De Danorum Rebus Gestis Secul III & IV, Poema Danicum Dialecto Anglosaxonica.

Circumstances of Publication.

The words of Wanley cited above1 did not pass unnoticed in Denmark. Thorkelin tells us in his introduction that it had long been the desire of Suhm2, Langebeck, Magnusen, and other Danish scholars to inspect the MS. in the British Museum. The following is Thorkelin’s account of his editorial labors:—

‘Via tandem mihi data fuit ad desideratum nimis diu divini vatis Danici incomparabile opus. Arcta etenim, quæ nos et Britannos intercessit amicitia, me allexit, ut, clementissime annuentibus Augustissimis patriæ patribus Christiano VII. et Frederico VI. iter in Britanniam anno seculi præteriti LXXXVI. ad thesauros bibliothecarum Albionensium perscrutandos facerem. . . . A curatoribus, Musæi Britannici, aliarumque Bibliothecarum, potestas mihi data [est] inspiciendi, tractandi, et exscribendi omnia, quæ rebus Danicis lucem affere possent manuscripta. Ad quam rem conficiendam viri nostro præconio majores Josephus Planta et Richardus Southgate dicti Musæi Brit. præfecti in me sua officia humanissime contulerunt. Optimo igitur successu et uberrimo cum fructu domum reversus sum . . .’ (pp. viii, ix).

Thorkelin thus obtained two copies of the poem, one made with his own hand, the other by a scribe ignorant of Old English. These transcripts (still preserved in Copenhagen) formed the basis for Thorkelin’s edition. The account of his studies continues:—

‘Quæcunque igitur possent hoc meum negotium adjuvare, comparare coepi, magnamque librorum copiam unde quaque congessi, quorum opera carmen aggrederer. In hoc me sedulum ita gessi, ut opus totum anno MDCCCVII confecerim, idem brevi editurus . . .’ (p. xv).

Just at this time, unfortunately, Copenhagen was stormed by the English fleet, and Thorkelin’s text and notes were burned with his library. But the transcripts were saved. Thorkelin renewed his labors under the patronage of Bülow, and at length published in 1815.

Thorkelin, and his Interpretation of the Beowulf.

Grimus Johnssen Thorkelin (or Thorkelsson), 1752–1829, is remembered as a scholar in early Germanic history. He had little beside this knowledge and his general acquaintance with Old Germanic languages to recommend him as an editor of the Beowulf. Grundtvig said that the transcript of the Beowulf must have been the work of one wholly ignorant of Old English3. Thorkelin knew nothing of the peculiar style of Old English poetry; he could recognize neither kenning, metaphor, nor compound. He was not even fitted to undertake the transcription of the text, as the following section will make evident.

We have seen how Sharon Turner4 could describe the Beowulf. Thorkelin seems to have been little better fitted to understand the poem, to say nothing of editing it. He failed to interpret some of the simplest events of the story. He did not identify Scyld, nor understand that his body was given up to the sea, but thought that King Beowulf ‘expeditionem suscipit navalem.’ He failed to identify Breca, and thought that Hunferth was describing some piratical voyage of Beowulf’s. He makes Beowulf reply that ‘piratas ubique persequitur et fudit,’ and ‘Finlandiæ arma infert5.’ He regarded Beowulf as the hero of the Sigemund episode. He quite misapprehended the Finn episode, ‘Fin, rex Frisionum, contra Danis pugnat; vincitur; fœdus cum Hrodgaro pangit; fidem frangit; pugnans cadit6.’ He regards Beowulf and a son of Hunferth as participating in that expedition. He failed to identify Hnæf, or Hengest, or Hrothulf, &c.

In order to show how corrupt the text is, I append a collation of the above passage with the MS. It may be added that the lines are among the simplest in the poem, and call for no emendation. In passages that present any real difficulty, Thorkelin is, if possible, even more at fault.

In the composition of his text Thorkelin made all the errors known to scribes and editors. He misread words and letters of the MS., although he had two transcripts. He dropped letters, combinations of letters, and even whole words. He joined words that had no relation to each other; he broke words into two or even three parts; he ignored compounds. He produced many forms the like of which cannot be found in Old English. One further example of his great carelessness may be given. The first line of the poem, which is written in large capitals in the MS.:—

Hwæt we Gardena. . . .

Thorkelin perversely transcribed:—

Hwæt wegar Dena. . . .

and for this combination of syllables he chose the translation:—

Quomodo Danorum.

There is, of course, no such word as ‘wegar’ in Old English.

Of the necessity of punctuation Thorkelin seems to have been serenely unconscious; he did not even follow the guides afforded by the MS. Had he done so, he would have saved himself many humiliating errors. For example, in the text given above, to have noticed the periods mentioned in the collation would have been to avoid two glaring instances of ‘running-in.’

Criticism of the Translation.

But, in spite of the wretched text, it remained for the translation to discover the depths of Thorkelin’s ignorance. It will be seen by reading the extract given from the translation that he did not even perceive that two men were swimming in the sea. It is to be remembered, too, that his error of the ‘piratical expedition’ is carried on for sixty lines—certainly a triumph of ingenuity. It is useless to attempt a classification of the errors in this version. In the words of Kemble:—

‘Nothing but malevolence could cavil at the trivial errors which the very best scholars are daily found to commit, but the case is widely different when those errors are so numerous as totally to destroy the value of a work. I am therefore most reluctantly compelled to state that not five lines of Thorkelin’s edition can be found in succession in which some gross fault, either in the transcription or translation, does not betray the editor’s utter ignorance of the Anglo-Saxon language.’ —Edition of 1835, Introd., p. xxix.

Reception of Thorkelin’s Edition.

The book was of value only in that it brought Beowulf to the attention of scholars. The edition was used by Turner, Grundtvig, and Conybeare. I have found the following notices of the book, which will show how it was received by the scholarly world.

Turner. On collating the Doctor’s printed text with the MS. I have commonly found an inaccuracy of copying in every page.—Fifth edition, p. 289, footnote.

Kemble, see supra.

Thorpe. (The work of the learned Icelander exhibits) ‘a text formed according to his ideas of Anglo-Saxon, and accompanied by his Latin translation, both the one and the other standing equally in need of an Œdipus.’ —Edition of 1855, Preface, xiv.

See also Grundtvig’s criticism in Beowulfs Beorh, pp. xvii ff.

1. Supra, p. 7.

2. See also Grundtvig’s edition of the text of Beowulf, p. xvi.

3. See Beowulfs Beorh, p. xviii.

4. See supra, p. 11.

5. See Thorkelin, p. 257.

6. Ibid., p. 259.

7. See Thorkelin, p. 40.