Article contents
Some difficulties in Beowulf, lines 874–902: Sigemund reconsidered
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 26 September 2008
Extract
The episode of Beowulf's fight with Grendel is followed almost immediately by brief accounts of two very different heroic careers – those of Sigemund and of Heremod – sung by a minstrel-thegn of Hrothgar, apparently in praise of the hero, as the celebrating Danes race their horses back from Grendel's mere. This narrative sequence invites us to contextualize Beowulf's first great exploit in a broader frame, but the poet does not make explicit the precise nature of the comparisons between these three figures. The critics, however, have broadly agreed that the link with Sigemund compliments Beowulf, whilst the parallel with Heremod contrasts with the hero and with Sigemund. E. G. Stanley comments that the poet ‘perhaps … perceives the hero of his poem at this point as being all that, in descriptions known to him, made Sigemund glorious and all that Heremod was not’. F. C. Robinson agrees that the meaning of this section ‘is never spelled out, but the implication is clear: Beowulf is like Sigemund, unlike Heremod’. The contrast between the ‘sustained heroic exploits’ of Sigemund and the downfall of Heremod is, for R. E. Kaske,. ‘the basic theme of the whole Sigemund-Heremod passage’, and this interpretation is, he thinks, ‘hardly open to question’. The purpose of this article is to re-open the question of the nature of the relationship between Sigemund and Beowulf.
- Type
- Research Article
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1995
References
1 Stanley, E. G., ‘Beowulf’, Continuations and Beginnings: Studies in Old English Literature, ed. Stanley, E. G. (London, 1966), pp. 104–41, at 133.Google Scholar
2 Robinson, F. C., ‘Beowulf’ and the Appositive Style (Knoxville, TN, 1985), p. 22.Google Scholar
3 Kaske, R. E., ‘The Sigemund-Heremod and Hama-Hygelac Passages in Beowulf’, PMLA 74 (1959), 489–94, at 490CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For other expressions of the same view, see Bonjour, A., The Digressions in ‘Beowulf’, Medium Ævum Monographs 5 (Oxford, 1950), 46–7Google Scholar; Eliason, N. E., ‘The “Improvised Lay” in Beowulf’, PQ 31 (1952), 171–9, at 178Google Scholar; Gillam, D.M.E., ‘The Use of the Term “Æglæca” in Beowulf at Lines 893 and 2592’, SGG 3 (1961), 145–69, at 167Google Scholar; Creed, R. P., ‘… “Wél-Hwelc Gecwæþ …”: the Singer as Architect’, Texas Stud. in Lit. 11 (1966), 131–43, at 133Google Scholar; Opland, J., ‘From Horseback to Monastic Cell: the Impact on English Literature of the Introduction of Writing’, Old English Literature in Context: Ten Essays, ed. Niles, J. D. (Woodbridge, 1980), pp. 30–43, at 32–3Google Scholar; Andersson, T. M., ‘Tradition and Design in Beowulf’, Old English Literature in Context: Ten Essays, ed. Niles, J. D. (Woodbridge, 1980), pp. 90–106, at 99Google Scholar; Harris, J., ‘Beowulf Literary History’, Interpretations of ‘Beowulf’: a Critical Anthology, ed. Fulk, R. D. (Bloomington, IN, 1991), pp. 235–41, at 239Google Scholar, etc. Doubts about this critical orthodoxy have rarely been voiced, but see, for example, Mackie, W. S., ‘Notes upon the Text and the Interpretation of Beowulf’, MLR 34 (1939), 515–24, at 519CrossRefGoogle Scholar: ‘The Christian poet does not regard the wild career and violent deeds of Sigemund with great approval’; and Stanley, , ‘Beowulf’, p. 129Google Scholar: ‘The poet does not advert to this [poetic] ideal simpliciter, but uses the scop's song to bring out also certain ulteriors, perhaps the crimes of Sigemund (879)’.
4 Beowulf and The Fight at Finnsburg, ed. Klaeber, F., 3rd ed. (Boston, 1950). All subsequent quotations are from the same edition.Google Scholar
5 On the necessity for this emendation, see Mitchell, B., Old English Syntax, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1985) I, 494–5.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
6 Garmonsway, G. N., Simpson, J. and Davidson, H. E., ‘Beowulf’ and its Analogues (London, 1980), p. 25Google Scholar. The following translations of the passage are referred to throughout this article: Gordon, R. K., Anglo-Saxon Poetry (London, 1926), pp. 21–2Google Scholar; Hall, J.R. Clark, Wrenn, C. L. and Tolkien, J.R.R., Beowulf and The Finnesburg Fragment: a Translation into Modern English Prose (London, 1950), pp. 65–6Google Scholar; Wright, D., Beowulf: a Prose Translation (London, 1957), pp. 47–8Google Scholar; Crossley-Holland, K. and Mitchell, B., Beowulf (London 1968), pp. 56–7Google Scholar; Alexander, M., Beowulf: a Verse Translation (London, 1973), pp. 78–9Google Scholar; Chickering, H. D., Beowulf: a Dual-Language Edition (Garden City, NY, 1977), pp. 99–101Google Scholar; Beowulf, ed. and trans. Swanton, M. (Manchester, 1978), p. 77Google Scholar; Greenfield, S. B., A Readable Beowulf: the Old English Epic Newly Translated (Carbondale, IL, 1982), pp. 65–6Google Scholar; Hieatt, C. B. and Hieatt, A. K., Beowulf and Other Old English Poems, 2nd ed. (Toronto, 1982), p. 25Google Scholar; Bradley, S.A.J., Anglo-Saxon Poetry: an Anthology of Old English Poems in Prose Translation with Introduction and Headnotes (London, 1982), pp. 434–5Google Scholar; Porter, J., Beowulf (Lampeter, 1989), lines 874–902Google Scholar; Porter, J., Beowulf: Text and Translation (London, 1991), pp. 61–3.Google Scholar
7 See, for example, Chickering, , Beowulf, p. 312Google Scholar: ‘He uses the Danish scop's song to vault into a new, timeless realm where he and the scop speak together with the voice of history’, and Clark, G., Beowulf (Boston, 1990), p. 40Google Scholar: ‘The narrator's brief summary of the Danish poet's account of Beowulf's venture makes the Anglo-Saxon and the (fictional) Danish poem one … and thus joins the poem's actors and its audience as sharers of a single poetic tradition’.
8 The view was first proposed by Grundtvig; see Beowulf, ed. Klaeber, , p. 161Google Scholar, and Heusler's, A. entry on Sigfrid in Reallexikon der germanischen Altertumsktinde, ed. Hoops, J., 4 vols. (Strassburg, 1911–1919) IV, 173–7, at 173Google Scholar. The reference to Fitela in 889 suggests, however, that the person indicated by æþelinges bearn and him (889) is the same as that denoted by hine in 879, i.e. Sigemund.
9 For this possibility and its implications, see Tolkien, J.R.R., Finn and Hengest: the Fragment and the Episode, ed. Bliss, A. (London, 1982), p. 59.Google Scholar
10 Beowulf, ed. Swanton, , p. 18Google Scholar. See also Gillam, , ‘“Æglæca” in Beowulf’, p. 166Google Scholar: ‘The poet could probably draw upon whole areas of experience in which his audience had already met Sigemund and the stories connected with him’; and Caie, G. D., The Judgment Day Theme in Old English Poetry (Copenhagen, 1976), p. 36: ‘… the poet compares his hero to Sigemund who would have been well known to the Anglo-Saxon audience’.Google Scholar
11 Burgess, G. S. and Busby, K., The Lais of Marie de France (London, 1986), p. 41.Google Scholar
12 These are the only, examples in Beowulf of noun clauses introduced by þæt following these verbs; see Cameron, A., Amos, A. Crandell and Waite, G., ‘A Reconsideration of the Language of Beowulf’, The Dating of ‘Beowulf’, ed. Chase, C., Toronto OE ser. 6 (Toronto, 1981), 63.Google Scholar
13 See The Dream of the Rood, ed. Dickens, B. and Ross, A.S.C., 4th ed. (London, 1954), p. 43.Google Scholar
14 The dragon fight in Völsunga Saga is extremely short: Sigurd slays Fafnir with a single blow at his first onslaught. See The Saga of the Volsungs, ed. and trans. Finch, R. G. (London, 1965), p. 31.Google Scholar
15 The Vercelli Homilies, ed. Scragg, D. G., EETS os 300 (Oxford, 1992)Google Scholar, Homily XVII, lines 75–6 (p. 283). A semantic distinction between the two compounds is to some extent supported by their use in the rest of the poetic corpus: ellendæd is used of the brave deeds ended by the eating of the forbidden fruit (GenB 484), and of those of the Assyrians terminated by the onslaught of the Hebrews (jud 273); the mission to save Matthew which God entrusts to Andrew is termed ellenweorc (And 232), and Guthlac speaks of the ellenweorc in which he has long fought for God (Guth A 641). On the other hand, the devil in Andreas claims that his followers will crush Andrew by their valiant deeds (ellenweorcum), but he is a famous liar, and may here be appropriating and abusing a term with moral connotation. Professor Eric Stanley has suggested to me that weorc also implies greater difficulty than dæd.
16 See Beowulf and Judith, ed. Dobbie, E.V.K., ASPR 4 (New York, 1953), 120.Google Scholar
17 See, respectively, Crossley-Holland, , Beowulf, p. 93Google Scholar; Porter, , Beowulf (1989), line 2122Google Scholar; Porter, , Beowulf (1991), p. 131.Google Scholar
18 In the opening sentence of the non-Ælfrician homily, St Mary of Egypt; see Ælfric's Lives of the Saints, ed. Skeat, W. W., EETS os 94 (Oxford, 1890), 2.Google Scholar
19 Beowulf, ed. Klaeber, , p. 416.Google Scholar
20 Beowulf with the Finnesburg Fragment, ed. Wrenn, C. L. and Bolton, W. F., 3rd ed. (London, 1973), p. 280.Google Scholar
21 Beowulf with The Finnsburg Fragment, ed. Wyatt, A. J. and Chambers, R. W. (Cambridge, 1943), p. 244.Google Scholar
22 Gordon, , Anglo-Saxon Poetry, p. 9.Google Scholar
23 Crossley-Holland, , Beowulf, p. 39.Google Scholar
24 Alexander, , Beowulf, p. 59.Google Scholar
25 Chickering, , Beowulf, p. 65.Google Scholar
26 Porter, , Beowulf (1991), p. 61.Google Scholar
27 Bosworth, J. and Toller, T. Northcote, An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary (Oxford, 1898), p. 467Google Scholar; Beowulf, ed. Klaeber, , p. 343Google Scholar; Beowulf, ed. Sedgefield, W. J., 3rd ed. (Manchester, 1935), p. 238.Google Scholar
28 See Toller, T. N., An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary: Supplement (Oxford, 1908–1921), p. 220Google Scholar, and Das altenglische Bussbuch (sog. Confessionale Pseudo-Egberti), ed. Spindler, R. (Leipzig, 1934), p. 172Google Scholar. Old English words for ‘crime’ are comprehensively treated by Büchner, G., Vier altenglische Bezeichnungen f¨r ‘Vergehen’ and ‘Verbrechen’ (firen, gylt, man, scyld) (Berlin diss., 1968), and on firen here, see pp. 31 and 191 n. 2.Google Scholar
29 See Leechdoms, Wortcunning, and Starcraft of Early England, ed. Cockayne, T. O., 3 vols. (London, 1864–1866) III, 166Google Scholar, firenum 7 gyltum; and Das ags. Prosa-Leben des hl. Guthlac, ed. Gonser, P., Anglistische Forschungen 27 (Heidelberg, 1909), 120, fyrena and leahteras (the other manuscript has synna and leahtras).Google Scholar
30 Toller, , Supplement, p. 220.Google Scholar
31 Heremod's fyren is usually regarded as damning; note, for example, Goldsmith, M., The Mode and Meaning of Beowulf (London, 1970), p. 189Google Scholar: ‘Though fyren has the secular meaning of “crime” or “wickedness” it is also the Christian word for “sin”, and the slight personification indicated by onwod makes the religious sense more probable here’.
32 Hieatt, , Beowulf, pp. 25 and 6Google Scholar, Alexander, , Beowulf, pp. 78 and 55Google Scholar, and Wright, , Beowulf, pp. 47 and 30Google Scholar respectively. In similar vein, note the comment of B. Moore that firen is ‘used to describe the violent deeds that Sigemund survived’: ‘The Thryth-Offa Digression in Beowulf’, Neophilologus 64 (1980), 127–33, at 128.Google Scholar
33 Porter, , Beowulf (1989), line 878Google Scholar, and Beowulf (1991), p. 61.Google Scholar
34 Beowulf, ed. Dobbie, , p. 159Google Scholar. Note, also, Andrew, S. O., Syntax and Style in Old English (New York, 1940), p. 107Google Scholar: ‘And what can be the construction of þara in 877… where a noun of reference fails altogether’
35 On the identity of the hand, see Zupitza, J., Beowulf: Autotypes of the Unique Cotton MS Vitellius A. xv in the British Museum, with a Transliteration and Notes, 2nd ed. containing a new reproduction of the manuscript, with an introductory note by Davis, N., EETS os 245 (London, 1959), 42Google Scholar. The form of the correction – a superscript letter above one which is not underdotted – is elsewhere used by the scribe to show insertion, e.g. at line 1109; only here does it seem to indicate substitution, which is elsewhere marked by underdotting. The lack of the expected dot may be a simple error, or might suggest that the scribe was uncertain of the correction. The morphology fyrene is complicated by the possibility that the spelling may represent an early example of the levelling of the OE inflexions; see Malone, K., ‘When did Middle English begin?’, Language Monographs 7 (1930), 110–17, at 116.Google Scholar
36 See Biddle, M., ‘Excavations at Winchester 1965: Fourth Interim Report’, AntJ 46 (1966), 308–32, at 329–32, and pl. LXIIa.Google Scholar
37 Collingwood, W. G., Northumbrian Crosses of the Pre-Norman Age (London, 1927), p. 160Google Scholar. On the Manx crosses, see Kermode, P.M.C., Manx Crosses (London, 1907), pp. 57–8 and 172–80Google Scholar. The ‘Sigurd’ shaft could be directly Scandinavian. The right side of the Franks Casket may depict the death of Sigemund; for discussion and references, see The Anglo-Saxon Minor Poems, ed. Dobbie, E.V.K., ASPR 6 (New York, 1942), cxxvii and n. 2Google Scholar. Knowledge of the Volsungs is perhaps also suggested by the OE place-name Walsingham: ‘The HĀM of Wæls's people’, The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Place-Names, ed. Ekwall, E., 4th ed. (Oxford, 1960), p. 494Google Scholar. Wilson, R. M. is inclined to believe that the Anglo-Saxons knew the story of Sigemund: see The Lost Literature of Medieval England, 2nd ed. (London, 1970), pp. 18–19.Google Scholar
38 For a list of the sources, see Gillespie, G. T., A Catalogue of Persons named in German Heroic Literature (700–1600) (Oxford, 1973), pp. 125–6.Google Scholar
39 For text with translation, see Volsungs, ed. Finch, , pp. 3–22.Google Scholar
40 See ibid pp. 30–2.
41 Note, for example, that Ingeld and Froda, who are Heathobards in Beowulf, are Danes according to Saxo Grammaticus.
42 The personal name, Fitela, is not recorded in Old English outside Beowulf. On the relationship between the forms Fitela and Sinfjötli, see Gillespie, , Catalogue, p. 125, n. 8Google Scholar, and Volsungs, ed. Finch, , p. 10, n. 1.Google Scholar
43 Quoted from Garmonsway et al., ‘Beowulf’;, p. 251.Google Scholar
44 Volsungs, ed. Finch, , p. 10.Google Scholar
45 See Middle English Dictionary, ed. Kurath, H., Kuhn, S. M. and Reidy, J. (Ann Arbor, MI, 1952–), M–N, p. 963Google Scholar, s.v. neveu, sense 1. d., A Dictionary of the Older Scottish Tongue from the Twelfth Century to the End of the Seventeenth, ed. SirCraigie, W. and Aitken, A. J. (Chicago and London, 1931–), M–N, pp. 532–3Google Scholar, s.v. nevo, sense 1. b., and The Oxford English Dictionary, 13 vols. (Oxford, 1933), N, p. 91, s.v. nephew, sense 1. b.Google Scholar
46 The Peterborough Chronicle, ed. Clark, C., 2nd ed., Oxford English Monographs 5 (Oxford, 1970), 55 and 106.Google Scholar
47 Garmonsway, G. N., The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (London, 1967), p. 263Google Scholar. On this passage, see also Fleming, J., ‘A Note on the Word “Nephew”’, N&Q 207 (1962), 167Google Scholar. On the difficulty of translating OE nefa in the charters, see Lowe, K. A., ‘Never say Nefa again: Problems of Translation in Old English Charters’, NM 94 (1993), 27–35.Google Scholar
48 De Gestis Regum Anglorum and Historiae Novellae, ed. Stubbs, W., 2 vols., RS (London, 1889) II, 549.Google Scholar
49 Beowulf provides no certain examples. The speculation that line 62 originally read hyrde ic þæt Yrse wæs Onelan cwen is untenable: see Hutcheson, B. R., ‘Beowulf 62: an Impossible Emendation’, N&Q 238 (1993), 3–5.Google Scholar
50 The text is from The Junius Manuscript, ed. Krapp, G. P., ASPR 1 (New York, 1931) 2607–9a (p. 77)Google Scholar: The girls became pregnant; the ‘loving’ sisters brought offspring into the world, sons to their aged father/grandfather. According to A.N. Doane, the first element will- is used ironically here and elsewhere in the poem ‘where the family relationship is somewhat amiss’: see his Genesis A: A New Edition (Madison, WI, 1978), p. 246.Google Scholar
51 Gen. XIX.31 testifies to the agedness of Lot: ‘And the firstborn said unto the younger, Our father is old’.
52 The emendation makes sense, but is not essential: the manuscript form earme may be construed as a weak feminine adjective used substantively. On the unusual metre of Beo 881 a and Rid 46.6a, and for the suggestion that both are members of a formulaic system of great antiquity, see Kendall, C. B., The Metrical Grammar of ‘Beowulf’, CSASE 5 (Cambridge, 1991), 137–8.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
53 SeeMattingly, H. and Handford, S. A., Tacitus: The Agricola and the Germania (London, 1976), p. 118.Google Scholar
54 Whitelock, D., The Audience of Beowulf (Oxford, 1951), p. 57.Google Scholar
55 Corso, L., ‘Some Considerations of the Concept “Nið” in Beowulf’, Neophilologus 64 (1980), 121–6, at 122.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
56 Ibid. p. 125.
57 Ibid. p. 123.
58 Crossley-Holland, , Beowulf, p. 57Google Scholar and Porter, , Beowulf (1989), line 882, respectively.Google Scholar
59 Amongst the great deal of literature on these forms, see Williams, R. A., The Finn Episode in Beowulf: an Essay in Interpretation (Cambridge, 1924), Appendix I, pp. 139–43Google Scholar; Dickins, B., ‘English Names and Old English Heathenism’, Essays & Studies 19 (1933), 148–60, at 157–8Google Scholar; Kaske, R. E., ‘The Eotenas in Beowulf’, Old English Poetry: Fifteen Essays, ed. Creed, R. P. (Providence, RI, 1967), pp. 285–310Google Scholar, and Finn and Hengest, ed. Bliss, , pp. 53–63.Google Scholar
60 On the morphology, note the remarks of Campbell, A., Old English Grammar (Oxford, 1959), p. 245.Google Scholar
61 See, for example, Finn and Hengest, ed. Bliss, , p. 62.Google Scholar
62 So the editions of Klaeber, Sedgefield, Wyatt and Chambers, and the translations of Gordon, Wright, Crossley-Holland, Swanton, Greenfield, Garmonsway and Porter.
63 For discussion of this instance of the word, see Blake, N. F., ‘The Heremod Digressions in Beowulf’, JEGP 61 (1962), 278–87, at 282–3.Google Scholar
64 Beowulf, ed. Klaeber, , p. 434Google Scholar; Porter, , Beowulf (1989), lines 902 and 1072.Google Scholar
65 Respectively, Alexander, , Beowulf, p. 78Google Scholar, Porter, , Beowulf (1989)Google Scholar, line 883, Checkering, , Beowulf, p. 99Google Scholar, and Greenfield, , Readable Beowulf, p. 66.Google Scholar
66 Quirk, R., ‘Poetic Language and Old English Metre’, Early English and Norse Studies Presented to Hugh Smith, ed. Brown, A. and Foote, P. (London, 1963), pp. 150–71, at 156–7.Google Scholar
67 Ibid. pp. 151–2.
68 There are six occurrences in verse (all mentioned in this section), and two in prose.
69 Quirk, , ‘Poetic Language’, p. 153.Google Scholar
70 Stanley, , ‘Beowulf’, pp. 105 and 107.Google Scholar
71 On supposed anticipatory elements in the Sigemund digression, see Bonjour, , Digressions, p. 47Google Scholar, Beowulf, ed. Wrenn, , p. 71Google Scholar, Swanton, , Beowulf, p. 18Google Scholar, and Tripp, R. P. Jr., ‘Digressive Revaluation(s)’, Beowulf, ed. Bloom, H. (New York, 1988), pp. 63–79, at 71.Google Scholar
72 Sisam, K., The Structure of Beowulf (Oxford, 1965), p. 4n.Google Scholar
73 On the meaning, see Gillam, , ‘“Æglæca” in Beowulf’, and by the same author, ‘A Method for Determining the Connotations of Old English Poetic Words’, Studia Germanica Gandensia 6 (1964), 85–101Google Scholar, and Beowulf, ed. Dobbie, , p. 160Google Scholar. On the etymology, see Wood, F. A., ‘Prothetic Vowels in Sanskrit, Greek, Latin and Germanic’, Amer. Jnl Philol. 52 (1931), 105– 44, at 136–7CrossRefGoogle Scholar, Lotspeich, C. M., ‘Old English Etymologies’, JEGP 40 (1941), 1–4, at 1Google Scholar, Mezger, F., ‘Goth. Aglaiti “Unchastity”, OE Aglæc “Distress”’, Word 2 (1946), 66–71CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Kuhn, S. M., ‘Old English Aglæ¯ca – Middle Irish Oclach’, Linguistic Method: Essays in Honor of Herbert Penzl, ed. Rauch, I. and Carr, G. F. (The Hague, 1979), pp. 213–30.Google Scholar
74 Aglæcan here may be either plural nominative and refer to the monsters, or singular accusative and refer to the hero.
75 Byrhtferth's Manual, ed. Crawford, S. J., EETS os 177 (London, 1929), 74, line 15Google Scholar. On this phrase, see Nicholls, A., ‘Bede “Awe-Inspiring” not “Monstrous”: some Problems with Old English aglæca’, N&Q 236 (1991), 147–8.Google Scholar
76 Gillam, , ‘“Æglæca” in Beowulf’, p. 167.Google Scholar
77 Stanley, E. G., ‘Two Old English Poetic Phrases Insufficiently Understood for Literary Criticism: Ding Gehegan and Seonoþ Gehegan’, Old English Poetry: Essays on Style, ed. Calder, D. G. (Los Angeles, 1979), pp. 67–90, at 75.Google Scholar
78 Byrhtferth's Manual, ed. Crawford, , pp. 44, line 1 and 158, line 11.Google Scholar
79 Ibid. pp. 72, line 21 and 74, lines 17–18.
80 Beowulf, ed. Dobbie, , p. 160.Google Scholar
81 Kuhn, , ‘Old English Aglæ¯ca’, p. 218.Google Scholar
82 Greenfield, S. B., ‘Esthetics and Meaning and the Translation of Old English Poetry’, Old English Poetry, ed. Calder, , pp. 91–110, at 109.Google Scholar
83 Beowulf, ed. Wyatt, and Chambers, , p. 181.Google Scholar
84 Beowulf, ed. Klaeber, , p. 298.Google Scholar
85 Frequently so, or uniformly, in all the translations consulted (see above, n. 6) with the exception of Greenfield's.
86 Porter, , Beowulf (1991), p. 61.Google Scholar
87 Gillam, , ‘“Æglæca” in Beowulf’, p. 168.Google Scholar
88 Irving, E. B., Rereading Beowulf (Philadelphia, 1989), pp. 150–1Google Scholar, and cf. Beowulf, ed. Klaeber, , p. 188, note to line 1612: ‘The rich treasures in the cave belong, of course, to the folk-tale motives’.Google Scholar
89 Ibid. p. 371.
90 ‘Notorious’, ‘infamous’ and ‘ill-famed’ on one or both occasions are offered by Clark-Hall, Wright, Crossley-Holland, Chickering, Swanton, Greenfield, Hieatt and Bradley. For references, see above, n. 6.
91 The compound, wid-mære, and the collocation, wide mærost, are lexically very similar.
92 King Alfred's Old English Version of Boethius's De Consolatione Philosophiae, ed. Sedgefield, W. J. (Oxford, 1899), p. 124, lines 24–6Google Scholar. For discussion of opinions about the meaning wrecca in the elegies, see E.G. Stanley, ‘Old English Poetic Diction and the Interpretation of The Wanderer, The Seafarer, and The Penitent's Prayer’, in his A Collection of Papers with Emphasis on Old English Literature, Publications of the Dictionary of Old English 3 (Toronto, 1987), 234–80, at 234Google Scholar, repr. from Anglia 73 (1956), 413–66.Google Scholar
93 The Harley Latin-Old English Glossary, ed. Oliphant, R. T., Janua Linguarum, Series Practica 20 (The Hague, 1966), 169.Google Scholar
94 The following Anglo-Saxon kings all spend a period in exile and are termed wrecca in the OE Bede: Eadwine of Northumbria, banished by his predecessor, Æthelfrith; Sigeberht of East Anglia exiled before his reign by Rædwald; and Cenwalh of Wessex, exiled by his brother-in-law, Penda of Mercia. See The Old English Version of Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People, ed. Miller, T., 2 vols., EETS os 95–6 (Oxford, 1890–1891), 124–5; 142 and 208; and 168 respectively.Google Scholar
95 Hieatt has ‘wanderers’, Gordon, Clark-Hall, Wright and Alexander have ‘adventurers’, Greenfield ‘fighting men’, Chickering ‘hero-adventurer’, Porter (1991), ‘heroes’; Garmons-way, Swanton and Bradley have ‘exiles’, ‘men in exile’. For references, see above, n. 6.
96 I am very happy to be able to take the opportunity here warmly to acknowledge the many helpful criticisms of an earlier draft of this paper made by Professor Eric Stanley, Professor Malcolm Godden, Professor Jane Toswell, Ms Louise Pickering and Mr Alan Ward.
- 6
- Cited by