inserts comma
after þāh, making siððan introduce a depend.
after þāh, making siððan introduce a depend.
Beowulf
Dietrich, in _Haupt.
_ xi.
419, quotes from AElfric, _Hom.
_ ii.
498:
hē beworhte þā bigelsas mid gyldenum lǣfrum, _he covered the arches with
gold-leaf_,--a Roman custom derived from Carthage. Cf. Mod. Eng. _oriel_ =
_aureolum_, a gilded room. --E. (quoting Skeat). Cf. ll. 2257, 1097, 2247,
2103, 2702, 2283, 333, 1751, for various uses of gold-sheets.
l. 720. B. and ten Br. suggest _hell-thane_ (Grendel) for heal-þegnas, and
make hæle refer to Beowulf. Cf. l. 142.
l. 723. Z. reads [ge]hrān.
l. 727. For this use of standan, cf. ll. 2314, 2770; and Vergil, _Ecl. _ ii.
26:
"Cum placidum ventis _staret_ mare. "
l. 757. gedræg. _Tumult_ is one of the meanings of this word. Here, appar.
= _occupation, lair_.
l. 759. R. reads mōdega for gōda, "because the attribute cannot be
separated from the word modified unless the two alliterate. "
l. 762. Cf. _Andreas_, l. 1537, for a similar use of ūt = _off_. --E.
l. 769. The foreign words in _Bēowulf_ (as ceaster-here) are not numerous;
others are (aside from proper names like _Cain, Abel_, etc. ) dēofol
(diabolus), candel (l. 1573), ancor (l. 303), scrīfan (for- ge-), segn (l.
47), gīgant (l. 113), mīl- (l. 1363), strǣt (l. 320), ombeht (l. 287), gim
(l. 2073), etc.
l. 770. MS. reads cerwen, a word conceived by B. and others to be part of a
fem. compd. : -scerwen like -wenden in ed-wenden, -rǣden, etc. (cf.
meodu-scerpen in _Andreas_, l. 1528); emended to -scerwen, _a great scare
under the figure of a mishap at a drinking-bout_; one might compare
bescerwan, _to deprive_, from bescyrian (Grein, i. 93), hence ealu-seerwen
would = _a sudden taking away, deprivation, of the beer_. --H. -So. , p. 93.
See B. , _Tidskr. _ viii. 292.
l. 771. Ten Br. reads rēðe, rēnhearde, = _raging, exceeding bold_.
l. 792. Instrumental adverbial phrases like ǣnige þinga, nǣnige þinga (_not
at all_), hūru þinga (_especially_) are not infrequent. See Cook's Sievers'
Gram. , p. 178; March, _A. -S. Gram. _, p. 182.
l. 811. myrðe. E. translates _in wanton mood_. Toller-Bosw. does not
recognize _sorrow_ as one of the meanings of this word.
ll. 850, 851. S. reads dēop for dēog and erases semicolon after wēol, =
_the death-stained deep welled with sword-gore_; cf. l. 1424. B. reads
dēað-fǣges dēop, etc. , = _the deep welled with the doomed one's
gore_. --_Beit. _ xii. 89.
l. 857. The meaning of blaneum is partly explained by fealwe mēaras below,
l. 866. Cf. Layamon's "and leop on his _blancke" = steed_, l. 23900; Kent's
_Elene_, l. 1185.
l. 859. Körner, _Eng. Stud. _ i. 482, regards the oft-recurring be sǣm
twēonum as a mere formula = _on earth_; cf. ll. 1298, 1686. twēone is part
of the separable prep. _between_; see be-. Cf. Baskerville's _Andreas_, l.
558.
l. 865. Cf. _Voyage of Ōhthere and Wulfstān_ for an account of funeral
horse-racing, Sweet's Read. , p. 22.
l. 868. See Ha. , p. 31, for a variant translation.
l. 871 _seq. _ R. considers this a technical description of improvised
alliterative verse, suggested by and wrought out on the spur of the moment.
l. 872. R. and B. propose secg[an], = _rehearse_, for secg, which suits the
verbs in the next two lines.
ll. 878-98. "It pleases me to think that it is in English literature we
possess the first sketch of that mighty saga [the Volsunga Saga = Wælsinges
gewin] which has for so many centuries engaged all the arts, and at last in
the hands of Wagner the art of music. "--Br. , p. 63. Cf. _Nibelung. Lied_,
l. 739.
l. 894. Intransitive verbs, as gān, weorðan, sometimes take habban, "to
indicate independent action. "--Sw. Cf. hafað . . . geworden, l. 2027.
l. 895. "brūcan (_enjoy_) always has the genitive. "--Sw. ; cf. l. 895; acc. ,
gen. , instr. , dat. , according to March, _A. -S. Gram. _, p. 151.
l. 898. Scherer proposes hāte, = _from heat_, instr. of hāt, _heat_; cf. l.
2606.
l. 901. hē þæs āron þāh = _he throve in honor_ (B. ). Ten Br.
inserts comma
after þāh, making siððan introduce a depend. clause. --_Beit. _ viii. 568.
Cf. weorð-myndum þāh, l. 8; ll. 1155, 1243. --H. -So.
l. 902. Heremōdes is considered by Heinzel to be a mere epithet = _the
valiant_; which would refer the whole passage to Sigmund (Sigfrid), the
eotenas, l. 903, being the Nibelungen. This, says H. -So. , gets rid of the
contradiction between the good "Heremōd" here and the bad one, l. 1710
_seq. _--B. however holds fast to Heremōd. --_Beit. _ xii. 41. on fēonda
geweald, l. 904,--_into the hands of devils_, says B. ; cf. ll. 809, 1721,
2267; _Christ_, l. 1416; _Andreas_, l. 1621; for hine fyren onwōd, cf.
_Gen. _ l. 2579; Hunt's _Dan. _ 17: hīe wlenco anwōd.
l. 902 _seq. _ "Heremōd's shame is contrasted with the glory of Sigemund,
and with the prudence, patience, generosity, and gentleness of Beowulf as a
chieftain. "--Br. , p. 66.
l. 906. MS. has lemede. Toller-Bosw. corrects to lemedon.
l. 917. Cf. Hunt's _Exod. _, l. 170, for similar language.
l. 925. hōs, G. hansa, _company_, "the word from which the mercantile
association of the 'Hanseatic' towns took their designation. "--E.
l. 927. on staþole = _on the floor_ (B. , Rask, ten Br. ). --_Beit. _ xii. 90.
l. 927. May not stēapne here = _bright_, from its being immediately
followed by golde fāhne? Cf. Chaucer's "his eyen _stepe_," _Prol. _ l. 201
(ed. Morris); Cockayne's _Ste. Marherete_, pp. 9, 108; _St. Kath. _, l.
1647.
l. 931. grynna may be for gyrnna (= _sorrows_), gen. plu. of gyrn, as
suggested by one commentator.
l. 937. B. (_Beit. _ xii. 90) makes gehwylcne object of wīd-scofen (hæfde).
Gr. makes wēa nom. absolute.
l. 940. scuccum: cf. G. scheuche, scheusal; Prov. Eng. _old-shock_; perhaps
the pop. interjection _O shucks! _ (! )
l. 959. H. explains wē as a "plur. of majesty," which Bēowulf throws off at
l. 964.
l. 963. fēond þone frætgan (B. _Beit. _ xii. 90).
l. 976. synnum. "Most abstract words in the poetry have a very wide range
of meanings, diverging widely from the prose usage, synn, for instance,
means simply _injury, mischief, hatred_, and the prose meaning _sin_ is
only a secondary one; hata in poetry is not only _hater_, but _persecutor,
enemy_, just as nīð is both _hatred_ and _violence, strength_; heard is
_sharp_ as well as _hard_. "--Sw.
l. 986. S. places wæs at end of l. 985 and reads stīðra nægla, omitting
gehwylc and the commas after that and after scēawedon. _Beit. _ ix. 138;
stēdra (H. -So. ); hand-sporu (H. -So. ) at l. 987.
l. 986. Miller (_Anglia_, xii. 3) corrects to ǣghwylene, in apposition to
fingras.
l. 987. hand-sporu. See _Anglia_, vii. 176, for a discussion of the
intrusion of u into the nom. of n-stems.
l. 988. Cf. ll. 2121, 2414, for similar use of unhēoru = ungeheuer.
l. 992. B. suggests hēatimbred for hāten, and gefrætwon for -od; Kl. ,
hroden (_Beit. _ ix. 189).
l. 995, 996. Gold-embroidered tapestries seem to be meant by web =
_aurifrisium_.
l. 997. After þāra þe = _of those that_, the depend, vb. often takes sg.
for pl. ; cf. ll. 844, 1462, 2384, 2736. --Sw. ; Dietrich.
l. 998. "Metathesis of l takes place in seld for setl, bold for botl,"
etc. --Cook's Sievers' Gram. , p. 96. Cf. Eng. proper names, _Bootle,
Battle_field, etc. --Skeat, _Principles_, i. 250.
l. 1000. heorras: cf. Chaucer, _Prol. _ (ed. Morris) l. 550:
"Ther was no dore that he nolde heve of _harre_. "
ll. 1005-1007. See _Zachers Zeitschr. _ iii. 391, and _Beit. _ xii. 368, for
R. 's and B. 's views of this difficult passage.
l. 1009. Cf. l. 1612 for sǣl and mǣl, surviving still in E. Anglia in "mind
your _seals and meals_," = _times and occasions_, i. e.
hē beworhte þā bigelsas mid gyldenum lǣfrum, _he covered the arches with
gold-leaf_,--a Roman custom derived from Carthage. Cf. Mod. Eng. _oriel_ =
_aureolum_, a gilded room. --E. (quoting Skeat). Cf. ll. 2257, 1097, 2247,
2103, 2702, 2283, 333, 1751, for various uses of gold-sheets.
l. 720. B. and ten Br. suggest _hell-thane_ (Grendel) for heal-þegnas, and
make hæle refer to Beowulf. Cf. l. 142.
l. 723. Z. reads [ge]hrān.
l. 727. For this use of standan, cf. ll. 2314, 2770; and Vergil, _Ecl. _ ii.
26:
"Cum placidum ventis _staret_ mare. "
l. 757. gedræg. _Tumult_ is one of the meanings of this word. Here, appar.
= _occupation, lair_.
l. 759. R. reads mōdega for gōda, "because the attribute cannot be
separated from the word modified unless the two alliterate. "
l. 762. Cf. _Andreas_, l. 1537, for a similar use of ūt = _off_. --E.
l. 769. The foreign words in _Bēowulf_ (as ceaster-here) are not numerous;
others are (aside from proper names like _Cain, Abel_, etc. ) dēofol
(diabolus), candel (l. 1573), ancor (l. 303), scrīfan (for- ge-), segn (l.
47), gīgant (l. 113), mīl- (l. 1363), strǣt (l. 320), ombeht (l. 287), gim
(l. 2073), etc.
l. 770. MS. reads cerwen, a word conceived by B. and others to be part of a
fem. compd. : -scerwen like -wenden in ed-wenden, -rǣden, etc. (cf.
meodu-scerpen in _Andreas_, l. 1528); emended to -scerwen, _a great scare
under the figure of a mishap at a drinking-bout_; one might compare
bescerwan, _to deprive_, from bescyrian (Grein, i. 93), hence ealu-seerwen
would = _a sudden taking away, deprivation, of the beer_. --H. -So. , p. 93.
See B. , _Tidskr. _ viii. 292.
l. 771. Ten Br. reads rēðe, rēnhearde, = _raging, exceeding bold_.
l. 792. Instrumental adverbial phrases like ǣnige þinga, nǣnige þinga (_not
at all_), hūru þinga (_especially_) are not infrequent. See Cook's Sievers'
Gram. , p. 178; March, _A. -S. Gram. _, p. 182.
l. 811. myrðe. E. translates _in wanton mood_. Toller-Bosw. does not
recognize _sorrow_ as one of the meanings of this word.
ll. 850, 851. S. reads dēop for dēog and erases semicolon after wēol, =
_the death-stained deep welled with sword-gore_; cf. l. 1424. B. reads
dēað-fǣges dēop, etc. , = _the deep welled with the doomed one's
gore_. --_Beit. _ xii. 89.
l. 857. The meaning of blaneum is partly explained by fealwe mēaras below,
l. 866. Cf. Layamon's "and leop on his _blancke" = steed_, l. 23900; Kent's
_Elene_, l. 1185.
l. 859. Körner, _Eng. Stud. _ i. 482, regards the oft-recurring be sǣm
twēonum as a mere formula = _on earth_; cf. ll. 1298, 1686. twēone is part
of the separable prep. _between_; see be-. Cf. Baskerville's _Andreas_, l.
558.
l. 865. Cf. _Voyage of Ōhthere and Wulfstān_ for an account of funeral
horse-racing, Sweet's Read. , p. 22.
l. 868. See Ha. , p. 31, for a variant translation.
l. 871 _seq. _ R. considers this a technical description of improvised
alliterative verse, suggested by and wrought out on the spur of the moment.
l. 872. R. and B. propose secg[an], = _rehearse_, for secg, which suits the
verbs in the next two lines.
ll. 878-98. "It pleases me to think that it is in English literature we
possess the first sketch of that mighty saga [the Volsunga Saga = Wælsinges
gewin] which has for so many centuries engaged all the arts, and at last in
the hands of Wagner the art of music. "--Br. , p. 63. Cf. _Nibelung. Lied_,
l. 739.
l. 894. Intransitive verbs, as gān, weorðan, sometimes take habban, "to
indicate independent action. "--Sw. Cf. hafað . . . geworden, l. 2027.
l. 895. "brūcan (_enjoy_) always has the genitive. "--Sw. ; cf. l. 895; acc. ,
gen. , instr. , dat. , according to March, _A. -S. Gram. _, p. 151.
l. 898. Scherer proposes hāte, = _from heat_, instr. of hāt, _heat_; cf. l.
2606.
l. 901. hē þæs āron þāh = _he throve in honor_ (B. ). Ten Br.
inserts comma
after þāh, making siððan introduce a depend. clause. --_Beit. _ viii. 568.
Cf. weorð-myndum þāh, l. 8; ll. 1155, 1243. --H. -So.
l. 902. Heremōdes is considered by Heinzel to be a mere epithet = _the
valiant_; which would refer the whole passage to Sigmund (Sigfrid), the
eotenas, l. 903, being the Nibelungen. This, says H. -So. , gets rid of the
contradiction between the good "Heremōd" here and the bad one, l. 1710
_seq. _--B. however holds fast to Heremōd. --_Beit. _ xii. 41. on fēonda
geweald, l. 904,--_into the hands of devils_, says B. ; cf. ll. 809, 1721,
2267; _Christ_, l. 1416; _Andreas_, l. 1621; for hine fyren onwōd, cf.
_Gen. _ l. 2579; Hunt's _Dan. _ 17: hīe wlenco anwōd.
l. 902 _seq. _ "Heremōd's shame is contrasted with the glory of Sigemund,
and with the prudence, patience, generosity, and gentleness of Beowulf as a
chieftain. "--Br. , p. 66.
l. 906. MS. has lemede. Toller-Bosw. corrects to lemedon.
l. 917. Cf. Hunt's _Exod. _, l. 170, for similar language.
l. 925. hōs, G. hansa, _company_, "the word from which the mercantile
association of the 'Hanseatic' towns took their designation. "--E.
l. 927. on staþole = _on the floor_ (B. , Rask, ten Br. ). --_Beit. _ xii. 90.
l. 927. May not stēapne here = _bright_, from its being immediately
followed by golde fāhne? Cf. Chaucer's "his eyen _stepe_," _Prol. _ l. 201
(ed. Morris); Cockayne's _Ste. Marherete_, pp. 9, 108; _St. Kath. _, l.
1647.
l. 931. grynna may be for gyrnna (= _sorrows_), gen. plu. of gyrn, as
suggested by one commentator.
l. 937. B. (_Beit. _ xii. 90) makes gehwylcne object of wīd-scofen (hæfde).
Gr. makes wēa nom. absolute.
l. 940. scuccum: cf. G. scheuche, scheusal; Prov. Eng. _old-shock_; perhaps
the pop. interjection _O shucks! _ (! )
l. 959. H. explains wē as a "plur. of majesty," which Bēowulf throws off at
l. 964.
l. 963. fēond þone frætgan (B. _Beit. _ xii. 90).
l. 976. synnum. "Most abstract words in the poetry have a very wide range
of meanings, diverging widely from the prose usage, synn, for instance,
means simply _injury, mischief, hatred_, and the prose meaning _sin_ is
only a secondary one; hata in poetry is not only _hater_, but _persecutor,
enemy_, just as nīð is both _hatred_ and _violence, strength_; heard is
_sharp_ as well as _hard_. "--Sw.
l. 986. S. places wæs at end of l. 985 and reads stīðra nægla, omitting
gehwylc and the commas after that and after scēawedon. _Beit. _ ix. 138;
stēdra (H. -So. ); hand-sporu (H. -So. ) at l. 987.
l. 986. Miller (_Anglia_, xii. 3) corrects to ǣghwylene, in apposition to
fingras.
l. 987. hand-sporu. See _Anglia_, vii. 176, for a discussion of the
intrusion of u into the nom. of n-stems.
l. 988. Cf. ll. 2121, 2414, for similar use of unhēoru = ungeheuer.
l. 992. B. suggests hēatimbred for hāten, and gefrætwon for -od; Kl. ,
hroden (_Beit. _ ix. 189).
l. 995, 996. Gold-embroidered tapestries seem to be meant by web =
_aurifrisium_.
l. 997. After þāra þe = _of those that_, the depend, vb. often takes sg.
for pl. ; cf. ll. 844, 1462, 2384, 2736. --Sw. ; Dietrich.
l. 998. "Metathesis of l takes place in seld for setl, bold for botl,"
etc. --Cook's Sievers' Gram. , p. 96. Cf. Eng. proper names, _Bootle,
Battle_field, etc. --Skeat, _Principles_, i. 250.
l. 1000. heorras: cf. Chaucer, _Prol. _ (ed. Morris) l. 550:
"Ther was no dore that he nolde heve of _harre_. "
ll. 1005-1007. See _Zachers Zeitschr. _ iii. 391, and _Beit. _ xii. 368, for
R. 's and B. 's views of this difficult passage.
l. 1009. Cf. l. 1612 for sǣl and mǣl, surviving still in E. Anglia in "mind
your _seals and meals_," = _times and occasions_, i. e.
