Beowulf

“Beow’s name was known through the north./And a young prince must be prudent like that,/giving freely while his father lives/So that afterwards in age when fighting starts/steadfast companions will stand by him/and hold the line. Behaviour that’s admired/is the path to power among people everywhere.”

The moral principles here introduced will continue to be important throughout the poem. Displays of heroism and generosity create and maintain power in this world. While personal strength and correct behavior is the seed of power, allegiance maintains that power.

“Then a powerful demon, a prowler through the dark,/nursed a hard grievance. It harrowed him/to hear the din of the loud banquet/every day in the hall, the harp being struck/and the clear song of a skilled poet/telling with mastery of man’s beginnings,/how the Almighty had made the earth/a gleaming plain girdled with waters;/in His splendour He set the sun and the moon/to be earth’s lamplight, lanterns for men,/and filled the broad lap of the world/with branches and leaves; and quickened life/in every other thing that moved.”

The introduction of Grendel gives us a sinister taste of his rage at his exclusion from society, and introduces us to the blend of ancient custom and Christian belief that underpins Beowulf’s world. The poem described here retells the first chapter of the book of Genesis. Grendel’s anger at hearing this poem might subtly associate him with Satan (fittingly, since Grendel and other monsters were believed to be the descendants of the murderous Cain.)

“...He ordered a boat/that would ply the waves. He announced his plan:/to sail the swan’s road and search out that king,/the famous prince who needed defenders.”

The introduction of Beowulf provides a nice example of an important Old English poetic technique: the kenning. A kenning is a metaphorical compound word: for instance, “swan’s road” for “ocean,” “ring-giver” for king, or, wonderfully, “word-hoard” for speech or language. These evocative combinations represent both the thing described and the cultural context of that thing.

“‘So every elder and experienced councilman/among my people supported my resolve/to come here to you, King Hrothgar,/because all knew of my awesome strength./They had seen me bolstered in the blood of enemies/when I battled and bound five beasts,/raided a troll-nest and in the night-sea/slaughtered sea-brutes.’”

Beowulf’s announcement of his past conquests grounds the story in a world that is at once legendary (full of monsters and epic battles) and realistic (set in a context of hierarchical clans and powerful social rules). We also get a taste of the rhythmic alliteration that characterizes Old English poetry, emphatically preserved in Heaney’s translation.

“If Grendel wins, it will be a gruesome day;/he will glut himself on the Geats in the war-hall,/swoop without fear on that flower of manhood/as on others before. Then my face won’t be there/to be covered in death: he will carry me away/as he goes to ground, gorged and bloodied;/he will run gloating with my raw corpse/and feed on it alone, in a cruel frenzy,/fouling his moor-nest.”

Beowulf’s intense and often horrific imagery stems from oral tradition—it is a rare written record of a kind of story that was typically sung. Beowulf needed to work vividly on the mind’s eye. This gruesome picture of the fate of those whom Grendel devours helps us to imagine the violence and the monster nature of a being who might do such a thing. We get a sense of Grendel’s otherness through how he behaves, not how he looks. We have the room to picture in him our worst nightmares.

“‘It bothers me to have to burden anyone/with all the grief Grendel has caused/and the havoc he has wreaked upon us in Heorot,/our humiliations.’”

This speech of Hrothgar’s helps to demonstrate what makes a truly good king. While Beowulf will soon sweep in and defeat the monsters Hrothgar himself could not, Hrothgar’s rule will not suffer for this, precisely because he has the good sense to admit “humiliations” and accept help where it’s needed. Good kingship requires both pride and the relinquishment of pride.

“Wealhtheow came in,/Hrothgar’s queen, observing the courtesies./Adorned in her gold, she graciously saluted/the men in hall, then handed the cup/first to Hrothgar, their homeland’s guardian,/urging him to drink deep and enjoy it/because he was dear to them. And he drank it down/like the warlord he was, with festive cheer./So the Helming woman went on her rounds,/queenly and dignified, decked out in rings,/offering the goblet to all ranks,/treating the household and the assembled troop/until it was Beowulf’s turn to take it from her hand.”

In one of her few appearances, Queen Wealhtheow upholds and demonstrates Danish virtues of womanhood and hospitality. She, like the warriors and the hall around her, is dripping with gold. Her role is to foster friendship and unity: The whole household drinks from the cup she bears. She gives the beleaguered Danes an image of the culture that they wish to preserve—and does so again when she reminds Hrothgar of the importance of providing for one’s children in the event of one’s untimely death. 

“The dread of the land was desperate to escape,/to take a roundabout road and flee/to his lair in the fens. The latching power/in his fingers weakened; it was the worst trip/the terror-monger had taken to Heorot.”

This insight into Grendel’s mental state puts the reader in a curious position. At this stage in the poem, we have a stronger sense of Grendel’s emotions than of the (initially) invulnerable Beowulf’s. The monster’s loneliness, his panicky urge to flee, and the gruesome way in which Beowulf finally kills him, give us a strange sympathy for this bloodthirsty monster. (20th-century American novelist John Gardner plays on this sympathy in his novel, Grendel, which is told from the monster’s perspective.)

“Clear proof of this/could be seen in the hand the hero displayed/high up near the roof: the whole of Grendel’s/shoulder and arm, his awesome grasp.

The famous image of Grendel’s severed arm is laden with symbolic weight. Grendel’s arm is both an image of his defeated power (Beowulf has bested him in hand-to-hand combat) and of his monstrosity, his difference from the men in the mead-hall. When Beowulf hangs this gory trophy from the roof beams, he makes a claim for his own predominance: This powerful arm, high up in the air, represents a monstrous strength greater than that of any man in Heorot—except for the guy who hung that arm up.

“But death is not easily/escaped from by anyone:/all of us with souls, earth-dwellers/and children of men, must make our way/to a destination already ordained/where the body, after the banqueting,/sleeps on its deathbed.”

This memento mori, arriving as it does in the middle of the celebrations of Grendel’s defeat, is only one of many in the poem. The teller of the story often breaks in to remind us that all humans die and will be judged by God. While this is a heroic tale full of magic and impossibilities, the final stark reality of death is never far from the teller’s mind.

“Wind and water/raged with storms,/wave and shingle/were shackled in ice/until another year/appeared in the yard/as it does to this day,/the seasons constant,/the wonder of light/coming over us./Then winter was gone,/earth’s lap grew lovely…”

This excerpt from the minstrel’s song of Hildeburh is a good example of the role that storytelling plays within the world of the poem. Beowulf makes frequent use of poems-within-the-poem, and many of them provide warnings. Stories and songs also preserve memories of the dead and provide moral instruction, keeping up human continuity. Beowulf itself is the poetic relic of a long-dead culture. In this particular example, the dance of the seasons offers a gleam of renewal and resurrection in a poem deeply concerned with the finality of death.

“‘One of these things,/as far as anyone ever can discern,/looks like a woman;/the other, warped/in the shape of a man, moves beyond the pale/bigger than any man, an unnatural birth/called Grendel by the country people/in former days. They are fatherless creatures,/and their whole ancestry is hidden in a past/of demons and ghosts. They dwell apart/among wolves on the hills, on windswept crags/and treacherous keshes, where cold streams/pour down the mountain and disappear/under mist and moorland.’”

Hrothgar’s account of Grendel and his mother provides another example of Heaney’s feel for the rolling alliterative rhythms of Old English verse. It also gives us a clearer picture of what is monstrous in Hrothgar’s worldview. Grendel and his mother are “fatherless creatures”: Beasts who don’t take part in the patriarchy that marks the identities of the Spear-Danes and the Geats. Paternity ties humans to one another and to their culture—maternity is not enough.

“To guard his head he had a glittering helmet/that was due to be muddied on the mere bottom/and blurred in the upswirl. It was of beaten gold,/Princely headgear hooped and hasped/by a weapon-smith who had worked wonders/in days gone by and adorned it with boar-shapes;/since then it had resisted every sword./And another item lent by Unferth/at that moment of need was of no small importance:/the brehon handed him a hilted weapon,/a rare and ancient sword named Hrunting./The iron blade with its ill-boding patterns/had been tempered in blood. It had never failed/the hand of anyone who had fought and faced the worst/in the gap of danger. This was not the first time/it had been called to perform heroic feats.”

Treasure and weaponry get much loving attention in this poem. Here, we can see some of its symbolism. Beowulf’s magnificent armor and sword represent his heroic character; they have their own histories and almost their own personalities. Like heroes, they come with a pedigree. Gold and steel represent many of this world’s values.

“‘And then the man is hit in the heart,/the arrow flies beneath his defences,/the devious promptings of the demon start./His old possessions seem paltry to him now. He covets and resents; dishonours custom/and bestows no gold; and because of good things/that the Heavenly Powers gave him in the past/he ignores the shape of things to come./Then finally the end arrives/when the body he was lent collapses and falls/prey to its death; ancestral possessions/and the goods he hoarded are inherited by another/who lets them go with a liberal hand./O flower of warriors, beware of that trap./Choose, dear Beowulf, the better part/eternal rewards. Do not give way to pride.’”

Hrothgar’s advice to Beowulf is part of the Christian thread running through the poem’s fantasy. While Beowulf is mighty and beloved now, Hrothgar warns, he must remember that his virtues are gifts from God, and that death will come and undo him. In the meantime, the mark of a good leader is his humility and generosity. Hrothgar couches his advice in reminders of his own age and experience; this speech demonstrates his good kingship as much as it warns Beowulf of the dangers of earthly power. 

“And so the good and grey-haired Dane,/that high-born king, kissed Beowulf/and embraced his neck, then broke down/in sudden tears. Two forebodings/disturbed him in his wisdom, but one was stronger:/ nevermore would they meet each other/face to face. And such was his affection/that he could not help being overcome:/his fondness for the man was so deep-founded,/it warmed his heart and wound the heartstrings/tight in his breast.”

This loving farewell between Hrothgar and Beowulf reveals another side of their warlike culture. The battle-forged bonds between the men are not mere practical allegiances, but matters of the heart. Hrothgar has become a father to Beowulf in many ways. Danes and Geats create social structures not just through blood, but also with chosen family.

“‘Now, earth, hold what earls once held/and heroes can no more; it was mined from you first/by honourable men. My own people/have been ruined in war; one by one/they went down to death, looked their last/on sweet life in the hall. I am left with nobody/to bear a sword or burnish plated goblets,/put a sheen on the cup. The companies have departed.’

The song of the lonely treasure-hoarder, the last of his clan, rings especially eerie to the modern reader. This image of piled treasure rusting and going to waste, left behind by the dead, might make us think of those very treasures on display in a modern museum: the spoils of a dead civilization. We perhaps feel the same chill that the poem’s contemporaries might have—and we have the added reminder that Beowulf’s world is itself long-gone. In spite of this world’s love of gold and treasure, the poet never permits us to forget that what is human is impermanent.

“‘He begins to keen/and weep for his boy, watching the raven/gloat where he hangs: he can be of no help./The wisdom of age is worthless to him./Morning after morning, he wakes to remember/that his child is gone; he has no interest/in living on until another heir/is born in the hall, now that his first-born/has entered death’s dominion forever./He gazes sorrowfully at his son’s dwelling,/the banquet hall bereft of all delight,/the windswept hearthstone;/the horsemen are sleeping,/the warriors under ground; what was is no more./No tunes from the harp, no cheer raised in the yard./Alone with his longing, he lies down on his bed/and sings a lament; everything seems too large,/the steadings and the fields.’”

This famous passage, known as “The Father’s Lament,” is another moment of powerful feeling. Beowulf describes his foster father Hrethel’s grief for his dead son indirectly, through this story of an imagined father mourning a hanged child. This tactic manages both to evoke the overwhelming, world-altering power of grief, and to insulate Hrethel’s suffering from direct description, suggesting that his grief is beyond words. Here as elsewhere, storytelling within the story helps the characters and readers alike to contextualize and make sense of the poem’s events.

“It was never his fortune/to be helped in combat by the cutting edge/of weapons made of iron. When he wielded a sword,/no matter how blooded and hard-edged the blade/his hand was too strong, the stroke he dealt/(I have heard) would ruin it. He could reap no advantage.”

The poet’s explanation of Beowulf’s continuing difficulty with swords serves as an image of what makes Beowulf special. The hero doesn’t simply have rotten sword luck—he is just too strong for weapons. This idea fits in neatly with the poem’s emphasis on the ultimate unreliability of objects, which will always break or rust or melt or be lost, in the face of mortality, and the irreducible importance of personal character and its roots in the strength of God.

“And he saw too a standard, entirely of gold,/hanging high over the hoard,/a masterpiece of filigree; it glowed with light/so he could make out the ground at his feet/and inspect the valuables.”

Wiglaf’s exploration of the treasure-barrow recapitulates Beowulf’s experience in the lair of Grendel’s mother. In both instances, a supernatural light makes hoards of treasure visible, giving a sense that a holy cleansing has taken place, and that the death of the monsters lets Godly light back into places that had gone dark. 

“The dragon from underearth,/his nightmarish destroyer, lay destroyed as well,/utterly without life. No longer would his snakefolds/ply themselves to safeguard hidden gold./Hard-edge blades, hammered out/and keenly filed, had finished him/so that the sky-roamer lay there rigid,/brought low beside the treasure-lodge./Never again would he glitter and glide/and show himself off in midnight air,/exulting in his riches: he fell to earth/through the battle-strength in Beowulf’s arm.”

This description of the dragon does complicated work. The poet rejoices over the defeat of this terrible monster, but in so doing, he also paints a rather beautiful picture of the beast in all its nightmarish glory. The elegiac mood of the poem is clear here: the dragon is just another part of this now-lost world.

“His royal pyre/will melt no small amount of gold:/heaped there in a hoard, it was bought at heavy cost,/and that pile of rings he paid for at the end/with his own life will go up with the flame,/be furled in fire: treasure no follower/will wear in his memory, nor lovely woman/link and attach as a torque around her neck—/but often, repeatedly, in the path of exile/they shall walk bereft, bowed under woe,/now that the leader’s laugh is silenced,/high spirits quenched. Many a spear/dawn-cold to the touch will be taken down/and waved on high; the swept harp/won’t waken warriors, but the raven winging/darkly over the doomed will have news,/tidings for the eagle of how he hoked and ate,/how the wolf and he made short work of the dead.”

The messenger’s description of the dragon hoard melting in Beowulf’s funerary pyre presages the fall of the Geats’ kingdom. The kingdom is closely associated with Beowulf himself, as its defender and embodiment. Note, again, the plentiful use of assonance, consonance, and alliteration in the verse here, linking the images up like the woman linking up her toque.

“Famous for his deeds/a warrior may be, but it remains a mystery/where his life will end, when he may no longer/dwell in the mead-hall among his own.”

Often appearing through emphatic reference to the stern and beneficent power of God, the poem’s Christianity also makes room for the human incapacity to fully understand the world. The poem’s religion is not a mere dogmatic proclamation, but a reminder of mystery. The ultimate certainties are that God knows all, and humans very little.

“A Geat woman too sang out in grief;/with hair bound up, she unburdened herself/of her worst fears, a wild litany/of nightmare and lament: her nation invaded,/enemies on the rampage, bodies in piles,/slavery and abasement. Heaven swallowed the smoke.”

By expressing the terror of the leaderless Geats through the voice of one anonymous woman, the poem gives us a grounded perspective on the horrors of war and anarchy. While many of the poem’s atrocities are specific and heroic—brave men, briefly named, are dragged off by monsters or slain by enemies—this woman’s voice gives us a sense of the larger stakes for the common people who are at the mercy of those heroes. A whole culture laments its own death through this single voice.