So Sorry I Only Tore His Arm Off -- Beowulf 956-89

As I've mentioned here before, I've been working my way through Beowulf lately, pretty slowly and no doubt amateurishly, but I'm loving every minute of it. Not too long ago I went over the passage I give below, in which Beowulf, having just fought Grendel, speaks of it the next morning to the crowd outside Heorot:

Beowulf maþelode,  bearn Ecþeowes:
"We þæt ellenweorc      estum miclum,
feohtan fremedon,   frecne geneðdon
eafoð uncuþes.   Uþe ic swiþor
þæt ðu hine selfne      geseon moste,	960
feond on frætewum   fylwerigne.
Ic him hrædlice   heardan clammum
on wælbedde   wriþan þohte,
þæt he for handgripe   minum scolde
licgean lifbysig,   butan his lic swice.	965
Ic hine ne mihte,   þa Metod nolde,
ganges getwæman:   no ic him þæs georne ætfealh,
feorhgeniðlan.   Wæs to foremihtig,
feond on feþe.   Hwæþere, he his folme forlet
to lifwraþe   last weardian,	970
earm 7 eaxle.   No þær ænige swa þeah
feasceaft guma,   frofre gebohte.
No þy leng leofað      laðgeteona
synnum geswenced,      ac hyne sar hafað
in niðgripe,   nearwe befongen	975
balwon bendum.   Ðær abidan sceal,
maga mane fah,   miclan domes,
hu him scir Metod   scrifan wille."
Ða wæs swigra secg,   sunu Eclafes,
on gylpspræce   guðgeweorca,	980
siþðan æþelingas   eorles cræfte
ofer heanne hrof   hand sceawedon,
feondes fingras.   Foran æghwylc wæs
steda nægla gehwylc,   style gelicost,
hæþenes handsporu,   hilderinces	985
egl unheoru.   Æghwylc gecwæð
þæt him heardra nan   hrinan wolde,
iren ærgod,   þæt ðæs ahlæcan
blodge beadufolme   onberan wolde.

‘With kind hearts and cold courage,	955
We have entered this struggle against the unknown,
Ungrasped power, and snapped its strength,
I wish you might have seen it yourself,
The feast-weary fiend, scales dragging,
Falling in the hall, dead-tired.	960
I wanted to catch him quick, hold him
Hard with a hand-grip, cradle him
In a death-bed, a slaughter-couch,
So he might find a savage sleep,
His ghost lifting from the body-bed.	965
He was bound to stay in my unyielding grip
Unless his flesh could flee. I wanted
Him dead, no bones about it --
But I couldn't hold him the restless enemy,
Against God's will.  He slipped my grasp	970
To save his life he left his hand behind,
His arm and shoulder -- a nice touch!
The token claw gave him cold comfort,
No hope of life, that loathed spoiler,
Tortured by sin; but pain grabbed him	975
In a hard grasp, a wailing wound,
A misery-grip.  There he must wait,
Stained with crime, till bright God
Brings judgment on his dark deeds.'
After this, Unferth son of Ecglaf,	980
Boasted less of his battle-works,
His courage quiet, while all warriors
Gazed on the claw, the fiend's fingers,
Nailed near the roof by Beowulf's strength.
Each claw-nail, each hand-spur	985
In the heathen's banged up death-grip,
Was stiff as steel.  The old talk was dead --
Men claimed no hard thing could pierce him,
No ancient iron, no trusted blade,
Could cut his bloody battle-fist.’	990
(transl. Craig Williamson)

What's going on here is wonderful. Beowulf is quick to share the credit with his men (thus "We" in 957), who did little or nothing to help him, but just as quick to blame himself (thus "I" in lines 959-65), for failing to accomplish all he had set out to do. He virtually apologizes for failing to do more than mortally wounding Grendel by tearing off his arm.  But not even a hero who fights sea monsters (574-75) and can swim home from Friesland wearing thirty coats of mail (2354-68) can do what God wills not (966). This tells us two things. First, how great a hero it took to kill Grendel; and, second, how even such strength as that avails nothing against the will of God. And Beowulf accepts the limits of his strength here, surrendering his enemy and God's to the judgement of God.  In the very same way he had surrendered the outcome of the battle to God's will before it began (685-87).

Unferth, the king's counselor, with whom Beowulf had traded barbs and boasts the night before (499-606) is now reduced to silence by Beowulf's deeds just as he had previously been by his words. And those deeds, proven by Grendel's arm, not only silence the 'old talk' about the impossibility of defeating such a monster with weapons, but seems to allow no new talk, since in fact Beowulf had defeated the feond without them, just as he had said he would (675-687).

When you're down in the trenches of grammar, trying to sort out cases and syntax, parsing your way through a word or two at a time -- Why, why, why is that in the genitive plural? -- it's all too easy to overlook the way the poet has woven the story together. But when you have the fortune to notice as elegant a web as this one, it makes every moment of struggle worthwhile.

__________________________

Beowulf and Other Old English Poems, edited and translated by Craig Williamson, with a foreword by Tom Shippey, University of Pennsylvania Press (Philadelphia 2011). 978012222753