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Hrethric

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Kemp Malone
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Extract

Two minor characters in Beowulf are Hreðric and Hroðmund, the young sons of the aged Danish king Hroðgar. The English poet represents the two princes as mere boys, too young to do anything. Yet they are not introduced simply to complete the picture of the royal household. On the contrary, they are the central and unifying figures in an episode so fraught with pity and terror that even now, after twelve centuries, we read and are deeply moved. Let us examine this episode, and see, if we can, what the poet was about.

The night before, Beowulf had put Grendel to flight, and all day the Danes have been celebrating his victory. The celebration ends with a feast in Heorot. The poet exclaims over the feasters: “I never heard of a people with a greater band of men, a finer array around their lord” (1011 f.). But the picture of such peace and happiness has for the poet and his hearers a tragic irony, for they know it will be short-lived.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 42 , Issue 2 , June 1927 , pp. 268 - 313
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1927

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References

1 Similarly W. W. Lawrence, PMLA, XXX, 387.

2 Gnomic Poetry in Anglo-Saxon, p. 33.

3 Danmarks Heltedigtning, I, 15.

4 Widsith, p. 205; cf. pp. 82 and 197.

5 Morsbach Festschrift (Studien zur engl. Philologie L) p. 296.

6 Widsith, p. 84, note 1.

7 A. Olrik, Danmarks Heltedigtning, I, 113.

8 For the Latin text see Saxo, Gesta Danorum (ed. Holder), Book II, p. 62.

9 See A. Olrik, Danmarks Heltedigtning I, 33 f., and P. Herrmann, Heldensagen des Saxo, p. 244 (with bibliography).

10 J. Langebek, Scriptores Rerum Danicarum I, 5.

11 Fornaldarsögur Norrlanda (ed. Rafn) II, 12 f.

12 Saxo, Gesta Danorum (ed. Holder), Book III, pp. 82 ff.

13 Hrólfssaga kraka og Bjarkarímur, ed. Finnur Jónsson, pp. 153 f.

14 In the Aarbøger for nordisk Oldkyndighed og Historie, Series II, Vol. IX (1894).

15 Hrólfssaga kraka og Bjarkarímur, ed. Finnur Jónsson, pp. 24 ff.

16 Saxo, Gesta Danorum (ed. Holder), Book VII, pp. 217 ff.

17 Svenonis Aggonis filii Compendiosa Regum Daniae Historia, Langebek I, 45.

18 Edda (ed. Neckel) p. 288.

19 Njálssaga, cap. xxv (ed. Finnur Jónsson, p. 60).

20 Fornaldarsögur Norrlanda (ed. Rafn) I, 363 ff.

21 Edda (ed. Neckel) p. 296, strophe 22.

22 That this is the meaning of the passage I have demonstrated at length elsewhere; see Arkiv för nordisk Filologi, XLII, 234 ff.; cf. my Lit. Hist. of Hamlet, I, 195 ff.

23 For references see Fr. Klaeber, Beowulf, Introduction, p. xli, note 6.

24 For a detailed consideration of this matter see my Literary History of Hamlet, I, 90 ff. and 191 ff.

25 Vv. 2391 ff.

26 Book III; ed. Holder, p. 75.

27 Op. cit. I, 195 ff.

28 Certain later monuments attribute the murder to Hrærekr! This development served at the same time to clear the character of Hrólfr and to explain why he murdered Rørik. Still later the murder of Hrærekr was credited to Helgi (Hrólfr's father). See my Lit. Hist. of Hamlet, loc. cit.

29 Saxo, Gesta Danorum, Book II; ed. Holder, p. 63, ll. 14-16.

30 Saxo, Gesta Danorum, Book III; ed. Holder, p. 85, ll. 7-11.

31 Aarbøger, series II, vol. IX, p. 139, n. 1; cf. p. 121.

32 Axel Olrik, in his Danmarks Heltedigtning (I, 26 f.), likewise looks upon Unferþ's name as a product of poesy. He will have it, though, that the poet invented the name outright, whereas I suppose only a modification of a historical name which has come down to us in another version of the same story.—The poet took even greater liberties with other names: witness Freawaru for Hrut and Beowulf for Beow.

33 As I have tried to show in my Literary History of Hamlet, I, 103 f.

34 I formerly believed otherwise; see my Lit. Hist. of Hamlet, I, 223.

35 This king answers to the historical Haraldr hilditönn, although the monuments usually distinguish the two. Haraldr, in the course of his chequered career, may very well at some time or other have ruled in Skne while a fellow-Scylding (Hjörvarðr perhaps) governed the rest of Denmark and the Geatish king exercised a benevolent overlordship over both the Danish rulers. But as to that we have no genuine evidence, of course.

36 Book II; ed. Holder, p. 51.

37 For an explanation of the attribution see my Lit. Hist. of Hamlet, I, 198.

38 Saxo, Book VI; ed. Holder, p. 207