Fitt Seven: Hrothgar Welcomes Beowulf

This Fitt shows one reason why King Hrothgar is respected as "wise." He has information about Beowulf, Beowulf's parents, his father's father-in-law, and rumours of his ability, all sorted and ready as soon as he hears that a Geat named Beowulf has arrived. He also has a shrewd idea as to why Beowulf has come. Accordingly, he invites the Geats (except for a few who guard their weapons) to an audience.

Beowulf then introduces himself to Hrothgar. He uses high, courtly language, far removed from the direct speech he gave to the Coastguard.  He tells Hrothgar that the wise men of the Geats encouraged him to come and confront Grendel because "they understand the strength I possess./They saw it themselves." He lists his accomplishments. (We have an equivalent of such formal boasting in job interviews. Think of this speech as Beowulf's job interview with Hrothgar). Then he requests--amid many titles and praises of Hrothgar--one favour: that he and his men face Grendel alone.

Beowulf acknowledges, with characteristic honesty, that he may lose the fight, showing a streak of black humour as he does so. He assures the king that he will not have to bear the expense of Beowulf's funeral in any event, since there would be almost nothing left of his body to bury.

His final request is that Hrothgar should, if Beowulf dies, make sure that his chain mail armour is returned to Beowulf's own king, Hygelac. It was the work of the legendary smith Wayland, and very valuable.

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VII. HROTHGAR WELCOMES BEOWULF

Hrothgar answered, the helmet of Scyldings.

“I remember this man as a mere boy.

“His agèd father was Ecgtheow by name.

“Hrethel the Geat gave him as wife

“his only daughter. Their offspring, now,

“has come to find their constant friend.

“My seamen, too, have talked of him,

“who carried my gifts to the Geatish court

“as tokens of thanks. They tell that thirty

“men together could match his grip, 380

“famous in battle. The Blessed Father,

“the merciful Lord, delivered this man

“to the West Danes—so I dearly hope—

“against Grendel’s horror. In grace, I must repay

“good will like his with wealthy gifts.

“Go hastily, and have them enter;

“assemble those kinsmen to see me together,

“and carry these words: Welcome is offered

“here by the Danes.” To the hall’s doorway

Wulfgar made way and his words declared: 390

“My sovereign master commands me to say

“that the king knows your noble kin,

“and, at sailing’s end, you are extended—

“most willing heroes—a welcome here.

“You may enter in your mailed armour

“and grim-faced helmets to greet Hrothgar.

“Let your battle-shields be left a while

“and the wooden war-shafts wait through our talk.”

Then mighty he rose, surrounded by soldiers,

a fine war-band. A few stayed back 400

to watch over weapons as willed by their leader.

The group hurried, the herald as guide

under Heorot’s roof. The hero went

strong under helmet, till he stood in the hall.

Beowulf spoke. His byrnie shone,

a wondrous war-net woven by smiths.

“Hail to you, Hrothgar! I am Hygelac’s man

“as bondsman and kin. I have accomplished much

“that is great, though young. Grendel’s doings

“are widely known in my native land. 410

“Travellers’ tales tell that this hall,

“this excellent building for any man,

“is idle and empty after evening light

“has hidden itself under heaven’s dome.

“I received advice from some of my household,

“the wisest carls, whose counsel is prized,

“sovereign Hrothgar, to seek you out

“for they understand the strength I possess.

“They saw it themselves when I safely returned

“blood-soaked from my foes. I bound up five, 420

“warring with giants. On waves I slew

“nicors by night. Unnumbered times

“I avenged the woes the Weders suffered,

“struck down the aggressors. With Grendel now,

“alone with that monster, I will make a stand

“to quell the beast. A request, just one,

“King of Bright-Danes, I bring to you,

“Warden of Scyldings, to win your consent.

“You should not refuse it, Fighting-men’s Shield,

“Friend to All, Lord. We have fared long 430

“so that, unaided, I and my thanes,

“this hardy clan, will cleanse Heorot.

“I have also heard the horrid being

“in reckless fury fears no weapons.

“I too forswear them, so Hygelac,

“my high-born prince, will be proud at heart

“that I bring no sword nor a broad shield

“trimmed with yellow, but will try my grip

“when I face this fiend, fighting for life,

“foe against foe. Faith will be needed 440

“for God’s will guides who goes with death.

“Clearly, his wish, if he can win it,

“is to wolf down Geats in the war-hall,

“fearing no failure, full of success,

“eat warrior heroes. And have no worries

“how to shroud my head—the shreds of it left

“will be drenched with blood if death takes me.

“He will bear my corpse to bite alone.

“The outcast will tear it, tearless, unmourning,

“to mark out his moorland. So make no provisions 450

“for funeral offerings: no food will be needed.

“But if I sink in death, send Hygelac

“the wonderful armour worn over my breast,

“the best of hauberks that Hrethel left me,

“Wayland’s own work.¹ Wyrd² does as she must.”

1Wayland Smith was a  godlike blacksmith. His work would be best.

2Fate.

Fitt Six: Beowulf Arrives at Heorot

When the Coastguard leaves, Beowulf and his men have only a short way to travel to get to Heorot. Wulfgar questions Beowulf at the door, then goes to King Hrothgar to recommend that he see the visitors.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

VI. BEOWULF ARRIVES AT HEOROT
All bright with stones, the street brought them
marching together. Mail-shirts glittered,        320
braided by hand; bright iron rings
clashed in armour as they closed with the hall
striding forward in stern harness.
The sea-wearied men set down broad shields,
Well-hardened rims rested on the wall,
and they bent to a bench. Byrnies jangled,
men’s war-tackle. Their weapons stood.
The sailors’ lances leaned together,
grey-tipped ash-wood. That armoured group
had praiseworthy weapons. A proud warrior    330
said that these spearmen should speak of themselves:
“These came from what place, these plated shields,
“these grey hauberks and grim-masked helmets,
“this heap of spears? I speak for Hrothgar
“as attendant and herald. I have not seen
“so large a troop look so determined.
“Honour, I know it, and not exile
“but spirited hearts sped you to Hrothgar.”

The eager for battle answered him back;        340
words came in reply from the Weder lord,
hard under helmet: “Hygelac is our king;
“we share his board. Beowulf is my name.
“I hoped to say to Healfdene’s son,
“that famous sovereign, my sole purpose,
“if by his grace he grants a hearing,
“gives me permission to meet him now.”

Wulfgar answered, the Wendels’ lord,
a strong-minded man that many knew
for courage and counsel: “Coming to the Dane-friend,    350
“I shall inquire to the Scylding king,
“the ring-giver, about the gift you seek,
“to that famous lord relay your wish
“and promptly come with the king’s response
“that the good man will give to me.”

In haste he turned to where Hrothgar sat
old and white-haired, his earls around him.
He strode boldly, then stood at the shoulder
of the Danish king, as the custom is.
Wulfgar lifted his voice to his lord and friend:         360
“They fared to here from their far-off home,
“going on seaways, Geatish sailors.
“The first among these fighting men
“is called Beowulf. The boon they ask,
“Your Majesty, is that they may with you
“exchange some words. Welcome them here
“and grant them answers, gracious Hrothgar.
“Their war-gear surely shows they are worthy
“of our earls’ respect. Their oldest is indeed strong,
“the one who led these warriors here.”

A Last Look at the First Sentence (?)

The opening sentence (the first three lines) has niggled at me, but I came up with good solutions for two thirds of it.

The fighting Danes of former days,
the kings of the nation, we know their fame...

I have had the following line read

and how they earned honour through deeds.

The line sounds good, I think, but does not perfectly render the original meaning, which means something along the lines of

and how those lords exploits accomplished.

I can come closer with

and the proud deeds those princes did.

This is a good place to explain how and why I am breaking the rules of Alliterative Verse from time to time. Old English verse never has the two stresses of a half-line together at the end, as I just put them in "and the PROUD DEEDS." However, for many lines in Beowulf, that is the simplest and most accurate way to translate. For example, "in the beer hall," "in the gold hall," "in the wine hall" all work beautifully in Old English because the words for the hall--sele, reced--have two syllables. Not so in modern English. A way around the problem is to create lines like "in the hall of gold," but that is awkward and misleading. The gold hall fairly clearly means the place where gold is given out, not the place that is made of gold; after all, the wine hall is where wine is given out...it does not mean that the hall is made of wine! I could use a different word, such as mansion or palace. In the end, I sometimes used hall even though it meant that some few half-lines had their two stresses together at the end.

P.S. On the other hand, I can avoid breaking the rules with this:

and the proud exploits those princes did.

Beowulf On-line

There are a number of complete translations of Beowulf on-line. Project Gutenberg (http://gutenberg.org) features three: William Morris and A.J. Wyatt, Francis Barton Gummere, and Lesslie Hall. It has, as well, the Old English version edited by Harrison and Sharp and a useful critique of early translations by Chauncey Brewster Tinker.

Of these, Gummere's 1910 translation is best, possibly because he developed it for oral reading in a classroom. It keeps the poem's form and follows its meaning quite closely. However, tastes in poetry have changed, and Gummere uses a poetic diction that is no longer in style. Unfortunately, Morris's version is unreadably archaic in language. Hall's is a freer translation than those two, and does not follow the original line for line.

For a literal translation, side by side with the original Old English, and with copious notes, a wonderful resource is Ben Slade's site (http://heorot.dk). I've leaned on this heavily.

Another wonderful site, Beowulf Translations (http://beowulftranslations.net/)  is scheduled to disappear from the Internet on 31 December 2011. This site has selections from many, many translations of Beowulf for comparison. Anyone who can should take advantage of Syd Allen's offer and download the entire site as a zip file.


The Klaeber edition of Beowulf has been the standard Old English edition for decades. It is on-line, though without the copious notes in the book, at this site: http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/basis/beowulf-oe.html.


An on-line magazine called January Magazine has selections from the translation of Beowulf by Charles W. Kennedy, originally published by Oxford University Press. I had not seen this alliterative verse translation before. It is modern and readable. The January Magazine article also has a link to the full text of the book on the Questia Online Library. Questia is a paid service, though, so only part of the introduction and the first page of the poem are there for free. For now, at least, you can find much of it also here.


Kennedy's introduction to Beowulf has an annoying oversight, though. He says, "THE Old English Beowulf holds a unique place as the oldest epic narrative in any modern European tongue." Isn't Greek "a modern European tongue"? So shouldn't that honour go to The Iliad or The Odyssey?

Another free one is here. It is by Dick Ringler and is titled Beowulf: A New Translation for Oral Delivery. It is dated May, 2005.

It is the nature of the Internet that resources appear and disappear. I don't expect the Project Gutenberg books to disappear: that organization is not going away soon, if at all, but the others may be ephemeral. Still, what disappears in one place may reappear in another, so do not let a dead link stop you from searching further.

First Page

Here, from Wikimedia Commons, is the first page of Beowulf.

Fitt the Fifth: Beowulf Answers the Coastguard and Goes to Heorot

Notice how Beowulf answers the Coastguard here. First, he names his king, then his family. Beowulf's fame is not enough to impress a Dane (yet), so he claims respectability by referring to his eminent father. He does not even give his own name here! Finally, he says that he will "unfold his full message" to the guard, but does not. He actually intends to end Hrothgar's problems with Grendel by personally killing the monster, but does not tell the guard this. Instead, he says merely that he has "a proposal of weight" for the king to consider.  

Beowulf gives an impression of being entirely open and honest to the Coastguard while withholding quite a bit of information. This turns out to be typical of the man. He does give his name later, when he needs to, at the door of Heorot. He "unfolds his full message" only when he needs to, to King Hrothgar himself. His speech exposes Unferth to scorn, comforts the queen, rouses the King, and so on. More than anyone else, Beowulf varies both the style and content of his speech to fit his audience and his purpose.

The Coastguard is satisfied that the Geats intend no harm, so he puts a guard on their ship to keep it safe and leads them to Heorot to see the king.
------------------------------------------------------------

V. BEOWULF AND THE COAST GUARD

He who was eldest then answered him;

the warriors’ leader unlocked his word-hoard:

“We are kindred of the clan of Geats 260

“and share the hearth of Hygelac.

“My father was known, famed by the people,

“an eminent noble, Ecgtheow by name.

“Worn by winters, he went at last

“away, agèd, but often remembered

“the wide world over by the wisest men.

“We firmly decided to find your lord,

“are seeking here Healfdene’s son,

“the people’s guard. I pray you to guide us.

“We have for the prince a proposal of weight 270

“for the Dane himself. I see no reason

“not to unfold my full message.

“You should know the truth of news we were told:

“to Scyldings a killer, I am not sure what kind,

“a slinking demon in the dark of night,

“enacts horrors, unequalled hatred,

“suffering and ruin. To the ruler I can

“from an open heart offer counsel

“how he, wise and good, may worst the ghoul,

“that is, if his curse can ever end, 280

“a cure arrive for his restive mind,

“and care’s hot waves wash cooler then,

“or else, forever, anguish will endure,

“suffering stay, while that stands erect,

“high on the hill, that house without equal.”

The warden said, sitting there on his horse,

that ready retainer, “Truly, every

“shrewd-minded soldier should know the difference

“between words and works, if he weighs them right.

“From what I hear I grasp this group means no harm 290

“to the Scylding king; so carry on, bearing

“your weapons and armour on the way I show.

“Also, to my men I will issue commands

“to keep a watch on your craft for foes,

“that ship on the sand that shines with new tar,

“to safeguard it until it sails, bearing

“over water-streams the well-loved man,

“the curve-necked wood to the Weder lands.

“Men who perform such fitting deeds

“are held from harm in the heat of war.” 300

They started their march. Unmoving, the boat

rode on the sand, the roomy ship,

fastened by its anchor. Figures of boars

engraved in gold guarded their cheeks,

fire-hardened and shining, a shield to lives.

In a heroic mood, the men hurried,

headed forward till the hall of wood

stood in their sight, stately and gold-trimmed.

That was the best for beings on earth

of halls under heaven, where Hrothgar lived.

Its lustre lit the lands around. 310

Then the bold man to the battlers’ house,

all brilliant, led them, bringing them along

the straightest way. The sturdy warrior

turned his horse round and hailed them all.

“I must now leave. The Almighty Father,

“I pray will grant grace and protection

“safeguarding you. I go to the sea

“to watch and ward against warring foes.”

Modern Alliterative Verse (Yes, it exists)

Alliterative verse attracts some poets. Perhaps they like the four-beat line. Perhaps the challenge of alliterating. Perhaps the aura of age. Most likely, I think, alliterative verse seems like a halfway point between the the martinet of metre and the libertine of free verse. A happy halfway point.

One person who dabbled in it was Ezra Pound. Two of his poems that follow the old form, though very loosely, are among his best-known. The first is a translation of the first ninety-nine lines of the Old English poem "The Seafarer." Here are a few lines:

My feet were by frost benumbed.
Chill its chains are; chafing sighs
Hew my heart round and hunger begot
Mere-weary mood. Lest man know not
That he on dry land loveliest liveth,
List how I, care-wretched, on ice-cold sea,
Weathered the winter, wretched outcast

 Another one of Pound's is called "Canto I," and is a much more interesting experiment, I think. Pound took part of a Latin translation of Homer's Odyssey and translated that into English, using a loose approximation of Alliterative Verse! Since I first found this I have wished that someone would follow Pound's pointing finger and translate the rest of it into this form. However, that would be a huge project (four times larger than Beowulf is!) and would not find much of an audience. Still, here's the beginning of "Canto I," translating part of Book XI of the Odyssey.

And then went down to the ship,
Set keel to breakers, forth on the godly sea, and
We set up mast and sail on that swart ship,
Bore sheep aboard her, and our bodies also
Heavy with weeping, so winds from sternward
Bore us out onward with bellying canvas,
Circe's this craft, the trim-coifed goddess.
Then sat we amidships, wind jamming the tiller,
Thus with stretched sail, we went over sea till day's end.
Sun to his slumber, shadows o'er all the ocean,
Came we then to the bounds of deepest water,
To the Kimmerian lands, and peopled cities
Covered with close-webbed mist, unpierced ever
With glitter of sun-rays

Another of the best poets of the twentieth century, W.H. Auden, was also attracted to alliterative verse. The first line of his poem "The Wanderer (from 1930) is obviously influenced by it,

Doom is dark and deeper than any sea-dingle.

and his longest poem, The Age of Anxiety is composed in it. Here is a small taste:

For the others, like me, there is only the flash
Of negative knowledge, the night when, drunk, one
Staggers to the bathroom and stares in the glass
To meet one’s madness, when what mother said seems
Such darling rubbish and the decent advice
Of the liberal weeklies as lost an art
As peasant pottery, for plainly it is not.
To the Cross or to Clarté or to Common Sense
Our passions pray but to primitive totems
As absurd as they are savage; science or no science,
It is Bacchus or the Great Boyg or Baal-Peor,
Fortune’s Ferris-wheel or the physical sound
Of our own names which they actually adore as their
Ground and goal.

Richard Wilbur's "Junk" is all Alliterative Verse. It begins:

An axe angles from my neighbor's ashcan;
It is hell's handiwork, the wood not hickory,
The flow of the grain not faithfully followed.
The shivered shaft rises from a shellheap
Of plastic playthings paper plates,
And the sheer shards of shattered tumblers
That were not annealed for the time needful.
At the same curbside, a cast-off cabinet
Of wavily warped unseasoned wood
Waits to be trundled in the trashman's truck.
Haul them off! Hide them! the heart winces
For junk and gimcrack for jerrybuilt things
And the men who make them for a little money,
Bartering pride like the bought boxer
Who pulls his punches, or the paid-off jockey
Who in the home-stretch holds in his horse.

It is very worth reading all the way through.

However, what some poets take seriously gives others a chuckle. Here is a bit of "Anglosaxon Street" by Earle Birney.

Hoy? with climbing sun    march the bleached beldames
festooned with shopping bags    farded flatarched
bigthewed Saxonwives    stepping over buttrivers
waddling back wienerladen    to suckle smallfry

And, on top of these very original works, we have the small army of people who try to translate Beowulf into something like its original form. It does not look as though Alliterative Verse is going to be forgotten again, though it will never become a large proportion of modern verse.