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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
The discussion which follows of two dark passages in Beowulf rests fundamentally on habits of composition which are idiomatic to and generally pervasive in Old English poetry. Among these habits variation, and what I have previously called ‘generation,‘ are commonplace. And because they are commonplace and because Old English poetic language is by nature and tradition extremely conventional, it would seem a reasonable assumption that familiarity with these habits may guide us to predictions or probabilities of what a poet intended in a scribally confused passage. Such an assumption is based on the fact that Old English poets tend to repeat words, prefixes and suffixes, head-words and base-words in compounds, word clusters or phrases, and that in some poems, such as Beowulf, there is a marked tendency to repeat these lexical elements closely together in bound contexts, such as speeches, set descriptions of person or place, and episodes. The debut of Wealhtheow in lines 612b–641 is an excellent instance of multiple repetition throughout with an accumulation of repeated elements at the end.
1 In “The Literal-Figurative Identity of The Wanderer,” PMLA, lxxix (Sept. 1964), 366–369.
2 E.g., forstode 1056 / foreþanc 1060, oferhyda 1760 / oferswyÐeÐ 1769, beweredon 938 / besyrwan 942, forgyldan 1575 / forgeald 1584, forstandan 2955 / forgeald 2968, forborn 2672 / forgrunden 2677, fornam 2772 / forlet 2787, oferfleon 2525 / ofersitte 2528, ongan 2711 / onfand 2713 / onspeon 2723, ongitan 2770 / onsyn 2772, etc. Examples from Exodus are: ahleop 252 / ahof 253, areafod 290 / arærde 295, behwylfan 427 / befæÐman 429, becwom 447 / bestemed 449, oncyrde 452 / ongeton 453.
3 Thorough summaries of interpretations are available in the editions of E. V. K. Dobbie (New York, 1953) and Else von Schaubert (Kommentar: Paderborn, 1961).
4 In his edition of Beowulf (London, 1953), p. 206; the similar remark about incge occurs on p. 268.
5 A. Campbell, “The Old English Epic Style,” in English and Medieval Studies (presented to J. R. R. Tolkien), edd. N. Davis and C. L. Wrenn (London, 1962), p. 18.
6 Some nouns recorded only as glosses with w-prefix undoubtedly represent part-by-part translation of a Latin lemma, such as inbuend, incola, inorf (‘household goods‘). entheca. Such nouns, here and elsewhere in the evidence, are excluded. There is sufficient testimony among ire-prefix words, however, to indicate that an in-prefix was a native habit of word-composition, as well as one occasionally induced by literal translation of a Latin model. In connection with in(n-words, see Kemp Malone's comment on innweorud (WidsiÐ 111) in his review of Miss Brady's The Legends of Ermanaric, in JEGP, xliii (1944), 451.
7 For example, ingefolca in l. 142 is varied by Egypta cyn in l. 145.
8 Bosworth-Toller Dictionary, s.v., gemen; hereafter referred to as BTD.
9 BTD, Supplement, s.v., geþeod.
10 Examples of nonce forms (nouns) with ge-, which also occur without ge-, are: gebeacn, gebleoh, gebotl, geburland, gehilte, gehleow, gehlyn, gehyht, gelagu, gelaþ (in gelaþe, ‘foes,‘ Exodus 206), gemearc, gerest, gesacu, gesagu, gesweor.
11 Accepted in the edition of Exodus by E. B. Irving (New Haven, 1953); see p. 81. I see no difficulty in a variation of cyningas by -men.
12 The emendation, incidentally, is not admitted by H. D. Meritt in his Supplement to the Clark Hall Anglo-Saxon Dictionary (Cambridge, Eng., 1960).
13 Cp. eall seo sibgedriht somod ætgædere (214).
14 Expositio Psalmorvm, ed. M. Adriaen (Tvrnholti, 1958).
15 Two other in-prefix words occur only in Beowulf: ingenga and infrod.
16 The other head-words are: æht-, feoh-, flet-, maÐÐum-, þryþ-, and wuldor-; cp. also willgesteallum at Genesis 2147, noticing the explanations in BTD and Krapp's edition.
17 The fact that icge gold and ingesteald stand 48 lines apart is of little consequence, if my point about bound contexts is of any weight. By coincidence, ingefolca and ingemen, both in the context of the Egyptians marshalling their forces, stand 48 lines apart.
18 Again by coincidence, the formulaic locution cyning on corþre [= Finn] which stands two lines (1153) above ingesteald occurs at Exodus 191, cyningas on corÐre [= the Egyptians], one line below ingemen.
19 Cp. gelaþe, Exodus 206, cited above in n. 10, and the following examples from Beowulf: dogorgerim, but dœgrim; fengelad, but yþlad; sibbegedriht, but magodriht; corlgewæde and breostgewæde, but herewœd; sundgebland and yÐgeblond, but windblond; nipgeweorc, handgeweorc, and landgeweorc, but nihtweorc and ellenweorc. Note also the hapax compounds in Beowulf, ealdgesegen and laÐgeteona, in which the base-words are not otherwise attested independently with ge-. In a letter, John Pope points out that the difference between -geweorc and -weorc in the compounds cited is perhaps semantic, whether metrical or not: -geweorc = “a specific work completed,” -weorc = “something done by continued action” (quotations from Mr. Pope; he compares dœgweorc). Mr. Pope also allows the possibility of a form -gelaf, but is less inclined to a form -gegold, although I do not see that it is such a far throw from the examples given in n. 10, or in addition the attested forms gedead, gefah, gegild, geoþer, gerum, gesar, etc.
