Truly it is said that ‘men know not whither helrúnan go in their courses.’ Darkness goes with them. Their secret and malicious purposes are unfathomable, except that they are perilous, and hostile to Man beyond hope of peace. Where did the weird-sisters dwell, and by what strange devices did their paths cross Macbeth’s, to his undoing?
135–50; *170–88 [A note on 134–5, *168–9, follows on p. 181.]
The whole of this passage offers one of the most interesting sections, and the most difficult, for the general criticism of the poem. It cannot adequately be dealt with apart from consideration of the poem as a whole, and especially of its ‘theology’; or apart from theories concerning its mode of composition. I have already treated this particular point, after a fashion, in an appendix to my lecture: The Monsters and the Critics. [For other references to the lecture see the note to lines 86–92, p. 160 above, also pp. 305, 309, 337.] I will here attempt to give in brief summary my present views.
Beowulf is a work, as we have it, of a single hand and mind – comparable to a play (say King Lear) by Shakespeare: thus it may have varied sources; minor discrepancies due to imperfections in the handling and blending of these; and may have suffered some ‘corruption’ (e.g. occasional deliberate tinkering or editing, and many minor casual errors) in the course of tradition between author and our copy. But it makes a unified artistic impression: the impress of a single imagination, and the ring of a single poetic style. The minor ‘discrepancies’ detract little from this, as a rule.
But in this case we have something more serious to deal with. A flat contradiction of one of the main leading ideas of the poem. The shock is comparable to what we should feel if we suddenly heard Lear ridiculing the Fourth Commandment or Cordelia praising Goneril and Regan.
What is the leading idea and what is the contradiction?
The ‘leading idea’ is that noble pagans of the past who had not heard the Gospel, knew of the existence of Almighty God, recognized him as ‘good’ and the giver of all good things; but were (by the Fall) still cut off from Him, so that in time of woe they became filled with despair and doubt – that was the hour when they were specially open to the snares of the Devil: they prayed to idols and false gods for help.
The sources of this idea were probably, first, the Old Testament in itself, or in the versified Cædmonian form; and second, actual report and knowledge of contemporary Northern pagans. The old idea that the author of Beowulf was just confused in his head, and that all he had was a few bits of Old Testament story which he had remembered while actual Christian teaching was beyond him, is of course patently absurd. The poem belongs to the time of that great outburst of missionary enterprise which fired all England, when the English were busy with the conversion of Frisia and Germany, and the reorganization of disordered Gaul: to the days in fact of St. Wynfrith (or Boniface), the apostle of Germany, and martyr in Frisia, the Englishman who has been held to have had a greater influence on Europe’s history than any later Englishman. The poem most closely connected with Beowulf is Andreas – a missionary romance. Beowulf is not a missionary allegory; but it comes from a time when the noble pagan and his heroic ancestors (enshrined in verse) were a burning contemporary topic and problem, at home and abroad.
You must observe two things: the mere fact that the poet wrote a poem about the pagan past shows in general that he did not belong to the party that consigned the heroes (northern or classical) to perdition. Pagan past – certainly. The poet was well aware of it. He knew that Denmark and Sweden were still in his own day heathen. Therefore his picture of Hrothgar and Beowulf is deliberate. What is more, their monotheism is due to clearly held theory about facts – and is not due to a mere rigid piety: a sort of unintelligent Christian censorship. Piety and censorship of that sort would not have allowed the poem to be written at all.
What then did the author do with his material, descending from the not very remote pagan English past? Less, I think, than may be supposed. Points of contact between pagan belief and Scripture (thus especially the Old Testament which told him the truth about Man before Christ) particularly interested him. He linked and commented on them: as in 86–92 (*106–14). But he cut out the names of the heathen deities. Why? Because he believed they were lies; and because he believed that people like Hrothgar knew it, and only had recourse to heathen gods and their idols when under special temptation by the Devil. The heathen gods, whether mere vain fictions, or fictions grafted on the memories of dead kings of old, were deceits of the Evil One. He is speaking to you in his own person when he says in *176–8 that ‘they besought the Slayer of Souls to help them in their misery’ [translation 140–1 ‘implored the slayer of souls to afford them help against the sufferings of the people’]. He is not accusing the Danes of direct conscious Satanism; but stating that in fact by praying to idols they were praying to the Devil.
So far so good. A reading of the whole of Beowulf, and a scrutiny of every line and expression of theological import, shows in general that this clear rational theory was consistently carried out. Now for the contradiction. Here is a translation of *170–88.
That was great torment to the lord of the Scyldingas, an anguish of heart. Many a man of might sat often communing, counsel they took what it were best for stouthearted men to do against these dire terrors. At times they vowed sacrifices to idols [in their heathen fanes >] in pagan tabernacles, with prayers implored the Slayer of Souls to furnish help to them against the people’s sufferings. Such was their wont, the hope of heathen men: of hell they were mindful in their hearts’ thought; the Author they [knew >] comprehended not, the Judge of Deeds, nor had they heard of the Lord God, nor verily had they learned to praise the Guardian of the Heavens, the King of Glory. Woe to him that through [fiendish malice >] (probably) the malice of fiends / shall thrust down his soul into the fire’s embrace, to look for no comfort nor any change! Joy to him that is permitted after his death-day to [go seek >] find the Lord, and in the father’s bosom to seek for peace!
[If this text is compared with lines 135–50 in the full translation of Beowulf it will be obvious that my father had the latter in front of him. A curious point is that the later pencilled change in the present text of fanes to tabernacles was made also to the typescript C (line 140 in the full translation), while fiendish malice, which stood in the present text as written, was in the typescript C a pencilled emendation of rebellious malice.]
A few notes on this are required.
*180 (ne) cúþon and *181 (ne) wiston [in the passage translated above ‘knew (> comprehended) not’ and ‘nor had they heard of’]. cunnan and witan are properly distinct like Latin cognosco and scio. For reasons that appear later – to reduce as far as possible the discrepancy of the passage – I have given this distinction full weight, translating wiston ‘had heard of’. cunnan is properly ‘know (all) about, understand (the nature of)’, in the sense that you know persons and places; witan ‘know facts’. So that strictly Metod híe ne cúþon (*180, 143) might mean no more than ‘they had little or no knowledge about Metod (the power that orders and governs the world, God or Providence)’. But ne wiston híe Drihten God (*181, 144) can only mean ‘they did not know of the existence of God at all, did not know of His being even.’ Actually I doubt if this distinction is really present in this passage, which I regard as you will see as a late interpolation: both sentences probably really mean ‘they did not know that God existed’. The distinction between cunnan and witan became obscured, except that cunnan became more and more limited to the sense ‘know how to do (a thing)’, whence our ‘can’; while gecnawan ‘recognize’ slowly extended its sphere, until in modern English it covers both cunnan and witan, and ‘I wot’ has become obsolete.
bið *183, *186 (in Wá bið þǽm ‘Woe to him’ and Wél bið þǽm ‘Joy to him’ in the passage translated above). Both these expressions are general or ‘gnomic’ and not strictly ‘future’. I have therefore omitted bið, since the modern ‘woe to him’ has this general reference
. bið is in Old English quite distinct from is. The latter is purely ‘present indicative’, denoting actual contemporary facts: seo sunne is hát can only mean ‘the sun is now at this moment hot, I can feel it, it is a warm day.’ seo sunne bið hát means (a) ‘the sun will be hot’, or (b) ‘the sun is hot – it is one of the classes of hot things’. ‘All that glitters is not gold’ requires bið in Old English if it is a proverb: ne bið eal þe glitnað gold. Nis eal þe glitnað gold could only refer to a collection of bright things actually before you, and would mean ‘Here are some bright things, but actually they are not all of gold, some are brass.’
slíðne níð *184 [‘through fiendish malice’ 146; ‘(probably) through the malice of fiends’ in the translation of the passage given above]. This expression is not as simple perhaps as it seems – indeed it may even possibly assist in ‘dating’ the passage, and marking it as one belonging to a later period than that of the main body of the poem.
The word slíðe occurs in all the Germanic languages – with a general sense ‘grim, disastrous, fearful’. That sense will suit elsewhere in verse, e.g. in Beowulf *2398 slíðra geslyhta (2018 ‘cruel slaying’). It only occurs in religious contexts here and in Elene 857 (on þá slíðan tíd used of the Crucifixion).9 But the word had, nonetheless, some special connexion with pre-Christian religion, or mythology. In Old Norse slíðr is not only an adjective, but also the name of the river that flows about the realm of Hel, Goddess of the dark underworld. This makes an interesting parallel to the Greek name Στυξ ‘Styx’ in relation to στυγɛιν [‘hate, abominate’] and στυγɛρός [‘hated, hateful’]. It would seem likely that the word retained a ‘heathen’ flavour in Old English, and meant ‘devilish’. This seems borne out by the following curious facts. Outside verse it is only found in a Psalter gloss (actually Eadwine’s Canterbury Psalter). Here the adjective slíðe, slíðeleca, and the noun slíðness are four times used to gloss sculptile, sculptilia, which in the contexts mean ‘idols’. It must be admitted that when in Beowulf we meet slíðne níð, precisely in an anathema on idolaters, there seems more than probably to be a connexion. This can most easily be explained by assuming that slíðe had acquired the sense of ‘devilish, diabolical’ – partly through some ancient associations with heathen hell, maybe; and partly by the line of development that gave a diabolical sense to such words as scaþa, féond, bana, etc. The gloss in the Psalter is thus only approximate and means ‘fiends’ or ‘fiendish things’, not ‘carven images’. The slíðe níð of Beowulf means ‘diabolic malice’, and we perceive that it applies probably not to the malice of the damned themselves but to the malice of the gastbona (‘the Slayer of Souls’) who deluded and ruined them. But we perceive also that it is probably a piece of later ‘Christian’ diction, unlike the use of the word elsewhere in Beowulf or older Old English verse – and one that has, in verse, only one possible parallel, a use in a signed poem of Cynewulf, Elene [as mentioned above], while Cynewulf has, on reasonably good grounds, been suspected of tinkering with Beowulf elsewhere [see pp. 309 ff.].
Let us now return to the ‘contradiction’. This resides in the words ‘nor had they heard of the Lord God’ (144). This is quite unlike the minor discrepancies to be observed in Beowulf (and in many other major works of literary art). What is the explanation? Can the theology of the Danes (and even of the witan [‘wise men, counsellors’]) have differed from that of their wise king? Is that what the poet means? It would not be an impossible notion. The ‘wise men’ of both peoples, Danes and Swedes, were doubtless ‘conservatives’, and likely to be tenacious of heathen practice. It is the snotere ceorlas (‘wise men’) of the Geatas who are said in line 166 (*204) to ‘inspect the omens’, like Roman auspices. It is the Danish witan here who are specifically accused of vowing sacrifices.
But a little consideration will show that this is no way out. The lines do not merely say that the witan were obstinate heathens, who had recourse to idols in time of stress and temptation – that would be no discrepancy: they declare that they were wholly ignorant of God and his existence. But it would be quite impossible for any wita to associate with King Hrothgar for a day and remain in such a state. Even the scop in Heorot sang the praise of the Ælmihtiga, 75 ff., *92 ff.
Then was the poet a dolt? There are then only two possible alternatives. (i) The poet made a bad blunder – i.e. right at the beginning of his poem, in a crucial key-passage, he wrote words which are flatly inconsistent with the whole of the rest of his poem; and he never revised them. (ii) The text has suffered alteration since it left his hands.
In the end readers of Beowulf will choose (i) or (ii) for themselves. I personally choose (ii) – for the following reasons in brief:
Beowulf as a whole is strikingly consistent, and shows every sign of being carefully worked over, so that references forward and backward are all linked up. That this major discrepancy should have been left untouched is difficult to believe – even if, indeed, he could ever have made the blunder at all (say, in some early draft, before his ideas had clarified); it is much more likely that he started out from the very beginning with his general idea of the ‘good pagan’ already formed.
Turning then to interpolation or rewriting: we find that there is evidence, quite independent of the present passage, that Beowulf did prove attractive to some rewriter at theological points. But if interpolation or rewriting has occurred at one such place it is likely to have occurred elsewhere where theological interest was specially prominent. We shall therefore look (a) for any signs, now discoverable, in the present passage, of another voice and hand; and (b) for any reasons that may have moved this rewriter specially at this point. As to (a): we have already observed that in þurh slíðne níð we have a trace of another and later diction. Beyond that we have only judgements based on style and rhythm: notoriously subjective, and liable to be as unconvincing to others as they are convincing to those who make them. To me at any rate I can only record that the last part, at least, of this passage speaks with a quite different ‘voice’ to the rest of the verse in which it is imbedded. As to (b): I can best make clear my view by sketching briefly what I think happened here in the history of our text.
At this point heathen customs were specially mentioned in the original material used by our poet – for Heorot and its site had in the ancient traditions about the Scyldings a special association with a heathen cult. [With the following Note cf. pp. 329 ff. in the discussion ‘Fréawaru and Ingeld’.]
(Note. Thus æt hærgtrafum *175 (139–40 ‘in their heathen tabernacles’) is an ancient element – not understood by the scribe at all, and so (a) retained with its dialect vowel hærg for West Saxon hearg, and (b) corrupted to hrærg. The full elucidation of this point belongs to consideration of the feud with the Heathobeards. But it seems clear to me that that feud was largely concerned with the possession or control of a centre of a ‘cult’, and a fane. The cult was one connected with the fertility religion that later in Scandinavia was associated with the names Njǫrðr, Frey, Yngvi-Frey. And after the Scyldings became masters of this centre we observe the Danes taking on names reminiscent of that cult: Hrothgar is called (*1044) eodor Ingwina, ‘Defence of the clients of Ing’ (850–1 ‘warden of the Servants of Ing’); his daughter is Fréawaru (1700, *2022), ‘Protection of Fréa = Frey’; and what is more, Sceaf and Beow belonging to corn-myth became blended with Scyld in Hrothgar’s ancestry.
hærgtrafu only occurs here. And I think it is probably a very old element. It means ‘heathen tabernacles’ (hærg is a heathen fane or altar, surviving now only in old place-names such as Harrow-on-the-Hill; træf a tent). It is therefore all the more remarkable that the place of the seat of the Skjoldungar in Old Norse should be Lejre (as the name is in modern Danish)< Hleiðr (genitive Hleiðrar) or Hleiðrar-garðr – for this name seems to be an ancient name for a tent or tabernacle: at least it can most easily be related to Gothic hleiþra ‘tent’.)
Now our poet edited his old material. He appears to
have kept in the reference to blót [Old Norse, ‘sacrifice, sacrificial feast’] or wígweorþung (*176; 139 ‘sacrifices to idols’) at this point. Why? It was there, and it was quite consistent with his theory to leave it in, for he knew well enough that these old pagans (a) had heathen customs, such as augury mentioned in 166 (*204), and (b) had false gods, to which in time of trial and despair they might have recourse. But he only put in as much as was consistent with his theory and belief and conscience, and he made a comment – that by sacrificing to idols (when so tempted) they were turning to the Devil. And that was what caused the later trouble. The later ‘Christian’ did not find this comment long enough or strong enough. I think we can hear the ‘voice’ of the original poet clearly enough at least as far as hǽþenra hyht (*179, ‘the hope of heathens’ 142). Somewhere after that point the new stuff has been (skilfully) attached, possibly at the expense of a line or two of the original. Helle gemundon in módsefan *179–80, 142–3 may be from the original poet – ‘they remembered hell in their hearts’: such is the natural drag down in pagan times. Once past this corner all would be easy for the original poet. His ‘editing’ of his older material would usually involve no more than silence concerning the names of false gods (when he recognized them: apparently Ingwina was not clear to him, or may have been taken as genealogical only), and inner change of the reference of words. For example, in *381–2 (306–7) Hine hálig god ús onsende is in the context of the poem not necessarily a Christian but it is at least a monotheist expression. Yet it could have stood in a pagan lay at this point. Both hálig and god are pre-Christian! If Hrothgar had offered blót to Fréa in his distress, and had then seen a young champion arrive unexpectedly, he could still have well exclaimed Hine hálig god ús onsende in the original pagan material.
Beowulf: A Translation and Commentary, together with Sellic Spell Page 17
