Table Of ContentBeowulf: A Student’s Edition
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BL Cotton Ms. Vitellius A. XV folio 132 of the Beowulf manuscript, c. 1020
Photo by permission of the British Library
Beowulf
translated and introduced
by
E. L. Risden
St. Norbert College
The Whitston Publishing Company
Troy, New York
1994
Copyright 1994
Edward L. Risden
ISBN 0-87875-455-5
Printed in the United States of America
Introduction..................................................i
Beowulf.........................................................1
Selected Bibliography....................................67
One of the great poems in English or any language, Beowulf has a
simple storyline, but it exhibits many curious facets and interlaces of cultures
and concerns, making it an ideal subject for students interested in a variety of
fields, from literature to linguistics to history to religion to anthropology. Once
thought a mere "thumping good tale of our pagan forebears," Beowulf now rates
with Hamlet and Moby Dick among the most often written upon masterpieces of
our literary heritage, and it persistently finds its way into college courses from
freshman introductions to graduate seminars. Like the work of Shakespeare,
Melville, Joyce, and Milton, it continually repays rereading and close attention
by yielding up a multitude of linguistic and poetic treasures.
As the first great European poem after the fall of Rome, Beowulf would
have historical and anthropological significance even if it didn’t have literary
merit. But in my experience students seldom encounter the poem, in
undergraduate or even high school courses, without its leaving at least a ghost
or two in their memory. Beowulf has a compelling, archetypal power, perhaps
because of its antiquity, perhaps because of its style, or perhaps because in
dealing with such traditional motifs as life and death, good and evil, the natural
and the supernatural, courage and cowardice, and the nature of kingship and
heroism—in an exciting tale of swords and sorcery—it delves deeply into our
psychological selves and our cultural roots.
The story is recountable in a few lines. Hrothgar, king of the Danes,
finds his kingdom troubled by the murderous rampages of the night-beast
Grendel. Across the water the Geatish hero Beowulf hears of Hrothgar’s plight
and comes to his aid. Beowulf awaits the monster in the darkness and grapples
with him. Feeling Beowulf s strength, the monster tries to flee, and Beowulf
tears Grendel’s arm from its socket, after which the creature returns to his lair,
a tarn among the mist-slopes, to die. The Danes rejoice, but only briefly, as
Grendel’s mother appears, taking blood-vengeance by killing one of Hrothgar’s
favorite counselors. When Beowulf is informed of the murder, he again seeks
revenge in single combat, and he enters the haunted mere to battle the she-
monster. With the help of a magical sword, he succeeds, freeing the Danes of
their misery, and he returns home triumphant to his lord Hygelac. After
Beowulf recounts his adventures in Denmark, the story then telescopes fifty
years to the time when Beowulf has become king of the Geats and a fire-dragon
is awakened by the theft of a cup from his hoard. The dragon attacks a Geatish
settlement, leaving it a smoking rubble, but Beowulf again undertakes the quest
for vengeance. With the help of his kinsman Wiglaf, Beowulf kills the dragon
and wins the hoard, but he is mortally wounded, and he dies leaving his people
as likely prey to foreign invaders.
Amidst the central tale the poet has implanted several other short tales
or "lays," sometimes referred to as digressions, that show more of the Northern
culture from which the story comes: funeral customs, important battles, familial
relationships, the position of women in Germanic society. These lays not only
contribute to the tone of the poem and give it a sense of epic breadth and
historicity, but also reflect on the themes of the poem and the nature of the
world of the poem: a violent, transient world where one’s hope for immortality
lies in heroic courage in action and steadfast loyalty to one’s lord, resulting in
lof and dom: fame and glory. At only 3182 lines Beowulf is relatively short as
epic poems go, but its themes, concerns, and focus on the heroic world and
courageous action give it the typical subject matter of primary epics worldwide.
Its tone compares more comfortably with Homer and the Bhagavad-Gita than
with the homilies and biblical poems that dominated its age.
At this point the reader may ask, "Why another translation of Beowulfl
Don’t we already have a dozen good ones?" Several excellent translations
remain in print, many useful for students at one level or another. The more
accurate are the prose translations (Bradley, Donaldson); the verse translations,
often fine poetry (see especially Morgan, Greenfield, Hudson, Rebsamen), tend
to sacrifice literal meaning for aesthetic value. Perhaps the best version yet
published for student use is Chickering’s side-by-side: a fairly accurate
translation and copious apparatus accompany the Old English text. Yet the
abundance of Chickering’s edition may be daunting to the undergraduate or
casual reader. In this translation I have sought to fill what I have found to be
a gap in the what poets and scholars have done so far: I have aimed at
providing the most accurate translation possible, while maintaining readability
and keeping in mind the poet’s technique and the concerns of interested readers
