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Curious
Half-elven
May 7 2007, 12:08pm
Post #1 of 40
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**Beowulf Discussion Part 3**
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Lesslie Hall's 1892 translation is at this link:
http://www.gutenberg.org/...28-h/16328-h.htm#III
III.
GRENDEL THE MURDERER.
When the sun was sunken, he set out to visit
The lofty hall-building, how the Ring-Danes had used it
For beds and benches when the banquet was over.
Then he found there reposing many a noble
5
Asleep after supper; sorrow the heroes,
Misery knew not. The monster of evil
Greedy and cruel tarried but little,
Fell and frantic, and forced from their slumbers
Thirty of thanemen; thence he departed
10
Leaping and laughing, his lair to return to,
With surfeit of slaughter sallying homeward.
In the dusk of the dawning, as the day was just breaking,
Was Grendel's prowess revealed to the warriors:
Then, his meal-taking finished, a moan was uplifted,
15
Morning-cry mighty. The man-ruler famous,
The long-worthy atheling, sat very woful,
Suffered great sorrow, sighed for his liegemen,
When they had seen the track of the hateful pursuer,
The spirit accursèd: too crushing that sorrow,
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Too loathsome and lasting. Not longer he tarried,
But one night after continued his slaughter
Shameless and shocking, shrinking but little
From malice and murder; they mastered him fully.
He was easy to find then who otherwhere looked for
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A pleasanter place of repose in the lodges,
A bed in the bowers. Then was brought to his notice
Told him truly by token apparent
The hall-thane's hatred: he held himself after
Further and faster who the foeman did baffle.
30
So ruled he and strongly strove against justice
Lone against all men, till empty uptowered
The choicest of houses. Long was the season:
Twelve-winters' time torture suffered
The friend of the Scyldings, every affliction,
35
Endless agony; hence it after became
Certainly known to the children of men
Sadly in measures, that long against Hrothgar
Grendel struggled:--his grudges he cherished,
Murderous malice, many a winter,
40
Strife unremitting, and peacefully wished he
Life-woe to lift from no liegeman at all of
The men of the Dane-folk, for money to settle,
No counsellor needed count for a moment
On handsome amends at the hands of the murderer;
45
The monster of evil fiercely did harass,
The ill-planning death-shade, both elder and younger,
Trapping and tricking them. He trod every night then
The mist-covered moor-fens; men do not know where
Witches and wizards wander and ramble.
50
So the foe of mankind many of evils
Grievous injuries, often accomplished,
Horrible hermit; Heort he frequented,
Gem-bedecked palace, when night-shades had fallen
(Since God did oppose him, not the throne could he touch,
55
The light-flashing jewel, love of Him knew not).
'Twas a fearful affliction to the friend of the Scyldings
Soul-crushing sorrow. Not seldom in private
Sat the king in his council; conference held they
What the braves should determine 'gainst terrors unlooked for.
60
At the shrines of their idols often they promised
Gifts and offerings, earnestly prayed they
The devil from hell would help them to lighten
Their people's oppression. Such practice they used then,
Hope of the heathen; hell they remembered
65
In innermost spirit, God they knew not,
Judge of their actions, All-wielding Ruler,
No praise could they give the Guardian of Heaven,
The Wielder of Glory. Woe will be his who
Through furious hatred his spirit shall drive to
70
The clutch of the fire, no comfort shall look for,
Wax no wiser; well for the man who,
Living his life-days, his Lord may face
And find defence in his Father's embrace!
Dr. David Breeden's loose modern translation is at this link:
http://www.lone-star.net/...beowulf/beowulf1.htm
One night, after a beer party,
the Danes settled in the hall
for sleep; they knew no sorrows.
The evil creature, grim and hungry,
grabbed thirty warriors
and went home laughing.
At dawn, when the Danes learned
of Grendel's strength,
there was great weeping.
The old king sat sadly,
crying for his men. Bloody
footprints were found.
That was bad enough,
but the following night
Grendel killed more--
blinded by sin,
he felt no remorse.
(You can bet the survivors
started sleeping elsewhere.)
So Grendel ruled,
fighting right,
one against many,
and the greatest hall
in all the earth
stood empty at night.
Twelve years this went on,
Hrothgar suffering
the greatest of sorrows.
Poets sang sad songs
throughout the world,
how Grendel tormented Hrothgar;
how no warrior,
no matter how brave,
could kill Grendel.
How Grendel wasn't
about to stop,
or pay damages.
Grendel kept ambushing from his lair,
the moors which lay in perpetual darkness.
Then, the cruelest of all injuries,
he moved into the hall--
stayed there every night
(though God would never allow
such an evil thing
to actually touch the throne).
Hrothgar was broken;
council after council proposed
what to do against the attacks.
They even went to heathen temples,
worshipped idols, and called
to the Devil for help.
The Danes forgot God.
(Woe be to those who go
to the fire's embrace,
even in great distress--
There is no consolation there.)
No counselor, no warrior
could destroy the evil.
They wept and seethed.
Questions:
Okay, we have some action at last! Does it work for you? Was the set-up worth it? Do you find Grendel a credible monster? Are you able to suspend disbelief? Do you find this section suitably horrifying? Why or why not?
What more do we learn about Grendel in this section of the poem? Can you form a picture of Grendel based on the information we have been given so far, or is he still an enigma? Why can't anyone defeat him?
What judgments have the friends and relatives of his victims formed about Grendel? How did they form those judgments? What have they tried to do against him? What haven't they tried, and why?
What do we learn about ordinary feuds based on the comparison to this extraordinary feud?
Do the Ring-Danes worship the Devil? Are they heathens? How does the poet feel about that? How does the Christian God seem to feel about that, based on the poem so far? What is the difference between Hrothgar and Grendel in the eyes of God? In the eyes of the poet?
By the way, what are Ring-Danes? What does that particular name mean?
Any other comments?
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FarFromHome
Valinor
May 7 2007, 5:21pm
Post #2 of 40
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It still doesn't feel as if the story has really begun
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Okay, we have some action at last! Does it work for you? Was the set-up worth it? Do you find Grendel a credible monster? Are you able to suspend disbelief? Do you find this section suitably horrifying? Why or why not?
We may have some action, but it still seems like set-up to me. We don't get much detail about the killing sprees, and the emphasis is on Grendel's laughing remorselessness compared to the Danes' groaning and weeping - setting up a scenario rather than describing the scene.
What more do we learn about Grendel in this section of the poem? Can you form a picture of Grendel based on the information we have been given so far, or is he still an enigma? Why can't anyone defeat him?
There's very little to go on to form a picture of Grendel. I guess there's his name - if you were Anglo-Saxon, you'd know (as NZS told us earlier) that it's about grinding - so his name alone seems to tell you that he's a cannibal. But otherwise it's just his behaviour that is described. Later we'll get some very evocative word-pictures of our heroes in their armour and weaponry, and we've already had a fairly vivid description of the hall, which is more than we get about Grendel. Perhaps this means that Grendel would have been a familiar character to the audience? I would assume that the same stories have been told many times (this being well before a taste for the novel, in its most literal sense, became the norm), so that the poet can probably take some things for granted as being known to his audience, although they are unknown to us.
What judgments have the friends and relatives of his victims formed about Grendel? How did they form those judgments? What have they tried to do against him? What haven't they tried, and why?
There seems to be only one response to Grendel - run away! Nobody appears to have challenged him, and instead everyone has deserted the hall.
What do we learn about ordinary feuds based on the comparison to this extraordinary feud?
Well it appears that ordinary feuds are nornally ended by parley and the paying of a death-price. Grendel of course is not going to do this. In fact, can he speak at all?
Do the Ring-Danes worship the Devil? Are they heathens? How does the poet feel about that? How does the Christian God seem to feel about that, based on the poem so far? What is the difference between Hrothgar and Grendel in the eyes of God? In the eyes of the poet?
I'm still not sure how to read the Christian/pagan references. I can't quite get my head around the idea that references to the divine always specify the Christian God, and yet there are a lot of pre-Christian elements in the story (monsters, to start with). In this section, the Danes seem to be worshipping their old gods, who are somehow equated with the Devil and hell. But the poet makes it clear that they do this out of ignorance - they don't know about the Christian God, so can't call on Him for help (despite the fact that later, if I'm remembering my earlier reading correctly, Beowulf seems to refer to the Christian God himself). Seamus Heaney's very thoughtful introduction includes the proposition that "Beowulf perfectly answers the early modern conception of a work of creative imagination as one in which conflicting realities find accommodation within a new order." I like that idea, but I'm still working on trying to apply it properly to the poem.
By the way, what are Ring-Danes? What does that particular name mean?
I'm guessing that it refers to their habit of using rings as a way of forging alliances. A good king is a good 'ring-giver', and by the gold rings that he's able to provide for his warriors he binds them to him in gratitude. My impression, from this story as well as from things I've seen in museums, is that these rings are arm-rings and neck-rings (torques), as well as finger-rings.
...and the sails were drawn up, and the wind blew,
and slowly the ship slipped away down the long grey firth;
and the light of the glass of Galadriel that Frodo bore
glimmered and was lost.
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Aunt Dora Baggins
Immortal
May 7 2007, 6:08pm
Post #3 of 40
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Once again I'm reminded of a ballad
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that's only vaguely related if at all. The monster in the ballad reminds me of Grendel, as does the behavior of the king's men:
KING HENRY (Child Ballad #32)
Adapted from several variants including Steeleye Span's
Let never a man a-wooing wend that lacketh things three:
A store of gold, an open heart, and full of charity
And this was said of King Henry, as he lay quite alone
For he's taken him to a haunted hall, seven miles from the town
He's chased the deer now him before, and the doe down by the glen
When the fattest buck in all the flock, King Henry he has slain
His huntsmen followed him to the hall, to make them burly cheer
When loud the wind was heard to howl, and an earthquake rocked the floor
Darkness covered all the Hall where they sat at their meat
The grey dogs, yowling, left their food and crept to Henry's feet
And louder howled the rising wind, and burst the fastened door
When in there came a grisly ghost, stamping on the floor!
Her head hit the rooftree of the house, her middle you could not span
Each frightened Huntsman fled the hall, and left the King alone
Her teeth were like the tether-stakes, her nose like club or mall
And nothing less she seemed to be than a Fiend that comes from Hell!
Some meat, some meat, you King Henry, some meat you bring to me
Go kill your horse, you King Henry, and bring some meat to me!
And he has slain his berry-brown steed, it made his heart full sore
For she's eaten it up, both skin and bone, left nothing but hide and hair!
More meat, more meat, you King Henry, more meat you give to me!
Oh you must kill your good greyhounds, and bring some meat to me!
And he has slain his good greyhounds, it made his heart full sore
For she's eaten them up, both skin and bone, left nothing but hide and hair!
Some drink, some drink, you King Henry, some drink you give to me
Oh you sew up your horse's hide, and bring some drink to me!
And he's sewn up the bloody hide, and a pipe of wine put in
And she's drank it up all in one drop, left never a drop therein!
A bed, a bed, now King Henry, a bed you'll make for me!
Oh you must pull the heather green, and make it soft for me!
And pulled has he the heather green, and made for her a bed
And taken has he his good mantle, and over it he has spread.
Take off your clothes, now King Henry, and lie down by my side!
Now swear, now swear, you King Henry, to take me for your Bride!
"Oh God forbid," said King Henry, "that ever the like betide;
That ever a Fiend that comes from Hell should lie down by my side!
When the night was gone, and the day was come and the sun shone through the Hall
The fairest Lady that ever was seen lay twixt him and the wall!
"I've met with many a Gentle Knight that gave me all a fill,
But never before such a courteous Knight, that gave me all my Will!"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"For DORA BAGGINS in memory of a LONG correspondence, with love from Bilbo; on a large wastebasket. Dora was Drogo's sister, and the eldest surviving female relative of Bilbo and Frodo; she was ninety-nine, and had written reams of good advice for more than half a century."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Chance Meeting at Rivendell: a Tolkien Fanfic
and some other stuff I wrote...
leleni at hotmail dot com
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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Darkstone
Immortal
May 7 2007, 7:55pm
Post #4 of 40
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Okay, we have some action at last! Does it work for you?
I’ve seen the 13th Warrior, so I can fill in the blanks with some nifty images.
Was the set-up worth it?
The poetry’s great. Remember, it’s not about the destination but the journey.
Do you find Grendel a credible monster?
He’s humorless and hungry. I’ve known lots of people who were mean for those same reasons. The Danes are all fat and happy. That’s two strikes against them. Grendel would gobble up the hobbits of the Shire at the drop of a hat.
Are you able to suspend disbelief?
Sure. I already have a tenuous grip on reality so it’s pretty easy for me.
Do you find this section suitably horrifying?
Yep.
Why or why not?
Well, I don’t know about the kids around here, but I’m a child of the 20th century. Though I’ve eaten squirrel and possum, cannibalism remains horrifying to me.
What more do we learn about Grendel in this section of the poem?
He’s strong. Carrying thirty struggling men home under his arm is pretty impressive. Also kind of funny in a sick way. Like those cheap laughs in today’s gory slasher films.
Can you form a picture of Grendel based on the information we have been given so far, or is he still an enigma?
His big, slimy, and green, with long sharp claws and huge pointy teeth. Like Gollum on steroids.
Why can't anyone defeat him?
He’s at the peak of his game! Maybe after a dozen or so years age will catch up with him and then someone new from outside can come along and get the drop on him and his slowing reflexes.
What judgments have the friends and relatives of his victims formed about Grendel?
Someone not to be messed with. If he wants the song and merriment to stop, it’ll stop. If he wants the mead hall, he can have the mead hall. Nothing like an 800 pound gorilla, er, that is, Grendel, sitting in the middle of the room to help you sort out your priorites.
How did they form those judgments?
He killed a bunch of them. People learn from examples. And they say violence never solved anything!
What have they tried to do against him?
The warriors bravely fought him, the poets sadly sang songs, Hrothgar wisely held councils, and the people piously prayed to anybody they could think off. Lots of effort and hot air without anything of substance happening. Sounds like Washington, D.C. Who says the old classics don't have applicability in today's world?
What haven't they tried, and why?
Offered Hrothgar’s daughter’s hand in marriage, but I can see where the king doesn't want him as a son-in-law. They need to call Ghostbusters!
What do we learn about ordinary feuds based on the comparison to this extraordinary feud?
You can negotiate with your fellow men, but you can’t negotiate with the Devil. That is, unless you have someone like Daniel Webster in your back pocket.
Do the Ring-Danes worship the Devil?
Well, to Christians Odin, Woden, and Satan all look the same. Maybe it's the horns.
Are they heathens?
Well, I suppose with all the terror and all the men being eaten there was lots of uncultivated land, or “heath”, so yeah.
How does the poet feel about that? How does the Christian God seem to feel about that, based on the poem so far?
Well, obviously God decided not to help them since being omniscient He already knew that if He didn’t help them they’d turn away from Him and ask for help from graven idols! That’ll teach them!!
What is the difference between Hrothgar and Grendel in the eyes of God?
Hrothgar is the rightful king. Divine right and all that. That’s why God won’t let him sit on the throne.
the eyes of the poet?
The same thing if the poet doesn’t want to get used for axe practice.
By the way, what are Ring-Danes? What does that particular name mean?
It’s a pun. They’re loyal retainers that the king gives rings (treasure) to so they stay loyal retainers. They’re also his soldiers who wear ring mail.
All is not gold that glitters,
All is not pure that shines.
Follow your mother's teachings
And happiness will be thine!
-Bugs Bunny, "Bowery Bugs", 1949.
(This post was edited by Darkstone on May 7 2007, 7:59pm)
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weaver
Half-elven
May 7 2007, 10:27pm
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It seems odd to me to find Beowulf on this board...
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...along with threads about the last season of Lost and what movies did you watch this weekend...
But it's a nice treat, all the same.
This part of Beowulf is really fun -- nothing like a monster eating people to get your interest.
And even if you can't follow it all, there's a lot of fun word play to enjoy -- all those hyphenated-word descriptions -- morning-cry, long-worthy, life-woe -- and the alliteration -- fell and frantic, thirty and thanemen, horrible-hermit -- make for very compelling reading, and no doubt would keep your interest and attention even more if recited to you.
I don't have any insights to offer, other than to comment on something in FarFrom Home's post, in which she has this quote:
"Seamus Heaney's very thoughtful introduction includes the proposition that "Beowulf perfectly answers the early modern conception of a work of creative imagination as one in which conflicting realities find accommodation within a new order."
Given that we are sort of the start of a new order being driven by globalization, technology, extremism, etc., it makes me think that that's a good way to look at modern literature as well. Tolkien is sort of part of that, and interesting that he has such a strong link to a literature formed in another time of transformation.
Thanks for doing this discussion, Curious!
Weaver
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dernwyn
Forum Admin
/ Moderator
May 7 2007, 11:44pm
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*shudder* That's sort of...creepy... /
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"And when Sam heard that he laughed aloud for sheer delight, and he stood up and cried: 'O great glory and splendour! And all my wishes have come true!'"
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dernwyn
Forum Admin
/ Moderator
May 7 2007, 11:45pm
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Applicability - lol! *mods up* /
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"And when Sam heard that he laughed aloud for sheer delight, and he stood up and cried: 'O great glory and splendour! And all my wishes have come true!'"
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NZ Strider
Rivendell
May 8 2007, 1:02am
Post #8 of 40
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Actually, I don´t have much time, so I'll confine myself, or at least try, to a couple comments.
By the way, what are Ring-Danes? What does that particular name mean?
The name refers to the ring(-mail) which they wear: "armour-Danes." Compare another name for them, the "Scyld-Danes" or "shield-Danes." (There is, by the way, a theory that they had been called "Shield-Danes" or, alternately, "Scyldingas" -- "the men with shields" -- for a long time until someone hit on the idea of taking "Scyldingas" as a patronymic (i.e. "Sons of Scyld") and invented King Scyld as their ancestor.)
Do the Ring-Danes worship the Devil? Are they heathens? How does the poet feel about that? How does the Christian God seem to feel about that, based on the poem so far?
It's an odd passage and one which has provoked much comment. First, the poet does say straight out that the Danes are "heathens," so there's no getting round the fact that they are indeed heathens.
One very old interpretation of the poem views this passage as proof that the poem was basically a pagan product, and since the (superficial) Christian "revisor" of the material couldn't really depaganise it, he just blurted it straight out here. A somewhat later view takes Beowulf as being a basically Christian poem about pre-Christian characters all done up as Christians, in which case this passage can become a bit of an embarrassment.
On another (fairly recent) view these lines are actually a ploy on the poet's part to gain his (Christian) hearers' sympathy for the Danes and their plight:
Ll. 183b-188:
"How awful it must be when people must
send their soul after dread conflict
straight into the Fire; when they can't expect any comfort,
can't expect any change for the better! And how reassuring it is when people may,
on their dying-day, seek the Lord
and look for comfort in the Father's embrace!"
Is this a plea for pity on the Danes?
If so, then perhaps when we see the Danes (Ll. 175-178) in their despair offering sacrifices to the "gast-bona," the "soul-slayer," then instead of being repulsed (and saying triumphantly: see, Alcuin was right, "the lost pagan laments in Hell"!), the Beowulf-poet wants us to feel sorry for the characters and hope that someone will help them.
Interestingly, line 181b states: "they knew not the Almighty." Perhaps that line refers back to lines 13b-16a: "whom (i.e. the Kings of the Sycldings) God sent as a comfort to the people; for he knew of the misery which enemies caused them and which they had been suffering for a long time since they had no King." It could be a reminder to the Alcuins in the audience that it didn't matter so much that the Danes didn't know the Almighty, as that the Almighty knew them. And, anyway, as the Almighty had alreadly once sent them, miraculously, a King, He is now about to send them someone who'll take care of Grendel.
Finally, I tend to think of these lines as pointedly counter-anachronistic: The poet is telling us straight out what his characters can and cannot know. The poet knows full well that his characters lived in pre-Christian times and acted accordingly. The problem which the poet sets up for himself -- and this is what makes this passage difficult for the critics -- is that the poet in general, probably out of sympathy for his characters, removes the (to his Christian hearers) most repulsive aspects of paganism (e.g. human sacrifices: cf. Tacitus, Germania, 40; or the account of a tenth-century Arab traveller, Ibn Fadhlan, of a chieftain's funeral, paragraphs 87-91) while introducing Christian elements (such as having Hrothgar's court-poet paraphrase Genesis). Here, the poet, if he merely wanted to remind his hearers that his characters were indeed pre-Christian, perhaps did not need to go quite so far as depicting them as devil-worshippers and talking about their sacrifices to the devil.
Of course, if the poet's hearers responded mostly with sympathy for the poor Danes, then for his particular audience the poet solved the problem well-enough. (This view pre-supposes as the historical background for the poem's composition a period of English missionary activity in the Netherlands and northern Germany -- when a reference to "heathen" Danes in roughly the same region would have inspired a mixture of interest, sympathy, and missionary zeal rather than Alcuin's attitude of condemnation and revulsion.)
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a.s.
Valinor
May 8 2007, 2:06am
Post #9 of 40
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shall we consign the heathen ancestors to perdition?
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In "Monsters and the Critics", JRRT discusses the Beowulf poet's viewpoint here (and in other parts of the poem):
Almost we might say that this poem was (in one direction) inspired by the debate that had long been held and continued after, and that it was one of the chief contributions to the controversy: shall we or shall we not consign the heathen ancestors to perdition?
I have a very hard time with Hall's translation. The Breeden translation has "The Danes forgot God":
They even went to heathen temples,
worshipped idols, and called
to the Devil for help.
The Danes forgot God.
(Woe be to those who go
to the fire's embrace,
even in great distress--
There is no consolation there.)
Heaney has "the Lord God...was unknown to them":
Sometimes at pagan shrines they vowed
offerings to idols, swore oaths
that the killer of souls might come to their aid
and save the people. That was their way,
their heathenish hope; deep in their hearts
they remembered hell. The Almighty Judge
of good deeds and bad, the Lord God,
Head of the Heavens and High King of the World,
was unknown to them. Oh, cursed is he
who in time of trouble has to thrust his soul
in the fire's embrace, forfeiting help;
he has nowhere to turn. But blessed is he
who after death can approach the Lord
and find friendship in the Father's embrace.
The translation you quote (is it your own, by the way?) has
"How awful it must be when people must
send their soul after dread conflict
straight into the Fire; when they can't expect any comfort,
can't expect any change for the better! And how reassuring it is when people may,
on their dying-day, seek the Lord
and look for comfort in the Father's embrace!"
When I read the Heaney translation (this is my second time through) I get a glimpse of the sadness of the Beowulf poet as he describes these heroic but ultimately doomed warriors who worshipped idols because it "was their way"; who in the face of horror have to be brave with no hope of redemption because God is "unknown to them".
I don't see (in Heaney or the other translations) any glimmer of hope that they might possibly be redeemed after death. Are you saying this is a possible interpretation of this part of the poem? That a "heathen" might be redeemed after death, even though he wasn't "saved"?
That seems a very modern interpretation, and I don't get that idea either from the translation I'm reading nor from reading "Monsters and Critics". Rather I get the terrible sadness of the poet that these brave men are consigned to a different afterlife than are Christians, because they don't "know" God.
a.s.
"an seileachan"
Some say they're going to a place called Glory, and I ain't saying it ain't a fact.
But I've heard that I'm on the road to Purgatory, and I don't like the sound of that!
I believe in love, and live my life accordingly,
And I choose: let the mystery be.
~~~~Iris DeMent
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a.s.
Valinor
May 8 2007, 2:12am
Post #10 of 40
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Interesting that Hall has:
men do not know where
Witches and wizards wander and ramble.
Heaney has:
nobody knows
where these reavers from hell roam on their errands.
Once again, I can't read the Anglo-Saxon so don't know which is closer, nor whether our twenty-first century idea of "witches and wizards" is so very different from Hall's 1892 idea of same!
a.s.
"an seileachan"
Some say they're going to a place called Glory, and I ain't saying it ain't a fact.
But I've heard that I'm on the road to Purgatory, and I don't like the sound of that!
I believe in love, and live my life accordingly,
And I choose: let the mystery be.
~~~~Iris DeMent
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Morwen
Rohan
May 8 2007, 2:28am
Post #11 of 40
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Okay, we have some action at last! Does it work for you? Was the set-up worth it? Do you find Grendel a credible monster? Are you able to suspend disbelief? Do you find this section suitably horrifying? Why or why not?
I didn't have much trouble suspending disbelief. If I can believe in dragons, Ringwraiths, and little people with furry feet that save the world, I can get my head around this. And yes, it works for me. Absolutely it was horrifying. Anything that invades someone's home in the dead of night and kills thirty people for no reason we can understand is more than sufficiently horrifying for me. This part of the story chills me the same way "In Cold Blood" chilled me.
What more do we learn about Grendel in this section of the poem? Can you form a picture of Grendel based on the information we have been given so far, or is he still an enigma? Why can't anyone defeat him?
I vote for enigmatic. We don't know why he came there, what he will do next, or even what he looks like. He came upon these people in a place in which they thought they were safe and killed thirty strong men in one go. Surely he appears all powerful to the survivors. They must be feeling pretty helpless and hopeless at this point.
What judgments have the friends and relatives of his victims formed about Grendel? How did they form those judgments? What have they tried to do against him? What haven't they tried, and why?
Surely they see him as completely evil as well as all-powerful. They've never met up with anything like Grendel before, and I doubt they have a clue what to do.
What do we learn about ordinary feuds based on the comparison to this extraordinary feud?
Ordinary feuds take place between parties with roughly equivalent strength and skill. To paraphrase Gandalf, this is a foe beyond any of them.
I wish you could have been there
When she opened up the door
And looked me in the face
Like she never did before
I felt about as welcome
As a Wal-Mart Superstore--John Prine
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OhioHobbit
Gondor
May 8 2007, 10:21am
Post #12 of 40
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I assume the Saxons knew what Grendel was, but I sure don't!
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Darkstone
Immortal
May 8 2007, 5:18pm
Post #13 of 40
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The line is:
"Men ne cunnon, hwyder helrunan hwyrftum scriþað"
Which can be literally translated as :
"Men not know whither Hel-counselors wandering walk."
While literally "Hel-counselors", helrunan is translated as "monsters", or "wizards", or "sorceresses", or "witches". Obviously the translator wanted to cover all the bases. But "helrunan" is a kenning, so I'd think it would have a meaning beyond the two words it's composed of . (Like "blood-worm" is a sword, or "raven-feeder" is a warrior). Personally I think it should be translated as "Lilith-spawn", to foreshadow Grendel's mother, but that's just me.
All is not gold that glitters,
All is not pure that shines.
Follow your mother's teachings
And happiness will be thine!
-Bugs Bunny, "Bowery Bugs", 1949.
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FarFromHome
Valinor
May 8 2007, 7:44pm
Post #14 of 40
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at http://www.heorot.dk
[163] helrunan - or perhaps 'hellish whisperers' (necromancers?): the word haliurunnae (magae mulieres) appears in Jordanes' Getica referring to apparently misshapen, Gothic witches, banished by Filimir and his army (Jordanes, cap. XXIV); in the early glosses derived from Aldhelm's works, the word helrunan appears as an alternative to wiccan (witches) in glossing p(h)itonissam .i. divinatricem (Napier no. 1, 1926) (in another early glossary, pithonissa is glossed as spiritus inferni (Lindsay p.188f.)); hellerune is also given as an alternative to haegtesse to gloss pythonissa in a tenth- or eleventh-century glossary (see N. Chadwick, p.174).
It's a bit technical-sounding, but this seems to be saying that there are very few examples of this word, but what evidence there is links it to a word for 'witches'. Another website suggested that the word you translate as 'counsellors' may be connected with whispering - rather like Wormtongue maybe? The whispering or muttering of spells is what seems to give this word its sense of witchcraft. (This is all guesswork on my part, I don't know any Anglo-Saxon at all, so I may be completely off-base here.)
On another point, I noticed this on the heorot.dk website too:
[179-189: The 'Idolatry' of the Danes] These lines are much debated. Even Tolkien, who emphasised the unity and cohesion of the poem, says, 'unless my ear and judgment are wholly at fault, they have a ring and measure unlike their context, and indeed unlike that of the poem as a whole' ('Monsters & the Critics', p288).
I don't know what if anything this tells us - just thought I'd mention it anyway!
...and the sails were drawn up, and the wind blew,
and slowly the ship slipped away down the long grey firth;
and the light of the glass of Galadriel that Frodo bore
glimmered and was lost.
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Darkstone
Immortal
May 8 2007, 8:08pm
Post #15 of 40
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Indeed the word is very ambiguous. In the old Saxon mythology Hel is a neutral goddess of shadows, of the dead. She later becomes a bit darker, having domain only over those who died of sickness or old age. Then you have Hell as The Other Place in Judeo-Christian mythology. So Hel becomes a female Satan. Interestingly, a huge North Atlantic storm around 15 yeaqrs back uncovered a lot of ancient altars to Hel all up and down the North Sea coast.
The whisperer connotation is a nice one. I like it. Only traditionally Freya, not Hel, is the goddess of magic. Then again, Freya is also the goddess of divination, which would connect her (rather than Hel) to "runes". It appears someone mixed up their goddesses. As for "counselor", one wonders whether helrunan are counselors *of* Hel, or counselors *from* Hel. Obviously one could write a thesis about the word. Which is why I find kennings so delightful!
All is not gold that glitters,
All is not pure that shines.
Follow your mother's teachings
And happiness will be thine!
-Bugs Bunny, "Bowery Bugs", 1949.
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dernwyn
Forum Admin
/ Moderator
May 9 2007, 2:55am
Post #16 of 40
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"this is a foe beyond any of them"
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You don't suppose...this is the inspiration for the Balrog...?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"And when Sam heard that he laughed aloud for sheer delight, and he stood up and cried: 'O great glory and splendour! And all my wishes have come true!'"
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NZ Strider
Rivendell
May 9 2007, 3:16am
Post #17 of 40
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What I find most chilling about Grendel
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-- esp. if we look at his murderous rampage with modern eyes which have seen mass killings such as the one in In Cold Blood to take an older example (no need to find a more recent one) -- is what apparently set the mass murderer off: he heard Hrothgar's retainers having a feast and enjoying themselves and listening to a poet. Nothing more than that.
There is something inexplicably and horrifyingly modern about the image of Grendel bursting into Heorot and killing thirty people in one go.
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NZ Strider
Rivendell
May 9 2007, 3:33am
Post #18 of 40
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To add one mostly pedantic comment: remember that the poet is bound by the alliterative rules of the type of poetry he's composing. Most lines have the first three stressed syllables begin with the same sound; in this case "aitch":
hwyder hel-runan hwyrftum scrithath
"whither 'hel-runan' go in their wanderings"
The poet may have felt that he needed a word starting with aitch, and picked one which sounded sufficiently evil without meaning it necessarily in its strictest sense. After all, Grendel never works any magic in the poem.
But translators have a certain amount of leeway in how they choose to translate difficult words: so why not "warlocks and witches"? Or even "Lilith-spawn"?
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Pukel-man
The Shire
May 9 2007, 5:22am
Post #19 of 40
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It is Grendel's humanity . . .
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. . . that is so monstrous.
Even 'hell-counseller' seems to imply a sort of dark mirror-image of Hrothgar's court, with an evil lord and counsellors and retainers. And what horrifies me is not his deeds, but his utterly human motivation: envy. As with all great horror anti-heroes, Grendel makes us shudder because there is a little bit of him in each of us. 'Grinder' is no Hannibal Lecter, aloof and intellectual; he (as John Gardner realised) is just a poor pariah who never stood a chance.
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Curious
Half-elven
May 9 2007, 3:35pm
Post #20 of 40
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That's a rather modern point of view.
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I don't see anything in this poem that suggests we should in any way sympathize with Grendel. On the contrary, the poet seems to go to great lengths to make sure we cheer when Grendel meets his well-deserved reward.
However I do think modern readers might have the same questions about Cain's descendants that we have about the orcs in LotR. Namely, are we comfortable with the idea of an irredeemably evil race? I don't think modern readers are nearly as comfortable with this idea of "otherness" as the poet's audience would have been a thousand years ago.
Tolkien addressed the problem by creating Gollum, the subject of much pity, and perhaps a sympathetic version of Grendel. I see several similarities, although Gollum is not nearly as strong. Tolkien also glossed over the slaughter of the orcs, leaving the dirty work first to the huorns, then to the orcs themselves, who self-destructed after Sauron's fall.
A modern take on the subject might recast Grendel as a zombie, or, worse yet, a corrupt lawyer. Don't laugh! Many racially offensive jokes have been recast with lawyers. One example: "What do you call a hundred lawyers chained together at the bottom of the ocean? A good start." That's why I don't find that particular kind of lawyer joke funny.
Of course another modern take on the story is to do away with the whole premise of hero vs. monster, and instead make the monster the protagonist, as John Gardner did. But I don't think the original audience would have understood that approach at all. On the other hand, maybe I am making too much of a distinction between modern an ancient audiences. After all, in the Norse myths, the gods were not all that different from the giants, and Loki was a bit of both.
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Curious
Half-elven
May 9 2007, 5:22pm
Post #21 of 40
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Okay, we have some action at last! Does it work for you? Was the set-up worth it? Do you find Grendel a credible monster? Are you able to suspend disbelief? Do you find this section suitably horrifying? Why or why not?
Well, it is action, but as someone here said it is also still set up for the action to come. Hrothgar and his men are apparently powerless against Grendel, so it is a very one-sided affair. Furthermore, because of the set-up to this point, we feel more for Hrothgar's humiliation than for any of the men who are murdered. They are just a bunch of nameless extras -- what Star Trek fans used to call red shirts. This is sort of like the stories about Smaug first coming to the Lonely Mountain. We feel more for the humiliation of the dwarves who survive than for the nameless dwarves who were killed.
What more do we learn about Grendel in this section of the poem? Can you form a picture of Grendel based on the information we have been given so far, or is he still an enigma? Why can't anyone defeat him?
We know next to nothing about Grendel at this point, except that he is deadly and does not live by the code of society -- thus there is no hope of negotiating an end to the feud. He is some sort of monster, but what kind -- dragon, demon, wizard, beast, ogre, troll, giant, elf, ghost, swamp thing, or what have you -- is unclear. Unless I have missed something, we have no physical description of Grendel at this point. In particular, we don't know the secret of his invulnerability.
What judgments have the friends and relatives of his victims formed about Grendel? How did they form those judgments? What have they tried to do against him? What haven't they tried, and why?
Although it is unclear, they apparently tried fighting him, with absolutely no success. They have also tried praying, but because they only know heathen gods, again they have had no success. Things are bad enough that Grendel has actually moved in as a permanent resident in Hrothgar's hall for twelve years, and no one has been able to dislodge him. Tales of this have traveled far and wide. How humiliating for Hrothgar!
What do we learn about ordinary feuds based on the comparison to this extraordinary feud?
Apparently the Ring-Danes can forgive and forget if an appropriate price is paid to end a feud. The lesson here? Don't make enemies among the rich Ring-Danes -- they can kill you, or have you killed, then pay your own family to forget about it. To us that seems strange, but to the poet's audience it may have seemed routine.
After all, we already learned that a good king is also a great warrior who wins lots of loot for his retainers and distributes it generously. Fighting was like a summer sport -- everybody did it to some extent, and they probably spent the winter preparing for the next season. But there were rules of conduct among the fighters, and Grendel did not abide by those rules.
Although note that Grendel only killed warriors, and only in the Great Hall. He didn't go after women and children, and he didn't pursue his enemies to their homes, even after twelve years. In a way, this is like a challenge to men who call themselves warriors -- and clearly none of them are up to the challenge. So the stories travel far and wide that Hrothgar needs something more than a Warrior; he needs a Hero.
(Remember the beginning of The Hobbit, when Gandalf says they tried to find a Hero, or even a Warrior, but were stuck with a Burglar instead? And then before the end of the book Gandalf manages to win the friendship of Beorn, a true Hero, as well as Bard, a true Warrior.)
Do the Ring-Danes worship the Devil? Are they heathens? How does the poet feel about that? How does the Christian God seem to feel about that, based on the poem so far? What is the difference between Hrothgar and Grendel in the eyes of God? In the eyes of the poet?
Well, they are heathens. And some Christians would say that means they worship the Devil. The poet seems to sympathize with them, though -- they are more ignorant than evil. Furthermore according to the poet the Christian God still blesses Hrothgar's ancestors and his throne, keeping Grendel away from the throne even when no one is there to stop him. The Christian God has, on the other hand, cursed Grendel and all the other descendants of Cain. So Hrothgar is blessed but ignorant, while Grendel is cursed, apparently long before he was born. It's a bit of a stretch to see why Christians should care about Hrothgar, but the poet does his best, and his audience probably gave him the benefit of the doubt, since they also had non-Christian ancestors.
By the way, what are Ring-Danes? What does that particular name mean?
Although there are references to Hrothgar giving away rings, most translators seem to think it refers to ring-mail.
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NZ Strider
Rivendell
May 9 2007, 10:49pm
Post #22 of 40
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That is indeed the question...
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(Tolkien meant "perdition" in that statement in the sense of "oblivion"; you, I take it, mean it in the sense of "damnation.")
Both were vexing questions to an age which was negotiating the boundary between one age and its rules (the pre-Christian one) and another (the Christian one). What did one do with the ancestors?
There was the Frisian chieftain, Rathbod, whom Bishop Wulfram had converted -- or thought he had. As Rathbod approached the baptismal font, he asked Wulfram if he would meet his ancestors in Heaven. Wulfram felt constrained by orthodoxy to say, "no." Rathbod turned right round and walked away -- he preferred to meet his ancestors in Hell to spending eternity in Heaven without them.
Some people definitely felt strongly on the matter of their ancestors -- if you will, the opinion most forcefully opposed to Alcuin's, who counselled forgetting about them entirely: "Our heavenly Father wishes to have nothing to do with lost and pagan so-called kings: the Eternal King reigns in Heaven, the lost pagan laments in Hell."
The Beowulf-poet certainly wasn't prepared to go that far. But would he have been prepared to tell Rathbod, that, in God's mercy, his ancestors, who had sinned solely through ignorance and had been good and noble according to the natural law (and even the most orthodox conceded that pagans might do that), would be waiting for him in Heaven?
That's a matter for interpretation. The passage in question -- Ll. 175-188 --, straighforwardly interpreted, seems to point in the other direction. That's what makes the lines so difficult, and perhaps part of the reason why Tolkien for one found them troubling. By the way -- though this would require of me more work than I have time for at the moment --, there do seem to have been people in England at the time who would have been prepared to give Rathbod the reassurance he sought, and not just as a matter of ignoble practicality.
Many perfectly orthodox writers (e.g. the later poet Dante) played with the possibility of anachronistic conversions of virtuous pagans thanks to a special intervention from on high; and the mediæval Catholic church did in the end provide theological justifications for the existence of various "middle places" to solve such problems (Purgatory or Limbo), so that it wasn't so bleak a proposition as that posited by Alcuin or, who knows with what reluctance, stated by Wulfram to Rathbod.
I'm sorry that I can't write at greater length, but I have a lot of demands on my time at the moment.
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a.s.
Valinor
May 9 2007, 11:49pm
Post #23 of 40
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(Tolkien meant "perdition" in that statement in the sense of "oblivion"; you, I take it, mean it in the sense of "damnation.")
I'm not sure I understand that. I mean, I understand there must have been controversy over reading Beowulf (and other pre-Christian works, or works describing pre-Christian heroes) and the relevance to a modern (read "Christian") reader. Tolkien does follow the text I quoted with the question: "What good will it do posterity to read the battles of Hector"?
But Tolkien uses a specific word: "perdition". And after his question about Hector he goes on to reference the "What does Ingeld have to do with Christ"? ["Quid Hinieldus cum Christo"?] essay, which specifically says the pagan kings are in hell and best left there and not referred to any more as "heroes" nor fit subjects for continued folk-tales.
Are you suggesting he is using "perdition" metaphorically, as a stand-in for "oblivion"? I don't see it that way, since the argument in "Ingeld" is that the old pagan tales should be consigned to oblivion BECAUSE the pagan kings are in hell. Or at least that's my understanding of the brief synopsis and quote from "Ingeld" in the Norton's I'm reading from.
What am I missing? I've only read Monsters and Critics once straight through...
a.s.
"an seileachan"
Some say they're going to a place called Glory, and I ain't saying it ain't a fact.
But I've heard that I'm on the road to Purgatory, and I don't like the sound of that!
I believe in love, and live my life accordingly,
And I choose: let the mystery be.
~~~~Iris DeMent
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Pukel-man
The Shire
May 10 2007, 3:21am
Post #24 of 40
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Has there ever been a villain . . .
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. . . that wasn't in some way attractive?
Grendel is powerful, shameless, awful, free. I think it very likely that some among an Anglo-Saxon audience would grudgingly admire him as they abhorred him; just as people watch Silence of the Lambs and both hate and love Hannibal Lecter. For me Grendel is not really a 'monster' in the modern sense - he's an explicit descendent of man, he has human emotions (to be shameless is to be capable of shame; he is a 'hermit' or 'hell-counsellor', not a beast; his attack is surely sparked by an envious rage rather than mere bloodlust), and I think an Anglo-Saxon audience would see him as an exiled outlaw rather than an inhuman bogeyman. I think part of the brilliance of Grendel as a character (something Tolkien carried into Gollum) is that he is both abhorrent and engaging. We want to see him dead but not *just* yet . . .
I think we should draw distinctions between modern and ancient audiences, but I'm wary of doing this too much. In a way Beowulf is like a government-issued version of an urban myth; the 'censorship' and Christianisation was probably not entirely appreciated by every single audience member. I'm sure there were a few who cheered on Grendel, just as there are those who root for Darth Vader.
(This post was edited by Pukel-man on May 10 2007, 3:23am)
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Curious
Half-elven
May 10 2007, 8:46am
Post #25 of 40
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As I said, I really can't tell what the original audience would have thought of Grendel. I do see the parallels to Gollum, as I said, but I also see the parallels to the irredeemable orcs. And I'm not sure the original audience would have seem Grendel as anything like Gollum, or whether that was Tolkien's modern take on the story.
What is a "monster in the modern sense"? All monsters are descended from Cain, according to the poet, including dragons. To be shameless is to be capable of shame? That doesn't sound right to me. To me Darth Vader is a modern monster, who is redeemed by the end of the story -- Grendel is a 100% bad guy, with no hope of redemption.
Gollum may be closer to Grendel than Vader, because even though we may sympathize with Gollum, he is not redeemed. But there is never that moment with Grendel, as there is with Gollum, where the poet urges us to sympathize with him, or where any character in the story sympathizes with him in the slightest. Instead I think we have a typical monster to whom modern audiences, at least, respond with some sympathy because he is a pariah from birth. But then there are modern readers who sympathize with Tolkien's orcs for the same reason.
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