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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
The Beowulf Poet's extraordinary facility in using a vast and diverse word-hoard has long excited students of the poem. Among the critical studies, discussions of vocabulary rank high in number, and almost every conceivable approach to the subject has been investigated either in part or with a high degree of thoroughness. Single words, such as ealuscerwen, and groups of related words, such as rime-words, kennings, and words of Christian content or reference, have received close attention, as well as larger lexical patterns, such as variation and the formulaic texture, while further studies have compared the vocabulary with that of other Old English poems or Nordic literatures. Aside from purely lexicographical or etymological inquiries, there are three perspectives to which these many discussions generally belong: 1) descriptive: usually statistical observations about the number of compounds relative to simplices or of formulas relative to the whole vocabulary of the poem, or a comparison of the frequency of certain lexical types with other poems, or a classification of the habits of word-formation; 2) figurative and appellative: the types of verbal figures and their analogues elsewhere in Old English and Old Norse; and 3) usage: the use of words in particular contexts or for specific effects, and the structural use of synonymic substitution and variation. The first emphasis is important because it reveals the composition and its formative strata of the poem's total vocabulary, and also the lexical relationships with other poetry or poetic traditions. The second serves to isolate a lexical stratum which is by nature exclusively poetic and to observe how much of this stratum is probably original and how much traditional. But it is the third perspective which is interested most essentially in the poet, since here the attempt is made to discern the many ways by which he has used language significantly to dramatize, emphasize, elucidate, intimate, and so on. Much that has been written in this category has concerned itself with the larger patterns of variation as a characterizing, describing, or structural device, rather than with smaller, more confined, strokes of verbal association and verbal play. A well-known instance of the latter is the epithet for Grendel, healoegn (142) which, in its context, wherein a bona fide hall-thane anxiously seeks out a hiding place as protection against the intruder, may with complete justification be termed ironic, and the same thing may be said of a similar appellation used later for both Grendel and Beowulf, renweardas (770), There are also hints here and there that the poet may have been influenced by learned Latin figures. Many years ago Albert Cook compared flod blode weol (1422; Exodus 463, flod blod gewod) to Aldhelm's fluenta cruenta (De Virginitate, 2600), and more recently H. D. Meritt called attention to the similarity between Hrothgar's warning that in death “eagena bearhtm / forsiteo ond forsworces” (1766b-67a) and Aldhelm's “ferreus leti somnus palpebrarum conuolatus non tricaverit” (De Virg. Prose, 321.7, ed. Ewald). It is in the smaller strokes, I think, that the poet's acumen and craft are most incisively contained, and it is to some of these that the present discussion is devoted.
Note 1 in page 8 Cf. A. G. Brodeur, The Art of Beowulf (Berkeley, Calif., 1960), pp. 231–233. Relevant to this quest for what Brodeur calls “verbal irony” in the poem, we have recently been warned that “Once many significant phrases are found in theory or in recurrent practice to provide for prosodie necessity, they are not to be defended for their semantic properties in isolated contexts. It is false to be certain of having discovered in the language of Beowulf such effects as intentional irony” (William Whallon, “The Diction of ‘Beowulf’ ” PMLA, LXXVI, 1961, 310). This argument assumes that “prosodie necessity” (which Mr. Whallon seems to take as identical with or as an adjunct of formulaic necessity) is the primary condition of expression, yet one wonders how it is possible to establish with such certainty, especially for phrases or words which have not been found in recurrent practice, that it was prosodie necessity rather than conception or intention which induced the poet's choice of language. Even if a word or phrase does appear in another poem or in several others, that does not in itself mean that one or the other did not have special significance to the poet at a given point. It is obvious that alliterative poetry, and more particularly a poetry influenced by a formulaic tradition, places certain demands on the poet. But for the gifted poet, whose lexical adaptiveness and inventiveness are so fully attested in his work, it seems reasonable to expect that he is able to use formal limitations in the service of his intent, that his perception and learning will in fact determine his use of prosody.
Note 2 in page 8 “Beowulf 1422,” MLN, xxxix (1924), 77–82. Cook observed that “… not only are the corresponding words in the same order [in Aldhelm and Beowulf], the references are in both cases to persons of eminent virtue [i.e., Victoria and /Eschere] … who meet their gory fate at the hands of emissaries of evil” (p. 79). Cf. the same writer's comparison of Aldhelm's virus et flatus (squamosi draconis) with Beowulf's oreSes ond altres, in “Aldhelm and the Source of Beowulf 2523,” MLN, XL (1925), 137–142.
Note 3 in page 8 In a discussion of conuolatus: breahlmung (Wright-Wulcker 376.3) in Fact and Lore (Stanford, 1954), 3.A.5. A parallel statement occurs in a homiletic description of hell, in MS. Hatton 115, fol. 142a: he [God] betynep pa eagan from gesihpe. Cf. also eagena gesihd forstynted rendering reuer-beratis oculorum pupillis in K. Sisam, “An Old English Translation of a Letter from Wynfrith to Eadburga,” MLR, XVTII (1923), 269.
Note 1 in page 9 A. Bonjour, The Digressions in Beowulf, Medium Mvma Monographs, v (Oxford, England, 1950), 15–16; Brodeur, pp. 145–146.
Note 1 in page 10 pegnian is a frequent gloss to ministrare. See the citations in Bosworth-Toller, e.g., “Seo myse is seo bodice lar, seo oe us Senab lifes hlaf”; “hwsenne gesawe we oe hingrigendne oooe pyrstendne … and we ne benedon Se?”; “he het hire Fenian of his estmetum.” See G. V. Smithers' note on p. 73 in “Five Notes on Old English Texts,” English and Germanic Studies, iv (1951-52).
Note 8 in page 10 picgan glosses bibere, comedere, consumere, edere, and mandmere. Bosworth-Toller has many relevant citations.
Note 7 in page 10 Beowulf's speeches illustrate some of the poet's most careful and skillful art. The hero's description to Hrothgar of his fight with Grendel (11. 958–979) graduates by association from a graphic abstraction to a conceptual abstraction. His own grips (clammum, mundgripe), which are frustrated as he attempts to bind (wripan) the thrashing beast on the deathbed—on woelbedde may mean a literal bench-bed or be a metaphor for death itself—are replaced by or transformed into the grips of pain (ac hyne sar hafao / in nidgripe nearwe befongen, balwon bendum), which are simultaneously related to the bonds of sin (synnum geswenced … mane fah). In the poet's little gnomic extension of Grendel's fate to that of every man's which follows almost immediately (1002b-08a), Beowulf's momentarily ill-fated ivœlbed is turned into Fate's inescapable legerbed.
Note 8 in page 10 Cf. Fates of Men, 33–37.
Note 9 in page 10 Cf. Christ, 813: gœsta gifrast, 972–973: se gifra gœst … hibende leg, 1044: gifre glede.
Note 10 in page 10 F. Klaeber, “Aeneis und Beowulf,” Archiv, cxxvi (1911), 349; E. Rickert, “The Old English Offa Saga,” MP, II (1904-05), 66f. To Klaeber's and Miss Rickert's evidence I would add: Isaias 34.5: Quoniam inebriatus est in coelo gladius meus; Jeremias 46.10: devorabit gladius, et satura-bitur, et inebriabitur sanguine eorum. For devoravit (vorabit, voraverat) gladius, see II. Reg. 18.8, Is. 31.8, Jer. 2.30, 12.12. Relevant here is A. S. Cook's convincing comparison of Beowulf's deorc deapscua … mistige moras with montes caliginosos … umbram mortis in Jer. 13.16, in “Beowulf 159–163,” MLN, xt (1925), 352–354. For a discussion of metaphors of ‘drink-serving,‘ see G. V. Smithers on ealu-, meodu-scerwen in the article cited in note five above.
Note 11 in page 11 “The Hand of ^Eschere: A Note on Beowulf 1343,” RES, xxv (1949), 340.
Note 12 in page 11 Ibid., p. 339.
Note 13 in page 11 See E. D. Laborde, “Grendel's Glove and his Immunity from Weapons,” MLR, xvni (1923), 202–204, and J. Hoops, Beowulfstudien, Anglistische Forschungen, ixxrv (Heidelberg, 1932), 118.
Note 14 in page 11 For the forms of the word in early German, see M. Lexer, Mittelhochdeutsches Taschenworterbuch (Leipzig, 1936) and A. Lasch und C. Borchling, Mittelniederdeulsches Hand-worterbuch (Hamburg, 1934).
Note 15 in page 12 In the second cluster there is another hand-word which may also attest the poet's habits of association, but because the evidence is inconclusive, I put forward this suggestion tentatively. The simplex, folmu, and its two compounds, beadufolm and gearofolm, occur nine times in Beoividf: six times it belongs to Grendel, once to Beowulf as he reaches out to seize Grendel, once to the thane whom Grendel is devouring, and once in the line (992) in question. It is of some point that in OE usage exclusive of Beowulf in both prose and poetry, folmu, with relatively ? few exceptions, refers to a hand (or hands) of violence (like Grendel's or Beowulf's), a sinful hand (like Grendel's), or (like the thane's) a wounded hand (e.g., see Bosworth-Toller and note PPs. 70.3, 128.5, 143.8; Christ 1124, 1421; Fates 18; Bene 1075; Andreas 1133–34). In 11. 991–992, Da wœs haten hrebe Heort innanweard / folmum gefraetwod (which immediately follows:… J>aet Saes ahlaecan / blodge beadu/oime onberan wolde), the apparent sense is ‘Then Heorotjwithin was quickly ordered decorated by means of (the) hands [of men and women],’ which would involve an inconsistent use of folmu. Previously Hrothgar had beheld ‘the steep roof decorated with gold and Grendel's hand' (925b-926) and the men observed the hand ofer heanne hrof (983). The tapestries on the walls inside are, like the roof, goldfag (994). The lines may, therefore, mean ‘Heorot within … decorated with hands,’ i.e., with copies of the gruesome paw then adorning the outside of the hall, and these copies would constitute or be among the wundorsiona fela mentioned in 1. 995, esp. since the hand in 1. 920 is called a searowundor. The verb, gefrœtwian, is used similarly elsewhere in the poem: gefrœtwade foldan sceatas / leomum ond leafum, ‘[God] adorned the earth's regions with boughs and with leaves’ (96-97b).
Note 16 in page 12 Brimwylf occurs once again in 1.1599.
Note 17 in page 13 G. Sarrazin, “Neue Beowulfstudien,” Englische Sludien, XLII (1910), 21.
Note 18 in page 13 F. Klaeber, “Die christlichen Elemente im Beowulf,” Anglia, xxxv (1912), 253. Not cited by Klaeber is an interesting citation in Bosworth-Toller, under wulf: “Se biscop cwœf to Sœm hcenan kasere: 'Ne gang Su na on Godes hus; Su hafast besmitene handa, and Su eart deofles wulf.”
Note 19 in page 13 Of the two explanations referred to above, Sarrazin's strikes me as the more probable, simply because of the many known parallels between Beowulf's under-water fight and kindred Norse narratives (esp. Grettissagd). In addition, ‘sea-wolf calls to mind a medieval term which is perhaps equally as pertinent as the references suggested by Klaeber and Sarrazin. The name of a remarkably ferocious fish is lupus marinus (cf. Wright-Wulcker 194.6: beluae, bestiae maris. Wylfene), which is well-attested in medieval books of lore: e.g., Marcellus, in his Medicus Empiricus, refers to it (pp. 15, 85 in Helmreiche's ed. [1889]), and the Etymologies has extended comment. Of the lupus marinus, Isidore observes “ut canes in mari a terrenis canibus nuncupate, quod mordeant; et Iupi, quod inproba voracitate alios persequantur (xn. vi [De Piscibvs)].5; ed. Lindsay)… . Lupum, ut dictum est, aviditas appela vit, piscem in captura ingeniosum : denique rete circumdatus fertur arenas arare Cauda, atque ita conditus transire rete” (xn. vi.24). Cf. also Isidore's derivation: “Lupa meretrix, a rapacitate vocata, quod ad se rapiat miseros et adprehendat’ (x [De Vocabvlis].163). It is the lupus marinus which Geoffrey of Monmouth seems to have in mind when he refers to one of the most rapacious of 9th-century viking leaders, Gormund (=Godmund, Godrum, Guthorm), as equoreus lupus: Set & posteri eius sequentur sceptrum: & post ipsos exurget germanicus uermis. Sublimabit ilium equoreus lupus (vn.iii; ed. Griscom). In the Brut, Wace renders the epithet as uns lus marins (13402; ed. Arnold). For the history of Gormund in medieval literature, see R. Zenker, Das Epos von Isembard und Gormund (Halle a. S., 1896).
Note 20 in page 13 See Brodeur's exacting discussion of this aspect of the diction, in The Art of Beowulf, pp. 6–17.
Note 21 in page 14 Quoted from the text given in R. W. Chambers, Beowulf (Cambridge, England, 1959), pp. 228 and 231. In “De ortu secundi Offe” Offa commands that his regina malefica be punished and abandoned to die; see ibid., p. 243.
