I've recently finished reading Seamus Heaney's translation of Beowulf, based on it being a work of current day and that he is a poet and follows an oral tradition. That his voice is heard throughout, by his decision to use language from his own background, like the word 'polian' which is known as 'thole' to suffer.
The poem does not start at a natural beginning, it's like jumping on to a moving vehicle, at times throughout the tale the brakes are put on and past information is put in place to reinforce the current situation and then the journey continues again with a sense of growing foreboding as you approach the final scene.
In the opening lines Heaney transported me just by using the word 'So', other translations have used the words 'hark', 'lo', 'listen' but, 'So', such a small word that seems to capture so much.
'So. The Spear-Danes in days gone by
and the kings who ruled them had courage and greatness,
We have heard of those princes' heroic campaigns.
Quote from Heaney's introduction of 'Beowulf'
The poem was written in England but the events it describes are set in Scandinavia, in a 'once upon a time' that is partly historical. Its hero, Beowulf, is the biggest presence among the warriors in the land of the Geats, a territory situated in what is now southern Sweden, and early in the poem Beowulf crosses the sea to the land of the Danes in order to rid their country of a man-eating monster called Grendel. From this expedition (which involves him in a second contest with Grendel's mother) he returns in triumph and eventually rules for fifty years as king of his homeland. Then a dragon begins to terrorize the countryside and Beowulf must confront it. In a final climatic encounter, he does manage to slay the dragon, but he also meets his own death and enters the legends of his people as a warrior of high renown.
It seems on first impressions a simple tale but I found a lot more contained here. That each battle was not the dynamics of man against man but was man battling an unknown force, described as monsters - alien, reptilian an enemy that not only killed man but also devoured the body, feeding on it like food, with an unquenchable hunger. The 'wyrm' - dragon particularly one without legs or wings and also described as a serpent or snake, but extremely large.
In the first two battles each time the Thanes, and Beowulf are asleep, and vulnerable when the attack occurs and many die. Beowulf discovers that to beat Grendel only his own physical strength can be used, weapons are useless and have no power in this battle. With Grendel's mother, a similar situation occurs that the weaponry that Beowulf has, has no power and only by fate or God's power, Beowulf uses one of the weapons within the mother's own hoard, to defeat her.
Gold is a reoccurring theme throughout the poem that is accumulated by man as a reward and also compenstation for loss of life and that it is buried in the ground and hidden from man. This made me think about Gold, as well as oil and gas, and the lengths that man goes to, to extract the natural resources of our planet. Constant ongoing wars stem from man's insatiable appetite for gaining control, exploitation, domination and greed.
This part stood out on the dangers of power.
It is a great wonder
how Almighty God in His magnificence
favours our race and scope
and the gift of wisdom; His sway is wide.
Sometimes He allows the mind of a man
of distinguished birth to follow its bent,
grants him fulfilment and felicity on earth
and forts to command in his own country.
He permits him to lord it in many lands
until the man in his unthinkingness
forgets that it will ever end for him.
He indulges his desires; illness and old age
mean nothing to him; his mind is untroubled
by envy or malice or the thought of enemies
with their hardened swords.The whole world
conforms to his will, he is kept from the worst
until an element of overweening
enters into him and takes hold
while the soul's guard, its sentry drowses,
grown too distracted. A killer stalks him,
an archer who draws a deadly bow.
And then the man is hit in the heart,
the arrows flies beneath his defenses,
the devious promptings of the demon start.
His old possessions seem paltry to him now.
He covets and resents; dishonours custom
and bestows no gold; and because of good things
that the Heavenly Powers gave him in the past
he ignores the shape of things to come.
then finally the end arrives
when the body he was lent collapses and falls
prey to its death; ancestral possessions
and the goods he hoarded are inherited by another
who lets them go with a liberal hand.
The poet seems to write with two voices; one that is pagan and feels like the original, and one of a newer tone, of a Christian perspective. That Beowulf and the Thanes have been compared with Jesus and the disciples is worth considering.
The poem is elegiac and madly heroic.
The poem does not start at a natural beginning, it's like jumping on to a moving vehicle, at times throughout the tale the brakes are put on and past information is put in place to reinforce the current situation and then the journey continues again with a sense of growing foreboding as you approach the final scene.
In the opening lines Heaney transported me just by using the word 'So', other translations have used the words 'hark', 'lo', 'listen' but, 'So', such a small word that seems to capture so much.
'So. The Spear-Danes in days gone by
and the kings who ruled them had courage and greatness,
We have heard of those princes' heroic campaigns.
Quote from Heaney's introduction of 'Beowulf'
The poem was written in England but the events it describes are set in Scandinavia, in a 'once upon a time' that is partly historical. Its hero, Beowulf, is the biggest presence among the warriors in the land of the Geats, a territory situated in what is now southern Sweden, and early in the poem Beowulf crosses the sea to the land of the Danes in order to rid their country of a man-eating monster called Grendel. From this expedition (which involves him in a second contest with Grendel's mother) he returns in triumph and eventually rules for fifty years as king of his homeland. Then a dragon begins to terrorize the countryside and Beowulf must confront it. In a final climatic encounter, he does manage to slay the dragon, but he also meets his own death and enters the legends of his people as a warrior of high renown.
It seems on first impressions a simple tale but I found a lot more contained here. That each battle was not the dynamics of man against man but was man battling an unknown force, described as monsters - alien, reptilian an enemy that not only killed man but also devoured the body, feeding on it like food, with an unquenchable hunger. The 'wyrm' - dragon particularly one without legs or wings and also described as a serpent or snake, but extremely large.
In the first two battles each time the Thanes, and Beowulf are asleep, and vulnerable when the attack occurs and many die. Beowulf discovers that to beat Grendel only his own physical strength can be used, weapons are useless and have no power in this battle. With Grendel's mother, a similar situation occurs that the weaponry that Beowulf has, has no power and only by fate or God's power, Beowulf uses one of the weapons within the mother's own hoard, to defeat her.
Gold is a reoccurring theme throughout the poem that is accumulated by man as a reward and also compenstation for loss of life and that it is buried in the ground and hidden from man. This made me think about Gold, as well as oil and gas, and the lengths that man goes to, to extract the natural resources of our planet. Constant ongoing wars stem from man's insatiable appetite for gaining control, exploitation, domination and greed.
This part stood out on the dangers of power.
It is a great wonder
how Almighty God in His magnificence
favours our race and scope
and the gift of wisdom; His sway is wide.
Sometimes He allows the mind of a man
of distinguished birth to follow its bent,
grants him fulfilment and felicity on earth
and forts to command in his own country.
He permits him to lord it in many lands
until the man in his unthinkingness
forgets that it will ever end for him.
He indulges his desires; illness and old age
mean nothing to him; his mind is untroubled
by envy or malice or the thought of enemies
with their hardened swords.The whole world
conforms to his will, he is kept from the worst
until an element of overweening
enters into him and takes hold
while the soul's guard, its sentry drowses,
grown too distracted. A killer stalks him,
an archer who draws a deadly bow.
And then the man is hit in the heart,
the arrows flies beneath his defenses,
the devious promptings of the demon start.
His old possessions seem paltry to him now.
He covets and resents; dishonours custom
and bestows no gold; and because of good things
that the Heavenly Powers gave him in the past
he ignores the shape of things to come.
then finally the end arrives
when the body he was lent collapses and falls
prey to its death; ancestral possessions
and the goods he hoarded are inherited by another
who lets them go with a liberal hand.
The poet seems to write with two voices; one that is pagan and feels like the original, and one of a newer tone, of a Christian perspective. That Beowulf and the Thanes have been compared with Jesus and the disciples is worth considering.
The poem is elegiac and madly heroic.
