l. 373. E. remarks of the hyphened eald-fæder, "hyphens are risky toys to play with in fixing texts of pre-hyphenial antiquity"; eald-fæder could only = _grandfather_. eald here can only mean _honored_, and the hyphen is unnecessary. Cf. "old fellow," "my old man," etc.; and Ger. _alt-vater_.
l. 378. Th. and B. propose Gēatum, as presents from the Danish to the Geatish king.--_Beit._ xii.
l. 380. hæbbe. The subj. is used in indirect narration and question, wish and command, purpose, result, and hypothetical comparison with swelce = _as if_.
ll. 386, 387. Ten Br. emends to read: "Hurry, bid the kinsman-throng go into the hall together."
l. 387. sibbe-gedriht, for Beowulf's friends, occurs also at l. 730. It is subject-acc. to sēon. Cf. ll. 347, 365, and Hunt's _Exod._ l. 214.
l. 404. "Here, as in the later Icelandic halls, Beowulf saw Hrothgar enthroned on a high seat at the east end of the hall. The seat is sacred. It has a supernatural quality. Grendel, the fiend, cannot approach it."--Br., p. 34. Cf. l. 168.
l. 405. "At Benty Grange, in Derbyshire, an Anglo-Saxon barrow, opened in 1848, contained a coat of mail. 'The iron chain work consists of a large number of links of two kinds attached to each other by small rings half an inch in diameter; one kind flat and lozenge-shaped ... the others all of one kind, but of different lengths.'"--Br., p. 126.
l. 407. Wes ... hāl: this ancient Teutonic greeting afterwards grew into wassail. Cf. Skeat's _Luke_, i. 28; _Andreas_ (K.), 1827; Layamon, l. 14309, etc.
l. 414. "The distinction between wesan and weorðan [in passive relations] is not very clearly defined, but wesan appears to indicate a state, weorðan generally an action."--Sw. Cf. Mod. German _werden_ and _sein_ in similar relations.
l. 414. Gr. translates hādor by _receptaculum_; cf. Gering, _Zachers Zeitschr._ xii. 124. Toller-Bosw. ignores Gr.'s suggestion.
ll. 420, 421. B. reads: þǣr ic (_on_) fīfelgeban (= _ocean_) ȳðde eotena cyn. Ten Br. reads: þǣr ic fīfelgeban ȳðde, eotena hām. Ha. suggests fīfelgeband = _monster-band_, without further changes.
l. 420. R. reads þǣra = _of them_, for þǣr.--_Zachers Zeitschr._ iii. 399; _Beit._ xii. 367.
l. 420. "niht has a gen., nihtes, used for the most part only adverbially, and almost certainly to be regarded as masculine."--Cook's Sievers' Gram., p. 158.
l. 425. Cf. also ll. 435, 635, 2345, for other examples of Beowulf's determination to fight single-handed.
l. 441. þe hine = _whom_, as at l. 1292, etc. The indeclinable þe is often thus combined with personal pronouns, = relative, and is sometimes separated from them by a considerable interval.--Sw.
l. 443. The MS. has Geotena. B. and Fahlbeck, says H.-So., do not consider the Gēatas, but the Jutes, as the inhabitants of Swedish West-Gothland. Alfred translates Juti by Gēatas, but _Jutland_ by _Gotland_. In the laws they are called Guti.--_Beit._ xii. 1, etc.
l. 444. B., Gr., and Ha. make unforhte an adv. = _fearlessly_, modifying etan. Kl. reads anforhte = _timid_.
l. 446. Cf. l. 2910. Th. translates: _thou wilt not need my head to hide_ (i.e. _bury_). Simrock supposes a dead-watch or lyke-wake to be meant. Wood, _thou wilt not have to bury so much as my head!_ H.-So. supposes hēafod-weard, _a guard of honor_, such as sovereigns or presumptive rulers had, to be meant by hafalan hȳdan; hence, _you need not give me any guard_, etc. Cf. Schmid, _Gesetze der A._, 370-372.
l. 447. S. places a colon after nimeð.
l. 451. H.-So., Ha., and B. (_Beit._ xii. 87) agree essentially in translating feorme, _food_. R. translates _consumption of my corpse. Maintenance, support_, seems preferable to either.
l. 452. Rönning (after Grimm) personifies Hild.--_Beovulfs Kvadet_, l. 59. Hildr is the name of one of the Scandinavian Walkyries, or battle-maidens, who transport the spirits of the slain to Walhalla. Cf. Kent's _Elene_, l. 18, etc.
l. 455. "The war-smiths, especially as forgers of the sword, were garmented with legend, and made into divine personages. Of these Weland is the type, husband of a swan maiden, and afterwards almost a god."-- Br., p. 120. Cf. A. J. C. Hare's account of "Wayland Smith's sword with which Henry II. was knighted," and which hung in Westminster Abbey to a late date.--_Walks in London_, ii. 228.
l. 455. This is the ǣlces mannes wyrd of Boethius (Sw., p. 44) and the wyrd bið swīðost of Gnomic Verses, 5. There are about a dozen references to it in _Bēowulf_.
l. 455. E. compares the fatalism of this concluding hemistich with the Christian tone of l. 685 _seq._
ll. 457, 458. B. reads wǣre-ryhtum ( = _from the obligations of clientage_).
l. 480. Cf. l. 1231, where the same sense, "flown with wine," occurs.
l. 488. "The duguð, the mature and ripe warriors, the aristocracy of the nation, are the support of the throne."--E. The M. E. form of the word, _douth_, occurs often. Associated with geogoð, ll. 160 and 622.
l. 489. Kl. omits comma after meoto and reads (with B.) sige-hrēð-secgum, = _disclose thy thought to the victor-heroes_. Others, as Körner, convert meoto into an imperative and divide on sǣl = _think upon happiness_. But cf. onband beadu-rūne, l. 501. B. supposes onsǣl meoto =_speak courteous words_. _Tidskr._ viii. 292; _Haupts Zeitschr._ xi. 411; _Eng. Stud._ ii. 251.
l. 489. Cf. the invitation at l. 1783.
l. 494. Cf. Grimm's _Andreas_, l. 1097, for deal, =_proud, elated, exulting_; _Phoenix_ (Bright), l. 266.
l. 499. MS. has Hunferð, but the alliteration requires Unferð, as at ll. 499, 1166, 1489; and cf. ll. 1542, 2095, 2930. See _List of Names_.
l. 501. sīð = _arrival_ (?); cf. l. 353.
l. 504. þon mā = _the more_ (?), may be added to the references under þon.
l. 506. E. compares the taunt of Eliab to David, I Sam. xvii. 28.
l. 509. dol-gilp = _idle boasting_. The second definition in the Gloss. is wrong.
l. 513. "Eagor-stream might possibly be translated the stream of Eagor, the awful terror-striking stormy sea in which the terrible [Scandinavian] giant dwelt, and through which he acted."--Br., p. 164. He remarks, "The English term _eagre_ still survives in provincial dialect for the tide-wave or bore on rivers. Dryden uses it in his _Threnod. Angust._ 'But like an _eagre_ rode in triumph o'er the tide.' Yet we must be cautious," etc. Cf. Fox's _Boethius_, ll. 20, 236; Thorpe's _Cǣdmon_, 69, etc.
l. 524. Krüger and B. read Bānstānes.--_Beit._ ix. 573.
l. 525. R. reads wyrsan (= wyrses: cf. Mod. Gr. _guten Muthes_) geþinges; but H.-So. shows that the MS. wyrsan ... þingea = wyrsena þinga, _can stand_; cf. gen. pl. banan, _Christ_, l. 66, etc.
l. 545 _seq._ "Five nights Beowulf and Breca kept together, not swimming, but sailing in open boats (to swim the seas is to sail the seas), then storm drove them asunder ... Breca is afterwards chief of the Brondings, a tribe mentioned in _Wīdsíth_. The story seems legendary, not mythical."--Br., pp. 60, 61.
ll. 574-578. B. suggests swā þǣr for hwæðere, = _so there it befell me_. But the word at l. 574 seems = _however_, and at l. 578 = _yet_; cf. l. 891; see S.; _Beit._ ix. 138; _Tidskr._ viii. 48; _Zacher_, iii. 387, etc.
l. 586. Gr. and Grundt. read fāgum sweordum (no ic þæs fela gylpe!), supplying fela and blending the broken half-lines into one. Ho. and Kl. supply geflites.
l. 599. E. translates nȳd-bāde by _blackmail_; adding "nēd bād, _toll_; nēd bādere, _tolltaker_."--Land Charters, Gloss, v.
l. 601. MS. has ond = _and_ in three places only (601, 1149, 2041); elsewhere it uses the symbol 7 = _and_.
l. 612. _seq._ Cf. the drinking ceremony at l. 1025. "The royal lady offers the cup to Beowulf, not in his turn where he sate among the rest, but after it has gone the round; her approach to Beowulf is an act apart."--E.
l. 620. "The [loving] cup which went the round of the company and was tasted by all," like the Oriel and other college anniversary cups.--E.
l. 622. Cf. ll. 160, 1191, for the respective places of young and old.
l. 623. Cf. the circlet of gold worn by Wealhþēow at l. 1164.
l. 631. gyddode. Cf. Chaucer, _Prol._ l. 237 (ed. Morris):
"Of _yeddynges_ he bar utterly the prys."
Cf. _giddy_.
l. 648. Kl. suggests a period after geþinged, especially as B. (_Tidskr._ viii. 57) has shown that oþþe is sometimes = ond. Th. supplies ne.
l. 650. oþþe here and at ll. 2476, 3007, probably = _and_.
l. 651. Cf. 704, where sceadu-genga (the _night-ganger_ of _Leechdoms_, ii. 344) is applied to the demon.--E.
l. 659. Cf. l. 2431 for same formula, "to have and to hold" of the Marriage Service.--E.
l. 681. B. considers þēah ... eal a precursor of Mod. Eng. _although_.
l. 682. gōdra = _advantages in battle_ (Gr.), _battle-skill_ (Ha.), _skill in war_ (H.-So.). Might not nāt be changed to nah = ne + āh (cf. l. 2253), thus justifying the translation _ability_ (?) --_he has not the ability to_, etc.
l. 695. Kl. reads hiera.--_Beit._ ix. 189. B. omits hīe as occurring in the previous hemistich.--_Beit._ xii. 89.
l. 698. "Here Destiny is a web of cloth."--E., who compares the Greek Clotho, "spinster of fate." Women are also called "weavers of peace," as l. 1943. Cf. Kent's _Elene_, l. 88; _Wīdsīð_, l. 6, etc.