Beowulf, a heroic poem of the eighth century

Circumstances of Publication.

No edition of the text of Beowulf had appeared in England since the work of Thorpe1, now twenty years old. The textual criticism of the Germans had, meanwhile, greatly advanced the interpretation of the poem. Grein’s text of the poem had passed into a second, and Heyne’s into a third, edition. There was an opportunity, therefore, for an improved English edition which should incorporate the results of German scholarship. This edition Mr. Thomas Arnold (1823–1900) undertook to supply.

Relation of the Parts.

The Introduction contained a new theory of the origin of the poem2. But the important part of the book was the text and translation. There is no glossary3. The notes are at the bottom of the page. Here glossarial, textual, and literary information is bundled together. There is a very inadequate bibliography in the Introduction.

Nature of the Translation.

The translation is a literal prose version, printed under the text. It resembles Kemble’s work4, rather than Thorpe’s5. It eschews unwieldy compounds, and makes no attempt to acquire an archaic flavor. Supplied words are bracketed.

Criticism of the Text.

Arnold had access to the MS., and gave the most thorough description of it that had yet appeared. But, strangely enough, he did not make it the basis of his edition. He speaks of a ‘partial collation’ of the MS., but this appears to have been nothing more than a transcription of certain fragmentary parts of the MS. One of these passages is printed in the Introduction, where it is referred to as an ‘exact transcript’; yet, in collating it with the Zupitza Autotypes, I have found the following errors:—

Of course the faded condition of the MS. offers some excuse for one or two of these errors, but, if we encounter mistakes in a short transcript professedly exact, what would have been the fate of the text had the entire MS. been collated?

Professor Garnett7 has noted that Arnold’s text was taken from Thorpe’s, with some changes to suit the 1857 text of Grein. In order to test the accuracy of these statements I have made a collation of the texts of Arnold, Thorpe, and the MS. The list of errors in Thorpe’s text, which I have mentioned in a discussion of that work8, is repeated bodily in Arnold’s. Yet there was no excuse at this time for the retention of many of these readings. Grundtvig9 had corrected several of them as early as 1861 by his collation of the Thorkelin transcripts10; Heyne had got rid of them by collating Thorpe’s work with Kemble’s11 and Grundtvig’s. Arnold makes almost no reference to the work of Heyne, and incorporates none of his emendations. He also overlooked Grein’s 1867 text, which contained new readings and a glossary. Arnold himself did not emend the text in a single instance.

VIII.

Hunferth spake, the son of Ecglaf, who sat at the feet of the master of the Scyldings; he unbound the secret counsel of his malice. The expedition of Beowulf, the valiant mariner, was to him a great cause of offence; for that he allowed not that any other man on the earth should ever appropriate more deeds of fame under heaven than he himself. ‘Art thou that Beowulf who strove against Breca in a swimming-match on the broad sea? where ye two for emulation explored the waves, and for foolish boasting ventured your lives in the deep water. Nor could any man, either friend or foe, warn you off from your perilous adventure. Then ye two rowed on the sea, where with your arms [outspread] ye covered the ocean-stream, measured the sea-ways, churned up [the water] with your hands, glided over the deep; the sea was tossing with waves, the icy wintry sea. Ye two toiled for seven nights in the watery realm; he overcame thee in the match, he had more strength. Then, at dawn of morn, the sea cast him up on [the coast of] the Heathoreamas; thence he, dear in the sight of his people, sought his loved native soil, the land of the Brondings, the fair safe burgh where he was the owner of folk, burgh, and precious jewels.’ —Pages 37, 38.

The translation is literal, and its value is therefore in direct ratio to the value of the text, which has been discussed above.

1. See supra, p. 49.

2. A theory which the author continued to regard as partially tenable. See Notes on Beowulf (London, 1898), p. 114.

3. Contrast this with the editions of Heyne. See p. 64.

4. See supra, p. 33.

5. See supra, p. 49.

6. The numbers are those of Wyatt’s text; for Zupitza’s and Arnold’s add 1.

7. See Amer. Journal of Philol. I. 1. 90.

8. See supra, p. 51.

9. See Beowulfs Beorh, and p. 22.

10. See supra, p. 15.

11. See supra, p. 33.