In short, my argument expresses a straightforward trajectory: the emergence into responsible kingship of a man perhaps expressing the incipient traits of a wrecca, and his potential downfall in the re-appearance of the heroic failing he once arguably controlled. If my argument for Beowulf has a more generous context, it will be found in heroic literature generally, in poems like Maldon or the Iliad. One appreciates in the Iliad the moral bivalence of martial “heroism” in the figure of Achilles. He earns glory, admittedly, but at the price of any moral respectability. Not only do multitudes of Greeks have to die for Achilles’ rage, but Patroclus also falls in an unanticipated reaction to Achilles’ defiance. Parallels could be made between Achilles’ potential ate and Beowulf ’s potential oferhygd. The reality is that heroic poetry is not about “heroes” in the modern sense but about ambitious men trying to achieve the glory of enduring reputation in a fatalistic world. As men they are immune neither to criticism nor to doubt. Wisdom curbs their otherwise reckless ambition and blunts the edgy rivalry they convey at the expense of reason and, more practically, group cohesion. The heroic character therefore challenges moral virtue, both in the Germanic secular sense and in the Christian one. It would

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be hard to doubt, in fact, that Beowulf ’s pagan virtue is not somehow influenced or molded by Christian ideals. To a Christian the kind of pagan moral conflict that obsessed the Germanic peoples looks more like degeneracy than probity, as Bertha S. Phillpotts observed over seventy years ago: “Fame is for the man who has the courage to choose: whether he chooses resistance to the uttermost against hopeless physical odds, knowing that his death is ordained, or whether he chooses one course rather than another of two that are hateful to him, and makes something magnificent of it by a single-minded pursuit of it.”104 The Beowulf poet has manipulated a literary paradigm and depicted a character that balances the irrational with the humane. The division between the two ideals, personal secular glory and the rule of men, clash in Beowulf ’s competing motivations, and the anxiety felt for his status as a potential wrecca and as a potential tyrant reflects the poet’s aim to represent a Germanic exemplar. Beowulf chooses the kind of fame associated with kingship, and for the poet earns a kind of secular glory thought secondary in the heroic setting but foremost among those interested in deeds of statecraft. Complex, interconnected, and certainly chaotic attitudes of individual-versus-collective—of ambitionversus-restraint—separate the two spheres.

104

Phillpotts, “Wyrd and Providence” 6.

CHAPTER ONE

THE WISDOM CONTEXT OF THE SIGEMUND-HEREMOD AND HUNFERÐ DIGRESSIONS I examine two episodes in this chapter. The Sigemund-Heremod digression, I speculate, predicts Beowulf ’s destiny by describing two paths for the potential wrecca that Beowulf represents. Here I must be scrupulous in saying that darker traits some characters detect in Beowulf are merely implied through comparisons to Sigemund and Heremod, since the poet aims for uncertainty. As seen from the perspective of the anonymous poet “mindful of gidd,” Beowulf could take Sigemund’s path, glorious but mostly solitary and full of dark suspicions, or Heremod’s path, which leads to tyranny and national annihilation. Sigemund’s behavior is distinguished by successes like Beowulf ’s: encounters with men and monsters, including a dragon. But the ambiguity surrounding Sigemund’s “fyrene” or “crimes,” and especially the notable silence on the notorious incest central to the Volsung legend make us wonder whether Beowulf has the potential for such deplorable behavior. Notwithstanding these possible faults (they are as deliberately vague as Beowulf ’s), Sigemund, I sense, is depicted as an exile-paragon whose conduct is worthy of emulation. One proviso stands out. The anonymous scop specifically stresses that Sigemund’s “nefa” Fitela does not accompany him to the dragon fight. Supreme achievements (one might call them “reckless”) like the dragon-slaying presumably require a solo action. Sigemund’s venture therefore seems creditable for a wrecca, yet it is exactly what Heremod does not do. The singer makes clear that Heremod’s behavior should be avoided, but in telling the story of a king-turned-wrecca, he suggests that Beowulf has the potential to be like Heremod. This brief interlude in the narrative apostrophizes the question of Beowulf ’s potentially vainglorious motivation explored in Hunferð’s challenge. As Hroðgar’s þyle, Hunferð would have taught the etiquette of wisdom, especially the kind of self-restraint or moderation so often advocated in Old English “wisdom literature.” New research on the office of þyle enables us to theorize that intricate verbal features of Beowulf ’s retort to Hunferð parody the language of native wisdom

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found in poems like Precepts and Vainglory. These poems are generally considered “monastic,” or to derive from Christian teachings, but their relevance to Beowulf implies that wisdom verse might just be native. Judging from the themes of such wisdom poetry—pride, reticence, and moral behavior individually and in the warband—native “wisdom” could be easily adapted to Christian teachings. This is not obviously true of the Old English maxims, say, but Precepts, Vainglory, and elements of The Wanderer and The Seafarer detail modesty perfectly in keeping with heroic tradition, at least as it is presented in Beowulf. For a warrior, this humility approximates self-awareness and moderation in one’s enterprises. “Pride” is zealously discouraged, “dignity” encouraged. For a king, humility transcends self-awareness, becoming responsibility for the group: the family, warband, tribe, etc. From an examination of these poems and related models in the Scandinavian tradition, we can deduce what Hunferð honestly thinks of Beowulf: he is a conceited boaster. Here I must emphasize that the evidence does not validate Hunferð’s opinion of Beowulf—but neither is it invalidated. The poet imparts a balanced view of Beowulf ’s motivation, which lies open to scrutiny from the internal and external audiences. Our confidence in Hunferð’s objection is compromised by his own jealousy, of course, but Beowulf ’s rhetoric still seems excessively malevolent. Yet ever since Carol Clover’s eminent paper on the flyting context of the Hunferð episode,1 critics have wanted to validate Beowulf ’s speech because he has “won” the debate. The victory may be secure, but in re-visiting the flyting evidence in Scandinavian sources, I find reason to believe that Beowulf ’s moral position is not so clearcut. First, combatants in the flyting disputes often betray the fierce temperament of mercenaries, and the winner is often the more vehement. From another perspective, the flyting winner might be called a dogmatic troublemaker. Furthermore, the disputes themselves pivot on identifiable but dubious “moral” categories: “action vs. talk, hard life vs. soft life, adventurer vs. stay-at-home.”2 In heroic terms, “action,” the “hard life,” and “adventure” always trump “talk,” even when “action” might be barbaric or reckless. By these terms, “moderation,” even for a proven warrior, could elicit blame. This catch-22 exactly reflects Beowulf ’s indeterminate virtue, since the flyting commends

1 2

“Unferþ Episode.” Ibid. 454.

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action, not prudence. Hence, while Beowulf manages to shame Hunferð into silence, his exaggerated put-down compromises our confidence in Beowulf ’s generous motivation. I say “exaggerated” because a new model of flyting oratory I propose here betrays how Beowulf viciously distorts the “facts” of Hunferð’s kin-killing. And yet, in keeping with the poet’s deliberate ambiguity—the subtle effect of his contrapuntalism—Beowulf might be said to express the humility revealed earlier in his discourse with the coast-warden. Arguments will be made on both sides of the proposition. The Exploits of Sigemund In the Sigemund-Heremod digression Hroðgar’s nobleman (“cyninges þegn,” 867b) narrates the stories of the legendary Germanic hero Sigemund and the equally legendary but reckless Danish king Heremod on the morning after Beowulf overcomes Grendel. This anonymous thane is said to be “laden with boasts” (“gilphlæden,” 868a), “mindful of gidd ” (“gidda gemyndig,” 868b), and familiar with ancient tales (“ealdgesegena,” 869b): prepared to boast about Beowulf ’s feats, one assumes, drawing on legendary figures in the mode of comparison.3 Labeled a “spel” or “narrative,” the Sigemund/Heremod digression itself cannot with certainty be designated a gidd, and it appears, moreover, to be “summarized” in the poet-narrator’s voice.4 In other words, the story 3 The warrior who recites the Sigemund-Heremod digression found “another mode of expression bound by truth” (“word oþer fand//soðe gebunden,” 870b–1a). Interpreting these lines means solving a semantic ambiguity: the long-stem neuter monosyllable “word” has an endingless plural, yet the forms of oþer and gebunden are singular. Not all translators have interpreted the phrase “he found other words bound by truth,” as Klaeber acknowledges. Klaeber himself thought that “words truly bound” (he interpreted soðe as adverbial) referred to alliterative conventions (Beowulf 158, reaffirmed in Klaeber’s Beowulf, note to lines 870b–1), and even George Jack’s recent edition proposes “[he] composed a new poem correctly linked in meter” (78; see Stanley, “Beowulf ” 157; Opland 458). These half-lines could be construed in reference to the “ealdgesegena,” a store of legend appropriated to the present circumstances. Stanley acknowledges that this view is rejected by Klaeber and Else von Schaubert: “there is nothing that might lead one to the view that old traditions in new words represent an ideal among the Anglo-Saxons” (Stanley, “Beowulf ” 157). 4 While Howlett represents the spell as a distinct genre in Beowulf (as indeed it may be), the narrator suggests that this “spel” served as a gidd for the Danes. The encomiast uses the expression “wordum wrixlan” to describe his mode of narration, and the expression varies “wrecan . . . spel.” OE wrixlan means “to stir, scramble, mix,” and it has been taken to indicate the appositive style, in which half-lines amplify each other

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heard by the audience is not undeniably the fictional one heard by the retainers in the world of the text. Furthermore, when Hroðgar brings up the story of Heremod a second time in his “sermon,” he specifically calls it a gidd: Ðu þe lær be þon, gumcyste ongit; ic þis gid be þe awræc wintrum frod. (1722b–24a) Teach yourself by this; perceive the virtue of a man. Wise in years I have recited this gidd about you.

Hroðgar claims, “I have recited this gidd about you” or “in respect to you,” not “for your benefit,” as many translators say.5 On account of this recapitulation some commonalities between the two episodes might be discernible, and I shall draw on both in my discussion of Heremod. In my view, the þegn who commemorates Beowulf ’s deeds analogizes the hero’s accomplishments by interweaving a recent happening into the context of legendary narrative. In the blandest terms, the story of Sigemund appears to ground Beowulf in the universal context of Germanic heroism. Adrien Bonjour addressed the Sigemund/Heremod digression in 1950, reaffirming Hoops’ opinion that the whole passage summarized a single “lay” in honor of Beowulf. Bonjour regarded the moment as a “consecration,” asserting that each narrative encodes “a parallelism and a contrast, partly implicit, partly explicit, and not devoid of a slight dramatic irony.”6 Sigemund’s role as a dragon-slayer predicts Beowulf ’s future, although Bonjour emphasized Sigemund’s other exploits as a giant-killer, interpreting “hæfdon eal fela/eotena cynnes//sweordum gesæged” (883a–4a) in the manner of “they had utterly dispatched many kinds of giants by swords.”7 The irony, of course, materializes in Beowulf ’s failure to live long enough to enjoy his treasure.8 Bonjour suggests both “immediate” and “anticipatory” functions for the Heremod digression as well:

in variation. On the punctuation of this passage, see Stanley, “Notes on Old English Poetry” 330–4. 5 A close parallel can be found in The Wife’s Lament: “Ic þis giedd wrece/bi me ful geomorre” (1) or “I recite this gidd about myself, fully wretched.” 6 Digressions 47. 7 Ibid. 8 On the grounds that Beowulf does not belong to the same class of ancient heroes represented by Sigemund, Köberl suggests that Beowulf cannot be expected to dispatch his dragon alone (Indeterminacy 104–14).

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Here the ‘immediate’ purpose of the parallel is the reference to Heremod’s former strength and courage (‘eafoð ond ellen’)—in which he doubtless matched the greatest heroes—the anticipatory part is that his sorrowful end was not to be Beowulf ’s lot.9

For Bonjour Beowulf ’s future appears to hold neither fame nor infamy, leaving us disappointed that Beowulf did not achieve Sigemund’s status and relieved that he avoided Heremod’s fate. Beowulf scholars have almost unanimously adopted Bonjour’s position, deeming Sigemund glorious, in contrast to Heremod, a sadistic tyrant. Clemoes, for example, consistently praises Sigemund’s “famous deeds” and faults Heremod’s “notorious crimes.”10 Fred C. Robinson maintains that Sigemund’s successes are paradigmatic of Beowulf ’s, whereas Heremod’s are not. In celebration of Beowulf ’s deeds, Robinson and others find Heremod an unworthy standard.11 R. Barton Palmer calls Heremod’s behavior the “end-product of a transformation which is the mirror image of Beowulf ’s.”12 Nevertheless, Joseph Harris makes the point that Norse panegyrics that might be compared to this passage of Beowulf (“Ragnarsdrápa,” “Haustlöng,” “Eiriksmál,” “Hákonarmál,” “Hyndluljóð,” and “Sigurðardrápa”) have no contrasting archetypes.13 In fact, Scandinavian sources link Sigmundr and Hermóðr consistently but not in obvious contrast. In “Hyndluljóð” both men receive weapons from Óðinn, Sigmundr a sword and Hermóðr a byrnie and helm.14 H. M. Chadwick concluded that both figures were celebrated in Odinic warrior cults.15 In Eyvindr Finnsson’s “Eiriksmál” Sigmundr and Sinfjötli are said to welcome the slain at Valhöll, whereas in “Hákonarmál”—allegedly derivative of “Eiriksmál”—Hermóðr and Bragi perform the same function.16 From this connection Chadwick concluded: “As

Digressions 48. Clemoes, Thought and Language 195; Stanley, “Narrative Art” 175. 11 Chickering, Dual Language Edition 318; Bandy 243; Malone, “Coming Back” 1296 (“complete opposites”). 12 Palmer 16. 13 “Beowulf in Literary History” 20. 14 See also Jess H. Jackson; Neckel and Kuhn 288 (str. 2): Biðiom Heriaföðr í hugom sitia! Hann geldr oc gefr gull verðugom; gaf hann Hermóði hiálm oc brynio, enn Sigmundi sverð at þiggia. Let us pray to the Father of Hosts that he keep us in mind. He gives and grants gold to servants. He gave helm and mailcoat to Hermóðr, and Sigmundr received a sword. 15 H. Munro Chadwick, Cult 51–2; Ryan 476–7; the idea is developed in North, Heathen Gods 102, 181 and passim. 16 Chambers, Beowulf 91. The Fagrskinna scribe acknowledged the indebtedness, a 9

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the former poem [“Hákonarmál”] is modelled on the latter, this fact tells decidedly against the view that the association of Hermóðr and Sigmundr is merely accidental.”17 The heroes share traits that earn them both a place at Valhöll, where they appear to be leading residents! In light of such close literary affinities, perhaps the Beowulf poet considers Sigemund and Heremod to express the same identity in different social environments. Sigemund satisfies his reckless ambition in killing a dragon, whereas Heremod takes the route of warrior-king and enlists his nation in support of ambitions identical to Sigemund’s. The offensively raw Sigemund legend as told in Scandinavian sources may differ from the presumably “sanitized” version transmitted in Beowulf, but M. S. Griffith has reasoned that the Beowulf poet knew the story in something like its later form.18 He argues that Sigemund and Beowulf actually deviate in temperament, since Sigemund’s exploits publicize some disreputable aspects of heroic character. By contrast, the actions of Griffith’s Beowulf square with the pseudo-Christian decency that the poet fabricates. While the language of the Beowulf passage is telegraphic (perhaps because it belongs to the narrator’s summary of the warrior’s recitation), Griffith suspects Sigemund’s moral ambiguity. He presents some evidence of a negative Sigemund as definitive and some as conceivable, but because of protests recently voiced by Fred C. Robinson and because of my own position on Beowulf,19 I will present all of his cases as conceivable but not definitive. The idea is that, just as Beowulf expresses a morally indeterminate ambition, Sigemund can be seen to express equivocal virtues that demand reflection as potentially reckless. Nevertheless, Sigemund still exhibits a prototypical heroism that Beowulf should emulate if he would earn fame like Sigemund’s. Later Scandinavian sources lead us to quarry the Sigemund digression for evidence of Sigemund’s ambivalent heroism. In one of Griffith’s examples, the secg tells “whatever” (“welhwylc,” 874b) he has heard, main reason why Eyvindr is thought to have earned the moniker “Skáldaspillir” or “The Plagiarist.” 17 Origin 139 note 2. From “Eiríksmál”: “Sigmundr oc Sinfiatli,/risit snarlega/oc gangit i gongu grame” (“Sigmund and Sinfjötli, rise quickly and greet the warrior at the entry”; Finnur Jónsson vol. 1.1, p. 175); from “Hákonarmál”: “Hermoðr ok bragi,/qvað hroptatyr/gangit i gögn grami . . .” (“ ‘Hermóðr and Bragi’, says Óðinn, ‘greet the warrior at the entry’; ibid., vol. 1, pp. 66–7.) On the connection between “Eiríksmál” and “Hákonarmál,” see Marold. 18 Some additional evidence for knowledge of the dragon-slaying may come from Aethicus Ister’s Cosmographia; see Alan K. Brown 442–3. 19 Robinson, “Sigemund’s fæhðe ond fyrena.”

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including “many unspeakable things . . . feud and crimes” (876b, 879a).20 Fred C. Robinson objects to the supposititious translation “crimes” for “fyrena,”21 but the pejorative sense “sin” is available and contextually suitable. Deliberate or unintended violence apparently characterizes wreccan like Sigemund. In fact, it may be their defining characteristic. My examination of OE wrecca (below) shows the identical admixture of violence and eminence. For Griffith, Sigemund’s incest with his sister Signý may be suggested in the subtle connotations of OE nefa, perhaps “influenced by late Latin nepos in the sense of ‘illegitimate son (especially of an ecclesiastic).’ ”22 In Norse legend Sigmundr’s sister Signý conceives Sinfjötli (= OE Fitela) with her brother as a hoped-for avenger on Signý’s husband, Siggeir, slayer of all her brothers except Sigmundr. One wonders not whether the Anglo-Saxons knew about the incest, but why they should not know of it. The oversight seems pointed. Sigemund’s exploits are called ellendæd (876a, 900a), his travels (and, by extension, his reputation) are widespread. Griffith finds reason to think that Sigemund’s ellendæd are “brazen deeds” rather than “bold” ones. When compared to Beowulf ’s dragon-slaying, Sigemund’s own (an “audacious act”: “frecne dæde,” 889a) shares in multiple equivocacies: the secular “glory” (“dom,” 885b) earned by such a venture, the hero’s potential for recklessness, the scandal of greed (plundering the treasure “selfes dome” or “on his own terms,” 895a).23 Finally, 20 On this collocation, see Kahrl 192. Kahrl alleges that feuds have a bivalent character depending on motivation: “The distinction is that which we regularly make between the reckless courage of the criminal who has abandoned all hope and whose actions are purely selfish [i.e. Grendel], and the selfless courage of the hero who places the good he is defending before his instinct for self-preservation [i.e. Beowulf ]” (191). 21 In “Sigemund’s fæhðe ond fyrena” Robinson says that “sufferings” might be as secure a rendering as “crimes” for “fyrena.” Although his translation “extreme need” for “fyrenðearfe” (Beowulf 14b) and for “firinum tharf ” in Heliand 204 calls to mind the Modern English usage “I have a terrible [extreme] thirst,” Robinson is ultimately right. There is no reason for these terms to be unequivocally pejorative, but they can raise doubts about Sigemund’s behavior. Even by Robinson’s reasoning, “fæhðe ond fyrene” in Beowulf 2480a, descriptive of the “suffering caused by Ongentheow when he attacked the Geatas” (205), still refers to an enemy’s unexpected, and possibly unjustified, onslaught. 22 The Latin influence is so slight as to be unlikely, and Robinson raises yet another objection (“Sigemund’s fæhðe ond fyrena” 202). 23 The expression “selfes dome” (“agen dom,” “an dom,” etc.) and the concept of self-judgment (terminating a feud through a payment assessed by oneself or one’s allies) occur sporadically in Old English verse, and three times in Beowulf. Yet the concept in Beowulf, according to Mezger, “shows the least degree of relationship to the ancient institution of self-judgment (109). One wonders whether the poet pretends that a “wronged” Sigemund is entitled to vengeance. Sigemund and Fitela are also said to

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there is the problem of Sigemund’s status as a wrecca, the most famous examples of which are Lucifer and Cain. Sigemund may express an exile’s misery and aggression, but Griffith denies that Beowulf could ever be designated a wrecca like Sigemund. Overall, a plausible case could be mounted for Sigemund’s potentially equivocal virtue. Griffith claims, however, that Sigemund actually betrays a dubious Germanic morality, which, he asserts, differs from Beowulf ’s unequivocal rectitude. The poet, he alleges, has deliberately under-reported or camouflaged Sigemund’s offenses to distinguish Beowulf as a secular pre-Christian (“a noble pagan”). For this reason Griffith thinks that Beowulf and Sigemund are subtly contrasted in the episode. The Rapacious King Heremod Griffith’s article does not treat Heremod, who is just as intrepid as Sigemund but more obviously detestable. Danish and Anglo-Saxon genealogies suggest that Heremod could have been Scyld’s immediate ancestor. In some discussions Heremod has been connected to the figure Lotherus, mentioned in Saxo’s Historia Danorum as the father of Scyld.24 Had Heremod’s death followed a time of interminable national warfare, as I theorize, it would explain the Danes’ “fyrenðearfe” (“terrible need,” 14b) right before Scyld’s advent. Being “aldorlease//lange hwile” or “without a king for a long time” (15b–16a) could be considered a dire misery, but the actions of a despot who brought ruin on his population might answer the condition of “terrible need” even better. One must always bear in mind the aptness of Heremod’s name, not “War-Minded” per se but “Army-Minded.”25

lay low a number of “eoten,” which Griffith is disposed to translate “Jute” but which I think means either “enemy” or “giant” (below, pp. 163–6). Griffith asks whether Sigemund’s enemies were human (i.e. Jutes) and therefore “innocent,” but the dual sense of OE eoten still confirms the ambivalence Griffith attends in the passage. 24 Chambers calls it a “close parallel” but he equivocates: “assuming the stories of Lother and Heremod to be different stories of the same original . . .” (Beowulf 90). On the connection between Lotherus and Heremod, see Sievers 175–80. Meaney 11 ff. offers authoritative analyses of the genealogical evidence and onomastic equivalences. 25 Björkman 63–5; Robinson, “Significance of Names” 51–2; Orchard, Pride and Prodigies 49 (“war-spirit”). In emphasizing Heremod’s “pugnacious, cruel disposition” (51), Robinson seems to accept Karl Müllenhoff’s gloss “kriegerischer Mut” or “warminded” (Beovulf 51).

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Heremod’s viciousness is paralleled in Saxo’s account of King Lotherus, who “was no more tolerant as a king than he was as a soldier” (“sed nec Lotherus tolerabiliorem regem quam militem egit”).26 Lotherus savagely killed his own high-born men or robbed them—exactly as Hroðgar alleges Heremod did in Beowulf:27 . . . siquidem illustrissimum quemque uita aut opibus spoliare, patriamque bonis ciuibus uacuefacere probitatis loco duxit, regni emulos ratus, quos nobilitate pares habuerat. Indeed, for reasons of security he undertook to despoil the most illustrious men of life or riches, and to empty his homeland of its leading citizens. He judged those whom he had held equal in rank to be enemies of the state.

In Beowulf Heremod kills his own beodgeneatas (“table-companions,” 1713b), his eaxlgesteallan (“men stationed with him shoulder-to-shoulder,” 1714a). He did not bestow rings on the Danes (1719b–20a). The Lotherus story even echoes the fratricidal theme of Beowulf, since Lotherus dispossesses his modest brother “Humblus” to gain the throne. Humblus learns to accept his loss of honor as a blessing (“beneficio”), observing that there is more splendor but less security in a king’s hall than in a fisherman’s hovel.28 While Sievers’ summary of the Lotherus/ Heremod story, adopted by Chambers, includes a “weakling” elder brother and deposed king, the narrative contrast in Saxo emphasizes the humble and the arrogant. More specifically, Saxo’s aperçu that Lotherus “was no more tolerant as a king than he was as a soldier” not only imparts how to read the Sigemund/Heremod digression but also highlights the substance of Beowulf as a work obsessed with the incompatibility of heroism and kingship.29

Holder 11. The story itself clarifies the sense of comp. adj. tolerabilior, which can mean either “tolerable” or “tolerant.” 27 Ibid. 28 Ibid.: “documentum hominibus prebuit, ut plus splendoris, ita minus securitatis aulis quam tuguriis inesse.” 29 Other examples of the arrogant king can be found in Anglo-Saxon sources, the first Iugurtha, as described in the “Ælfredian” Orosius (see Stanley, “Geoweorþa” 332–5). Another may be represented by Sigebryht deposed by Cynewulf in the 755 Chronicle entry. A third is Osred I of Northumbria, who reigned ca. 705–716 (see Whitelock, “Poetry and the Historian” 77–8). Finally, the poet named “Deor” expresses sympathetic misery with the men whose lived under the tyrant Ermanaric (lines 21a–7b). 26

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By themselves the parallels from Germanic literature do not explain why a Danish thane would compare Beowulf either to Sigemund or Heremod right after Beowulf has killed Grendel. Yet the alleged function of historical analogies anticipates the comparison. The singer’s hearers, the inhabitants of Beowulf ’s world, would detect an implicit application to Beowulf of the Sigemund/Heremod exempla. While Griffith admirably draws together the verbal parallels in depictions of Sigemund and Beowulf, his argument contextualizes the digression in the poem as a whole, and not at this single narrative moment. It is undeniably true that Beowulf ’s dragon fight differs from Sigemund’s, but the observation is much less relevant for the Danes, since only the Beowulf poet’s audience, and not the unidentified singer, can discern that future. Griffith concludes, Though the poem is set in the pagan past, the poet does not see his hero as a pagan; his deeds are done in this past, but his nature is not entirely of it. He is a noble pagan, a sublimation of this past, the past as the poet dreams it might at best have been.30

But what function does the episode serve for these Danes, Geats, and guests commemorating Beowulf ’s victory? What is the thane’s objective in telling the Danes this story and not another? Like so many other digressions in Beowulf, the stories of Sigemund and Heremod evaluate Beowulf ’s success against Grendel and predict his fate. For the singer Beowulf resembles both Sigemund and Heremod in conviction and “potential” as a precocious champion. Clearly, the potential in Heremod’s behavior is as negative as it is prodigious—as much as critics might be dismayed to hear it. Beowulf ’s Future Foretold Let us first consider Sigemund’s unquestionable glory. The narrator specifies that Sigemund’s companion Fitela participated in and witnessed Sigemund’s ellendæd, strange encounters (“uncuþes fela,” 876b), conflicts, and wide travels—his “fæhðe ond fyrena,” as it were. They were, the thane remarks, “necessary comrades in every hostility” (“æt niða gehwam/nydgesteallan,” 882a–b), hence indispensable to each other

30

Griffith 40.

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except in the case of the dragon. The poet not merely conveys but emphasizes the remarkable technicality that Sigemund fought a dragon alone: “ana geneðde//frecne dæde,/ne wæs him Fitela mid” (“he ventured an audacious deed alone; Fitela was not with him,” 888b–89b). Verse 889b is highly unusual, since it must bear stress on “Fitela” and “mid,” a circumstance which accents the importance of Sigemund’s solo venture.31 The secg could be suggesting, of course, that Sigemund earned the greatest honor when he fought the dragon single-handed in this dangerous attack. A second possibility also seems feasible, that Sigemund accomplished his deed without risking Fitela, his otherwise indispensable comrade, in a possibly disastrous undertaking. For all his theoretical failings, Sigemund concedes the liability of his nefa, who is without question the subordinate partner in Sigemund’s adventures. From this story Beowulf learns one trait that will make him an exemplary champion: not to involve other, less capable men, in his most reckless encounters. This trait, it turns out, is especially important for leaders. The absence of Fitela in Sigemund’s dragon fight documents the thematic relevance of Heremod’s tale as one of two possible futures for Beowulf: “scrupulous” heroism or infamy. Saxo ultimately supplies a clue to understanding the episode. When Heremod became king, he failed to put aside the soldier and became “tyrannical” because he could not, or would not, restrain his ambition (the “arrogance” Saxo speaks of ) and acknowledge a duty to his subalterns. Heremod fails to confront the limitations of his men dependent on their loyalty. This special kind of “tyranny”—a king’s failure to restrain the impetuosity associated with heroic self-regard—is called “oferhygd” in Beowulf. When Hroðgar discusses Heremod again in his “sermon,” he will cite him as someone afflicted with oferhygd and teach Beowulf to recognize any similar recklessness in himself. In fact, because multiple digressions warn against one’s susceptibility to oferhygd (as a king) or excessive ambition (as a warrior), we should expect to find charges of recklessness in the Heremod analogy. From my analysis emerges the picture of Sigemund as the ideal warrior (of implicit moral ambivalence) gaining glory on his own and Heremod as the worst tyrant sacrificing his own men for reckless vanity. Only as a kind of Sigemund would it be acceptable

31 On this archaism see the discussion in Wende and, most recently, in Lehmann, “Postpositions” 543. Michael Lapidge supplies a list of such postponed adjectives in “Postponing of Prepositions.”

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for a man to attack a dragon, and then only alone. This future could await Beowulf. So could Heremod’s ruin. Heremod cannot give up soldiering, and one clear parallel between him and Sigemund involves material honors. After fighting the dragon, Sigemund makes off with the treasure by himself: “he was able to enjoy the ring-hoard on his own terms” (“he beahhordes/brucan moste// selfes dome,” 894a–5a).32 Heremod is likewise unwilling to share glory with his retinue by rewarding them, but this vice is mentioned only in Hroðgar’s gidd, extended in his “sermon.” Prone to oferhygd, Heremod views wealth the way Sigemund does: earned by himself without concession to his warband. The failed warfare of his comitatus may also explain Heremod’s famous stinginess, however. The anonymous singer relates Heremod’s iniquity in the vaguest terms: “whelming sorrows oppressed him too long” (“Hine sorhwylmas//lemedon to lange,” 904b–5a).33 These “sorrows” go unspecified, although one senses that his paralysis is caused by repeated military defeats or Pyrrhic victories, or else by the frustration of his heroic ego. Ruth Wehlau frames a warrior’s consolation in three related expectations: “an awareness of the brevity of worldly joy . . . a recognition of the unpredictability of fate . . . the possibility of a change of fortune for the better.”34 This is a philosophy of Germanic fatalism. While it might be true for Wehlau’s precedents that “the failure of consolation revolves around a failure of exchange . . . [withdrawal] from the world of social interaction—language, gift-giving and feuding,”35 Heremod’s misery derives from a failure to limit his own ambition and to embrace the warrior’s consolation mentioned above. My justification for this view comes from an examination of verses in the Sigemund/Heremod digression. The poet remarks that “in former days many a wise man often lamented the wilful man’s ‘course’ or ‘venture’ ” (“swylce oft bemearn/ ærran mælum//swiðferhþes sið/snotor ceorl monig,” 907a–8b) and that Heremod became an “aldorceare” (“life-sorrow,” 906b) who should rather have offered his nation comfort.36 In Beowulf OE sið means either 32 Stressing the poet’s own observation of Fitela’s absence, Lucas 108–9 calls Sigemund’s deed “an individual act of heroic proportions.” 33 OE lemman literally means “to lame,” and Anglo-Saxon poets often described sorrow as paralyzing. One could be “bound” by sorrows ( gebunden) or “roped” by sorrows ( gesæled ). The editors of Klaeber’s Beowulf emend to “lemedon,” but on the singular verb form with plural subject, see Klaeber, “Textual Interpretation” 259. 34 “ ‘Seeds of Sorrow’ ” 3. 35 Ibid. 5. 36 Cf. DOE s.v. ealdorcaru: “mortal grief, perhaps ‘life-long anxiety’ ”; cf. lifcearu in

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“journey” or “venture, exploit, course of action,” and some readers have been unable to establish the sense in this context. Do Heremod’s men, they wonder, lament their king’s “banishment”? In fact, the specific designation “many a wise man” evokes the wisdom tradition of warrior moderation in opposition to recklessness. Wise men “lament” the actions of a despot who brings them (or has brought them) to ruin. The language resembles that of verses in Deor: “sæt secg monig/sorgum gebunden,//wean on wenan” (“many a man sat bound by sorrows, in expectation of woe,” 24a–5a).37 Here the tyrant Ermanaric governs the Goths with such ferocity that his own men lament their king’s warfare and expect genocide. The phrase “wean on wenum” has generally been translated “in expectation of woe,”38 but it is used elsewhere in Old English explicitly to describe exile or extermination. Punished by exile, Cain lays his tracks “in expectation of woe” (Genesis A 1026b–7b), and the Israelites in Exodus await a national extermination at the banks of the Red Sea: “orwenan/eðelrihtes . . . wean on wenum” (“deprived of a right to a homeland . . . in expectation of woe,” 211a–13a). Often paired with “exile” in Old English verse, including Beowulf, OE wea itself may simply mean military annihilation, too. In Beowulf Ongenþeow has promised “woe” for the Geats (“wean oft gehet,” 2937b), specifically the massacre of Hæðcyn’s army. Beowulf punishes a race of giants (“eotena cyn,” 421a) who have “asked for woe” (“wean ahsodon,” 423b). Similarly, Hygelac “asked for woe” (“wean ahsode,” 1206b) when he ventured to Frisia, and, with the exception of Beowulf, his shore party was lost. Therefore, in his expression that many men lamented Heremod’s “sið,” the secg may imply a fact intimated in Hroðgar’s “sermon”: Heremod’s behavior endangers his men and even his nation.39 This biography therefore illustrates the kind of belligerence that could have led to Heremod’s exile.

Genesis A (“sagast lifceare//hean hygegeomor,/þæt þe sie hrægles þearf . . .” 878b–9b; “wretched and disheartened you call it a ‘life-long care’ that you have need of raiment”) and Andreas (“Is me feorhgedal//leofre mycle/þonne þeos lifcearo”; “Death is far more preferable to me than this life-long misery,” 1427b–8b (following a description of Andreas’s sufferings). 37 Read wenum for wenan. 38 Whitbread, “Four Text-Notes,” 206–7. 39 In lines 1711a–12b: “ne weox he him to willan/ac to wælfealle//ond to deaðcwalum/Deniga leodum” (“he did not grow to accommodate their desires but for the slaughter and massacre of the Danish people”). The expression “Deniga leodum” could imply that Heremod endangered his men in unnecessary conflicts, but the following statement that Heremod cut down his own men (1713a–14a) seems to specify the preceding acts as murder, at least in the abstract.

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On the evidence of lines 902b–4a from the Sigemund/Heremod digression, and particularly on the account of Lotherus from Saxo, most have seen Heremod betrayed by his own Danes, interpreting the passage “wearð forð forlacen” as “was betrayed” or “lured away” by his people.40 This reading finds further support in Hroðgar’s “sermon,” where Heremod’s worst offense is to risk national well-being out of jeal-

Heremod’s “exile” has been inferred from the following lines: He mid eotenum wearð on feonda geweald forð forlacen, snude forsended. (902b–4a) Most interpret “wearð forð forlacen” as “was betrayed” or “lured” by his people. The agent goes unstated, however, and the adverb is difficult. To be “betrayed forth” or “lured away” may mean to be utterly betrayed, i.e. unto death. While OE forlacan is attested only four times, one attestation in Andreas reveals that fate also “deceives” or “seduces”: “Hie seo wyrd beswac,//forleolc and forlærde” (“that destiny betrayed them, deceived and misled,” 613b–14a); cf. Blake,“Heremod Digressions” 284; on the simplex lacan, see Afros 436. The expression “forð forlacen” is varied by “snude forsended” (“quickly exiled”), and OE forsendan (attested only seven times) does describe banishment. Yet adverb snude suggests that forsended may express Heremod’s ultimate “exile”—death. To be quickly “forsended” means to die right away, the effect of being “lured forth,” as in Beowulf 2265b–6b: “Bealocwealm hafað//fela feorhcynna/forð onsended!” (“Baleful death has banished the lives of many men!”). In the Old English Martyrology the collocation gast + onsendan commonly describes death, and Juliana characterizes martyrdom as an exile in “Juliana” 438a–b: “Þonne ic beom onsended/wið soðfæstum”; “When I am exiled amongst the righteous”). The Martyrology also confirms that, in the case of the tyrant Þeodric, one could be “sent off” into “everlasting fire”: “Þæt wæs swiðe riht þæt he from þæm mannum twæm wære sended on þæt ece fyr þa he ær unrihtlic ofsloh in þyssum life” (Kotzor My 18, A.22). This reading of OE forsendan explains a second difficulty in the passage. The phrase “wearð forð forlacen” is modified by a circumlocution “on feonda geweald,” which elsewhere seems to describe Grendel’s spirit passing to hell after his combat with Beowulf: “se ellorgast//on feonda geweald/feor siðian” (“the foreign spirit/guest traveled far into the power of enemies,” 807b–8b). (Blake unnecessarily suggests that “on feonda geweald” describes the Christian hell, but the locution may simply mean “he died” [“Heremod Digressions” 284]). Kock and Malone propose that Heremod fell under the power of his “enemies”; cf. resp. “Interpretations and Emendations VIII” 117; “Ealhhild” 268: “ ‘he was betrayed into the power of his enemies the Euts.’ Here mid Eotenum is a variation of feonda.” Finally, in Andreas 1619a–b, the expression “in feonda geweald/gefered ne wurdon” (“was not brought into the power of enemies”) refers both to death and to the damnation of “gastas” or “souls” (1617a). Heremod might therefore have been betrayed into the hands of devils by death. Like Grendel, Heremod metaphorically “travels” in death, a figure confirmed in Fortunes of Men 26b, where “feorð biþ on siþe” (“his spirit is/will be on a journey”) is said of a dying man. If to be “lured away and quickly dispatched into the power of fiends” describes Heremod’s death as an exile, “mid eotenum” becomes important. Ernst A. Kock has compared the half-line to a clause in the Old English Orosius: “hie sendon . . . þone consul mid him mid firde” (“they sent the consul against him with an army”) (“Interpretations and Emendations VIII” 117); cf. Bately, Orosius 120 (line 18). By this logic, if we construed eoten (“giant”) as a locution for “enemy,” we could read: “among his enemies he was betrayed right away into the power of fiends, quickly subdued.” Another reading of “on feonda geweald” is suggested below (337 note 90). 40

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ous resentment. (The sermon is discussed in greater detail in Chapter 3.) He became his men’s rival, as if he were competing with them for honors in the warband setting. By killing his own men and failing to share his riches, he alienated the warriors who would support his ventures and ensure his own glory. These retainers in turn banished their king. Heremod’s story therefore teaches Beowulf that men like Sigemund could become tyrants like Heremod, susceptible to vices like oferhygd. It seems surprising that Beowulf could be thought of as imperious, but the thane contemplates Beowulf ’s future from the subaltern vantage of the Grendel fight. For reasons I shall develop, this encomiast expects that Beowulf could turn out like Heremod, should he become a king, and Hroðgar has the same worry. This anonymous poet, actually a warrior seemingly versed in traditional wisdom poetry, detects in Beowulf a streak of reckless condescension that might evolve into arrogance towards a warband. However, under different circumstances (presumably the right circumstances), Beowulf could rival Sigemund, whose life is one that Beowulf should live up to but whose own achievement expresses an important heroic limitation. In other words, both stories offer comparisons to Beowulf, but only Sigemund’s course is thought to affirm Beowulf ’s. Identity of the Wrecca in Beowulf and Old English Verse The principal reason why Beowulf could become an arrogant king derives from his profile as an exceptional warrior with the latent tendencies of a wrecca or “exile.” Sigemund and arguably Heremod are identified as wreccan in Beowulf, inasmuch as we are told that Sigemund was “the most famous of wreccan . . . after Heremod’s war-strength failed”:41 Se wæs wreccena wide mærost ofer werþeode, wigendra hleo, ellendædum —he þæs ær onðah— siððan Heremodes hild sweðrode, eafoð ond ellen. (898a–902a)

41 This I take to mean that Heremod was the most famous wrecca before his death, not that Sigemund was the most famous in the time after Heremod’s demise. Griffith does not mention the possibility, but finds only three wreccan in Beowulf: Sigemund, Hengest, and Eanmund (38). In the preceding description of Sigemund, “wreccena mærost” varies “wigendra hleo,”a phrase used of Beowulf in lines 1972b and 2337b and of Hroðgar in 429b.

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chapter one After Heremod’s war-strength failed, his might and courage, [Sigemund] widely became the most famous of wreccan among the nations of men, the protector of heroes, for his deeds of glory. He had so prospered.

The contrast implies that Sigemund supplanted Heremod as the most celebrated wrecca, and since Beowulf is compared to Sigemund and Heremod, he may be thought likely to join their company. Often translated “exile” or “fugitive,” OE wrecca is related to a host of Old English nouns and verbs with meanings of “force” or “misery,” that is a man “driven” or “expelled” (from his people) and consequently “suffering” in exile. In fact, a verse from Maxims I attributes misery to isolation in general, and confirms the duality of OE wrecca as “exile” and “wretch”: Earm biþ se þe sceal wineleas wunian;

ana lifgan, hafaþ him wyrd geteod. (172a–3b)

He who must live alone, dwell friendless, will be wretched; destiny is decreed for him.

The Anglo-Saxons distinguished many kinds of wreccan. The anonymous woman in “The Wife’s Lament” is identified as an “exile,” ostracized from the kindred for reasons unknown, perhaps erotic. A second type of wrecca, like the Wanderer or Seafarer in the Exeter Book poems, or like the Last Survivor in Beowulf (2231–70), lives in “exile” because war has taken their lord and companions.42 If the later Scandinavian sources are any guide, Sigemund may belong to this category because Siggeir slaughtered his family and kept him exiled out of enmity and fear. At the same time, neither the Wanderer nor the Seafarer lives as a fugitive committing fæhðu or fyrene. The Exeter Book lyrics seem to have reworked familiar topoi of warrior “exile” to express a Christian perspective on worldly mutability. In such terms a warrior’s loyalty towards an earthly lord compares to a believer’s faith in a heavenly king. The Beowulf poet, however, explores a different emphasis in the wrecca identities he contemplates.

42 The woman in The Wife’s Lament also calls herself a wrecca (10a) and twice speaks of “wræcsið” (5b, 38b), almost certainly in exploitation of the exile trope in poems like The Wanderer and The Seafarer. She represents a different kind of outcast, although the reason for her isolation is unknown. Perhaps an exile like the Wanderer and Seafarer is the dispossessed king, represented, for example, in the very late Chronicle poem “Death of Edward” (16a–21b) and in Aldhelm’s Prosa de uirginitate (see Jones, “Comitatus-Ideal”).

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A less familiar type of wrecca found in heroic poetry refers to warriors who, on account of violent action or betrayal, have been exiled from their homelands. Such men can attach themselves to royal comitatus in defense of far-flung kingdoms, or to roaming warbands in commission of what today we might call piracy. In other words, wreccan are foreigners with a history of aggression compelled to seek environments where they can, as it were, express their ambition and belligerence. The Beowulf poet explores this identity. Hunferð evokes it, for he allegedly “killed” his brothers and now lives abroad in Hroðgar’s court. Eanmund and Eadgils are called “wræcmæcgas” as well. They rebelled against their king Onela and fled to Heardred for protection. One has the impression that Onela pursues them to Geatland because he does not want his mutinous nephews to join forces with Heardred. Finally, Beowulf ’s own father Ecgþeow caused the “greatest feud” (“fæhðe mæste,” 459b) amongst the Wylfings, nearly precipitating a national invasion (“herebrogan,” 462a), fled to Denmark (presumably sparing his own homeland), and settled in Geatland. Simply on the basis of the Wylfing feud, irrespective of its precise cause, and on his itinerancy, he also calls to mind the social identity of the wrecca. While Hunferð, Ecgþeow, and the sons of Ongenðeow are never called wreccan in Beowulf, three characters are: Sigemund, Heremod, and Hengest. Of these figures, only Hengest could be identified as an “exile” in the terms I describe above. While the reasons for Hengest’s exile are never stated, and the identification may even allude to his role as the founder of the English nation, it has to be conceded that Hengest has joined Hnæf ’s warband as a foreigner in pursuit of glory. Hnæf has recruited other foreign fighters, too. In the Finnsburg Fragment, the man Sigeferþ calls himself “a wrecca known widely” (“wreccea wide cuð,” 25a),43 and he is a “prince of the Secgan.” It seems plausible, therefore, that Sigeferþ and Hengest have joined Hnæf ’s warband either for national defense or for an “expedition,” to use the euphemism.44 Sigemund and Heremod, the other explicit wreccan in Beowulf, have been exiled for different reasons entirely. They are not fighters who

43 Hickes’s printed texts reads “wrecten,” probably in error for “wreccen,” emended as above; cf. Hickes 192–3. The standard edition is that in ASPR VI 7–16. Dictionary definitions of OE wrecca as a voluntary exile (“soldier-of-fortune,” “glory-seeker,” “mercenary,” “adventurer”) rely largely on this attestion (see Griffith 37–8). More plausibly, Sigeferþ was exiled involuntarily and joined Hnæf ’s company. 44 North, “Tribal Loyalties” 14.

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attach themselves to warbands. As far as we can tell from evidence and inference, Sigemund lives in exile because of Siggeir’s hostility and not from any violence that earned him expulsion. Nevertheless, Sigemund goes on to commit acts of violence that characterize other exiles like him, the “feuds and crimes” that would perhaps yield a less disparaging reputation in a warband context. Heremod, as we have seen, was exiled for his behavior as a warrior-king. His rule began well but turned violent in the expression of untempered ambition and jealousy. His exile at the hands of his own people—probably the members of his retinue—recalls the motivation of warrior appetites that he failed to suppress. The wrecca exemplar that Heremod represents therefore describes a psychopathy related to the unrestrained ambition that causes a warrior’s banishment. The Beowulf poet’s fascination with the wrecca identity has rarely interested critics, yet it characterizes a latent ambition in Beowulf detected by some observers in the poem’s Germanic setting. When Beowulf reaches Heorot, he is greeted by the foreigner Wulfgar, who concludes that Beowulf has come “for reasons of glory, not at all because of exile” (338a–b). This calculated appraisal frames the ambiguous terms of Beowulf ’s arrival. Not every foreign fighter could be called a wrecca, but many, and especially the most ambitious, have the potential to become wreccan. Both the voluntary fighter (a specific kind of mercenary) and the compulsory exile share similar traits: ambition, aggression, and impaired loyalties. As a man who has left behind his lord, comrades, and family to confront monsters abroad, Beowulf seeks glory, a supreme victory that will afford him an enduring reputation. He is a special case, different from the native members of a royal retinue whose motivations would hinge on kinship ties, tribal allegiance, and the patronage of long-term gift exchange. This absence of natural affiliations by institutionalized reciprocity is the essential distinction between a native warband member and a foreigner like Beowulf. In a world where one’s identity derives largely from relationships within a kindred, the uncoupled loyalties expressed by foreign fighters engender profound anxieties about personal ambition relative to group welfare. All foreign fighters therefore have a liminal status, the potential for unchecked zeal, and this ambivalence is especially worrisome when they are endowed with exceptional strength—the usual case with such men. As an unknown foreign fighter, Beowulf generates the reservations associated with ambitious strangers, some of whom are wreccan, and some of whom might become wreccan. Apart from his professed loyalty, and

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Hroðgar’s contact with Ecgþeow, Beowulf betrays no evident ties to Hroðgar or to the Danes, for which reason his motivation “for glory” may be seen to worry his hosts. They know that ambition unbounded by the duties and respect owed to a king or to comrades can produce wreccan. In my view, the Beowulf poet examines Beowulf ’s heroic motivation in just these terms. He describes an exile’s distinctive mentality and its reflexes in multiple social environments as a way of discovering the proper, ethical limits of heroic action. The intradiegetic comparison of Beowulf to wreccan and the men who resemble such exiles suggests that Beowulf may share their identity. Hence, the “hero” must be cautioned to suppress any possible venality in awareness of the potential for moral and political depravity. Central to this potential failing, of course, are the subjective authorities who confront Beowulf ’s promise, the limits of his ambition, in light of his exceptionality. In the absence of confident knowledge, the figures of Beowulf ’s world work to quash any latent recklessness he seems to exhibit. Comparisons of Beowulf to wreccan real or apparent suggest a specific heroic vice to which Beowulf may be prone, and Old English writings document this failing as ambition, aggression, and impaired loyalty. Both Cain and Lucifer are identified as wreccan in Old English biblical poetry. In Genesis A Cain is described as a “wineleas wrecca” (1051a) for having killed Abel, and the motivation is of special significance: “anger” lay heavy in his heart (979b–80a), a surge of temper (“hygewælm”) rose from his breast (980b–1a), a hostility that made him livid (“blatende nið,” 981b). Cain’s violence is a sudden, uncontrollable fury.45 Moreover, his enmity is figured not only as improper jealousy of a (moral) superior (cf. “aldorbanan,” 1033b; “ordbanan,” 1097a), but as the overthrow of the humble by the arrogant—the terms used of Lotherus in Saxo’s Heremod parallel. While Cain is typically viewed as a “criminal” exiled as punishment for his violence, he goes on to found a nation with a distinguished lineage. All wreccan who are not bereft of lords plausibly exhibit Cain’s cynical jealousy and impetuous rage to some extent. Perhaps the same could be said of Hunferð, implicated in the deaths of his chief kinsmen (“heafodmægum,” 588a).46 This event would explain his presence in Heorot.

On these attributes see the wrecca context proposed in Hanley. Even in Saxo’s Gesta Danorum, the legendary Starkaðr, who distinctly resembles Sigemund (and Beowulf ) in social identity, has been described as an “alien within 45 46

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The notion of Satan as the chief wrecca is widespread in Old English literature. The devil in Juliana is a “wræcca wærleas” (“disloyal exile,” 351a), God “makes a home of exile” for the disloyal angels in Genesis A (“Sceop þam werlogan//wræclicne ham,” 36a–7b), and the identification of Satan-cum-exile is fully developed in Christ and Satan:47 Forðon ic sceal hean and earm hweorfan ðy widor, wadan wræclastas, wuldre benemed, duguðum bedeled, nænigne dream agan uppe mid ænglum, þes ðe ic ær gecwæð þæt ic wære seolfa swægles brytta, wihta wealdend. (119a–24a) Lowly and wretched, I must traverse the paths of exile, wander all the more widely, deprived of glory and divested of honors, possess no joy on high amongst the angels, because I had said that I alone was the governor of the skies, the ruler of creatures.

“Disloyalty” in these passages imparts the treachery of rebellion against an established superior. By confronting his own lord, Satan disavows the covenant (“wær”) of a sacred oath or implicit social harmony. Arrogant, unjustified entitlement characterizes wreccan like him. The devil’s presumptuous challenge of God’s supremacy justifies the punishment of exile, and the lesson is carefully elaborated in the Old English Vainglory. The Exeter Book poem Vainglory condemns the hall-life of warriors as a secular distraction and warns against the “flying spears” of pride.48 Some warriors are given to vainglory. They plot, cheat and scheme (“Wrenceþ he ond blenceþ,/worn geþenceþ//hinderhoca,” 33a–4a);

society,” and as having an “implacability and non-restraint” (Ciklamini, “Starkaðr” 170, 185 resp.). He commits three crimes or níðingverk, one perfidious act, mostly involving murder, for every lifetime he is given to live (ibid. 180). Stemming from Viking or troll ancestry, this cruelty, when mixed with fanatical daring, commonly describes the socially marginal “heroes” of many Icelandic sagas. 47 See also 186a–b: “þæs ðe ic geþohte adrifan/drihten of selde” (“because I intended to drive my lord from his throne”). Any figure who challenges his lord’s supremacy becomes identified as an exile. In Elene 386a–93a the Jews—called “cursed exiles” (“werge wræcmæcggas,” 387a) oppose the “fædera lare” (“teachings of the patriarchs,” 388a), leading to foolish undertakings (“dyslice/dæd gefremedon” (“you committed foolish acts,” 386a–b). The height of this arrogance is the Crucifixion, a crime against the “æðelinga ord” (“chief of princes,” 393a). Similarly, Andreas describes Matthew’s imprisonment in terms of exile, for Matthew “scorned the heavenly king’s instruction” (“ðu forhogedes/heofoncyninges word,” 1381a–b). 48 On this image of the devils’ darts as featured in Hroðgar’s “sermon,” see below, pp. 203–10.

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they live a shameful life (“hafað fræte lif,” 48b). The exemplum of Lucifer in verses 57a–66b illustrates how the proud shall be cast down, made wretched, confined in hell, and held firmly in torments.49 This gidd compares the predicted fall (or damnation) of a proud warrior in terms matching the fall of the angels. The angels “forsawan hyra sellan” (“scorned their betters”) just as the proud man “boð his sylfes//swiþor micle/þonne se sella mon” (“boasts that he is much greater than the better man,” 28b–9b). The fallen angels and the proud man resort to deceit (“swice,” 31b, 61b), and both parties are afflicted by oferhygd (23b, 43b, 58b). The angels and the proud are literally brought low (“grundfusne gæst,” 49a; “niþer gebiged,” 55b), to hell. By repudiating loyalty and honor, the wrecca fosters these sociopathic impulses. Old English texts consistently document the nature of wreccan as arrogant, contemptuous of their superiors, including kinsmen,50 and unnaturally violent—incapable of restraint, in other words. The poet of Guðlac A describes the devil’s temptation of Guðlac—a man who “loved many audacious deeds” (“gelufade//frecnessa fela,” 109b–10a)—in terms of the wrecca’s savagery: Oþer hyne scyhte, þæt he sceaðena gemot nihtes sohte ond þurh neþinge wunne æfter worulde, swa doð wræcmæcgas þa þe ne bimurnað monnes feore þæs þe him to honda huþe gelædeð, butan hy þy reafe rædan motan. (127a–32b) Another [devil] urged him to seek out at night a party of raiders and through daring to strive after worldly goods, just like exiles do who do not care for the lives of the men at whose hands they gain booty, unless through them they may learn about plunder.

This same attitude could be attributed to Satan as well as other infamous “exiles” in Old English poetry, especially Grendel.51 Grendel 49 Krapp and Dobbie end the gidd at line 77a, but I end it at 66b for structural reasons. The analogy compares the fallen angels to the proud thane. 50 The Old English Orosius mentions a certain Lacedemonian “wreccea” named Damerað who commited treachery against his kin (“se þæt facn to his cyþþe gebodade”) (Bately 46.9–10). Multiple homilies treat human existence as a kind of exile, since Adam and Eve were expelled from Eden for their rebellion against God (e.g. Willard 83.78–80; Napier, Wulfstan 1–3). 51 Greenfield, “Theme of ‘Exile’ ”; Baird, “Grendel the Exile” 380: “[The poet] demands that we see Grendel as both wicked monster and wretched man.” As far as I am aware, it has not been suggested that Grendel could be deemed a displaced marauder in search of a duguð. Yet the context of OE wrecca can suggest as much.

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especially fits the profile of an unnaturally irascible “warrior” who “could not pay respect to the gift-throne” or even “know the devotion of it.”52 At lines 168a–9b “Grendel is portrayed . . . as a lawless retainer who refuses to respect civilized customs.”53 Such a “lawless retainer” could be described as a wrecca, a status explaining why Hroðgar might endure “wræc micel” or “great torment” (170a): this particular wrecca cannot lay claim to the dignity of service in Hroðgar’s warband—unlike other foreign “exiles” (arguably Hunferð, Wulfgar, and Ecgþeow) who joined the Danish retinue. Some celebrated heroes of Germanic legend are called “wreccan,” and it seems logical that Beowulf might earn the same status, as predicted by the thane’s comparison of him to Sigemund and Heremod. Beowulf is praised for an unyielding ferocity or ellen (“courage”), a heroic virtue which begets Sigemund’s and Heremod’s supreme distinction in both their social environments. Yet more than “mere” courage suggests that Beowulf ought to be viewed as having the disposition of a wrecca. He may well share his father’s constitution as a glory-seeker, killing giants in an unspecified location, challenging Breca in Norway, and traveling to Denmark to fight Grendel. The motivation for such acts is not likely to be high-minded, as few have assumed. John M. Hill perceives Beowulf ’s voluntary aid to Hroðgar as a generous commitment, asserting that “glory has yet to enter into this developing equation [the “free warrior duty-call . . . valiant proposal” to battle Grendel], unless it is implicit in his desire to help a glorious, famous, and illustrious lord.”54 Certainly, this partisan view of Beowulf ’s enthusiasm for the 52 “No he þone gifstol/gretan moste,//maþðum formetode,/ne his myne wisse”; “Nor could he pay respect to the gift-throne (he despised treasure or he despised the precious thing), nor could he know the devotion of it,” 168a–9b; for the suggestion of Grendel as a lapsed retainer, see Howren and Orchard, Pride and Prodigies 62. My translation “pay respect to” for OE gretan follows the argument in Robinson, “Gifstol.” The reading “formetode” was proposed by Bammesberger, “Five Beowulf Notes” 243–8; “for metode” has been retained in Klaeber’s Beowulf. 53 Robinson, “Gifstol” 258; Baird, “Grendel the Exile” 378–96. Stanley B. Greenfield contemplated an opposing argument that Hroðgar may not approach the gift-throne, but Greenfield had not considered the meaning of OE gretan that Robinson elucidates, nor would he have known of Bammesberger’s reading “formetode”; see “ ‘Gifstol’ and Goldhoard” 111–12. John M. Hill has addressed this concern again in Narrative Pulse, theorizing that Grendel does not have Hroðgar’s royal permission as well as his “welcoming or questioning or expectant thoughts” (10), unlike Beowulf, into whose special guardianship the hall has been given. In this case Hill retains Klaeber’s reading “for Metode” and understands Grendel “coming not as a guest but as something ghastly” (ibid.). I see in these terms the same parallel of Grendel as an anti-thane. 54 Narrative Pulse 21. We are led to believe that Beowulf ’s contest is unmotivated

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Grendel fight contravenes Danish skepticism for Beowulf ’s readiness. On the contrary, abandoning one’s homeland to fight Grendel sounds far more like ambition (the “wlenco” that Wulfgar acknowledges) or exile (the motivation that Wulfgar rejects). Being compared to wreccan puts Beowulf in the company of heroes of pan-Germanic eminence, none of whom, it must be said, have unimpeachable morals.55 At the start of the poem, Beowulf has yet to be admired as “mildust” (3181a), “monðwærust” (3181b) and “leodum liðost” (3182a), an assessment in any event arguably reminiscent of “de mortuis nil nisi bonum.” Let me not impugn Beowulf, however, for any inflexible criticism would misrepresent the poet’s own objectives. At the outset at least, he aims for a deliberate ambivalence, innuendos and feints that, in sum, undermine one’s complete confidence in Beowulf ’s magnanimity. Rather like Achilles among the Achaeans, the Danes admire Beowulf ’s daring and mistrust his potential volatility. The secg who sings about Sigemund and Heremod therefore praises Beowulf ’s heroic profile, but fears darker traits that confer both fame and infamy. This crucial ambivalence explains the required indeterminacy of Sigemund’s glory. Unless we follow Griffith’s line and imagine that the poet depicts Beowulf differently from Sigemund, the Sigemund exemplum would suggest a moral ambivalence for Beowulf, a susceptibility to the transgressions implicit in the thane’s coy parlance of “fæhðe ond fyrena,” or in competing versions of the Volsung legend. This coyness is quite deliberate, for men known as wreccan will commit acts of ambiguous virtue. Yet direct reference to these acts in a comparison of famous wreccan to Beowulf would confute Beowulf ’s potential virtue, an oblique representation that the Beowulf poet aims to preserve. His game is suggestion. Is Beowulf Responsible for Hondscioh’s Death? Beowulf has come to Heorot to face Grendel—hopefully to slay Grendel. Based on his confidence and strength, he seems able to handle the challenge. His men, however, are much less capable, and perhaps their

by ambition and that Beowulf ’s willingly risks his (present and future) obligations to Hygelac as well as his life to face a foreign king’s diabolical enemy. 55 Frank, “Germanic Legend” 90; Shippey, Old English Verse 29.

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leader’s “confidence” may be attributed to the “dangerous individualism of the heroic ethos.”56 In fact, the wrecca’s solo adventure is deliberately set against the king’s responsibility for his men in the fight with Grendel. Beowulf ’s comitatus seems not to have much standing with him: apart from manning the ship, one wonders why they have come at all. On the one hand, the narrator attests that the men went “on wilsið” (216a; cf. “wilgesiðas” or “willing companions,” 23a). By choice they joined a potentially reckless campaign. On the other hand, Beowulf may seem reluctant to endanger the men in this notional “warband.” When greeting Hroðgar, Beowulf emphasizes his own valor and refers to his men in passing:57 Ond nu wið Grendel sceal, wið þam aglæcan ana gehegan ðing wið þyrse. Ic þe nuða, brego Beorht-Dena, biddan wille, eodor Scyldinga, anre bene, þæt ðu me ne forwyrne, wigendra hleo, freowine folca, nu ic þus feorran com, þæt ic mote ana, minra eorla gedryht ond þes hearda heap, Heorot fælsian. (424b–32b) And now against Grendel, the adversary and giant, [I ] shall settle the dispute alone.58 I will ask you now, prince of the Bright Danes, lord of the Scyldings, a single boon, that you not prevent me, protector of warriors, lord and prince of the people, now that I have come thus from afar, that I might alone—o band of my earls and this hardy troop—cleanse Heorot.

Beowulf wants to cleanse Heorot without weapons and alone, the way a risky venture should be handled.59 Just before the fight Beowulf will repeat his pledge to kill Grendel alone:

Bazelmans 82 note 59. Alfred Bammesberger argues for the manuscript reading in which ond follows gedryht. He contends that “minra eorla gedryht/ond þes hearda heap” is vocative (“Textual Note”); the emendation has been accepted in Klaeber’s Beowulf. On Beowulf ’s “egocentrism,” see Lehmann 223–4. Lehmann suggests that “ana” might disguise an otherwise unattested preposition meaning “without,” cognate with OHG OS āno and OIcel ān. 58 The verdict is still out on the meaning of “ðing gehegan,” but the legal context of the phrase and related locutions could imply that Beowulf speaks ironically and therefore glibly about settling disputes by assembly; see Stanley, “Poetic Phrases.” 59 Hill reads this “spectacular boast” as an act that would gratify Hygelac, for reasons of fairness (Narrative Pulse 30). Lucas remarks on the “tension between the hero and the group of Geatish retainers to which he belongs,” but he concludes on the basis of 56

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swebban nelle, þeah ic eal mæge. (679a–80b)

Therefore I will not kill him, deprive him of life, with a sword, though I may do so.

Despite Beowulf ’s own pledges here, his “warband” joins the fight and uselessly battles Grendel with swords. The narrator states conclusively that a “spell” prevents swords from biting Grendel’s flesh (lines 801b–5a), although it is important to recognize that the retainers know nothing of the enchantment. They might presumably have helped, but no champion in past years had any luck with swords. Yet the central question remains: why would Beowulf ’s men try and defend him against Grendel when Beowulf ’s beot implies action independent of the warband? The insinuation that Heremod mistreated his own men connects Heremod’s deeds to Beowulf ’s, since Beowulf is thought to bear responsibility for committing his “warband” to a dangerous exploit for which he alone was suited. During the Grendel fight, Beowulf appears to watch Hondscioh get devoured in a moment that has seemed gratuitous to critics who find Beowulf consistently honorable. Knowing that Beowulf fights righteously in the context of God’s feud against Cain’s kin, the poet apparently confirms Beowulf ’s hesitation as tactical: mæg Higelaces under færgripum

Þryðswyð beheold hu se manscaða gefaran wolde. (736b–8b)

The mighty kinsman of Hygelac observed how the evil-doer would perform in his sudden attack.

Translators disagree on how to take the prepositional phrase “under færgripum” (“in his sudden attack”), which is almost universally thought to refer to Grendel: Beowulf “beheld” how Grendel would “proceed” with a surprise attack. By this logic Beowulf unsympathetically exploits his retainer’s death. Alternatively, however, the poet simply shows Beowulf ’s inattention to Hondscioh. The phrase “under færgripum” would then describe Beowulf ’s own attack, a reading that requires the narrator’s interjection (698–700a) that “the action is to be carried out by the loner for the benefit of the group” (109–10). Reinhard 96–102 voiced this same conclusion. Reinhard excuses Beowulf ’s boast as “heroic superiority,” which derives from “selfunderstanding” (97). For a summary of debate on perceiving Beowulf as an individual and therefore responsible for his actions, see Clark, “The Hero and the Theme.”

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re-translating “beheold” as “considered” and “gefaran” as “manage” or “act”:60 Beowulf considered how the monster would manage under (Beowulf ’s own) surprise assault. Beowulf ’s reaction to Hondscioh’s death does not come across as disinterested in this less likely reading. He is simply taken off guard, in which event Beowulf is still impeached for unnecessarily losing Hondscioh. Early critics appealed to folk-tale archetypes to explain Hondscioh’s death. W. W. Lawrence proposed that “the younger hero had to wait until his older or more renowned companions had fought and died.”61 R. W. Chambers likewise believed that the poet had insufficiently worked out the folk-tale structure.62 Still other critics have proposed that Beowulf intends to ambush Grendel and that Hondscioh’s death is a necessary element in Grendel’s rout, a display of cannibal brutality.63 They also appeal to the folk-tale context.64 George Clark imagines that “Grendel’s victims slept helplessly, passively into death”: 65 “the monster’s approach may have had the power to charm his intended victims to sleep and Beowulf ’s wakefulness . . . may represent a victory of his will over Grendel’s power.”66 Two critics have gone so far as to claim that Beowulf ’s men owed him their lives because he was their captain. Arthur K. Moore cites Tacitus: “all are bound to defend their leader . . .”67 The problem remains that Hondscioh is not “defending” Beowulf; he is asleep. Moore’s charge that “the followers must act to preserve the leader” does not apply to these circumstances.68 T. M. Pearce followed this line but went further, regarding Hondscioh’s death as “the earliest instance in English literature of the practice of expendability in a military situation.”69 Beowulf exploits the subaltern’s duty as

60 See DOE s.v.v. be-healdan sense B1 and ge-faran sense II.A.6. Another, less likely, reading is provided by Greenfield, “Three Beowulf Notes” 169–70. Greenfield argues that Grendel is simply quicker than Beowulf and seizes Hondscioh before Beowulf can react. 61 Epic Tradition 176. This is the view of Lord as well. 62 Beowulf 64. 63 Brodeur, Art of Beowulf 92–3: “. . . the slaughter of Hondscio is the culminating horror in an ascending sequence . . . Hondscio died so that the poet’s audience might have final demonstration of the hideous power and fury of the foe whom the hero must now face . . . Grendel’s first attack . . . was too swift to permit Beowulf ’s intervention.” 64 Foley 231–42. 65 Beowulf 74–5. 66 Ibid. 74. 67 Moore 168 (citing Moore’s reference to Tacitus). 68 Ibid. 69 Pearce 170.

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Moore evaluated it, and he acts out of necessity. In fact, Pearce makes a virtue of necessity and asks, “what was the valor required for Beowulf to refrain from helping Hondscioh as he must have somehow struggled against the foe?”70 The poet never says that Hondscioh struggled, and the expendability that Pearce alleges may be owed to less valiant motivations. Finally, Robert L. Kindrick concludes that Beowulf shows himself to be a “tactician,” a view he derives from observing Beowulf ’s “wisdom” throughout the poem. In Kindrick’s view, the poet’s description of Beowulf as “snotor ond swyðferhð” (“wise and stout-hearted,” 826a) after killing Grendel implicitly justifies a wise decision leading to Hondscioh’s death.71 Why does Hondscioh go unnamed until Beowulf reports to Hygelac?72 Frederick M. Biggs attends an “uneasy sense that Beowulf cares little about his retainer.”73 He takes the line that Hondscioh’s death minimizes the importance of kin ties for the Geats, whereas Æschere’s death magnifies the value of kin for the Danes. I likewise see the deliberate ambivalence surrounding Hondscioh’s death and anonymity as a potential criticism of Beowulf ’s behavior. Kinship does not fail; leadership might. The secg who recounts the Sigemund/Heremod lay implies that Beowulf has just committed a deed, which, however great, ended with someone else’s death—just the sort of “woe” that Heremod may be accused of as an “aldorcearu.” To grasp the situation, one must accept the Danish outlook: they have a détente with Grendel, who inhabits Heorot at night. By these terms they manage to stay alive. Their solution does not prevent some men from risking an attack on Grendel: anyone brave enough may try, should Hroðgar entrust Heorot to them—and accept responsibility for the outcome. It only means that they will not be forced to lose more lives, as Beowulf does when he risks his own men in an unequal match. The comparison to Heremod therefore reflects the view that Beowulf ’s sið may have been acceptable for him, but not for his more vulnerable followers. Sigemund’s venture against his dragon exposes the objection as well: a solo endeavor earns glory but endangers no one else. Yet the mitigating factor is clear: Beowulf intends to fight on his own. He pledges to do so twice. Can we not

Ibid. 171. Kindrick 9. 72 On some further arguments exonerating Beowulf, see Biggs, “Hondscioh and Æschere” 643 and 650 note 31. 73 Ibid. 645. 70 71

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find reason to exonerate him? In fact, the best exoneration is the poet’s own somewhat weak allowance that other men would have died, if not for Beowulf ’s fight (1055b–7a). The stories spoken by a thane “mindful of gidd ” imply that Beowulf could become a solitary warrior, a wrecca bent on personal glory (“þrym”), jealous of his reputation and a threat to his followers. Two futures can be predicted for such a man: the hero’s path, Sigemund’s, involves supreme self-regard leading to violence and glory. Sigemund can be admired for solitary daring but not for generosity or moral virtue. The other future, the king’s path, appears more dire, since an ambitious, soldierly king could lead men to destruction. Beowulf is credited with heroic greatness, true, but the wreccan he resembles seem to commit offenses that qualify their fame. In no way does the singer claim these outcomes as inevitable, but he sees a potential in Beowulf, I propose, that critics have often disregarded. Moreover, this explanation of the subaltern attitude exists in the larger context of Germanic wisdom. Even before Beowulf fights Grendel, Hunferð will accuse Beowulf of the same malfeasance. As I shall demonstrate, the Hunferð episode situates Beowulf ’s potential recklessness in the context of warrior moderation, a condition of self-restraint held to be “wise.” The Hunferð Digression The ambivalent Beowulf that the anonymous singer anticipates emerges most visibly in the poem’s digressions. I will have more to say shortly about specific episodes, but I need to answer the critics who allege only a positive, heroic Beowulf in the poem’s first half. Their essential proof, of course, is Grendel’s defeat: he is a monster cursed by God and can only be eradicated by God’s chosen adversary. Unfortunately, the Danes are completely unaware of Grendel’s lineage and Beowulf ’s fortuitous “moral” alignment against God’s enemy, and they object to Beowulf ’s interference, none more so than Hunferð. Yet the “Hunferð digression,” my opposition says, shows Beowulf ’s decisive heroism, and Hunferð’s jealous hostility and background as a kin-killer demolish his prestige. Admittedly, Hunferð’s resentment may compromise his judgment, but the poet raises the broader issue of how to tell sincerity from conceit in a man who could lead his companions to disaster. Whether Beowulf is such a man depends on his motivation. In fact, Beowulf ’s riposte to Hunferð betrays the potential egotism that the Danish secg mentions in his recollection of Sigemund and Heremod.

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Reservations bedevil analyses of Hunferð’s character; whether the name means “Discord” has even provoked discord. R. D. Fulk has lately shown that “Hunferð/Hunferþ” (the manuscript spellings but with ū)—rather than an alleged poetic coinage “Un-frið” (“Discord”) or “Un-ferhð” (“Folly” or “Bold”)—is attested in Germanic tongues.74 Hunferð’s “official” position in Hroðgar’s court is also disputed, since he is twice called a þyle (even Hroðgar’s þyle),75 a puzzling word with myriad translations. Old English glosses give a neutral or negative denotation, either “spokesman” or “jester”: ORATORES] þylæs76 RETHORICA] þelcræfte R5, þelcræft Bc, þelcræ O77 DE SCVRRIS] hofðelum78 HISTRIONES] fæðelas79

In classical Latin orator means “(public) speaker” and rhetorica designates the art of forensic speaking. Yet other Old English translations of orator also include “spelboda” (“messenger, spokesman, prophet”)80 and

74 “Unferth and his Name.” Many readers have accepted Hunferð as a form of Unferhð and translated “Folly,” as Robinson (“Personal Names”), followed by others. Early on it was theorized that “ferð” disguises “frið” (“peace, concord”) which led to the translation “Mar-Peace” (see, e.g., Shuman and Hutchings 219). Fulk’s objection to these doubles ententes is linguistic, but the obvious pun on ferð/ferhð (118) makes it seem that “un”+“ferð” was transparent. Marijane Osborn observes that “the poet himself later provides an etymological gloss which cannot be ignored . . . gehwylc hiora his ferhþe treowde . . . Each of them [Hrothgar and Hrothulf ] trusted his ‘ferth’ ” (“Some Uses of Ambiguity” 24). On the sense that I have interpreted as “Bold” (i.e. “Very Courageous”), see Roberts. For the view that “Hunferð” could give “Hun-spirited,” see Patricia Silber, “Emendation.” Most recently, Robert Boenig has implied that the name is deliberately ambiguous (“Morphemic Ambiguity” 280). 75 “Swylce þær Hunferþ þyle//at fotum sæt frean Scyldinga” (“Likewise, Hunferþ the þyle sat at the feet of the Scyldings’ lord,” 1165b–6a); “ðyle Hroðgares” (“Hroðgar’s ðyle,” 1456b). 76 Stryker 334 (no. 34). The context is from Aldhelm’s Prosa de uirginitate: “. . . ut disertissimi oratores tam sagax uirginibis ingenium alterno experiri conflictu uererentur”; cf. Gwara, Prosa de uirginitate, vol. 124A, p. 471. 77 Gwara, Prosa de uirginitate, vol. 124A, p. 456.62; R5=London, BL MS 6 B.vii, (Exeter, ca. 1078); Bc=“Hand C” of Brussels, Bibliothèque Royale MS 1650 (Canterbury, s. x1/4); O=Oxford, Bodleian Library MS Digby 146 (Canterbury, s. xex). 78 Stryker 145 (no. 22). This is from II Sm 6.20: “nudatus est quasi si nudetur unus de scurris.” While the element hof- has been interpreted as preposition of (translating Latin “de”), it may also mean “court,” as “ðelas attached to a court” (Meritt, “Hard Old English Words” 232). Yet Ida Masters Hollowell points out that OE hof can also mean “temple” (“Unferð the þyle” 251), suggesting a priestly function for the þyle. 79 A scratched gloss from Oxford, St. John’s College MS 28, printed in Napier, Old English Glosses 204 (no. 36, 2). 80 Hessels 86 (O240): “oratores: *spelbodan.”

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“wordsnoter” (“word-wise [man]”).81 Latin scurra designates an urbane, clownish fellow who accompanies gentlemen in Roman comedies. Old English glosses elsewhere render scurra by “gligman” (“entertainer”),82 which also translates the Latin terms musicus, iocista, cantor, ioculator, mimus, and pantomimus.83 By this evidence neither OE gligman nor Latin scurra is intrinsically negative. Nevertheless, the gloss scond to scurra in the Corpus glossary may mean “a shameful man,”84 and James L. Rosier drew attention to other unflattering Latin glosses to scurra from the Corpus Glossariorum Latinorum: “parasitus,” “subtilis inpostor,” “qui incopiatur,” “qui res ridiculas dicit et facit”;85 and from SteinmeyerSievers, Die althochdeutschen Glossen: “ioculator uerbosus,” “subsannatoris,” “bilinguis accusatoris,” “parasitus ridiculosus.”86 There is no context for the glosses from the Abavus and Ab Absens glossaries, but excepting “parasitus,” “qui res ridiculas dicit et facit,” “ioculator uerbosus,” and “parasitus ridiculosus,” the senses are negative. Latin ridiculosus and ridiculus can mean “facetious” (in a mild sense), and while “parasitus” may remind us of a freeloader, in Latin it denotes a subordinate, hanger-on, or attendant.87 The expression “parasitus ridiculosus” may therefore mean “facetious attendant,” not “absurd parasite.” Finally, passages from Aldhelm’s Carmen de virginitate and Epistola ad Heahfridum reveal that to speak “scurrarum more” is to denigrate or criticize for the purpose of ridicule.88 While Aldhelm expresses irritation with his critics, he acknowledges their competence, too. 81 Gwara, Prosa de uirginitate, vol. 124A, p. 470.345–6: ORATORES] wordsnotere Bcd O; for the sigla, see above, note 77. 82 In Ælfric’s glossary (Zupitza, Ælfrics Grammatik und Glossar 302.9: “mimus ł scurra gligmann”). The Epinal-Erfurt gloss reads “leuuis,” but the term has not be satisfactorily explained. It may be “leas” (“deceitful”); see Pheifer 125 (note to 977a); and Alan Kelsey Brown, “Epinal Glossary” 802 (note to S264). The word is probably identical to the first element (or word) of “lewis plega” (?, writing sigmoid <s> in his copy. In the vernacular alphabet, has no ascender, and its lower hast sits on the bounding line. Cooke is thinking of the modern tall in offering this conjecture. 112 Cooke 218. 113 Ibid. 219. The complex arguments that Cooke adduces here are thoughtfully considered in detail, but the readings of Tanke and Fulk (which follow) have the virtue of retaining the manuscript reading “næs he.”

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foreseen good luck with gold, the Owner’s favor.”114 Tanke proposes to read “agend” (“Owner”) as “God” and the term “goldhwæte” (< *goldhwatu) as “luck with gold,” which he quite reasonably modifies to “good luck with gold.”115 Beowulf, in Tanke’s opinion, expects to lose this fight: “Though he had no idea how he would meet his death in this encounter (i.e., that he would come up against the cursed gold and not merely the dragon), he had not expected much good from it, either.”116 Extending Tanke’s conjectures, Fulk suggested that *goldhwatu could indicate the curse placed on the gold, since OE galdor “spell” is sometimes paired with OE hwatu, and that gearwor could mean “rather.”117 He translates, “Beowulf by no means had sought out (or contemplated?) a curse on gold, rather the owner’s (God’s) favour.”118 In this reading Fulk emphasizes the irony attending Beowulf ’s death, occasioned by an unknowable curse. I find this passage to be more circumspect than Tanke or Fulk do, and my own view modifies three aspects of Tanke’s reading. First, Tanke derives a sense “foresee” for OE gesceawian on the analogy of Beowulf 204b: “hæl sceawedon” (“they foresaw good fortune”), but OE gesceawian typically means “observe” or “look.” In fact, this verse might as easily be rendered “they observed their fortune.” Alan Bliss drew attention to the collocation “gearo sceawige” in verses 2747a–9a and speculated, “it is not enough for [Beowulf ] to know that the treasure is now his, he must also see it”:119 Bio nu on ofoste, goldæht ongite, swegle searogimmas . . .

þæt ic ærwelan, gearo sceawige

Hasten now, that I might see the gold hoard, the ancient treasure, and look avidly upon the bright crafted jewels.

Bruce Mitchell discounts any meaningful parallel between this passage and verses appearing some three hundred lines later,120 but the precedent

Tanke’s translation (362). The proposal *goldhwatu was first made by Kock, who translated it “as a substantive . . . ‘readiness about gold,’ ” later “liberality” (“Interpretations and Emendations IV” 123–4). 116 Tanke 367. 117 Fulk, “Cruces in Beowulf ” 362. 118 Ibid. 363. 119 “Beowulf, Lines 3074–75” 58. 120 “Damnation of Beowulf ?” 32. 114 115

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in Beowulf does prove that “gearo gesceawian” can simply mean “look eagerly.”121 A second issue in Tanke’s scheme concerns the referent to “agend.” Only with some strain can “agendes est” in this context mean “God’s favor,” since the dragon has been alluded to as the “biorges weard” (“guardian of the barrow,” 3066b) with which Beowulf has sought strife.122 This reference, indeed, follows the earlier report that the “weard” slew Beowulf (3060b–1a). For multiple reasons—none ultimately convincing—Tanke considered but rejected the dragon as the “owner” referred to. “Dragons never grant anyone their favor where gold is concerned,”123 he explained when he presumed “God” to be a more fitting owner. In fact, I believe that no specific owner is referred to here, but that the dragon may be considered a hypothetical one. Finally, Tanke ingeniously parses “goldhwæte” as a feminine noun *goldhwatu, not the feminine accusative singular adjective modifying “est,” as most other commentators claim. In a seminal article G. V. Smithers criticized the prevailing assumption that the adjective “goldhwæte” (modifying “est”) could mean “brave” or “cursed.”124 He argued instead that the element -hwæt meant “bestowing,” since OE ahwettan, attested in the expression “est ahwette” from Andreas 339b, “means something like ‘bestow on.’ ”125 His translation

121 R. D. Fulk (“Cruces in Beowulf ” 359–63) has proposed that “gearwor” here means “rather,” an unattested sense in Old English. Moreover, he challenges Tanke’s reading “luck” for hwatu. Although hwatu is attested in the sense “divination,” and may possibly mean “destiny” in Old English (as it did in Middle English), Fulk interprets it as “spell” in reference to the curse. Translating OE gesceawian as “seek out” or “contemplate,” Fulk translates the verses, “Beowulf by no means had sought out (or contemplated?) a curse on gold, rather the owner’s (God’s?) favour” (363). 122 Stanley, “Hæþenra Hyht” 199–200. 123 Tanke 363–4. First, lifes/sigores/swegles/wuldres + agend designate “God” in five Old English poems. Second, collocations of godes/metodes + est can often be found, in the sense “God’s favor.” Only in Beowulf do we find genitive + est, where est can mean an inanimate object (“his . . . est,” 2157a–b). 124 Smithers 79–80; see Imelmann, “Beowulf 303 ff. und 3074 f.” 337: “goldhwæte ist nach Analogie anderer Adjektiva zu deuten also goldstark oder goldreich; goldgierig scheidet aus. . . . Hier ist alles klar und glatt, und der Satz liest sich fortschreitend natürlich: ‘und nicht . . . er vorher ganz des Eigentümers goldreiches Erbe’ (geschaut).” Kemp Malone’s impossible punctuation of the last line of this citation (“agendes, est, ær, gesceawod”) made for a crabbed translation: “Beowulf beheld the owner’s bounty no better,/he viewed the dragon’s liberality no sooner” (“Notes on Beowulf ” 5–6). He explains, “when the author tells us that Beowulf did not see the dragon’s generosity very well, he means that Beowulf did not see his generosity at all” (6). 125 Smithers 79. He elaborates: “The existence of an OE noun meaning ‘luck’ [hwæt, derived from hwæteadig, Elene 1195] suggests that the factitive verb had senses corresponding to all those proper to the adj. or noun . . . and that we may therefore

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“gold-bestowing munificence” gained wide attention. Tanke, however, derailed the semantic development and emphasized the “fortune” of bestowal in his expression “luck.” In conjunction with Tanke’s translation of “goldhwæte” as “good luck with gold,” which would vary “agendes est,” I would render the term “est” by “generosity” rather than “favor.” OE est can mean “favor,” admittedly, but as an abstract circumlocution for “gift” in Beowulf and Andreas, the term “generosity” ultimately eases the sense.126 A small matter of substituting the indefinite article for the definite lets the passage be read: “not at all had he ever before looked more intently at his own gold-luck, an owner’s generosity.”127 In other words, Beowulf examined the dragon’s cache more closely than any other gift he had ever received, an act of studied appraisal. For this reason Beowulf stares at the treasure (“on starie,” 2796b), a spectacle that should cue similar appraisals: men “staring” at Grendel’s arm (996b), Hygelac’s imagined “staring” at (i.e. evaluation of ) Beowulf ’s treasures (should Beowulf not survive the fight with Grendel’s mother, 1485b), Hroðgar’s “staring” at Grendel’s head (1781b). This moment perfectly expresses the poet’s own studied ambivalence, even in respect to minute details like the stolen cup. Because dragons seem to have been always associated with gold, Beowulf ’s receipt of the cup after his resolution to fight the dragon would not necessarily vitiate his potential rapacit y.128 Beowulf could therefore be reproved on Stanley’s grounds, that he “showed himself eager to see the gold, and was guilty, therefore, of avarice,”129 but the premise remains contested by Beowulf ’s need to die comforted (“ðy seft,” 2749b). As I see it, Beowulf ’s eager attention to the gold may either satisfy him in the reward for a great accomplishment (“heroic greed”), or exonerate him as hopeful of bequeathing an extravagant legacy. Readers will no doubt be querying why the charge

posit for ahwettan the hitherto unacknowledged sense ‘bestow on,’ perhaps derived from ‘cause to befall’ or ‘make fortunate’ ” (ibid.). 126 DOE s.v. sense 1b: “gracious/liberal gift.” 127 I must point out, however, that even if goldhwæt were translated as the adjective “gold-bestowing” modifying “agendes est,” my argument would not be significantly changed: “not at all had he looked more closely at the gold-bestowing munificence of an owner.” Adverb ær has to be translated “before” in this context and would not represent the marker of the pluperfect (Bliss 56–7). 128 Greenfield exonerates Beowulf for this very reason (“ ‘Gifstol’ ” 109). 129 “Hæþenra Hyht” 203; and Bliss, who has a more complex theory, that lines 2747a–51b exhibit Beowulf ’s “improper attitude towards treasure, and unmistakably savours of avarice” (58), whereas lines 3074–75 show Beowulf ’s “irreproachable attitude . . . the gold-bestowing favour of God” (59).

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“satisfy him in the reward for a great accomplishment” should be the negative term of this opposition, labeled “heroic greed.” In fact, the quest for transcendent deeds rewarded by enduring reputation and vast wealth explains heroic recklessness or arrogance. In focusing solely on the dimension of reward, some might call this obsession “greed.” The reading I have been discussing restores an important equivocation: Beowulf ’s interest in the treasure may still be nothing more than a hero’s due bounty, in acknowledgment of an enemy’s defeat. Earning unparalleled riches validates the dragon fight as the “glorious deed” Beowulf imagined it would be: “ic wylle,//frod folces weard/fæhðe secan,//mærðu fremman” (“I, wise guardian of the people, intend to pursue the feud, perform a glorious deed,” 2512b–14a). Ernst Leisi and Michael D. Cherniss have justified this view by acknowledging that treasures are earned as “the material manifestations or representations of the proven or inherent worthiness of whoever possesses them.”130 Cherniss compares Scyld’s own funeral ship heaped with treasure to Beowulf ’s pyre, heaped with the dragon’s gold. From Cherniss’s perspective, critics who treat the dragon’s treasure as Beowulf ’s legitimate reward appreciate that the narrator does not unambiguously discredit Beowulf ’s interest in it.131 Any interest in the hoard, however, automatically evokes the oferhygd complex, since glory-seeking warriors earn treasure for “mærðo,” whereas kings secure prosperity. Although Beowulf dies in the duel, killing the dragon is a transcendent accomplishment, as Cherniss notes. The accomplishment of killing the dragon cannot be questioned (although Beowulf ’s death undermines it), nor can the reward. But the motivation can: heroes like Sigemund earn glory and treasure in this way. Did King Beowulf need to earn it, too? The term “greed” has too often hijacked the debate over Beowulf ’s motivation in the dragon fight, yet the poet poses Beowulf ’s “heroism” as the chief complication in the episode. By Cherniss’s logic, Beowulf ’s retainers have not earned the dragon’s gold, with the exception of Wiglaf, who (it is argued) at least feels that

Respectively, “Gold und Manneswert”; “Progress of the Hoard” 475. A point explored in Greenfield, “ ‘Gifstol’ ” 108–9. Greenfield supposes that Beowulf ’s eagerness to gain the hoard and see his winnings is positive (113); see also the more complex reading of Hill, Cultural World 134–5. Hill concludes, “not fearing combat or the dragon’s great strength, Beowulf responds to his obligations as a king should but to his task as a warrior” (135). I sense that this equivocation represents a certain unresolved discomfort over Beowulf ’s fight. 130

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he has not earned it.132 Therefore, Beowulf ’s hope to “win the gold” sounds like an Olympian’s. Yet there may be reason to think that Beowulf acted in the interests of national security rather than selfinterest. After all, he receives the precious cup only after resolving to confront the dragon.133 Furthermore, one of his later utterances appears to moderate the suspicion of rapacity. Wiglaf gathers what treasure he can carry and brings it to Beowulf, who says: Ic ðara frætwa Wuldurcyninge ecum dryhtne, þæs ðe ic moste ær swyltdæge Nu ic on maðma hord frode feorhlege . . . (2794a–2800a)

frean ealles ðanc, wordum secge, þe ic her on starie, minum leodum swylc gestrynan. mine bebohte

In words I give thanks to the Lord, the king of glory, the eternal Lord, for all of the treasures which I look upon here, such as I could gain before my death-day for my people. Now have I bought my fate with a hoard of treasures.

Does Beowulf sacrifice his life to enrich “his people”? In support of Beowulf ’s action, the narrator contends that the dragon wrongly hoarded the treasure: “se sið ne ðah//þam ðe unrihte/inne gehydde// wrætte under wealle” (“the venture did not avail him who wrongly hid the treasure within, under a barricade,” 3058b–60a).134 William Cooke has lately proposed that Beowulf leaves the treasure to his successor, Wiglaf, to ensure the Geats’ security: “With this wealth the new king of the Geats will be well placed both to hold his own thanes’ loyalty and to attract the bravest and best warriors from all the surrounding lands.”135 While this solution is convincing, two others occur to me. First, Beowulf 132 The disposal of the gold has also exercised Thomas A. Carnicelli, who imagines that one retainer (whom he identifies as the messenger) redeems his cowardice by proposing to inter the treasure with his fallen king; cf. Greenfield, “ ‘Gifstol’ ” 113: “the rusted and ultimately useless hoard is an analogue for the cowards themselves, their honour gone to rust.” Hill proposes that the treasure constitutes Beowulf ’s wergild (Narrative Pulse 12), but under these circumstances it would seem that the Geats should accept it. 133 Greenfield, “ ‘Gifstol’ ” 109–10. 134 Many critics have exonerated Beowulf ’s presumed “greed” by these verses. They suggest that because hoarding is vilified and sharing praised, Beowulf is justified in freeing the treasure for distribution. This view can hardly be credited under the circumstances I propose. 135 “Who Cursed Whom?” 208.

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could be thinking that the dragon’s wealth compensates his losses, one inevitable reason why he was motivated to take revenge.136 This first reason sounds sacrificial. Second, he might imagine that the riches could be used to buy off his enemies after his death.137 Such settlements are known even in Beowulf. One final influential critic, Edward B. Irving, Jr., has endorsed an impressionistic reading: “once the Geats have the proper feel of all this [the various “sensations” they have, and “actions” they commit, after the dragon’s death], then they will know where the treasure must go now and who should be its present possessor.”138 For Irving, the treasure is obviously Beowulf ’s. Nevertheless, multiple problems emerge in accepting Beowulf ’s presumed self-sacrifice. First, what else would one say in resigned acknowledgment of a mortal injury? If Beowulf cannot use the treasure himself, the inheritors of it are his people by default. Second, to earn treasure for “one’s people” magnifies Beowulf ’s own standing as ring-giver, in light of a king’s ambition to be “generous.” Is Beowulf then seeking to enlarge his reputation for liberality? Finally, Wiglaf ’s decision to burn and then bury the treasure with Beowulf confounds Beowulf ’s generosity “for his people.” Indeed, the poet remarks that the treasure now buried with Beowulf was “as useless to men as it had been before”: “þær hit nu gen lifað,//eldum swa unnyt/swa hit æror wæs” (“where it now yet lies as useless to men as it had been before,” 3167b–8b).139 Wiglaf probably expected Beowulf to enjoy this treasure

136 Similar to Irving’s proposition that the treasure was Beowulf ’s wergild (Reading of Beowulf 167; see idem, Rereading Beowulf 129: “gold is used as a measure of heroic effort”); Greenfield, “ ‘Gifstol’ ” 112–13. 137 Irving, Reading of Beowulf 208. See also Hill, Narrative Pulse 88 (“use the treasure to look after the Geats”). 138 Irving, Rereading Beowulf 129. 139 John Niles (Beowulf: The Poem and its Tradition 244) explains this contradiction “pragmatically”: “Since the Geats deposit the dragon’s gold in the dead king’s barrow in lieu of tribal treasures, from a purely pragmatic standpoint they are spared having to make a great material sacrifice at their king’s funeral. They are no poorer after the funeral than before. The gold from the hoard lies in the ground ‘as useless to human beings as it was before’ (3186), just like the precious objects that accompany any funeral.” The statement seems unlikely in two respects. First, there was no expectation for Beowulf to receive the wealth of an entire nation at his funeral. I would have said that the Geats are much poorer after the funeral than before. Second, the narrator’s statement that the gold was useless to men actually qualifies Beowulf ’s success: the gold lies with Beowulf, useless now and useless when the dragon had it. Why, then, did Beowulf trade his life for it?

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in the afterlife,140 but the Christian narrator discloses the vanity of his heathen pietas. Cherniss’s neat equation that treasure equals merit evaporates when one considers that Beowulf, perceiving himself as a king, thinks this treasure belongs to his folc, whereas Wiglaf and the Geats, perceiving Beowulf as a warrior in pursuit of glory, bury it with him. The moment obviously harks back to Hroðgar’s evocation of oferhygd: se þe unmurnlice eorles ærgestreon,

fehð oþer to, madmas dæleþ, egesan ne gymeð. (1755b–7b)

Another man will inherit who gives treasures, the former wealth of an earl, without hesitation; he will not care for national warfare.

Beowulf certainly cared more for these treasures than Wiglaf, a fact that fosters our preoccupation with Beowulf ’s “morality.” In this context the “egesa,” which I have elsewhere translated as “national invasion,” can characterize the “searonið” that Beowulf “sought,” perhaps unnecessarily, against the dragon. In summarizing his achievements on his deathbed, Beowulf says that he never “sohte searoniðas” (“sought contrived hostilities,” 2738a). However, the narrator records that Beowulf “sohte searoniðas” (3067a) in the dragon fight, and he identifies this provocation as a possible reason for Beowulf ’s death.141 Hygelac himself “sought” a feud with the Franks when he (quite literally) “asked for woe” (“wean ahsode,” 1206b), and his death, I sense, is being compared to Beowulf ’s.142 While Beowulf never confesses to a wrong decision, the inconsistency between his own perspective that he never sought out searoniðas and the narrator’s affirmation that he had done so against the dragon manifests a potential benightedness. The disarming contradiction recalls my earlier point: either subalterns misunderstand Beowulf ’s motivation, or Beowulf unknowingly misrepresents himself.

140 Frank, “Memorial Eulogies” 2–3. Or perhaps the deposition represented a booty sacrifice; see Fabech, “Warfare and Ideology.” Inhumations were also found alongside such Migration-era sacrifices (ca. 100–500 AD), in which the elaborate and valuable deposits (weapons, mounts, personal gear, horse trappings) had been deliberately damaged, sometimes burnt; see Fabech, “Reassessment” 88 and 91. 141 Thomas D. Hill, “Confession of Beowulf ” 173. 142 On the sense of the verb (“to ask for it”), see Klaeber, “A Few Beowulf Notes” 15.

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A State of War While Beowulf ’s hoard may signify glory gained, his real legacy is to expose the Geats to invasion, an “orleghwile” (“time of war,” 2911a), a “fæhðo . . ./. . . feondscipe,//wælnið wera” or “feud . . . state of hostility, the slaughter-malice of men” (2999a–3000a).143 There can be no doubt that the misery predicted by the Geat messenger describes exile. In company they will pace strange lands as refugees (3019a–b). The woman who sings a “giomorgyd” at Beowulf ’s funeral “often said that she sorely feared invasions of hosts, countless slaughters, a warband’s terror, humiliation, and forced slavery”: þæt hio hyre heregeongas wælfylla worn, hynðo ond hæftnyd. (3152b–5a)

Sæide geneahhe hearde ondrede, werudes egesan,

On the basis of references to Geats in Skaldic verse, Roberta Frank speculates that the Geats were not exterminated as predicted here.144 In an earlier article, she gathered evidence highlighting the anomalous doom forecast in the herald’s prophecy and the maiden’s lament.145 Old Norse erfidrápur disclose that a king’s death traditionally portends death, devastation, and enslavement, as “Hákonarmál” (ca. 960): Deyr fé, deyia frændr, eyðisk land ok láð,

Cattle die, Kinsmen die, land and realm are emptied.

143 According to Niles (Beowulf: The Poem and its Tradition 245), Wiglaf “singles out the Geats’ cowardice, not their hero’s death, as the source of their approaching misfortunes.” One might be able to draw this conclusion by translating lines 2884a–90a as Niles does (“all joy and love in your native land will cease for your people” > “all cherished joy of one’s homeland will cease for your kinsmen” . . . “every man will go bereft of his rightful domains among the tribe” > “every man of your tribes will be deprived of his rightful domains”), but it seems to me that Wiglaf is precise: kinsmen of these retainers (“þære mægburge/monna æghwylc,” 2887a-b) will lose their property rights (“londrihtes,” 2886b) once their fear becomes known abroad. Wiglaf does not say that these men brought about national invasion, although misery will befall them. In fact, the messenger declares that Beowulf ’s death will invite invasion: “Nu ys leodum wen//orleghwile,/syððan underne//Froncum ond Frysum/fyll cyninges//wide weorðeð” (“Now the people should expect a time of tribulation after the king’s fall becomes widely known among the Franks and Frisians,” 2910b–13a). 144 “Skaldic Verse” 125; see Sisam, Structure of Beowulf 55–9. 145 “Memorial Eulogies.” On the identity of the “geatisc meowle” as a mourner, see Mustanoja. Orchard’s proposed parallel with the messenger’s predicted annihilation in Judith may suggest the formulaic character of such doom (Pride and Prodigies 8, 12).

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chapter four síz Hákon fór með heiðin goð mörg er þióð um þiáð.

Since Hákon fared to the heathen gods, many a people is enslaved.146

One cannot escape the impression that idiomatic expressions of grief in Scandinavian (or Germanic?) eulogies influenced the apocalyptic ending of Beowulf. Yet research by Carol J. Clover into the origins of the OIcel hvöt (“incitement”) and erfikvæði (“dirge”) does not square with Frank’s conclusion.147 At least, women in the Icelandic sagas and Eddic poems were not given to the prediction of their own deaths and enslavement, or national ruin, as part of ritual lamentation. The tradition appears to be Skaldic, and masculine. Could it be possible, then, that the “geatisc meowle” is repeating a truth that the messenger had voiced? If it were true that the Geats’ “lament” merely expresses their desolation and does not predict actual massacre, why would the narrator confirm the messenger’s expectation that disaster awaits them? The messenger concludes his long oracle by predicting a feast for eagles and wolves (the traditional Beasts of Battle), after which the narrator adds: Swa se secg hwata laðra spella; wyrda ne worda. (3028a–30a)

secggende wæs he ne leag fela

So the man was recounting prophecies, hateful tidings; he did not lie much in his predictions or statements.148

The Geats could hardly be unaware of their doom, since its origin has just been rehearsed in the recapitulation of Hygelac’s Frisian raid and the Swedish wars. If not a litotes, however, the expression “ne leag fela” could suggest that the messenger’s prediction was not completely accurate, that he was mistaken in some details. Is there enough distortion to exonerate Beowulf, one wonders? I sense here a deliberate ambiguity which hinges on the possibility that the messenger and “geatisc meowle” may be uttering a conventional Germanic dirge or at least exaggerating the consequences of Beowulf ’s death. Either possibility could substantiate the impression that Beowulf ’s dragon fight was not irresponsible. Beowulf had not exposed his people to excessive risk. Cited from Frank, “Memorial Eulogies” 5. “Hildigunnr’s Lament.” 148 On reading “hwata” as gen. pl. “prophecies” ( unheanlice). “Boar and Badger” 222.

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Ælfere and Maccus just before their deaths. Being “unafraid” differs from being “confident” or “bold” in contexts of inevitable downfall, and all of Byrhtnoð’s retainers are so classified when they are described as “unearge”: Þa ðær wendon forð unearge men

wlance þegenas, efston georne. (205a–6b)

Proud thanes issued forth, uncowardly men eagerly hastened.

This usage is widespread. Adjectives for “brave” formulated with unplus a term having the opposite sense of the target portray the ambivalence of heroic action in the face of certain death. Byrhtnoð’s men are not “brave” in any ordinary way but neither are they “cowardly.” Implicit in the adjective “wlance,” their liminal motivation expresses doubt, either supreme heroic action or reckless defiance. Cynewulf’s death ultimately reflects the ambiguity attending supreme heroic action. By rushing out naked, he seems to have acted recklessly, not only in losing his own life but the lives of his retinue who died for him. At the same time, he came very close to killing his enemy by giving him a great wound (“miclum gewundode”). To what circumstance could we credit this exceedingly slim margin of defeat? Simply because he was “on wifcyþþe” (“seeing a woman”) and therefore undressed and without his bodyguard? “Cynewulf and Cyneheard” evokes many of the situational ironies explored in Beowulf’s dragon fight. I proposed in Chapter 5 that the retainers’ refusal to accept Cyneheard’s terms constituted “dying with one’s lord,” a sacrifice which typically accompanies a leader’s recklessness. Cynewulf ’s exploit ultimately reverberates through the Chronicle’s history, for Wessex, which had managed in Cuthred (d. 752) to secure autonomy from Mercia, seems to have lost its quasi-independence after Cynewulf ’s death (he reigned 31 years). Offa of Mercia came to power soon afterwards. Notwithstanding the key issue of legitimacy, this bald episode asks questions like the Beowulf poet’s. Was it reckless for Cynewulf to have ventured to Merton in the first place, or with such a small retinue? If Cynewulf could wound Cyneheard, could he not also have killed him? Did Cynewulf’s men fail him, then, because they were not present to defend their king? If Cyneheard is killed, as happens later in the episode, does Cynewulf’s death actually matter? Why does the legitimate king die, even though his attacker’s ancestry is tainted by wrongdoing and his ambush is desperate? Cynewulf’s death exemplifies a king’s potential

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recklessness and resonates with Beowulf’s own downfall. “Cynewulf and Cyneheard,” Hroðgar’s sermon, the Bonifatian letter I adduce, and parallels in “Daniel” corroborate the prominent literary treatment of a king’s heroic excess in eighth-century England. The behavior was a matter of serious debate, not mere admiration. An uncertain recklessness also characterizes Waldere’s behavior in the Old English poem “Waldere.” Shippey explains that Hildegyð’s speech in Waldere A should probably come “after several enemy warriors have been killed, but before the greatest of them, Hagena, is drawn reluctantly into the action.”26 In this context Hildegyð repudiates what appears to be Waldere’s excessive heroic action and advocates practical defense, badger-style: Nalles ic ðe, wine min, ðy ic ðe gesawe ðurh edwitscype wig forbugan lice beorgan, ðinne byrnhomon ac ðu symle furðor mæl ofer mearce, þæt ðu to fyrenlice æt ðam ætstealle, wigrædenne. (12a–22a)

wordum cide, æt ðam sweordplegan æniges monnes oððe on weal fleon, ðeah þe laðra fela billum heowun; feohtan sohtest ðy ic ðe metod ondred, feohtan sohtest oðres monnes

Not at all do I criticize you with words, that I saw you flee another man in battle through cowardice or retreat from the (shield-)wall to protect your life, though many foes had hewn your mailcoat with their swords. In fact, you ever sought to fight further forward, a prospect beyond your capacity. For this reason I fear what has been ordained for you, that you would too audaciously seek to fight another man’s strategy in the vanguard.27

Hildegyð asserts that Waldere is no coward: she has never seen him flee, even when his mailcoat was hacked to bits by many foes. Having made the case for Waldere’s courage, Hildegyð disclaims any imputation of cowardice in the advice she gives. She fears that Waldere might act “to fyrenlice” (“too audaciously”) in abandoning his protected defile.

Ibid. 223. I am indebted to Shippey on a number of counts in this translation; see ibid., pp. 222–3. My translation “audaciously” for OE fyrenlice acknowledges that heroic deeds should often be regarded as liminal: “audacious” verging on “reckless”; see DOE s.v. firenlice sense 2 (“rashly, violently,” for this passage only). 26 27

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She suspects that Waldere’s success in killing a host of enemies (both in the current mêlée and in the past battles she alludes to) would tempt him to a “prospect beyond his capacity” (“mæl ofer mearce,” 19a), and she contemplates that Attila’s strategy is to tempt Waldere’s heroic vanity—his warrior confidence. Joyce Hill has offered four possible interpretations of OE mæl in the phrase “mæl ofer mearce,”28 but the sense “appointed time” is most likely correct. The word mældæg in Genesis A 2341b signifies “appointed day,” a meaning one could extend in the Waldere A context to “occasion” or “opportunity.”29 Because “mæl ofer mearce” varies “furðor feohtan sohtest” (“sought to fight further,” 18a–b), we could guess that OE mæl somehow describes this circumstance. Now, as Shippey contends, seeking to fight “further” implies fighting beyond a physical boundary, for which reason he also thinks that “ofer mearce” means outside the protected cranny where Waldere defends himself. OE mearc often describes a physical boundary. In fact, Hildegyð mentions that Waldere always seeks to fight further, beyond the shield-wall. While OE mearc may designate physical emplacement, it has the figurative sense “limit,” and since OE mæl is as likely to mean “occasion” as “designated time,” the phrase may confront Waldere’s recklessness. He consistently sought opportunities beyond normal limits, past his measure, and Hildegyð therefore fears what has been measured out (“metod,” 19b) for him. The expression “æt ðam ætstealle” (21a), which I have translated “in the vanguard,” may also imply Waldere’s partiality for impulsive action. OE ætsteall in similar context is attested in Guðlac A, where it is often rendered “station.”30 This “station” may refer to the place of action, where the king’s standard is set or where the fighting is most desperate.31 The odds in Waldere’s current situation must be quite different from those in his former engagements, in spite of his stature. They make Waldere’s ordinary reaction reckless, not “audacious” but “too audacious” (“to fyrenlice”). According to Hildegyð, yielding to his customary impulse to be in the “ætsteall” would not be heroic:

Minor Heroic Poems 44. Ibid. 30 Roberts, Guthlac Poems 135 (note to line 179): “him to ætstealle/ærest arærde// Cristes rode” (“At the vanguard he first raised Christ’s rood,” 179a–80a). 31 Shook 6; at the cross (i.e. the position of a battle-standard) Guðlac the warrior “overcame many perils” (“þær se cempa oferwon//frecnessa fela,” 180b–81a). 28 29

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conclusion þæt ðu scealt aninga lif forleosan agan mid eldum . . . (8a–11a)

. . . nu is se dæg cumen oðer twega, oððe langne dom

The day has now come that you must from here on achieve one of two things, either lose your life or gain long-lasting glory among men.

Waldere’s boar-conduct would earn no glory in these terms. On the contrary, it would be excessive, and probably fatal, in exactly the way I have anticipated for Beowulf. Hildegyð foresees Waldere’s potential to be too eager for glory because his past successes have made him over-confident. In “Waldere” Hildegyð urges heroic “moderation,” but the evaluation of Waldere’s heroic death does not lie solely in the poem’s diegesis. Such judgment also functions at the level of audience, suggesting that listeners and readers actually appraised heroic deeds as excessive. A hero’s death in particular invites analysis, but Germanic heroic literature often judges action against ethical motivation. Regarding the Germanic focus on “failure, defeat, disaster,” Bertha S. Philpotts proposes that “there is something more in this interest in defeat than the mere poetic value of a lost battle against overwhelming odds.”32 She describes a “choice between two evils,” either “yielding” or “resisting,”33 and resistance in this dichotomy would confer fame. I have argued throughout this book that choice also necessitates evaluation, and that resistance would not automatically be exalted in Beowulf. In my view, the implicit tension between two evil choices requires that resistance be justified, not simply acclaimed. Signý in the Volsung legend exemplifies the stress that I envision in Beowulf. In committing incest, betraying her husband, killing her own sons, and immolating herself, she chose vengeance and gains “fame” of a sort. The story does not end with admiration for—or astonishment at—Signý’s choice, however. It continues with the audience’s justification for her choice: what makes her resistance admirable, and should human beings be willing to exchange their dignity for revenge? Of course, any concession to virtue in Beowulf invokes the Christian outlook theorized for the poem, since “yielding” to one’s fate implies the weakness associated with defeat. Action, I have said, typically dominates choice in the warrior’s ideology.

32 33

Philpotts 4. Ibid. 5.

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Beowulf vexes the admiration for resistance that Phillpotts outlines in her article on wyrd and providence. Social obligation opposes violence or, at least, the dépense characterizing do-or-die resistance. On the one hand, heroic “resistance” of the sort encountered in the Grendel fight conflicts with national and warband politics at Heorot. Beowulf’s “resistance” there defies Danish chagrin and the threat of renewed violence. On the other hand, the dragon fight frustrates violence in consideration of kingly responsibility, another kind of social obligation. Judgments made about these actions must reflect complexities and doubts contrived by the poet. He has not made a facile poem about the generosity and brilliance of heroic action but one that contemplates the motivations and effects of choice. The poet invites this judgment, especially in the dragon fight, where I have tried to calculate all the contingencies of Beowulf’s choice. My goal in Chapter 4 is to show how unforeseen outcomes of Beowulf’s dragon fight complicate his choice, which is itself based on limited understanding occasioned by a potentially improper motivation. The incident dramatizes the problem that resistance to one’s “fate” equals a famous death, but it does not altogether impugn the system of belief underlying resistance or capitulation. Beowulf is never ironic in these terms. Post-Marxist critics have often summarized the Beowulf poet’s overall outlook as challenging a social orthodoxy, most often a “heroic code” of some sort. Readings that protest heroism typify much Feminist criticism of Beowulf. In a recent book on queenship in Old English literature, Stacy S. Klein remarks that “the Beowulf poet mobilizes feminine voices to prescribe a new model of heroism premised on turning the violent energies of heroic self-assertion inward and waging battles against one’s inner voices rather than against human foes.”34 I have argued, however, that heroism valued the same arts of “wisdom” that Klein attributes to the poem’s female characters and to Hroðgar (because of his age and consequent “feminine” traits). In Beowulf ’s case, the “inner voices” confirm moderation, the restraint of political expertise. Interestingly, Klein interprets the dragon’s treasure as a token of vacant heroism: “the equation of Beowulf’s life with a treasure that is ultimately deemed useless indicts his adherence to a heroic ethos of vengeance and violence which is shown, in the end, to reduce the

34

Ruling Women 89.

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value of the warrior’s life to nothing.”35 Yet the quotient missing in this “equation” is glory or reputation. Like all warriors, Beowulf does not trade his life for “useless” treasure but for the enduring honor signified by material reward. Nevertheless, the Beowulf poet does not explore whether it is admirable to exchange one’s life for glory, but whether Beowulf responsibly gave up his life, and earned glory, in the dragon fight. The poet affirms heroism as righteous action but questions the limits of action for great men like Beowulf, especially when they must also be responsible for men of lesser capacities. John Leyerle’s article, “Beowulf the Hero and the King,” advocated a similar reading, but he concluded that heroism doomed Beowulf, who could only express the soldier’s faith in action. Conceiving heroism as a cultural liability, this subtle opinion re-figured Beowulf into a social commentary rebuking the conduct of kings and ironizing heroism. While I have affirmed many of Leyerle’s arguments in these pages, I have not concluded that the poet criticizes heroism per se. On the contrary, Beowulf chooses to fight the dragon, and while heroism might influence him to choose action, only by understanding his motivation can we determine whether his choice was righteous. Germanic kings are not doomed because they choose action, nor are they doomed because they have no choice but action. They might be afflicted by oferhygd. The issue of oferhygd, and the related fault of excessive wlenco, constitute my final point about the judgment of Beowulf ’s deeds. OE oferhygd is often rendered by the Christian reflex “pride,” an offensive and damnable vice for all churchmen. But because Beowulf ’s life and deeds are celebrated at the conclusion of the poem, Anglo-Saxonists hesitate to credit him with pride. I have made the case, however, that Beowulf ’s behavior at the end of his life should not impugn the success of his long reign. He has earned the Geats’ culminating accolades: manna mildest leodum liðost

. . . wyruldcyninga ond monðwærust, ond lofgeornost (3180b–82b)

. . . among the kings in this world he was the mildest of men, the gentlest, the kindest to his people and the most desirous of praise.

The same appreciation holds for Waldere, Cynewulf, and Byrhtnoð, all of whom had long and eminent careers. Furthermore, oferhygd alone

35

Ibid. 96.

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would not entail one’s personal destruction. As a matter of misjudgment, it is attended by other failings attributable to unforeseeable consequences like the men in one’s charge, the topography, or one’s weapons. Every case of excessive behavior also involves amelioration of some kind, and the Anglo-Saxons enjoyed discovering how these “extenuating circumstances” could relieve blame. In Beowulf ’s case the dragon’s death, the broken sword, and the secret curse mitigate his potential oferhygd. In my view, critics have misunderstood two aspects of what I call the “oferhygd complex,” and these particulars also resolve why Beowulf can be honored at the end of the poem. First, a king afflicted by oferhygd does not know that he has succumbed. He follows the “perverse, wondrous commands of an evil spirit” in complete ignorance of any sin, and may, in fact, think of his deeds as righteous. The king, for whom prosperity and self-defense ought to be enough, has simply lost his moral faculties and commits deeds contrary to ece ræd and in defiance of his forðgesceaft (“destiny”) and dom (“reputation”). Second, the social calamity represented by the tyrant’s ambition evokes pity, one reason why the language of accusation in Hroðgar’s sermon is so mild. In other words, the response to the subtle psychic temptation of oferhygd reveals sympathy for men who succumb to it, not outright condemnation. Hroðgar conveys just this kind of indulgent grief in reaction to Heremod’s fall: the tyrant “forgets and neglects” his promise. The Geats react to Beowulf’s own death with a mixture of pity, disappointment, and alarm (for their future), not the outright abuse that might be expected if Beowulf had yielded to superbia. This ostensible sympathy, alongside the multiple vindications I outlined above, explains why the close of Beowulf expresses respect and dignity for Beowulf’s accomplishments. Although the audience has registered the ambivalence of this conditional tribute, Beowulf has been a good king.

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INDEX OF PASSAGES CITED FROM OLD ENGLISH VERSE TEXTS

Cited by verse line(s): page reference(s). Andreas 307–14: 14 note 53 317–20: 197 note 57 516: 189 note 30 613–14: 72 note 40 1003: 109 note 163 1136: 195 1381: 78 note 47 1427–8: 70 note 36 1619: 72 note 40 Battle of Maldon 2–3: 326 6: 326 17–21: 326 18: 326 19: 326 30: 325 31–3: 326 33: 325 34: 326 36–7: 326 79: 366 86–8: 338 89–90: 328 90: 338 94–5: 331 note 66, 332 149–58: 343 note 110 169: 324 173–9: 341 179–80: 341 181: 345 185: 345 186–7: 345 192–3: 345 note 113 205–6: 367 207–8: 321 212–15: 344 220–3: 161 224: 343 237–42: 345 247–8: 321 249–51: 161

257: 321 278–9: 321 312–13: 344 Beowulf 6: 212 8: 211 14: 66, 292 15–16: 66 20–4: 44 50–2: 220 58: 196 61: 147 note 31 64–5: 211 105: 18 113–15: 190 note 31 118: 87 note 74 120–5: 190 142: 18 144: 18 168–9: 80 170: 80, 244 178: 212 184–5: 107 note 158 196: 29 204: 282 216: 82 250: 101 251: 232 267–82: 105–6 276–7: 212 278: 130 280–5: 106 287–91: 100, 102 311: 217 note 102 331: 24 338–9: 17, 24, 76 341: 24 348: 15 366–7: 15 349: 15 350: 15 379–81: 29 388–9: 205

398

index of passages cited from old english verse texts

Beowulf, cont’d. 420–1: 95 421: 71 421–2: 95 423: 71 424–32: 82 429: 73 note 41 434: 95 note 124 457: 112 459–61: 17, 75 462: 75 478–9: 114 note 175 480: 109 480–3: 132 503–5: 108 507: 124 508: 24, 41 508–12: 114 509: 41 511: 114 512: 41, 125 513–15: 125 note 213 517: 126 520–3: 114 523–4: 126 526–7: 95, 98 530–1: 109, 110 532: 113 note 174 537: 115 539: 115, 125 540–1: 115 542–3: 113 note 174 572–3: 29, 192, 267 583–6: 115 587: 127 588: 77, 106 589: 98 609–10: 115 629: 196 679–80: 83 680: 41 685–7: 332 721: 18 736–8: 83 738: 189 770: 18 783–8: 212 801–5: 83 807–8: 72 note 40 826: 85 868–9: 61 870–1: 61 note 3 876: 65, 68 879: 65

882: 68 883–4: 62 885: 65 888–9: 69 889: 65 894–5: 70 895: 65 898–902: 73 902: 164 902–4: 72 903: 45 904–5: 70 907–8: 70, 232 910–12: 115 911: 232 915: 210 942–6: 178, 355 946–9: 178 951–3: 45, 132 958–60: 189 996: 284 1014–19: 148 1017–18: 150 1018–19: 150 1020: 137 note 3 1055–7: 86 1064: 137 1065: 139–40 1066–7: 139 1068: 139, 152 note 46 1069: 137 1071–2: 152 1073–4: 137 note 4 1076: 137 note 4 1080–1: 153 1082–3: 152 1086: 157 1087–8: 165 1089–94: 154 1095: 143, 154, 164 1096: 143 note 18 1096–7: 156 1098–1101: 156 1099: 157 1102: 152 1102–3: 153, 162 1104–6: 156, 175 1106: 232 1107–8: 154 1125–7: 158 1127–33: 167 1128–9: 167 1129: 168, 177 1130: 167, 168 note 114 1137–8: 158

index of passages cited from old english verse texts Beowulf, cont’d. 1137–9: 169–70 1140–1: 170 1145: 172 1146: 152 1146–50: 159 1147: 152 1150–1: 170 1155: 165 1159–60: 140 1165–6: 87 note 75 1166: 91, 124 1167–8: 127 1180–2: 149 1184–5: 147 1184–7: 149 1185–7: 150 1198: 143 note 19, 217 1199–1200: 217 1200–1: 214 1202–7: 24 note 74 1206: 24, 52, 71, 288 1207–8: 217 1220: 172 1231: 148 note 34 1233–5: 151 1259: 171 note 128 1260: 212 1264: 194 1275: 18 1278: 114 note 177 1282–4: 29 1292–6: 258 1304: 184 note 10 1305: 164 note 96 1307: 196 1325–6: 147 1330: 235 1343: 195 1352: 18 1384–5: 267 1429: 114 note 177 1456: 87 note 75 1467: 109 1470–1: 130 1485: 284 1489: 16, 98 1490–1: 333 1558: 192 1562: 192 1564: 196 1657–8: 193 1661–3: 193

1688–93: 183 1689: 190 1691: 188 1691–2: 184 1691–3: 186, 192 1693–4: 184 1694–8: 183 1698: 181 1700–3: 355, 361 1703: 188 1704: 112 1705–6: 188 1709: 233 1709–24: 181 1711–12: 71 note 39, 189, 194, 230 1713–14: 67, 71 note 39 1715: 194 1716–17: 194 1718–19: 194, 196 1719–20: 67, 195–6 1721–2: 195 1722–4: 62 1724–7: 188 note 28 1724–34: 223 1724–57: 197, 208–9 1730–3: 197 1735–8: 198 1739: 214 1740: 193 1741–2: 199 1744: 210 1747: 203, 219 1748: 210 1749: 199, 211 1750–2: 211 1755–7: 288 1758–60: 257 1759: 213 1760: 203, 218 1764: 192 1769–73: 199 note 60 1772–3: 218 1773–4: 199 1781: 284 1807–12: 234 1826–35: 235–6 1827: 212, 235 1842–3: 233 1866: 171 1926–7: 228 1929–31: 229 1931–2: 229 1933–4: 230, 232

399

400

index of passages cited from old english verse texts

Beowulf, cont’d. 1938: 232 1939: 232 1940: 230 1950–1: 232 1951–3: 232 1961: 233, 292 1972: 73 note 41 2025: 145 note 24 2032: 111, 144 note 21 2034: 144 note 21 2036: 144 note 21 2037: 144 2040: 144 2042: 145, 171 note 128 2047: 112 2053: 145 2054: 144 note 21 2056: 146 2059: 144 note 21 2063: 143 2065–6: 143, 232 2069: 143 note 18 2076–80: 234 2080 : 234–5 2082: 235 2093: 212 2093–4: 235 2105: 140 2105–14: 141 2108: 140 2113: 171 note 125 2119: 114 note 177 2152–4: 179 2152–7: 236 2155: 137 note 3 2158–62: 236 2166–9: 238 2180: 196 2181: 238 2183–9: 20 2194: 174–5 2196–9: 238 note 150 2221–4: 250 2223: 264 note 80, 293 2231–70: 74, 265 2236: 293 2243: 266 2256: 266 2262–3: 266 2265–6: 72 note 40 2267–8: 266 2273: 251

2278: 212 2281–2: 250 2288: 251 2290: 297 2294–5: 251 2305–6: 251 2314–15: 249 2322–3: 251 2329–31: 255 2331: 256 2335–6: 254 2337: 73 note 41 2337–41: 257 2345: 51 2345–51: 254 2349: 255 2354–99: 260 2379–84: 16 2391: 172 2397–8: 255 note 52 2403–4: 213 2404: 279–80 2419–23: 258 2435–67: 259–60 2444–62: 201 2450–9: 266 2472–8: 272 note 89 2472–83: 272 note 89 2475–6: 272 note 89 2478: 271 2484–5: 271 2488–9: 171 note 128 2489: 271 2490–3: 273 2490–2509: 271 2509: 279 2511–12: 255 2511–14: 52 2512–14: 285 2514–15: 257 2518–21: 302 2524–5: 296 2526–7: 332 2527–8: 255 2529–35: 268 2532–5: 268 2535–6: 279 2554–5: 251 2581: 196 2589–90: 336 2598–9: 274 note 94 2599–2601: 276 2625–7: 264 2638: 268

index of passages cited from old english verse texts Beowulf, cont’d. 2639: 246 2640: 268 2642–4: 268 2642–6: 244 2650: 212 2650–2: 273 2653–6: 273 2656–9: 275, 336 2684–6: 302 2736: 212 2736–9: 155 2738: 288 2743–51: 279 2747–9: 282 2749: 284 2764–6: 280 2766: 51 2780: 212 2794–2800: 286 2796: 284 2833: 24 2842–5: 279 2848–9: 274 2850–1: 274 2863: 273 2869–70: 273 2873: 268 2878–9: 276 2879: 344 2884–90: 289 note 143 2890–1: 267, 305 note 176 2907: 264 2910–13: 289 note 143 2922–7: 272 note 89 2926–7: 271 2937: 71 2999–3000: 289 3019: 289 3028–30: 290 3051: 293 note 153 3053–7: 297, 301 3058–60: 286 3059: 171, 250 3060–1: 283 3066: 283, 295 3067: 51, 288 3069: 155, 295 3069–73: 294 3070: 293 3071–3: 294 3072: 295 3073: 298 3074–5: 281

3077–8: 50, 243–4 3078: 278 3083: 246 3085: 244 3110: 264 3121: 319 3126: 168 3152–5: 190, 289 3154–5: 212 3155: 342 3167–8: 287 3179: 319 3180–2: 36, 81, 354, 372 3181–2: 364 3182: 179 Christ A 363: 204 Christ B 485: 194 756–65: 204 768: 204 770: 205 779: 197, 204 833–6: 212 Christ C 1267: 195 1627: 225 Christ and Satan 119–24: 78 186: 78 Daniel 19: 225 22–4: 225 23: 256 25: 224 29–30: 224 32: 224 53: 222 56: 223 96: 222 100: 222 102–3: 222 106–7: 223 110–15: 223 161: 222

401

402

index of passages cited from old english verse texts

Daniel, cont’d.

Exodus

185–7: 225 187: 226, 256 209: 223 240: 170, 258 241: 223 268: 222 297: 222 299: 225 note 449: 222 488–91: 270 489: 203 note 494: 222 528: 222 565–6: 223 589–91: 226 605: 222 609: 225 611: 225 650–1: 225 668: 223 677: 203 note 684: 226 686: 226 694: 226 713: 211

note 57

Finnsburg Fragment 123 71, 222

24–5: 16, 75 32: 165 Fortunes of Men 16: 194 26: 72 note 40 51–7: 110 80–1: 92 Genesis A

71

Death of Edward 16–21: 74 note 42 Deor 21–7: 67 note 29 22–3: 217 24–5: 71, 217 30: 197 note 58 31–4: 188 note 28 40: 197 note 58 Edgar (A-S Chronicle poem) 1–2: 224 note 121 Elene 386–93: 78 431–2: 219 560: 219 561–2: 219 855–6: 107

144: 211 211–13: 71 529–30: 216 532–3: 203 note 71

18–19: 211 24: 216 30: 216 36–7: 78 44: 216 47: 211 56: 195 81: 195 878–9: 70 note 36 979–81: 77 1026–7: 71 1033: 77 1051: 77 1097: 77 1523–8: 190 1673: 24, 269, 276 1673–8: 276 1675–8: 269 1939–41: 216 2237–43: 229 note 129 2240: 229 2341: 369 2565: 190 Genesis B

note 47 note 106 note 106 note 158

272: 328 276–7: 328 293: 196 296: 196

index of passages cited from old english verse texts Gifts of Men 18–26: 198 26: 221 41: 176 note 140 Guðlac A 32: 256 34: 256 52–5: 96 56–9: 96 60–1: 96 109–10: 79 127–32: 206 167–9: 206 179–80: 369 note 30 180–1: 369 note 31 186: 206 note 75 208: 24 386–9: 270 809: 213 Guðlac B 991–2: 107 note 158 Instructions for Christians 130: 329 Judgment Day I 14: 211 16–17: 211 Juliana 16: 194 225–88: 205 351: 78 438: 72 note 40 483–90: 111 Kentish Psalm 52: 218 note 105 152–4: 213 Maxims I 4: 91 29–30: 332 note 73 37: 112

58–9: 37 60–1: 205 144–5: 112 146–7: 112 172–3: 74 192–200: 190 Maxims II 18: 218 note 105 23–9: 175 note 136 61–2: 218 note 105, 332 note 73 Menologium 125: 195 Meters of Boethius 1.22–25: 153 note 48 9.34–38: 219 note 107 Order of the World 3: 218 13: 202, 256 18–21: 202 27–30: 270 Paris Psalter 54.23: 196 note 51 58.2: 196 note 51 118.60: 211 138: 20, 196 note 51 142.11: 202 note 70 Precepts 17–18: 112 30–1: 112 34: 109 45–51: 99 47: 213 48: 98 54–6: 32, 200 57–8: 96 note 126, 219 67–8: 219 68–70: 219 78–82: 216 81–2: 216 86–7: 32 90: 112 93–4: 219

403

404

index of passages cited from old english verse texts

Riddle 5 (3) 1–6: 362 Rune Poem 1–3: 34 Seafarer 68–71: 198 109–12: 99 111–12: 31, 269 Solomon and Saturn 225–9: 193 388–90: 201 440–1: 202 Vainglory 1: 98 8: 197 14–15: 96 16–18: 171 18–19: 110 19–20: 96 21–22: 96 22–3: 97 23: 79, 95, 97 23–7: 205 24–5: 97, 205 26–7: 111 28–9: 79 28–31: 97 31: 79 33–4: 78 33–44: 238 34–5: 197 35: 197, 210 37–8: 206 40–1: 110 41: 110

43: 79, 203 44–9: 107 48: 79 49: 79 52–6: 107 55: 79 57–66: 79 58: 79 61: 79 Waldere A 8–11: 370 A 12–22: 368 A 18: 369 A 19: 369 A 21: 369 B 25–6: 202 note 70 Wanderer 64–5: 361 65–72: 31, 93–4 68: 199 Widsið 25: 114 27: 138 29: 137 note 4 33: 217 note 100 45–9: 147 note 32 65: 188 122: 217 124: 143 note 19 128–9: 216–17 129–30: 217 Wife’s Lament 1: 62 note 5 5: 74 note 42 10: 74 note 42 38: 74 note 42

INDEX OF OLD ENGLISH WORDS, AFFIXES, AND COLLOCATIONS DISCUSSED

abreotan 194 note 48 “agen dom” 65 note 23 ahlænan 107 aldorbana ¤ ealdorbana aldorcearu ¤ ealdorcearu alicgan + on 174 alwalda 6 ana 194, 225 “an dom” 65 note 23 “anes willan” 51, 243, 246 æfter 159 æfþonc(a), æfþanc(a) ælmihtig 6 ænlic 231–2 ætsteall 369 ætwitan 161 æþeling 13

111

-bealu 157 note 67, 195 bealunið 213, 257 benemnan 155 beodgeneat 67 betera 188 “gebiged” 107 blodreow 196 bolgenmod 194, 211, 223 breosthord 196 breotan 194 byre 145, 262 note 71, 263–4, 268 ceas, ceast 154 note 54 cempa 13, 14, 145 corþer 96, 319 note 29 cwiðan 141 cyning 14, 38 “dalum gedæled” 96, 99 deaðcwalu 190 dēlen (ME) 96 dol 245 dolgilp 114 note 175 dollic 245 dolsceaða 114 note 175 dom 13 don + on 174

dreamleas 225 drincan (druncen) 109 dryht 35 dryhtbearn 144 dryhten 6, 14 *dugan 98 duguð 35, 42, 319 “eafoð ond ellen” 63 “eal unhlitme” 168–9 “ealde riht” 256 ealdgesegen 61 note 3 ealdorbana 77 ealdorcearu 70, 85 ealdormonn 55, 324 eaxlgestealla 67 “ece drihten” 5 “ece ræd” 182, 214, 220, 224–5, 256 ecg 172 ecghete 198 edwenden 33 egesa 212, 218, 288 ellen 23, 80 ellendæd 65 ende 197 endelean 226 engel 7 eorl 14, 324 note 39 eorlscipe 268–9 “eorðan dreamas” 224 Eote 163 eoten 65 note 23, 72 note 40, 152, 163–6, 172 eotenisc 163 note 90 eotonweard, eotenweard 163 note 90 est 283–4 fah (fag) 27 fæge 33 fægen 94 note 120 “fæhðe ond fyrene” 64–5, 81 fæðelas 89 (ge)feran 188–9 ferhþ 196 flett 157

406 index of old english words, affixes, & collocations discussed flitan 154 flitm 154 flod 192 note 44 folcræden 176 forht 94 forlacan 72 note 40 forsendan 72 note 40 “forð forlacan” 72 note 40 forðgesceaft 218 note 105, 332 note 73, 356 forþringan 153 frasian 226 freca 14 frecne 189 fremde 188, 225 frioðuwær 155 frofor 35 fyren 59, 65, 210–11 fyrenlice 368 fyrenþearf 66, 115 (ge)gangan 279 note 105 gæst, gist 27, 158 “geare cunne” 93 gearwor 282, 283 note 121 “geatisc meowle” 289–90 geoguð 319 gidd 38, 61–2, 79, 139–41, 181, 188, 231, 266 gigant 163 note 90, 192 gist, gæst 27, 158 glæd 149 gladian 145 gligmonn 88 gneað 228 god 6 “god ana wat . . .” 332 “god ælmihtig” 5 *goldhwatu 282–3 gramhydig 211 gretan 80 note 52 guma 14 gumstol 233 gyman 218 hæftmece 98 hælend 7 hæle 13 hæleð 13 hæðen 7 handbana 235 heafodmæg 77 hean 20

heaþodeor 142 gehedan 108 gehegan 108 heofon 342 heorðgeneat 46 higeþrym 205 note 74 higian 280 hildedeor 141 hleotan 168 note 112 hliet 168 note 112 hnah 132, 228 hold 43, 101–2 hraful 212 hremig 145 heðer 210 hrinan 297 *hwatu 283, 290 note 148 hyran 116 inne 170–1 inwitsorh 197, 201 lacan 72 note 40 landræden 176 langung 225 lemman 70 note 33 leodbealu 195, 230, 232 lifcearu 70 note 33 lifgesceaft 233 lof 13 lofgeorn 1 note 2 lofgeornost 1, 27, 50, 179 lytegian 338–42 mæl 369 mænan 161 mæst (micel) 244 note 20, 245 mearc 369 gemet 99 “gemet monnes” 269, 276 metod 6 milde 355 note 15 missan (OIcel missa) 259 note 59 mod 23 modsefa 15 modþryðo 229 mondream 42, 194–5, 225, 241 monn 14, 269 monwise 216 note 97 morþor 157, 259 note 62 morþ(or)bealu 157 gemot 170 (ge)munan 145, 171

index of old english words, affixes, & collocations discussed 407 muðbona 234 myndgian 145, 171 note 127

sund 124–5 swiðferhð 908

nefa 65 nefne, nemne 281 note 111 nergend 7 “ne to forht ne to fægen” 94–5

tæcan 326 to 127 “to fægen” 200 torngemot 170, 173

oferhigian 280 oferhogian 254 oferhycgan 254 oferhygd 36, 37, 38, 40, 43, 49, 51, 54, 69, 181–227 ofermod 54, 328–30 oferswiðan 218 ofþyncan 111, 144 “on bearm” 175 “on feonda geweald” 72 note 40, 337 note 90 onhohsnian 233 onwendan 276 note 100 openian 297–8 ordbana 77

“þæt wæs . . .” (poetic formula) (ge)þearfian 153 þeccan 113 þegn 14 ðeod 162 þeodbealu 195 ðeodenlease 162 þeodscipe 216 “ðing gehegan” 82 note 58 þrym 205 note 74 þurhteon 173 þyle 15, 40, 59, 87–92

ræd 216 rædfæst 202, 225 reon 125 ricsian (rixian) 247 riht 202 note 70 rixian ¤ ricsian sawol 210 scadan 156 note 65 gescead (witan) 102–5 (ge)sceawian 282–3 scond 88 scop 4, 92 note 110 scyld 197 searo- 156 note 64, 214 note 91 searonið 288 “selfes dome” 65 note 23 sinræden 176 sið 14 note 54, 70–1, 269 gesið 14, 35 snottor 218 snyttru 31, 181, 188, 218 sorhcearu 196 “sorhfullne sið” 114, 124, 189 sorhwylm 45 spelboda 87 spell 61 starian 284 gestealla 35

184

unearh 367 “unflitme” 154 unfrom 20 “ungemedemad” 97 note 134, 110, 205 unheanlice 356 “unhlitme” ¤ “eal unhlitme” unræd 216 unriht 224 unsnyttru 197 waldend, wealdend 6 warnung 201–2 wæfre 170, 258, 270 wælfag 168 wælfus 258 note 56 wælfyll 189–90, 212 wær 78 wea 71 wealaf 152 “wean on wenum” 71 weorc, wræc 195 note 49, 244 weorðmynd 211 wic 246–7 wiga 14 wilgesið 44, 82 willa 30, 225, 244 wilsið 82 winburg 96 note 126 wlenco 17, 23, 29, 33, 49, 181, 205 note 74, 271, 358 wlonc 24, 367

408 index of old english words, affixes, & collocations discussed wong 298 note 162 wordsnottor 88 “worda ond worca” 102 “wordum wrixlan” 61 note 4 woroldræden 176 wræc ¤ weorc “wræc adreogan” 51 wræcmæcg 15

wræcsið 17 wrecan 16 wrecca 12, 15–18, 21–2, 25, 32, 38, 65 wrixlan 61 note 4 wyrd 6, 33 yrhðu

327, 339

INDEX OF LATIN AND GREEK WORDS AND COLLOCATIONS DISCUSSED

ainos (Gk.) 39 apatheia (Gk) 199 ate, Ate (Gk.) 57, 209–10 beneficium

67

cantor 88 cot(h)urnus 329 daimon (Gk.) 210 discretio 96 discerno 96 exprobro 161 note 80 extermino 194 note 48 gigas

163, 190 note 31, 191

heros (Gk.) 13 histrio 89 imperfectum 20 insectatio 154 note 54 iocista 88 ioculator 88

luxuria

209

mimus 88 musicus 88 nepos

65

orator

87

pantomimus 88 paradeigma (Gk.) 39–40 parasitus 88 prodigus 1 note 2 rhetorica 87 ridiculosus 88 ridiculus 88 scurra 88 “subtilis inpostor” superbia 181–2

88

thymos (Gk.) 23, 209–10 tolerabilior 67 note 26

INDEX OF OLD ICELANDIC TERMS DISCUSSED

deila

níð 117 níðingverk

96

þula 91 þulr 89–91 fimbulþulr hvöt jarl

ofrausn 91

290 324

mannjafnaðr 117 missa 259 note 59 muna 171 note 128

77 note 46

323

senna 117 note 181 skap 92 note 110 skapdeildarmaðr 97 skauð 118 note 187

GENERAL INDEX

NOTE: Old Icelandic words are alphabetized as Old English. Abbo (of Fleury) Passio s. Eadmundi 295 note 157; Old English version (Ælfric) 331 Abel 190 Achilles (Iliad) 22, 39–40, 57 Aethicus Ister (Cosmographia) 64 note 18 Agathias (continuation of Procopius, Historia Gothorum) 316 Ajax (Iliad) 39 Alcuin (of York) 10, 89, 191, 241, 354 Aldhelm (of Malmesbury) 2 note 6, 203; Prosa de uirginitate 74 note 42, 87 note 76, 87 note 77, 88 note 81, 154 note 54, 252 note 42; Carmen de uirginitate 88; Epistola ad Heahfridum 88; De metris 89 Alexander the Great 11–12, 336–7 Altus Prosator 191 ambiguity 1, 2, 12–13, 16, 22–8, 38, 49–50, 58, 60–1, 76, 116, 210, 227, 239, 257, 259, 267, 284, 303; of Grettir 19, 21 analogy (intradiegetic) 186, 231, 264; of gidd 38–40, 142, 146–51, 178–80, 237, 264–5 Andreas 14 note 53, 70 note 36, 72 note 40, 78 note 47, 109 note 163, 189 note 30, 195, 197 note 57 angels 188, 195, 211; fall of 79, 182, 291 Arnórr Þorðarson 322–3 Asser Vita Alfredi Regis 207 note 78 Atlakviða 340 Attila (the Hun, OE Ætla) 217 augury 90, 169, 223, 226, 272, 308 Augustine (St.) 104, 353 Ælfric (of Eynsham) 103, 105 note 155, 202 note 70, 295 note 157, 331 Æschere 29, 85, 132–3, 146, 231, 258, 361 Æþelred (k. of England) 324 Æþilwald (k. of Mercia) 207–9 Babel (tower) 24, 225 Baldr and Höðr 259

Battle of Maldon 54, 57, 161, 275, 308–9, 311–49, 362–3, 366; analogues 311; Byrhtnoð 54–5, 311–12, 324, 328, 331, 333–6, 340–3, 346, 362, 372; Christian allegory 311–12; Christianity 332, 341; lytegian crux 338–42; ofermod 311, 328–40, 362; retainers 322, 325, 343–6; revenge 321; theme 347; Vikings 321 Beasts of Battle 290, 295 Bede (the Venerable) 15, 138, 163, 351–2, 354 Belshazzar 36, 182, 226–7, 291, 329 Beow 44, 292 Beowulf (Christian) allegory 9, 251–3, 299, 301; anachronism 5; analogues 19, 21, 116–23, 251–2, 259, 305–9, 311; audience 2, 4, 6, 10, 42, 46, 68, 137–9, 149, 184, 230, 351, 364; Æschere 29, 85, 132–3, 146, 231, 258, 361; boasting 40–1, 83, 93, 95, 100, 110–11, 114–15, 124, 126; Breca 35, 41, 80, 95, 98, 113–15, 124, 126; Cain 3–4, 6, 11, 14 note 53, 46, 51, 66, 71, 77, 83, 106, 190, 249–50, 357; Christian language 5, 7, 256; Christianity vs. paganism 1, 3–6, 10, 42, 183–4, 294 note 155, 300, 332, 354, 356; coast-warden 61, 100–6, 234, 238, 359, 361–2; community 6; contrapuntalism 358–9; date 2, 3, 4 note 15, 221, 353; Dæghrefn 34, 272–3, 291, 320, 343 note 110; digressions 18, 26, 37–42, 49, 57, 62, 77, 133, 135–80, 230, 259–67, 358; dragon 50–3, 69, 85, 155, 189, 243, 247–55, 264, 277–81, 283–8, 293–5, 302–3; dragon fight 24, 26, 48, 53, 182, 239, 260 note 66, 263, 273, 305, 311, 341, 365; drunkenness 32, 109, 112, 132, 224 note 120; Eanmund and Eadgils 15–16, 73 note 41, 75, 143 note 19, 255, 291–2; Ecgþeow 17, 75, 131,

412

general index

360; Eofor 271, 273; Eomer 292; exchange 16, 44, 67, 76, 137, 148–9, 155, 157, 178–9, 214, 236–7, 246, 273–4, 323; Feminist criticism 371; Finnsburh digression 38–9, 135–80, 319, 365; Freawaru 142, 144; Fremu 39–40, 45, 49, 228–35, 292; Frisian Raid 8, 24, 50, 52, 71, 218, 255, 260 note 66, 273, 288, 290–1, 333–4, 357; Geats 8, 20, 25, 41, 48–9, 65 note 21, 147, 289–90, 274, 293; genre 1, 311; “gomela ceorl” digression 201, 260–7, 272, 305; Grendel 6, 12, 17–18, 40–1, 45, 47–8, 68, 79, 82–4, 95, 112, 145, 165, 182, 194, 196, 203, 241–2, 247–8, 250, 252–5, 332, 355, 359, 365; Grendel’s mother 29, 146, 150, 182, 242, 252, 254–5; Hama 143 note 19, 214, 216, 218, 224; Hæðcyn 71, 128, 151, 157 note 67, 264–5, 271; Healgamen 92 note 110, 139–40, 361, 365; Heaðobard digression 142–6, 173, 177, 180, 235, 263–4, 363; Heaþolaf 17; Hengest 16, 18, 39, 73 note 41, 75, 135–6, 142–3, 148, 151–63, 166–7, 172–4, 175–7, 227, 319; Heorot 17; Herebeald 128, 151; Herebeald-Hæðcyn digression 259–61, 272, 305; Heremod 18, 35, 38–9, 45, 49, 59, 62, 66, 73, 75, 77, 80, 83, 114–15, 164, 181, 188, 192, 194, 196, 210, 217, 222, 225–6, 228, 232, 238, 240, 246, 255–6, 291; historical setting 2 note 6, 6–8; Hondscioh 41, 49, 83–4, 132, 231, 234, 363; Hreðel 17 note 59, 19, 30, 36, 38, 48, 53, 57, 193, 203, 260, 264; Hroðgar 4–5, 17–18, 37, 45, 47, 115, 137, 178–9, 193, 221, 227, 237, 247, 292, 355, 360, 371 221, 227; Hroðgar’s “sermon” 38, 49, 70–3, 78 note 48, 181–221, 227, 239, 255, 257, 329–30, 356, 360, 364, 373; Hroþulf 132, 264; Hrunting (sword) 98, 130; Hunferð 15–17, 21, 26, 35, 37, 40–1, 57, 59, 61, 77, 86–7, 89, 92, 95, 98, 106, 109–9, 111, 127–8, 130, 133, 234, 361, 364; Hunferð digression 86–100, 107–116, 248, 364; Hunlafing 172–3, 175–6; Hygd 39, 228; Hygelac 2 note 6, 19, 39, 49, 82

note 59, 236, 255; intradiegesis 260–7, 359; irony 6, 18, 62, 98, 111–12, 145, 148, 150, 272, 359, 371–2; “Last Survivor” 74, 266, 281, 293; manuscript 2, 347; meter 1, 3, 69, 114 note 177, 140 note 12, 156 note 65; names 2 note 6; Nægling 300, 302; Offa I (k. of the Angles) 39, 49; Offa-Fremu digression 228–33; Ohthere 16 note 58; Onela 15–16, 75, 255, 291; Ongenðeow 65 note 21, 75, 271; orality 2; origin 2–3; polysemy 6–7, 27; Ravenswood (battle) 271–2; scribal composition 2 note 5, 3, 5; Scyld Scefing 211–12, 220, 285, 292, 355; Sigemund 18, 29, 34, 39, 59, 73, 75, 80, 86, 189, 210, 252, 285; Sigemund-Heremod digression 59, 61–6, 85, 133, 151, 194, 361, 364–5; slave 250, 297; structure 48, 197, 226, 239–41; Swedish-Geatish Wars 65 note 21, 260, 271, 290–1; thematic unity 8, 53, 239–41, 351; thief 250, 297; Wealhþeow 132, 142, 147–50, 172, 179–80, 214, 264, 272; Weohstan 292; Wiglaf 5 note 18, 37, 42, 50–1, 54, 243, 246, 264, 268, 273, 275, 285, 292, 300–1, 343, 363; Wulfgar 15–17, 76, 81, 181, 205, 361; Wylfings 17, 75, 235 Beowulf age 292; arrogance 10, 23, 29, 35, 39–40, 98, 100–1, 133, 221, 242, 277, 332; choice 54–6, 178, 214–16, 241, 267, 314, 323, 340, 370–2; conscience 257–8, 266–7, 282, 291; cultural background 10, 25; death 240, 296, 301–2; education 228, 234; exceptionality 18, 23, 25, 34, 57, 76–7, 81, 188, 213, 356–7; heroism 2, 8–9; homecoming 227–8, 239, 241; Hroðgar’s heir 132; “inglorious youth” 19–20, 115, 238; kingship 2, 18, 34, 42, 44, 48, 305; lack of heir 292; liminality 34, 364; lordship 16, 35, 42, 44, 46, 69, 85, 225, 239, 324, 326, 346–7, 351, 353; monstrosity 11 note 46, 17, 18; motivation 1–2, 10, 12–14 note 53, 19, 25, 28–9, 56, 86, 111, 182, 210, 239, 242, 248, 255–7, 270, 278, 285, 292, 302, 305, 332, 358–60, 365;

general index Nægling 300; potential wrecca 18, 21, 25, 35, 58–9, 66, 73–4, 76, 83, 133, 178, 237–8, 357–8; pride 24, 29, 31–2, 51, 54, 60, 78, 182, 191, 203 note 72, 222, 242, 277–8, 328, 333, 352–3, 372–3; piety 4, 288, 301; recklessness 13, 24, 29, 32, 34–5, 37, 40–1, 43, 53, 83, 95, 113–14, 126, 133, 193, 244, 246, 254, 257, 278, 290–2, 294, 304–5; sacrifice 258, 269, 287, 312, 331; storyteller 258–67; virtue 4–5, 8–9, 20, 23, 29, 38, 42, 48, 51–3, 57–8, 101, 185, 257–8, 301, 305, 354, 356, 360 Beowulf and the Appositive Style (Robinson) 5–8, 47 bible 107, 190–1, 222–3, 251–2, 252, 299 note 169 Bjarkamál 147 note 30, 313 boasting 40–1, 83, 93, 95, 100, 110–11, 114–15, 124, 126 Book of Enoch (apocryphal) 190 note 34 booty sacrifice 288 note 140 Boniface 207–9, 368 Bragi (Hákonarmál) 63 Breca 35, 41, 80, 95, 98, 113–15, 124, 126; kingship 114 Brosinga mene 217 Byrhtnoð 54–5, 311, 346, 362, 372; age 324; ambiguity 334, 343; conscience 342; generalship 328 note 52, 335–6; ofermod 311, 328–40, 362; pride 333; rank 311, 324; sacrificial death 312, 331, 340–2 Cain 3–4, 6, 11, 14 note 53, 46, 51, 66, 71, 77, 83, 106, 190, 249–50, 357 Cassian Collationes 191 Chanson de Roland ¤ Song of Roland chansons de geste 315 choice 54–6, 178, 214–16, 241, 267, 314, 323, 340, 370–2 Christianity 182, 184, 187, 190–1, 192 note 41, 202, 212, 352–3 Christopher (St.) 11 coast-warden 61, 100, 234, 238, 359, 361–2; his maxim 101–6 comitatus ¤ warband conscience 210, 257–8, 266–7, 305, 342

413

Consolatio philosophiae (Old English) 256 contrapuntalism 26, 41, 52, 61 Cosmographia (Aethicus Ister) 64 note 18 creation story 4 Crucifixion 301 curse 22, 55, 214 note 91, 281, 293–304, 341, 354 Cursive Minuscule 3 Cynewulf (A-S poet) 204 Cynewulf and Cyneheard (A-S Chronicle) 67 note 29, 162, 318, 347, 366–7, 372 Danegeld 327 Danes 68, 124 Daniel 182, 221–7, 269, 291, 329, 368; date 221; structure 226 Dante (Alighieri) 166 Dæghrefn 34, 272–3, 291, 320, 343 note 110 Deor 45, 71, 291 Deor (poet) 67 note 29, 231 Devil (cf. Lucifer) 3, 78–9, 165, 182, 204, 208, 211, 222, 251, 253, 291, 301, 329; devil’s darts 197–213, 220, 257, 357 Dicts of Cato 177 digressions 18, 26, 37–42, 49, 57, 62, 77, 133, 135–80, 230, 259–67, 358 divination ¤ augury draconitas 50, 250 dragon 50–3, 69, 85, 155, 189, 243, 247–54, 283, 302–3; animal 249–50, 302–3; barrow 293–4; and Battle of Maldon 311; cup 250, 255, 264, 279, 284; sentient 250–1, 253; treasure 277–81, 285–8, 29 dragon fight 24, 26, 48, 239, 260 note 66, 263, 273, 305, 365; ambiguity of 53, 182, 341 drápur 54 Dream of the Rood 363 drunkenness 32, 109, 112, 132, 224 note 120 duguð ¤ warband Eanmund 15–16, 73 note 41, 75, 143 note 19, 292; Eanmund’s sword 292 Eadgils 15–16, 75, 255, 291–2 Ecgþeow 17, 75, 131, 360 Eddius Stephanus (Vita S. Wilfridi) 295 note 157, 313 Egbert (k. of Kent) 260 note 63

414

general index

Eiriksmál (Eyvindr Finnson “Skáldaspillir”) 63–4 elegy 93 Eofor 271, 273 Eomer 292 Ermanaric (OE Eormenric, OIcel Erminrekr) 45, 67 note 29, 71, 214, 216–17, 291; Erminrekr 214–15 erfidrápur 289 erfikvæði 290 Ericus “Disertus” 117, 200 erlebte Rede 192 evil (Evil) 32, 40, 67, 71, 78, 89, 98–9, 102–4, 106, 190, 248–52 excess ¤ immoderation exchange 16, 44, 67, 76, 137, 148–9, 155, 157, 178–9, 214, 236–7, 246, 273–4, 323; in Maldon 325, 344 Exeter Book 74 exile 16, 18–19, 31 Fáfnismál 91 Fagrskinna 63 note 16 fame ¤ glory Fatalism 28–9, 33, 47, 70, 74, 185, 257 fate 9, 14 note 53, 22, 27, 29, 185, 192, 201, 203, 223, 244, 300–1, 322, 333, 347, 356, 365 father(hood) 32 Felix Vita S. Guthlaci 88 note 87 feud 6, 17, 36, 46, 65 note 20, 75, 142, 146, 162, 184–6, 191, 213, 242, 250, 260 note 66, 288 Finnsburh digression 38–9, 135–80, 319, 365; summary 139 Finnsburg Fragment 16, 136, 153, 312 Fitela (OIcel Sinfjötli) 59, 69, 70 note 32; Sinfjötli 65, 128 Flood (biblical) 3, 6, 183, 187, 191, 218; non-biblical 192 flyting 26, 40, 60–1, 92 note 115, 116–28 folk-tale 84 folly 14 note 53, 33, 41, 52, 60, 71, 78, 81, 94, 188–90, 193–4, 197, 199, 209, 218, 224, 243–6, 257 Franks 34 fratricide 67, 127–8 Freawaru 142, 144 Fremu 39–40, 45, 49, 228–35, 292

friendship 111–12, 128 note 226 Fürstenspiegel 238 Gautreks Saga 22, 44, 91 note 106 Geats (tribe, nation) 8, 20, 25, 41, 48, 65 note 21, 274, extermination of 49, 147, 289–90, 293 genealogies 66, 90 generosity 35, 44–5, 57, 185, 217, 232 note 140, 233, 235, 237, 284, 287 Genesis 12, 185 Genesis A 182 Geoffrey (of Monmouth) Historia regum Brittaniae 169 Germania (Tacitus) 42–3, 54, 84 note 67, 273, 312–14, 320, 352 Gesta Danorum (Saxo Grammaticus) ¤ Historia Danorum (Saxo Grammaticus) giants 6, 172, 174–5, 184, 188, 194, 203, 218, 225–6, 240, 303; (tyrants of Genesis) 12, 95, 163 gidd 38–41, 61–2, 70, 79, 139–44, 146–51, 194, 237, 266, 358–9 gift-giving ¤ exchange Gildas (Sapiens) De excidio Brittaniae 168–9 Gíslis Saga 122 Glámr (Grettir’s Saga) 12, 47 Glastonbury 217 note 102 glory 19, 23, 25, 34, 36, 43, 54, 58, 70, 73, 75–7, 86, 133, 144, 181, 235, 268, 278, 280, 288–9, 303, 336, 349, 351, 365, 370, 372 glossaries 88, 154 note 54, 176 note 140 glosses 87–8, 90, 154 note 54, 329 God (god) 48, 86, 90, 107, 133, 184–6, 191, 193, 199, 220, 232 note 140, 248, 253, 283, 298–99, 301, 304, 328, 332–3, 355; Scandinavian 22, 44, 90–1, 119–20, 165, 259, 295 “gomela ceorl” (digression) 201, 260–7, 272, 305 greed (heroic) 67, 70, 284–8, 304 Gregory (the Great) Cura pastoralis 354 Grendel 6, 12, 17–18, 40–1, 45, 47–8, 68, 79, 82–4, 95, 112, 145, 165, 182, 194, 196, 203, 241–2, 247–8, 250, 252–5, 332, 355, 359, 365; sword 6 Grendel’s mother 29, 146, 150, 182, 242, 252, 254–5 Grettir’s Saga 11, 19–21, 46

general index Grettir (Ásmundarson) 11–12, 19–21, 46–7, 97, 304 note 173 Guðlac 15, 24, 206, 210–11 Guðrúnarqviða II 97 Hafliði (Grettir’s Saga) 20 Hákonarmál 63–4, 289 Hama (OIcel Heimir) 143 note 19, 214, 216, 218, 224; Heimir 215 Hárbarðsljóð 117, 119 Haustlöng (Þjóðólfr of Hvínir) 63, 165–6 Hávamál 31 note 83, 90, 93, 110 note 165, 112 Hæðcyn 71, 128, 151, 157 note 67, 264–5, 271 Healgamen (name of Hroðgar’s scop) 92 note 110, 139–40, 361, 365 Heaðobard digression 142–6, 173, 177, 180, 235, 263–4, 363; summary 142 Heaþolaf 17 Heimskringla 120 Helgaqviða Hiörvarðzsonar 96 Heliand (Old Saxon) 65 note 21, 317 hell 106–7, 208, 225 Hengest 16, 18, 39, 73 note 41, 75, 135–6, 142–3, 148, 151–62, 166–7, 172–4, 175–7, 227, 319; nationality 158, 163 Heorot 17 Heptateuch (Old English) Deuteronomy 104 note 153 Hercules 11 Herebeald 128, 151 Herebeald-Hæðcyn digression 259–61, 272, 305 Heremod (OIcel Hermóðr) 18, 35, 38–9, 45, 49, 59, 62, 73, 75, 77, 80, 83, 114–15, 164, 181, 188, 192, 194, 196, 210, 217, 222, 225–6, 228, 232, 238, 240, 246, 255–6, 291; Hermóðr 63; meaning of name 66 Hero, Germanic (definition of ) 13, 31, 47–8, 57, 64, 160, 267, 285, 312, 334–5, 365 Hildebrandslied 214 note 86 Hildeburh (Finnsburh digression) 136 Historia Brittonum (“Nennius”) 138, 163, 168 Historia Danorum (Saxo Grammaticus) 66–7, 77 note 76, 147, 164, 200

415

Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum (Bede) 15, 138, 163; Old English translation 104 Historia Gothorum (Agathias, continuation of Procopius) 316 Historia Langobardorum (Paulus Diaconus) 321 Hnæf 75 homilies 24, 79 note 50, 105, 153 note 48, 197, 202 note 70, 203, 215 note 96, 342 Hondscioh 41, 49, 83–4, 132, 231, 234, 363 Hreðel 17 note 59, 19, 38, 260, 264 Hroðgar 4, 17–18, 37, 47, 193, 237, 355; adoption of Beowulf 137, 178–9, 237, 292; age 247; counselor to Beowulf 30, 36, 48, 53, 57, 193, 203, 221, 227; diplomacy 45, 115, 360; passivity 5, 371; “sermon” 38, 49, 70–3, 78 note 48, 181–221, 227, 239, 255, 257, 329–30, 356, 360, 364, 373 Hroþulf 132, 264 Hrunting (sword) 98, 130 Humblus (Historia Danorum) 67 humility ¤ moderation Hunferð 15–17, 21, 26, 35, 37, 40–1, 57, 59, 89, 95, 98, 234, 361, 364; etymology of name 87; jealousy 108–9, 111, 133; kin-killing 61, 77, 86, 106, 127–8; “morale officer” 92, 109, 130 Hunferð digression 86–100, 107–116, 248, 364 Hunlaf 172 note 129, 174–5 Hunlafing 172–3, 175–6 hvöt 290 Hygd 39, 228 Hygelac 2 note 6, 19, 39, 49, 82 note 59, 236, 255; Frisian Raid 8, 24, 50, 52, 71, 218, 255, 260 note 66, 273, 288, 290–1, 333–4, 357 Hyndluljóð 63 Iliad 16, 38 note 89, 39–40, 57, 209–10, 364 immoderation 13, 16, 32–4, 36–7, 45, 53, 57, 59, 69, 71, 78, 95, 114, 122, 200, 210, 239, 243, 255, 270, 278, 359, 365, 368–70, 373 implicature 115 Indeterminacy of Beowulf (Köberl) 26, 55

416

general index

intemperance ¤ immoderation Israel 222 iudicium dei 332 iudicium particulare 341 Iugurtha (Orosius) 67 note 29 Jutes

39, 65 note 23, 135, 152, 162–6

Kaluza’s Law 3 Kent 163 kingship 16, 18, 23, 36, 42–4, 48, 58, 60, 114, 182, 194, 197, 211, 217, 238, 240–1, 246, 268, 292, 306–7, 351, 358; Augustinian 353; historical (eighth-century) 351–5; sacral 352 kinship 74, 76, 85, 106, 132, 276, 292, 343 Lang feðgatal 147 note 30 “Last Survivor” 74, 266, 281, 293 law 256, 259, 262–4 leadership ¤ lordship Leyerle, John (“Beowulf the Hero and the King”) 240, 242, 372 Liber Eliensis 330 Liber monstrorum 2 note 6, 11, 166 Liber scintillarum 90 Liber Vitae Dunelmensis (of Durham) 2 note 6 liminality 16–18, 23, 25, 34, 127, 244 note 19, 364, 367–8 Lokasenna 110 note 165, 118 Loki 118–19 lordship 16, 35, 42, 44, 46, 69, 85, 225, 239, 324, 326, 346–7, 351, 353 Lother(us) (Historia Danorum) 66–7, 72, 77 loyalty 43–4, 49, 76, 79, 101, 116, 178, 246, 275, 322, 343, 347 Lucifer 66, 79 magic 295, 304 Magnússona Saga 119–20 Maldon ¤ Battle of Maldon martyrdom 308 maxims ¤ wisdom literature Maxims I 90, 92 Maxims II 92 Meleager (Iliad ) 39–40 memory 219–20, 224, 271 “Men Dying with their Lord” (Ideal of ) ¤ “Men Willing to Die for their Lord in Vengeance”

“Men Willing to Die for their Lord in Vengeance” 54, 158, 273, 313–24, 336, 338, 362, 367 mercenary (warrior) 14, 60, 76, 148, 159, 162 Migration, Anglo-Saxon 138 Mildryð (St.) 260 note 63 mind 30, 170, 196–213, 216 note 98 moderation 30–2, 46, 60, 109–10, 188, 198, 220, 227, 356–7, 371; humility 60, 104–6, 192, 202 note 70, 206, 213, 257, 351, 353, 360, 365; reticence 20, 93–4, 98, 200, 219 Modþryð(o) ¤ Fremu morality 2–3, 7–8, 10, 12–13, 30, 42, 45–50, 52, 55–6, 60, 66, 77, 81, 86, 90, 99–100, 102–3, 120, 122–3, 125, 131, 155, 181, 192, 209, 220, 352; discerning morality 103, 120, 123, 183 note 4, 218, 227, 288; in Old Icelandic sources 90 note 101, 117, 120 murder 71 note 39, 77 note 46, 107, 122, 128, 142, 145, 148, 157, 190, 195, 250, 259–60, 263 Nægling (sword) 300, 302 Nebuchadnezzar 36, 182, 222–6, 255, 269, 291, 329 “Nennius” (Historia Brittonum) 138, 163, 168 Nero (emperor) 219 note 107, 250 note 55 Niebelungenlied 311, 340 Niles, John D. (Beowulf: The Poem and its Tradition) 241–3, 249 note 34, 267–7, 277–8, 289 note 143, 304–5, 360 Nimrod (the Hunter) 191 Njál’s Saga 4 note 15, 121–3 Norna-Gests Þáttr 91–2 Nowell Codex 11 oath 139, 154–8, 160, 162, 166, 174, 180, 274, 276, 313 note 12, 323 Oddrúnargráttr 97 Odysseus (Iliad ) 39 Odyssey 14 note 53 oferhygd (complex) 36–7, 40, 43, 45, 49, 51, 69, 97, 100, 191, 218, 220–1, 239–40, 246, 254–9, 267–9, 278, 285, 291, 294, 303–5, 364, 372–3 ofermod 311, 322, 327, 330

general index Offa (k. of Mercia) 229, 353, 367 Offa I (k. of the Angles) 39, 49 Offa-Fremu digression 228–33 Ohthere 16 note 58 Old English Martyrology 72 note 40, 305 Onela 15–16, 75, 255, 291 Ongenðeow 65 note 21, 75, 271 Order of the World 225 Orosius (Historia adversus paganos) 67 note 29; Old English version 336–7 Örvar-Odds Saga 118 Osred (I, k. of Northumbria) 67 note 29 Oswine (k. of Deira) 15 Óðinn Eddic verse 119–20; Gautreks Saga 22, 44; magical bonds 295; þulr 91; wisdom literature 90 paganism (Germanic) 354 paleography 281 note 111 Panther 252 Passio s. Eadmundi (Abbo of Fleury) 295 note 157 Patroclus (Iliad) 16, 57 Paulus Diaconus (Historia Langobardorum) 321 Peleus (Iliad) 16 Philip (the Presbyter) 191 Phoenix (Iliad) 16, 39 piracy 75, 101 place-names 2 note 6 politics 35–7, 39, 44–5, 48, 56, 67, 71, 77, 220, 225, 233–4, 237, 239, 292, 346, 351–2, 355–6, 359, 371 “Precarious Peace” 142, 146, 148, 150 Precepts 32, 40, 60, 92, 100, 105, 109, 197, 200, 245 pride 24, 29, 31–2, 51, 54, 60, 78, 182, 191, 203 note 72, 222, 242, 277–8, 328, 333, 352–3, 372–3 prophecy ¤ augury “proverbiousness” 93, 98, 100, 106 providence 33, 47–48 queenship

9, 228–34

Ragnarsdrápa 63 Ravenswood (battle) 271–2 reciprocity ¤ exchange recklessness ¤ immoderation Reginsmál 91 retainer(s) 14, 16–17 note 59 reticence ¤ moderation

417

revenge 135–6, 147, 150–1, 158, 161–2, 165–6, 169–72, 175–6, 180, 183–4, 192, 194, 226, 235, 260 note 66, 262–3, 265–6, 271, 273, 277, 320–2, 338 Riddle 42 (Exeter Book) 186 Riddle 59 (Exeter Book) 186 note 20 Riddles (Old English) 186, 362–3 Riming Poem 217 note 102 risk 24, 28–30, 35–7, 41, 48, 50, 94, 181, 246, 289, 303, 328 Rök Stone 166 Ruin 217 note 102 Rule of Chrodegang 104 Rune Poem 196 note 52 runes 6, 7 note 28, 90–1, 294 note 154; inscription on sword 182–4, 186 Ruodlieb 353 Ruthwell Cross 203 note 71 sagas (Icelandic) 4, 11–12, 19–22, 44, 46–7, 91 note 106, 118–23, 315 saint’s life (cf. vita) 252 Sallust 315–16 Sapientia et Fortitudo 9 Satan ¤ Devil Saxo (Grammaticus) 66–7, 69, 77 note 46, 147, 164, 200 Scondia Illustrata (Messenius) 164 scop (poet) 59, 134, 137, 150, 178–9 Scyld Scefing 211–12, 220, 285, 292, 355 Seafarer 60, 74, 220, 357 self-judgment 65, 70 Shakespeare, William (Henry V ) 323–4 Sigebryht (A-S Chronicle) 67 note 29 Sigeferþ (Finnsburg Fragment) 75 Sigemund (OIcel Sigmundr) 18, 29, 34, 39, 59, 73, 75, 80, 86, 189, 210, 252, 285; Sigmundr 63 Sigemund-Heremod digression 59, 61–6, 85, 133, 151, 194, 361, 364–5; in A-S England 64 Sigeric (archbishop of Canterbury) 327 Siggeir 65, 74, 76, 128 Sigurðardrápa 63 Signý 65, 128, 370 sin 32, 67, 78, 167, 182, 204, 216, 222, 226, 291, 356, 373 Sinfötli ¤ Fitela Skaldic verse 289, 315 Skáldskaparmál 165

418

general index

Skeggi (Grettir’s Saga) 19 Skjoldunga Saga 172 note 129 Snorri (Grettir’s Saga) 47 Solomon and Saturn 183 note 6, 201, 203 Song of Roland 311, 340, 353 soul 99, 256 speech 15, 17, 40, 48, 61 note 3, 68, 90, 92, 96, 98–100, 102, 110, 116–29, 121–4, 137, 156, 183 note 4, 187; of the coastwarden 100–6; taunting 175; of the messenger 289–90, 292–3; in Maldon 344 spell (magical) 83, 90–1, 214 note 91 Speratus (b. of Leicester) ¤ Unuuona (Speratus), b. of Leicester Starkaðr (Gautreks Saga) 22–3, 44, 77 note 46, 91 note 106 status 13–14 Stoicism 200 subaltern voice 42–5, 54, 57, 69, 73, 79, 84, 131, 177–8, 246, 248, 274, 288, 322, 324–5, 327, 348, 361–5 superbia ¤ pride Swedish-Geatish Wars 65 note 21, 260, 271, 290–1 thief 250, 264 Tolkien, J. R. R. 8, 163, 241, 249 note 34, 311, 333–4 tragedy (drama) 329 treasure 16, 70, 137, 155, 236–7, 273, 285–8, 371; dragon’s 277–80, 285–8, 304 truth 122, 126 Þeodric (Theodoric, OIcel Þiðrekr) 256; Þiðrekr 215 Þiðreks Saga af Bern 214–15, 217 note 100 Þjóðólfr (of Hvínir) Haustlöng 63, 165–6 Þórr 22, 44, 117, 166 þyle (OIcel þulr) role of 59, 87, 100, 130; þulr 89–92; teacher 91 Unuuona (Speratus), b. of Leicester 10, 89 Vafþrúðnismál 91 Vainglory 32, 40, 60, 92, 100, 105, 111, 329 Valhalla (OIcel Valhöll) 63–4

vengeance ¤ revenge Vercelli homily 103 Victory 33, 52, 123 Vikings 321, 324–5, 348 note 123 violence 15, 17, 24, 30, 59, 65, 67, 76, 86, 117, 151, 156, 170, 172–4, 180, 190–1, 194–5, 223, 233, 251, 356, 371; in Battle of Maldon 325; of Grettir 21, 47 Vita S. Guthlaci (Felix) 88 note 87 Vita S. Oswini 305–8, 333 Vita S. Samsonis 252 Vita S. Wilfridi (Eddius Stephanus) 295 note 157, 313 Vitae duarum Offarum 229 Vikings 54; deception 55, 338 Volsung legend (Völsunga Saga) 59, 65, 81, 128, 370 Vortigern 39 Waldere (cf. Waltharius) 34, 312, 366, 368–70 Waltharius (cf. Waldere) 353 Wanderer 60, 74, 303, 357 warband 2 note 6, 15, 35, 42–5, 57, 70, 82, 85, 129–30, 136, 159, 161, 182, 230, 239, 246, 248, 274, 302, 306, 313, 351; Battle of Maldon 322, 324, 343; Grendel as retainer 80; Irish parallels 129 warfare 212–3 warrior cult 63, 92, 117 Wealhþeow 132, 142, 147–50, 172, 179–80, 214, 264, 272 weapons 63, 143–4, 178–9, 236–7, 257, 263, 292, 302 Wendels (Vandals) 15 Weohstan 292 wergild 17, 259, 265, 286 note 132 Widsið 91 Wife’s Lament 74 Wiglaf 5 note 18, 37, 42, 50–1, 54, 243, 246, 264, 268, 273, 275, 285, 292, 300–1, 343, 363 wisdom 30–1, 33, 36, 48, 60, 85–6, 118, 185, 188, 199, 201, 224, 234, 245, 270, 277, 302–3, 335, 354, 356–7, 361; parental (cf. Hroðgar, “sermon”) 197 wisdom literature 59, 92, 95, 105, 112, 201, 220, 270, 356, 361; coast-guard’s maxim 101–6; maxims 90; Old Icelandic analogues 89–90, 112, 123

general index wlenco 23–4, 191, 199, 224, 226, 272–3 wrecca 12, 15–18, 21–2, 25, 32, 34, 40, 45, 66, 73–81, 136, 169, 178, 230, 335, 356–7, 365 Wulfgar 15–17, 76, 81, 181, 205, 361

419

Wulfstan (of York) 79 note 50, 153 note 48; Sermo de baptismo 94; De septiformi spiritu 105; Institutes of Polity 245 Wylfings 17, 75, 235