CHAPTER 4

The Exploration of Mind in Beowulf

1. Contrasts in directing and exploring minds

Centered on royal and ecclesiastical uses of language, Chapters 2 and 3 attest to a sustained practice for instructing minds during the Anglo-Saxon centuries. Royal codes, from Alfred’s reign on, typically begin with statements inclusive of almost all Anglo-Saxons partly because kings wish to win full adherence and allegiance. Old English homilies exemplify the task of shepherding communicants to steadfast faith and virtue. Yet the continual reliance on similar edicts in the codes and on analogous speech acts in homilies suggests a clear awareness of evident resistance. Kings and their councilors recognize gaps between promulgated edicts and actual compliance; homilists know that confession is difficult, loving kinship in communities uncertain, and faith in God unsteady. That these institutional efforts at directing minds remain undiminished testifies, however, not to doggedness but to a consciousness of the heart’s diverse impulses. Although likely to fall short, deontic utterances, variously worded, sometimes persuade recalcitrant audiences to help overcome divisiveness on complex issues. What the codes and homilies cannot reveal is the reception of audiences, the ways that deontic utterances either encounter perplexity, resistance and defiance, or else contribute to a desired response. The texts of codes and homilies offer, in short, a framework for directing or persuading minds.

The process of making and enacting decisions, of showing the minds of Anglo-Saxon audiences engaged, potentially if not directly, is poetic work, primarily that of the Beowulf poet. This concern with reflection and its consequences as more deeply characteristic of Beowulf than are scenes of battle or acts or heroism is a judgment still in need of debate. Lapidge’s view (1993: 374) of Beowulf as “taken up with reflection— on human activity and conduct, on the transience of human life,” a view that this chapter examines, goes largely unobserved. So pervasive is the idea of Beowulf as a heroic poem that Lapidge’s invitation to appreciate the poet’s engagement “with the workings of the human mind” eludes notice in, say, Bjork and Nile's handbook.1

84 1. Contrasts in directing and exploring minds

In his essay, Lapidge discusses the poet’s evocation of fear for Grendel as the mind’s disposition to regard what is “truly horrific” as emerging from what is “totally unfamiliar” (1993: 394). His argument rests on the experience of a first reading, the simultaneous discovery that Grendel attacks relentlessly yet remains a mysterious figure until his death. The poet’s initial words for the monster carry uncertain meanings, or relate nothing visual. The name Grendel is itself opaque; the first reference to him—“gæst” ‘demon’ or ‘spirit’—has an ambiguos sense; a subsequent epithet—“angena” ‘solitary one’—contains no visual element (1993: 377–82). Even when the detail on Grendel accumulates, especially after his death and beheading, his impact on the audience, although no longer nightmarish, is still powerful.

Complementary to Lapidge’s sense of an audience taken aback by Grendel is the impact that the monster has on Danes and Geats. If many in the poet’s Anglo-Saxon audience respond to Grendel with a dread akin to that of the Danes at Heorot, they very likely admire Beowulf’s intrepidity. This possibility of regarding Grendel diversely presupposes, then, an Anglo-Saxon audience of various dispositions. What is more, this contest between anxiety and courage, even in the same conciousness, does not exclude a curiosity in learning, too, about the mind of the alien Grendel. Remarkably, the texture of Beowulf supports this breadth of exploration in oneself and the other, the openness of the poem different from the projects of edicts and homilies.

As if these perspectives on the mind’s engagement with Grendel were insufficient, Beowulf’s narrator also speaks to questions of God’s attitude toward the monster and of human conduct:

ond þone ænne heht

golde forgyldan, þone ðe Grendel ær

mane acwealde,—swa he hyra ma wolde,

nefne him witig God wyrd forstode

ond ðæs mannes mod. Metod eallum weold

gumena cynnes, swa he nu git deð.

Forþan bið andgit æghwær selest,

ferhðes foreþanc. Fela sceal gebidan

leofes ond læþes se þe longe her

on ðyssum windagum worolde bruceð!

(1053–62)2

and [Hroðgar] gave the order to pay for him

with gold, whom Grendel had wickedly killed,

Beowulf 85

as he would have more of them had wise God

and the spirit of man not prevented fate.

The Ruler governed all the race of men, as he

now still does. Therefore discernment is every-

where best, forethought of mind. He shall live

to see much of the delightful and the hateful

who here makes long use of the world in these

days of strife.

In the aftermath of Grendel’s defeat, the narrator first proclaims Hroðgar’s honor, God’s justice, and Beowulf’s courage, but then expresses himself homiletically in a deontic statement on forethought. In this statement “andgit” and “foreþanc” emphasize as abstract nouns the value of thoughtfulness in a world subject to strife and delight.3 Chickering (1992: 303) notes that these abstract nouns spur “us to wonder.” Such wonder invites self-exploration, generated by fear and valor in Heorot.

The narrator’s homiletic exhortation on forethought also bridges the Grendel episode to others that later in the poem involve sorting out what to do. Hygd’s offer of the Geatish crown to Beowulf exemplifies an episode on succession, significant in the poem and applicable to issues of kingship in Anglo-Saxon history. Beowulf’s resolve to fight alone against the dragon, the result of forethought taken in extremity, very likely resonates with Anglo-Saxon discussions at the onset of battle. If the abstract nouns in the poet’s eulogy on Heorot’s rescue also prepares audiences for episodes of discernment and forethought, then his approaches to modes of thought call for explanation. In short, Lapidge’s thesis on Beowulf as a poem on “the workings of the human mind” merits sustained inquiry.

2. Exploratory pespectives on modes of thought and feeling

The poet’s design for Beowulf offers audiences some perspective on examining human, monstrous, and deific ranges of mind. These perspectives, already adumbrated, concern patterns of diction and types of episode. Lapidge analyzes diction that elicits visceral responses of horror and nightmare. The narrator’s abstract terms for discernment remind audiences that the poem’s episodes often demonstrate a quality of thought worth considering. The poem’s episodes, especially those that contain direct speech, provide opportunities in themselves for exploring modes of thought and feeling.

86 2.1 Maxims as a structural element

That the poem’s diction and episodes encourage audiences to consider characters’ feelings and thoughts has a further consequence of inviting reflection on oneself and one’s community. Does the diction on Danish

attitudes toward Beowulf at his first arrival show, for example, a duly considered regard for both his suddenness and promise? As king does

Beowulf’s long monologue on confronting the dragon disclose through his words a model of a wise leader able to command? Finally, this focus on diction and episode applies to the credibility of the poet in presenting the minds of the monsters and in alluding to deific thought and influence.

2.1 Maxims as a structural element

Since the poet’s narrator expresses generalized statements or maxims like that on “andgit” and “foreþanc” more often than any Dane or Geat, he erects an informal armature for Beowulf . His statements provide, as edicts in codes or as homiletic speech acts do, a fulcrum to help an audience appreciate thoughts and feelings embedded in the poem’s episodes. Yet the evocation of minds in such episodes also has a potential constraint on the significance of a generalized statement. Niles (1983: 200) contrasts, for example, the maxim on the need for discernment and forethought with the statement that in the midst of battle a warrior “na ymb his lif cearað” (1535b) ‘does not at all take heed for his life.’ Change the dynamics of an episode and the applicability of a generalized statement changes as well.4 So one purpose that maxims in Beowulf have is to challenge audiences to review how well conventional wisdom, honed into generalized statement, serves as a guide.

2.2 Diverse opinions in the episodes of Beowulf

That often enough conventional wisdom does not reliably direct characters in Beowulf to satisfying results is itself a matter of common knowledge. Burlin (1974: 47) speaks of “gnomic inconsequence” in Beowulf, of the poem’s narrative relying instead on “an inexorable rhythm” that alternates between “human security and fear, comfort and agony.”5 Such reliance has its own tradition, too, in the rhythms of heroic lays and in Aeneas’ struggles with difficult choices.6 Just as in Vergil’s epic Aeneas recalls, for example, the incendiary attack on Troy and conflicting impulses on how to meet it, so Beowulf confronts the dragon’s incendiarism. If Venus has Aeneas withhold himself from battle in order to take sail for Rome, Beowulf, supposing himself somehow a transgressor against God, reviews forms of combat familiar to him. After

Beowulf 87

describing three—a muster of warriors (2472–83), a face to face conflict of champions, posed before armies (2493–2509), or single-handed struggle (2518b–37)—he chooses, at last, to go it alone.

In numerous other episodes, likewise related to “characteristic scenes”

(Andersson 1992: 92) of older literature, speeches also abound, the views expressed open to the consideration of audiences. These speeches have in common an attention to the future, whether immediate or otherwise, and to the possible efficacy of proposed policies or acts. Whereas physical violence dominates episodes of battle against Grendel, his mother, and the dragon, the deployment of speeches elsewhere in Beowulf assures vigorous exchanges of attitudes and opinions.7 The poem’s sequence of characteristic scenes, many studied by Andersson and Harris, orders as well the analysis in this chapter of how the poet exposes diverse views to receptive audiences.8

2.3 Episodes in Beowulf and phrases for thought and feeling

Since much of Beowulf constitutes episodes of debate, forecast, and meditation, the likelihood is considerable that the poet’s audiences welcomed a discourse of ideas and opinions. Throughout the poem, audiences have opportunities to judge the force of discourse, from Beowulf’s arrival among the Danes to his death song and Wiglaf’s rebuke of the cowardly retainers. Moreover, if the opening lines of Beowulf are not mere convention but assert correctly that audiences “gefrunon” (2) ‘have heard’ narratives of past kings, then the poem’s episodes and diction have some familiarity.9 Such an assertion, however, makes no claim of informed knowledge either of the poem’s episodes and their genres nor of its diction and its resonance. Perhaps poems on Ingeld had greater circulation than Vergil’s Aeneid. Maybe the audience’s knowledge of phrases for thought and feeling included a sense of the poet’s hapax legomena as enrichments of texture.

Beowulf’s meditation before his advancing on the dragon offers some examples of the poet’s weaving episode and diction together. As the meditation unfolds the audience hears such phrases as “wroht gemæne” (2473b) ‘mutual antagonism,’ “gylpe wiðgripan” (2521) ‘grapple with gloriously.’ Each of these phrases appears in a context associated with different perceptions of warfare. The question to address is whether each such phrase would have drawn a common understanding among Anglo-Saxon audiences.

One test is contextual. The first phrase “wroht gemæne,” refers to recurrent animosities between Swedes and Geats: “herenið hearda

88 2.3 Episodes and phrases in Beowulf

syððan Hreðel swealt, / oððe him Ongenðeowes eaferan wæran / frome fyrdhwate” (2474–75a) ‘severe hostility, since Hreðel [King of the Geats] died, and Ongenðeow’s sons were bold and active in war against

them.’ A second test concerns the linkage of “wroht gemæne” to possibly comparable phrases in Old English poetry. In Juliana the devil

tells the saint, “Ic eall gebær / wraþe wrohtas geond werþeode / þa þe gewurdan widan feore / from fruman worulde fria cynne…” (1936: 127, 506b–9) ‘I fomented all, bitter animosities among nations, spread continually throughout humanity from the world’s beginning.’ Although “worht gemæne” and “worhtas geond werþeode” manifest some variation in form, they nevertheless share a common ground of meaning.10

A third test applies to the connection of “wroht gemæne” to the entire episode of Beowulf’s meditating on how to confront the dragon. Here a distinction presents itself. For if collocations with “wroht” center on animosities between peoples, then the recalled conflict between Geats and Swedes actually works against Beowulf’s battling the dragon with a muster of warriors. Although catastrophic, the dragon’s attack is not an episode in an enduring feud: to summon his retainers, then, is to Beowulf’s mind and possibly to the audience’s the wrong paradigm. So his turning from the Swedish wars introduces another paradigm, the contest between champions, the recalled vanquishing of Dæghrefn.11

The paradigm of a fight to the death between champions, positioned before opposing groups of warriors, is, however, no more tenable than that of peoples in prolonged feud. Hygelac’s raid on the Franks marks the occasion of Beowulf’s crushing Dæghrefn, a victory of one renowned warrior over another. As Beowulf speaks of the Frankish campaign, he honors Dæghrefn with the epithet “æþeling on elne” (2506a) ‘courageous prince.’ This honoring of courage in those destined for a violent death is the opening motif as well in The Fates of the Apostles. In the poem’s first lines the apostles as a group are “æþelingas” who “ellen cyðdon” ‘revealed courage’ (1932: 51, l.3). Shortly thereafter (1932: 51, l.13), Peter and Paul surrender their lives “þurg Neorones nearwe searwe” ‘through Nero's oppressive treachery.’12 The collocation of “æþeling” and “ellen” marks, then, the attributes of a champion, valorous against all odds, a linking of words that befits Anglo-Saxon thought, but not the dragon’s nature.

So finding the defeat of Dæghrefn inappropriate to the challenge of the dragon’s fury, Beowulf has one other model available in his recollections—the weaponless battle against Grendel. This model is,

Beowulf 89

however, idiosyncratic; the defeat of Grendel does not reflect a pattern of conflict identified with Anglo-Saxon tradition.13 Nor do the lines

presenting Beowulf’s memory of the Grendel fight evince any phrase of

thought or feeling indicative of any attested usage. Instead, Beowulf’s

utterances connect a word for feeling “gylpe” ‘gloriously’ (related to the sense of ‘boast’ and ‘vow’) to a rare verb “wiðgripan” ‘to grapple with’:

‘Nolde ic sweord beran,

wæpen to wyrme, gif ic wiste hu

wið ðam aglæcen elles meahte

gylpe wiðgripan, swa ic gio wið Grendle dyde…’

(2518b–21)

I would not bear a sword, a weapon to the worm,

if I knew how I might otherwise grapple glorious-

ly with the monster, as I once did against Grendel..

As if to underscore Beowulf’s sense of an unprecedented risk, the syntax of this sentence contains clauses evocative of problematic conditions. The subordinate clause, introduced by the hypothetical “gif ic wiste,” encapsulates, together with the clause of comparison on Grendel, Beowulf’s desire for a reliable strategy for vanquishing the dragon. The lack of alternatives acknowledged in the subordinate clause and the indirect allusion to God given strength in the comparative clause somewhat complicate his readiness to do battle. One complication is tactical—how to fight, unless with weapons; another is spiritual— whether deific judgment might now favor Beowulf despite his having supposedly incurred God’s anger(2329–32). Since Beowulf can neither fathom these complications nor know for certain the battle’s outcome, his utterance expresses, for all to hear, an evident gap between knowledge and faith. He cannot rely on traditional patterns of knowledge, like those for prosecuting feuds or for pitting one champion against another; his utterances instead feature a hapax legomenon and complex grammar.

2.4 Audiences, episodes, diction, and the narrator’s voice

The perspective presented so far (2.1–2.3) benefits from methods in Old English critical studies, some already cited. To these studies, Renoir and Foley’s contributions on the receptivity of Anglo-Saxon audiences to poetry are indeed instructive in the job of understanding medieval minds. Although Renoir analyzes “the theme of the hero on the beach” (1988: 176–7), his observations on the diversity of a poet’s Anglo-Saxon

90 2.4 Audiences, episodes, diction, and the narrator’s voice

audience are fully apropos to the theme of this chapter. Beowulf’s meditative episode on the dragon, say, might have found some listeners who knew the Aeneid, maybe more who connected “wroht gemæne” and

“æðeling on elne” to patterns of warfare. That “wroht” and “on elne” refer successively to communal feelings during feuds and to a

champion’s personal courage in a losing cause probably had some currency as well. Further, “gylpe wiðgripan,” its hapax legomenon hardly a radical invention, reminds almost all listeners of Beowulf’s barehanded defeat of Grendel, a form of combat also to reject. So nearly all would have agreed that Beowulf’s recalling past battles and turning from them as somehow unsuited for overcoming a dragon speaks to a

typical mode of thought. The difficulties are unmistakable in thinking through what to do and of summoning courage requisite to the task.

Throughout Beowulf’s evaluations in this episode, the little the narrator says nevertheless underscores the “prudential assessment of the odds” (Nolan and Bloomfield, 1980: 503).14 In presenting Beowulf’s spoken mediation on possibly vanquishing the dragon, the narrator interposes with the comment that the heroic king “beotwordum spræc / niehstan siðe” (2510b–11a) ‘expressed vows for the last time.’ The context for the compound “beotword,” here as elsewhere, is that it befits the speech of a leader bent on perilous assault.15 So, as the narrator of Juliana says, Eleusius, governor of Nicomedia, vainly threatening to torture the saint, “frecne mode / beotwordum spræc” (1936: 118, l. 184b–85a) ‘expressed vows with a fierce heart.’ For the narrators to imply that Beowulf’s “beotword”is prudent and that Eleusis’ is rash conforms with an audience’s expectations on how to respond to heavily charged statements.16 The import of a narrator’s view is not so much to instruct as to relate enough adequate detail to allow discussions of a character’s involvement, whether Beowulf’s or Eleusis’.17

In general, the perspective discussed so far accords with Foley’s arguments (1991: 141–56) for resonant, traditional phrasing in Old English poetry. Foley’s broad view, to begin, of formal properties in phrasing (1991: 145) incorporates “whole-and multiline patterns, clusters, collocations of alliterative pairs, and even metrical predispostions,” some of these already illustrated. That such phrasing resonates beyond the Beowulf text depends on the premise that scops recited for mostly unlettered audiences familiar, even so, with an oral thesaurus of poetic diction. One further example of phrases in the thesaurus—“ece Drihten” ‘eternal Lord’—has besides its several occurrences in Beowulf a rich deployment, as Foley notes (1991: 152),

Beowulf 91

throughout Old English poetry. Together with other epithets for God, “ece Drihten” brings “a nominal…quality to the fore at the same time that it stands pars pro toto for the Christian God.” A thesaurus of

phrasings, their over-all numbers limited, harbors, then. “fully contextualized figure[s]…” that bear “ambient, immanent meanings.”

The scope of Foley’s analysis extends to narrative structures, to “typical scenes” that “serve as focal points for traditional meaning” (1991: 153). His examples (beasts of battle, exile, and the hero on the beach) are not exhaustive, yet their power illustrates “extratextual resonance” for traditional scenes. This mode of resonance, evoked below in scenes of sentinels, flyting, hall life, consultation, leave-taking, and death song, connects “the immanence of tradition to the indivdual text and individual moment.” The choice of these scenes rather than Foley’s three, is mainly due to the dialogues in them, to their often voicing divergent attitudes on what to do. Dialogues found in some patterns of traditional scenes, buttressed with groups of poetic phrasing, frequently dwell on how to proceed, while evincing a recognizable spectrum of thought and feeling.

3. The sentinel scene

Beowulf’s arrival among the Danes is also the first appearance of dialogue in the poem. Although he announces himself as a ready ally against Grendel, his undertaking encounters initial resistance from the coastguard and some ambivalence from Wulfgar. What a study of dialogue and commentary in the sentinel scene shows is a pattern of wariness common to Germanic texts modified to accommodate a measure of good will.

3.1 The tradition of uneasy welcome for strangers

Compared to traditional, mistrustful encounters between strangers, as recorded in Germanic narratives, the Beowulf poet introduces the possiblity of beneficial alliance. This prospect, unusual for sentinel scenes, induces a view of Beowulf different, say, from Sîvrit's abrupt coming to Worms in the Nibelungenlied18:

lat uns noch die moere, eine wîle stân.

wir wellen schiere hinnen; des ich guoten willen hân.

Man sol ouch unser schilde ninder von uns tragen.

wâ ich den künic vinde, kan mir daz iemen sagen,

Gunthern den rîchen ûz Búrgónden lant.

(Hennig 1977: 14)

92 3.1 The tradition of uneasy welcome

let our horses stay yet a while. We will soon be off,

for that is my intention. Also no one is by any means

to take our shields from us. Where may I find the king,

Gunther the mighty, lord of Burgandy, if someone can tell

me that?

Since the audience already knows Sîvrit's resolute intention as he speaks, his declining to have the horses stalled and his wishing to find King Gunther without delay complement each other.

Even at first glance, the discourse between Beowulf and the coast- guard intimates that together with a traditional suspiciousness, the Geats’ arrival promises an auspicious turn of events. To the coastguard’s, “Hwæt syndon ge searohæbbendra,” (237) ‘What sort of warriors are you,’ uttered while eying their byrnies and ship, Beowulf responds that

as a Geat, his father known to Danes, he comes “þurh holdne hige” (267a) ‘with a loyal heart.’ Beowulf’s declaration, as well as his further saying that he wishes to advise Hroðgar “hu he … feond oferswyðeþ” (279) ‘how he can overpower his enemy’ helps to prepare the audience for hopeful developments.19

The greeting of the Danish councilor Wulfgar, after the coastguard’s return to the sea watch, is itself expressive, despite a polished cordiality, of some wariness for foreigners. Although Wulfgar pretends to view Beowulf and his men as journeying “for wlenco, nalles for wræcsiðum, /ac for higeþrymmum,” (338b–9a) ‘for high spirit, not at all in exile, but for greatness of heart,’ the contrast proposed harbors an element of doubt.20

This discursive ambivalence, further, shares some resemblance to Hagen’s attitude in Nibelungenlied, who in a comparable sentinel scene recommends that King Gunther avoid antagonzing Sîvrit:

Nu suln wir den recken enpfâhen deste baz,

daz wir iht verdienen den sînen starken haz.

sîn lip der ist sô küene, man sol in holden hân;

er hât mit sînem ellen sô mänigu wunder getân.

(Hennig 1977: 18)

We should now welcome the warrior so much

the better, that we may earn anything other

than his intense hate. One should hold in high

regard his life which is so bold; he has coura-

geously done so many wonders.21

Beowulf 93

Just as Hagen believes that granting an audience to Sîvrit is prudent, so Wulfgar, too, requests of his king Hroðgar that he agree to “wordum wrixlan” (366a) ‘exchange words’ with the Geats. His favoring such

discourse is partly due to the diplomatic courteousness of Beowulf’s response to Wulfgar’s greeting:

Wille ic asecgan sunu Healfdenes,

mærum þeodne min ærende,

aldre þinum, gif he us genunnan wile,

þæt we hine swa godne gretan moton.

(344–7)

I wish to tell the son of Healfdene, glorious

king, your lord, my errand, if so good as he is,

he will allow us to address him.

The first two lines quoted exemplifies a chiasmic arrangement of the pronominal “ic” and “min” (designating Beowulf) with the nouns “sunu” and “þeodne,” a rhetorical gesture of friendliness.22 The juxtaposition of “he” “us” and “we” “hine” in the third and fourth lines, together with the appositive phrase “swa godne” also exhibits Beowulf’s adroit gesturing. This consciousness of appropriate style functions to help allay the uncertainties that color Wulfgar’s greeting and that inhere in Germanic sentinel scenes. For Anglo-Saxon audiences accustomed to such scenes Beowulf’s words project the possibility of innovation in poetic discourse and in the quest for stability—a perspective unmatched elsewhere in the Germanic narrative.23

Indeed, so infrequently does assistance from abroad seem likely that an adaptation from the Acts of the Apostles for Alfred’s code refers to risks posed by Christian proselytizers. Thus Alfred’s Old English version of Acts 15 reads in part that

we geascodon þæt ure geferan sume mid urum wordum to eow comon 7 eow hefigran wisan budon to healdanne þonne we him budon, 7 eow to swiðe gedwealdon mid ðam mannigfealdum, 7 eowra sawla ma forhwerfdon þonne hio geryhton. (1960: 1, 42–4)

we learned that our brethren came to you, some with our words, and ordered in a more oppressive manner than we required them that you constrain yourselves, and hindered you too much with manifold commands, and misled your souls more than they guided [them].

94 3.2 Traditional phrases and a hapax legomenon

Although Alfred’s chapter thereafter clarifies what the apostles had intended—to caution against idolatry—the acknowledged abuses of their biblical bretheren probably reflect analogous discourses in Anglo-Saxon

experience.24 So the Beowulf poet’s imagining a troop of Geats putting themselves in service of Danes afflicted with monstrous instability very likely disturbs customary expectations. In short, Wulfgar reflects a traditionally grounded circumspection at Beowulf’s announcement of good news.

3.2 Traditional phrases and a hapax legomenon in the sentinel scene

Since the coastguard and Wulfgar have at first a sentinel’s guardedness toward Beowulf that quickly evolves into acceptance, their changed attitudes raise questions on the poet’s design of their speeches. Presumably their words convey their changes in attitude, but whether the resonance of what they say chimes concordantly is open to study. Just as Beowulf’s speeches to the coastguard and Wulfgar differ rhetorically (see 3.1 for his use of chiasmus), although he requests from both an audience with Hroðgar, so theirs may differ.25 One form of resonance for words is akin to Foley’s sense of tradtitional phrasing (see 2.4); another derives from the freshness of a presumed hapax legomenon (see “wiðgripan” in 2.3). In regard to words for attitude or disposition, this contrast in resonance obtains, too, in the coastgurad and Wulfgar’s speeches.

In the coastguard’s two speeches, several phrases that have analogues elsewhere in Old English poetry fall into a sequence that traces his change in attitude toward Beowulf. The first speech imputes to Beowulf and his companions, in the phrase “gearwe ne wisson” (246b) ‘did not adequately know,’ a perhaps pretended ignorance of how to seek entry to Danish territories. That strangers dissimulate is true enough of Abraham in Gerar, who refers to Sarah as his sister “þy he wiste gearwe þæt he winemaga / on folce lyt freonda hæfde” (Genesis 1931: 78, ll. 2626–7) ‘since he knew full well that he had few close kinsmen, friends, among that people.’26 Further, to leave no doubt of his suspicions, the coastguard calls the Geats “leassceaweras” (253a) ‘spies,’ a hapax legomenon aimed at exposing them or making them reveal their background and mission.

For an Anglo-Saxon audience the coastguard’s eristic speech merits support, even though the poet has already introduced Beowulf as eager to serve the Danes and to test himself against Grendel. Indeed, Beowulf’s response validates, to start, an audience’s support of wariness, for his

Beowulf 95

phrase “holdne higne,” (267a) ‘trusty heart’ uttered early in his speech, deserves skepticism. To announce that one comes in trust, especially in

circumstances that require wariness, is to sow suspicion. A comparable

ambivalence attends the betrayal in Eden. Eve speaks to Adam until the

serpent’s guile possessing her possesses him, yet the narrator tries to forestall the audience’s censure, saying “Heo dyd hit þeah þurh holdne hyge…” (Genesis 1931: 24, l. 708) ‘She did it, however, with loyal thought…’27 Since Beowulf cannot win confidence with a phrase, his speech, as thereafter elaborated, attests to his respect for the coastguard and to his grasp of persuasive skills.

His speech, furthermore, his first in the poem, initiates the audience’s exposure to his suppleness of mind. Thus to manifest respect for the coastguard as well as to gain credence, Beowulf says,

ne sceal þær dyrne sum

wesan, þæs ic wene. Þu wast, gif hit is

swa we soþlice secgan hydron,

þæet mid Scyldingum sceaðona ic nat hwylc,

deogol dædhata deorcum nihtum

eaweð þurh egsan uncuðne nið,

hynðu ond hrafyl.

(271b–7a)

nor shall there be anything hidden, as I expect. You

know, if it is as we have truly heard say, that a mys-

terious persecutor, I don’t know which of your foes, ter-

rorizes with incredible violence, injury and slaughter,

among the Scildings on dark nights.

Beowulf’s facts, altering his status to that of a stranger who knows a terrible truth, also soften in part the coastguard’s militance. The disclosure of the terrible truth through the alliterative collocation “þæs ic wene. Þu wast,” a variant of it seen, too, in Pharaoh, aims to establish a basis for mutuality.28 Since the collocation affirms the coastguard’s power to judge Beowulf’s words, the truth of what he says becomes a device for transforming wariness into confidence.

Beowulf’s suppleness is an instrument, too, for demonstrating to the audience his ability to be respectful and tactful in persuading the coast-guard to conduct him to Heorot. So he continues his speech with the proposal that he can rescue the Danes from their plight:

Ic þæs Hroðgar mæg

þurh rumne sefan ræd gelæran,

96 3.2 Traditional phrases and a hapax legomenon

hu he frod ond god feond oferswyðeþ—

gyf him edwenden æfre scolde

bealuwa bisigu bot eft cuman—,

ond þa cearwylmas colran wurðaþ…

(277b–82)

With an open heart I may offer Hroðgar advice how

he, wise and good, will overcome the enemy, if change

from the distress of miseries, if relief, is ever to

come to him - and the upwellings of his sorrow are to be-

come cooler…

Although “rumne sefan” carries much the same idea as “holde higne,” the dominating motif here is the advice in store for Hroðgar. Yet such advice has its attendant complications. The psalmist, seeking God’s advice, uses words like Beowulf’s, but is uncertain of an answer to his prayer: “Gerece me on ræde and me ricene gelær” (Psalm 24, 4 1942: 81) ‘Guide me with advice and teach me quickly.’ The devil in Christ and Satan (1931: 143, l. 248) recounts the advice he gave before the rebellion in heaven; his first words, also like Beowulf’s, are these: “Ic can eow læran langsumne ræd” ‘I am able to provide you [angels] lasting advice.’ The grounds for complications are straightforward: advice from God on an immediate issue is unpredictably forthcoming; the advice of others often has its opacities. Whatever the audience’s impulses (the narrator had earlier praised Beowulf’s strength, his “eacen” (198a), not his wisdom), the decision here to act favorably on his proposal lies with the coastguard.

No wonder, then, that the outset of the coastguard’s second speech has a gnomic quality. “Æghwæþres sceal,” he says,

scearp scyldwiga, gescad witan,

worda ond worca, se þe wel þenceð

(287–9)

A keen warrior, who thinks rightly of words and

deeds, ought to know the difference between each.29

The coastguard’s reflectiveness here is comparable to the speaker’s in Vainglory, able

ongitan bi þam gealdre godes agen bearn,

wilgest on wicum, ond þone wacran swa some,

scyldum bescyredne, on gescead witan.

(1936: 147, ll. 6–8)

Beowulf 97

to perceive [as a wise man would], to know God’s own son,

welcome guest in villages, from his recitation

as different from someone weaker, fraudulent with sins.

Such thoughts on words and deeds requiring moral judgments also color the phrase “wel þenceð” and its close variants. Just as this phrase presents the coastguard’s preoccupation with thinking rightly, so, too, does God’s challenge to Andreas:

Ne meaht ðu þaes siðfætes sæne weorðan,

ne on gewitte to wac, gif þu wel þencest

wið þinne waldend wære gehealdan,

treowe tacen.

(1932: 9, 211–14a)

Nor could you turn cowardly over this journey,

nor too weak in understanding, if you think

rightly to keep faith, a true token, with your

Ruler.

These passages in Vainglory and Andreas assume that thinking rightly, contrasting words as reliable or misleading, and distinguishing virtuous from sinful deeds, is not easy, especially on dangerous missions. In both poems, too, the settings for these passages are preparatory, the speaker in Vainglory about to warn of life’s risks, God in Andreas about to forecast perils ahead. The coastguard does not, however, enjoy the guidance of a wise man nor of God; he has to decide for himself. His decision comes quickly, so immediately that he almost controverts the gist of his maxim, in his saying, “Ic þæt gehyre, þæt þis is hold weorod / frean Scyldinga” (290–91a) ‘I accept that, that this company will be loyal to the lord of the Scyldings.’ So the discrepancy between maxim, calling for deliberation, and circumstance, compelling rapid choice, affects the coastguard’s thinking, an experience Anglo-Saxon audiences well knew (see 2.) Moreover, Wulfgar’s subsequent reception of the Geats, his greeting shaded with ambivalence (see 3.1), argues that the poet expected some skepticism at the coastguard’s decision.

3.3 The narrator’s perspective on the sentinel scene

The armature that the narrator constructs (see 2.1) for the dialogues between Beowulf and the Danish men is properly modest in scope. Of the coastguard, he says that at the first sight of the Geats “hyne fyrwyt breac / modgehygdum” (232b–33a) ‘curiousity seized him, with numerous thoughts.’ Elsewhere in Beowulf and in Juliana, too, the

98 4. The narrator’s perspective on the flyting episode

phrase “hyne fyrwyt breac” indicates a rush of feeling to focus a character’s intentions. The coastguard is eager to accost the Geats;

Hygelac (1985) wants to hear what happened among the Danes; Wiglaf (2784) hurries to see whether Beowulf still lives, Eleusius (1936: 114, l. 27) cannot resist Juliana. For the sentinel scene this curiosity instills an appetite for talk, satisfied by the exchanges of Beowulf and the coastguard—the poem’s first dialogue—on the issue of motives.

Furthermore, the narrator’s view of the coastguard as “unforht” (287) ‘unafraid’ adds weight to his stature as a Danish warrior and spokesman. That he guides Beowulf and his Geatish companions to Wulfgar is a result, not of fear, but of an uncoerced judgment. As for Wulfgar, the narrator says that his “modsefa” ‘heart’ has “wig ond wisdom” (349a–50a) ‘valor and wisdom,’ a collocation linked to the ideal theme of sapientia et fortitudo.30

These epithets of mind and emotion for the coastguard and Wulfgar (the narrator has none for Beowulf in the sentinel scene) opportunely instance a brief acquaintance with Danish warriors. The choice of epithets—the coastguard as curious and unafraid, Wulfgar as courageous and wise—projects a sense of alertness. Whether or not audiences regard the coastguard as maybe too hasty in thought, the great likelihood is that he and Wulfgar, though minor characters, well fit the mold of admirable men.

4. The narrator’s perspective on the flyting episode

However much the narrator esteems the coastguard and Wulfgar, he qualifies his portrait of these hospitable Danes with that of Unferð, ready to contest Beowulf in a verbal duel. After recording Hroðgar’s joy at God’s beneficence in sending him a champion, the narrator depicts Unferð as scornful:

wæs him Beowulfes sið

modges merefaran, micel aefþunca,

forþon þe he ne uþe, þæt ænig oðer man

æfre mærða þon ma middangeardes

gehede under heofonum þonne he sylfa…

(501b–5)

Beowulf's venture, seafarer high in spirit,

was for him a great vexation, for he would not

grant that any other man should ever attain more

glory under the heavens in this world than he him-

self…31

Beowulf 99 This probing of Unferð’s displeasure also binds personal to social consciousness. His jealousy, unrelenting despite Hroðgar’s view of Beowulf’s mission as a gift of God, is a mode of response plausible to an Anglo-Saxon

audience. Unferð’s “micel æfþunca,” a phrase for his jealousy, also bespeaks his wanting to bask over others in Hroðgar’s favor, quite as Hagar seeks with “æfþancum” to supplant Sarah in Abraham’s eyes (Genesis 1931: 67, ll. 2239–43). Yet this wish for gratification in both Hagar and Unferð serves socially to confirm Abraham’s virility and to launch a useful flyting against Beowulf. What the narrator does, then, is to spill the muted reservations in the coastguard and Wulfgar’s speeches into Unferð’s pronounced envy. The flyting, after all, functions to release through a retainer’s animosity, his “æfþunca,” the xenophobic pressures of Danes in Heorot and Anglo-Saxons in the poet’s audience.

4.1 The flyting as episode

To test strangers by means of the flyting—a verbal duel of claim, defense and counterclaim—is to expose a tension between wanting to trust them and fearing their duplicity. Although familiar with Beowulf’s heritage and presumably glad of his presence, Hroðgar tacitly concurs, to quote Clover, with Unferð’s putting “the alien through the necessary paces” (1980: 460). The unexpected arrival of Beowulf, probably a sign of divine grace, generates as well a jealousy and suspicion in conflict with a grateful welcome.32 Desires for rescue, if catered to in unexpected ways, as, say, from a stranger’s proffered help, breed contradictory reactions, a pattern of behavior that the poet and his audience share. As Clover shows (1980: 450), contenders in episodes of flyting “may not know each other,” as when “a travelling hero enter[s] unfamiliar territory and hence [becomes] subject to hostile interrogation.”33

4.2 Traditional phrases in Unferð and Beowulf’s verbal duel

In conjunction with the structure of flytings, one element in a claim against an adversary is that he relishes renown so much that he will not heed sober advice. Thus in a sequence of rhetorical question and reply Unferð disparages the motives of Beowulf and Breca’s adventure at sea, inquiring directly whether

for wlence wada cunnedon

ond for dolgilpe on deop wæter

aldrum neþdon? Ne inc ænig mon,

ne leof ne lað, belean mihte

sorhfullne sið, þa git on sund reon…

(508–12)

for pride and account of foolhardiness you

tested the waters, risked your lives? No one,

100 4.2 Traditional phrases in Unferð and Beowulf’s verbal duel

friend nor foe, was able to dissuade you two

from your perilous journey, when you both set

forth swimming.

Even if the narrator has preju