representation of manners and customs, of social usages and methods of warfare, making allowance for the refinements of courtesy and chivalry gathered from a later time, are indisputably exact. But to these are added from the mythology and folk-lore of Northern Europe the hero's adventures with the demon and the dragon in the sea cavern or on the lonely moor. All the elements proper to the epic are present, yet all dominated by the central interest, the appeal made in an age which knew the value of heroic and masculine qualities by the figure of Beowulf himself, a good comrade, a leader such as men gladly followed, a chief they proudly served. He is an ideal rather than an individual, and this too is right, the highest conceivable in an heroic age, a man of vast bodily strength, wise in council yet adventurous, hungry of fame, not content to guard but to gain, friendly to his own people and their protector to the point of death, terrible to his enemies," a king like to none other in the world." He had need of all his valour and resolution for helper he had none. The spiritual atmosphere of the Anglo-Saxon epic is the bleakest of any poem in literature. The Christian sentiments of the scribe or poet serve but to accentuate, to throw into high relief the unparalleled situation that Beowulf faces all the powers of evil without hint or hope of divine or supernatural assistance. There are no gods or goddesses interested in his fate, angels or archangels there are none to call on. In a terrible blank world, empty of all spiritual aid or consolation, he goes down to the battle with dragon or monster. There is no divine cloud to hide his weariness, to shield him from the exultant foe, no good fairy by his side, no heavenly voices to cheer, no miraculous wells for the healing of his wounds. Like Capaneus he might have boasted"Virtus mihi numen, et ensis Quem teneo." My gods are valour and the sword I bear.1 If he conquers, it is well: if he fails, he dies. Vae Victis! Nor in death is his heart comforted by hope of recovering lost friends in the other world; with life he leaves all that was dear to him, 1 Statius, Thebaid, iii. 615. kindred and folk, hall joys, the pleasant glee-wood, and the praises of valour. Sorely unwilling he departs he knows not whither. Yet there are no tears in Beowulf as in Homer, the man of the North does not shed even such tears as angels weep.1 And to his folk of the European races, however widely separated in time and circumstance, the spirit of adventure, the unflinching temper in Beowulf, still call with resistless power; the motives by which he is governed, desire of fame, of honour, the gratitude and esteem of his kinsfolk and friends, still stir their nerves and keep at bay the monster of the creeping mist, the spiritual despair, that paralyses the energies of Asia. Rude as is the society depicted in Beowulf, savage as are the features of its daily life,2 bleak and dismal as are its climate and many of its surroundings, crude as are its superstitions, it expresses a certain magnificence of manhood. The unshaken hardihood and fortitude which made the future England utter themselves in every line; in every line there is the ring of iron. We hear it again at Naseby and at Worcester. And not less does it foreshadow in its sombre vein of reflection the Elizabethan drama and the philosophy of English moralists. It is the forerunner of Hamlet and of Rasselas. 1 Hrothgar, however, weeps at the parting. These are significant hints of an earlier savagery. The son of Ecgtheow is praised that he lived justly, "never, when drunk, slew his hearth_companions." CHAPTER IV FRAGMENTS OF EARLY ENGLISH HEROIC POETRY 1 Beowulf is not the oldest document in the history of English literature. Assign to it what date you please, it is far older than Roland or the Niebelungenlied, and in scope and excellence it is incomparable in the age to which it belongs; 1 but older yet is at least part of Widsith," the far-wanderer," contained in the wonderful Exeter Book, given by Leofric, first Bishop of Exeter, to his cathedral in the eleventh century. This book, published in 1842 as Codex Exoniensis, contains, besides much of the poetry of Cynewulf, that most famous of early English lyrics, The Seafarer, and the Lament of Deor, a later composition than Widsith but to be read with it, since both are occupied with the experiences and fortunes of the professional poet in the heroic age. Neither can be properly described as in itself an epic fragment, but both assist us in the reconstruction of the epic period in Northern Europe. The opening lines of Widsith introduce the scôp or gleeman," the stitcher of lays," who tells his story, a story of his wanderings, much of it apocryphal, amid many kindreds and nations. "Widsith spoke Unlocking his word-hoard: He has known many men, rulers and earls, Huns and Goths, Swedes and Geats and Southern Danes, Angles and Sueves 1 There is only one piece of extant Germanic verse which can claim to be as old as Beowulf or any of the early English fragments we possess. It is a poem of about seventy lines, the lay of Hadubrand and Hildebrand, and tells part of the same story as that told by Arnold in Sohrab and Rustum, a story in which the father slays his son in personal conflict. (See for a translation Gummere's The Oldest English Epic.) and Saxons; he has sung at many a court in Italy and Germany, high-born heroes have been his patrons and friends, Guthere of the Burgundians gave to him a ring, Eormanric, King of the Goths too, and Ealdhild the queen, daughter of Eadwine. Of these and many names historical the poem is a catalogue, and behind these far back in the misty irrecoverable past we discern the endless confused feuds and wars among forgotten tribes and once famous leaders, to us no more than names. "Fierce was the fray then, The bost of the Hreads fought, Priceless as an antiquarian document the poem is, though shadowy as a primæval forest and as trackless. For we meet the Hrothgar of Beowulf and mention is made of Heorot; we hear of Offa and the King of the Franks, and many another hero of our own folk ere their descendants made England, but with these are mingled references to Greeks and Finns, Israelites and Assyrians, Hebrews and Indians, Medes and Persians, where the poet is content to repeat simply a traditional catalogue. As literature Widsith is valuable chiefly for its strange suggestiveness, and as a picture in little of the life of a travelling minstrel in the heroic age of the Teutonic peoples. For the rest it is a glorification of the great art of song. The wanderer claims, after the ancient fashion of poets, the power to confer honour even upon monarchs, to write their names and deeds in his immortal story. It is clear that the minstrel is in possession of a great store of heroic legend, that, like the bards before Homer, he was the sole repository of history and tradition, welcomed on his roving commission not only for his knowledge of old family histories, of battles and heroic enterprises far back in the past among the Germanic folk, but for his skill to render into verse, and so perpetuate, the glories of kings and leaders among the living of his own day. He is the typical minstrel of his age.1 1 For a detailed study see Widsith, A Study in Old English Heroic Legend, by R. W. Chambers. The other minstrel's lay, preserved in the Exeter Book, strikes a different note. It is the song of a court poet, a song of encouragement and consolation to himself. The poet is no longer young, he has been superseded by another in the favour of his lord, but with fine cheerfulness recalls others, Wayland, the famous smith, the maker of Beowulf's breastplate, the maker too of Mimming, the great sword mentioned in Waldhere, Wayland, who for all his marvellous skill had for comrades care and weary longing; Beadohild, in sore plight, mourning her brother's death; he recalls too Hild and Theodric, and many a sorrowful subject of Eormanric, a wolvish king. If these bore up under their burdens of grief, his own spirit must not fail. And to each stanza of his poem he adds the refrain "That was endured, so this may be." The Lament of Deor is a lyric, important not merely as a document, but as a poem excellent in itself and of singular interest as strophic in form, or at least thrown into the semblance of stanzaic structure by the recurring line just quoted. It is possible that Deor is a translation of which the original is Norse, or it may be an English poem imitated from some Gothic lay. Behind Widsith and this lyric of regret by a court poet, who has been supplanted in his patron's favour by another bard, there is the same immense background stretching to the horizon of time that meets us in Beowulf, the background of history and legend, of tossing spears and shields, of battles and the confused movements of marching tribes, out of which welter spring the names of great leaders, of kings, and queens, and warriors remembered for their valour. Here is a version of Deor. I. "Wayland knew the sorrows of exile, Care and longing, companions constant That was endured, so this may be. |