Beowulf: Translation and Commentary

As this book represents a team effort by its editor and its translator, so this review will devote significant attention to the work of both scholars. Leonard Neidorf, editor of this volume and a prolific Old English (OE) professor in his own right, expresses his gratitude at the opportunity of being the James Boswell to Dr. Johnson in editing and offering commentary alongside his colleague Tom Shippey’s translation (33). But one might also liken the collaboration to that of Wiglaf to Beowulf, since the younger benefits from the wide-ranging career of the elder, yet lends crucial assistance in bringing together their combined strengths to the execution of this monumental task. In this translation, Tom Shippey, “doing what translators have had to do ever since 1815: do their best for the poet, in very different literary circumstances” (37), makes the OE lines shine ever the brighter.Appearing at the rate of nearly two translations per year for a long time, Beowulf has become a rite of passage for poets and scholars to test their skills. But whereas most of these translators, scholarly or not, tend to rely on dictionary denotations for their wording—which Shippey unmasks as fraught with misunderstandings of contexts both textual and cultural (43)—Shippey and Neidorf give us a rich Beowulf resource that benefits from both scholars’ deep investments in the poem—several decades worth of pondering its likeliest meanings.You can tell a lot about the tone translators wish to set for the epic by how they render the very first word in the Beowulf manuscript—hwaet. This word usually signals a weighty pronouncement or the start of a momentous speech in OE and means “behold,” like Latin Ecce, the way that modern idioms enjoin people to “look here,” “listen up,” “let this sink in,” or in admonitory fashion to “mark my words,” or even “make no mistake.” Seamus Heaney infamously opened his poetic translation with the abrupt but ponderous “So.” Shippey translates this word “Well.” Once again, an interesting interpretive choice with a range of connotations. Does this translation of hwaet convey a matter-of-fact tone, like signaling a change of topic? Or does it connote a challenge, as if signaling a summative reply to those who may be incredulous or with a contradictory point of view? Perhaps a bit of both.In his “Translator’s Preface,” Shippey explains that there is frankly a lot of nonsense in OE verse, by which he means a purely metrical sense rather than narrative detail, especially for certain appellations like North-, South-, East-, or West-Danes, all used by the poet for Hrothgar’s folk, who are actually all from the same place. If you have ever noticed these conflicting names and been confused, Shippey supplies the reason of simple exigencies of meter. But in other cases, what seems like nonsense to us, or outright contradiction, is our lack of familiarity with cultural context. Shippey points to words like wyrd, dom, and lof—“fate,” “doom,” and “praise”— as some of the most infamously misunderstood terms due to the practice of consulting only dictionaries, an ingrained habit in schools that leads many teachers and students to perceive Anglo-Saxon culture as gloomy and, in these cases, somewhat inscrutable (43). If, however, one reads comparatively within the OE corpus or closely within the Beowulf text in good editions like this one, noting the covenantal bonding rituals and belief in cosmic forces by which those warriors thrived, these terms fit in more clearly with what the poet is saying about destiny, judgment, and good repute for the tribe.For example, Shippey explains that in spite of what the Internet tells you, wyrd bið ful aræd—which he cites from the OE poem The Wanderer line 5b—does not mean “fate is totally inexorable” but rather “‘what’s happened is now fixed,’ or more briefly, ‘what’s done is done. . . . ‘Fate’ looks forward, wyrd looks back. Big difference” (44). One exception might be where Shippey translates lines 2525–27: “there will be battle between the two of us / however fate, which rules all men, / shall dictate for us” (my italics, 201). Otherwise, to distinguish these meanings, he usually gives the word “luck” where wyrd seems to point to an unknown outcome that may yet depend on firm precedents (44).As for the word lof or “praise,” Shippey’s common sense dispels the skepticism critics have had on Beowulf’s heroic reputation based on the poet’s last word about him: that out of all the kings of the world, his people said he was the mildest, kindest, most loving, and lof-geornost (l. 3182), most “eager for praise,” if you trust only to literal dictionary entries for this last term. In his definition, J. R. Clark Hall includes “lavish?” and “ostentatious?” with a shrug. It would be odd if this string of superlative praises ended with a rebuke, whether subtle or barbed, about Beowulf’s prideful greed for notoriety; such a reading would be casting the worst possible light upon this phrase, as if desiring the esteem or admiration of the ones you love must be a character flaw. Clearly, Beowulf managed to rule his kinfolk for fifty winters without resorting to any of the usual dynastic shenanigans, as the poet goes out of his way to make clear. He respects them too much to usurp anyone’s place, and he hopes more than anyone to be remembered for that. To read this last word as a selfish desire on the part of the Geatish king is to miss the point the poet strove to make—that Beowulf succeeded more than anyone else to keep the covenantal bonds of that warrior aristocracy, one built on reciprocal obligations and desires for trust that were too often broken. In light of this magnanimous desire for mutual goodwill, Shippey translates lof as “generosity,” which the poet holds up as a defining trait of a good king (l. 7–11; 24–25; 862–63; 1027–29; 1046–49; 1722–23).In other cases, preferring literal terms for the sake of accuracy and consistent flavor of the material culture of meadhall gift-giving, Shippey tends to latch onto key words for treasure and wargear without varying his diction, unlike poet-translators who often strive for flourishes of phrasing. Hence, we get “plates” of gold, referring to decorated gold-foil panels adorning treasures (153, 177, three times on 185, 187), “clinched” rings on mailcoats (73, 165), “ring-divider” (57), “Divider of treasure” (75, 167, 175) for kings who distribute wealth. Shippey’s philological research, as seen in essays like “Names in Beowulf and Anglo-Saxon England” (2014), lends a number of proper names markedly different from the traditional names found in other translations: Barley, not Beow (55, 57), Staghall for Heorot (59), Healgamen the hall singer (117), and Fremu, not Modthryth (167).When referring to Grendel’s steady approach, Shippey relies almost exclusively on some form of “stride”: “lone strider” (81), “came striding” (93, 95 twice, 97), “strode” (97). This wording may be less colorful than the ghastly locomotion of Heaney’s “greedily loping” (line 711), but Shippey’s choice reflects the sense of determined pacing in words like scriðan, cwom, and gongan, rather than the physical manner of his gait, implied only by the poet’s fiendish descriptions nearby.Another example of this semantic fitness would be his choice of words dealing with wound-up or plaited hair—a sign in OE, like the knotwork adorning medieval manuscripts, of order and harmony in the midst of chaos; for instance, Shippey gives the word “braided” in reference to the hair of Hrothgar’s horse (wundenfeax) on the way to Grendel’s mere, and then says that Beowulf “twisted” Grendel’s mother to the ground after grabbing her by the hair, feaxe, not by the shoulder, eaxle, as the manuscript indicates (l. 1537a). This emendation is the most radical of a handful introduced by Neidorf that depart from Klaeberian tradition, yet it fits the themes of bringing order out of chaos associated closely with hair in OE poetry, as seen in the Geatish woman at Beowulf’s funeral, “hair bound up” as a sign that her dirge voiced real and urgent political concerns; such symbolism for braided hair can also be found in OE poems like Judith. Since Grendel’s mother is seen as transgressive of these cultural norms, Beowulf has little compunction about transgressing the usual rules of fair play, as reflected in the next line rendered by Shippey, that Beowulf “regretted not the rude deed” (145). Since she is a troll, not a human, he binds or “braids” her unbounded transgressions against humanity with no remorse.My own comparisons of several OE verses to his translations show that Shippey tries to follow the grammatical equivalents of each phrase wherever possible, not just the semantic content of the words, while making it clear and idiomatic to modern ears. At this he excels, though there are a few touches of archaism that lend the poem a loftiness that is also welcome. A few examples would be consort (59), try conclusions (79), malefactor (71, 101), fetters (111), ness for promontory (133, 165, 217), Do you keep it all (153), do you go quickly (215). Only once or twice did I find his wording a tad off with dispraise (161)— why not disparage?—or “Grendel did more murders” (my italics, 63).Shippey does not attempt to make a poem of his own that resembles the OE style with any metrical precision, though there are passages here and there that do contain a modicum of alliteration, reflecting the weighty tone of dire threats met with stern joy:Many injuries I endured, much evil from Grendel.God can always perform, the Guardian of Glory,miracle after miracle. I could not imaginehow I could ever expect a cure for any of my cares . . . . Now Beowulf, best of men,I will hold you in my heart as a son:from now on, keep well your new kinship.Whatever in the world that you wish for,I will hold back nothing that I own. (109)Other translators’ attempts to imitate the OE alliterative rhythm and appositional syntax often cloud the meaning for modern readers. Shippey, however, conveys some of that appositional flavor but without obscuring the narrative content. This ability to reinforce cultural exemplars through concise parallelism and even curt syntax resembles the controlled diction of the OE poet, as Shippey clearly stated was his intention: “Clarity, cultural context, and a bit of common sense: that’s what this translation aims at. I think that’s what the poet aimed at too” (45).In many ways Shippey and Neidorf’s interpretive treatment of the poem overlaps and complements each other’s research with wide-ranging coverage, though a few slight discrepancies or gaps may be discerned. For instance, in his Appendix, “Tolkien and Beowulf: A Lifelong Involvement,” Shippey says that Tolkien was not quite accurate in interpreting the dragon’s hoard as “wound about with spells,” since the word for “spell,” galdre, “is singular, not plural” (349). Yet Shippey himself translates this same line as “wound round with spells” (233).Another example is the early enigma Scyld Scefing noted by both Neidorf (241–42) and Shippey, “only sixteen words into the poem and trouble already” (364–65). Though both scholars talk about the back-formation of the name Scyld from the famous Scylding dynasty and this patronym’s ambiguous relation to Scefing, neither of them addresses directly the linguistic basis for it, though Shippey comes closer: “Does it mean Scyld is ‘the son of Scef’ or does it mean ‘Scyld with the sheaf’? Neither explanation makes much sense” (364). Shippey does include a footnote to “a more detailed summary” in an essay of his, “‘King Sheave’ and ‘The Lost Road’” (2022), but in this book itself there is no guidance for Shippey’s translation “Scyld-with-the-Sheaf” in the opening lines, as one might hope for.Another crux, Handscioh (line 2076), could be explored a bit more. Both scholars acknowledge the strangeness of this thane’s inclusion in the narrative, Neidorf suggesting a mistake for his name given its proximity to Grendel’s bag or “glove” in the aural transmission of the poem (315) and Shippey stating the implausibility of him being snatched by Grendel at all if Beowulf was on watch: “Too quickly for Beowulf to move, or shout a warning?” (361). Readers like Seth Lerer and Ben Reinhard explain this jarring detail as part of Beowulf’s bravado back at Hygelac’s court, a bit of humorous swagger that ameliorates the horrific details for his refined aristocratic audience. Yet if the name itself was only a misattribution from an earlier stage of the poem’s genesis, as Neidorf argues in “The Origin of Hondscioh” (2023), rather than a rhetorical move by Beowulf within the narrative, then it is merely a coincidence that the text as we have it—with the onomastic anomaly Hondscioh—makes it sound like Beowulf is actually honoring the thane who stood in his place as Grendel’s first victim, the man who ran the gauntlet of loyalty with him from Geatland to Denmark, yet stayed by his leader’s side in a haunted hall of certain death. A “glove” protects the skin of the hand that wields it against loss of limb or life, and this certainly describes the terrible cost of buying Beowulf some time to observe Grendel’s mode of attack.The Commentary by Neidorf amounts to at least a third of the book’s major content (about 130 pages compared to about 190 pages of Shippey’s translation) and so deserves close attention. Organized by pericopes, it clearly explains cruxes and themes running through each passage in the Beowulf text, not just selected verses. Each excursus includes a generous list of “Further Readings” that represent at least a century of OE books and articles, works of scholarship most germane to the issues explored.Throughout the Commentary, Neidorf refers to most characters as “intuitive monotheists,” a description I agree with, but on what basis, exactly? Neidorf’s first mention of this appears in the section about the song of Creation, where it makes sense that the minstrel inferred the Creator’s existence from a common-grace revelation to humanity through aspects of creation (245). Since, however, not all cultures developed this monotheistic perspective of the divine, the Beowulf poet seems to make it part of his fictional premise, along with dragons and trolls, as if inviting his audience to a grand supposal: “Let us imagine that within the famous Danish dynasty there were kings, queens, and thanes who not only fought the rival tribes we all know about, but also trolls and a dragon that were somehow part of the natural world—all of this happening not in some fairyland but under the skies and over the sea-roads and fields we know, where these nobles also knew the one true God. We know that couldn’t have happened, but what if it did?”Something has always bothered me about Grendel’s nocturnal attacks on Heorot that came to the fore on this reading of the poem: Why does Grendel raid only the meadhall? If the Danes repair themselves to outbuildings around Heorot, why are they safe there if Grendel is so brazen and strong and hungry? Since so much is said early in the poem about how the Creation song plagues Grendel, and how the gifstol, “throne,” is not something he can quite “approach,” perhaps he feels especially affronted by this center of the community, that only by attacking this hub of the ring-giver’s civilizing rituals and influence can he strike a blow at the Creator in a way that is worth his while.Since the poet seems to enjoy some irony in referring to Grendel as a hall-thane for these nocturnal raids, noting that he pays no wergild and takes no tribute, then certainly the gifstol is not something he could ever legitimately draw near or enjoy in expectation of comitatus privileges, yet Grendel this hall exclusively for his The of the that Neidorf as a way of this crux, it from or may also be as to Grendel like the Creation of all it and for that very the meadhall that it him as the of his of Neidorf’s in the running commentary is the for the poem’s and tone of aristocratic of for the and of each early critics to the poem for just this but in a merely Neidorf points to each how aristocratic and to the political the of Beowulf’s of his and on the of or all his attempts at fair play, even against or or the refined and by hall and in the hall the ring-giver’s Neidorf well the poet’s for material and it a and a that would to aristocratic this Beowulf translation you will get a that is to the poet’s aims in sense and and it will as an resource for those students of OE and Beowulf in who wish to get a more reading that the cultural contexts of the poem and its the translations I have read and I this as the one with the of to what is happening in the narrative while also the many Neidorf’s and Commentary will students and teachers of the poem well by bringing together a hoard of and to for the will no that Tom Shippey, as he of J. R. R. also his heart of that he and the were of Shippey and Neidorf’s of with this its and all of scholarly that goes with it, but also of their the as Shippey does best for the anyone can read this Beowulf with deep admiration and as I