Beowulf: A Verse Translation: A Norton Critical Edition / Edition 1

by Daniel Donoghue, Seamus Heaney

Overview

Winner of the Whitbread Prize, Seamus Heaney’s translation "accomplishes what before now had seemed impossible: a faithful rendering that is simultaneously an original and gripping poem in its own right" (New York Times Book Review).

The translation that "rides boldly through the reefs of scholarship" (The Observer) is combined with first-rate annotation. No reading knowledge of Old English is assumed. Heaney’s clear and insightful introduction to Beowulf provides students with an understanding of both the poem’s history in the canon and Heaney’s own translation process.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780393975802
Publisher:	Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
Publication date:	12/18/2001
Series:	Norton Critical Editions Series
Edition description:	Older Edition
Pages:	304
Product dimensions:	5.10(w) x 8.40(h) x 0.70(d)
Age Range:	14 - 17 Years

About the Author

Daniel Donoghue is Professor of English at Harvard University. He is the author of Style in Old English Poetry: The Test of the Auxiliary and Lady Godiva: A Literary History of a Legend.


Seamus Heaney (1939—2013) was an Irish poet, playwright, translator, lecturer and recipient of the 1995 Nobel Prize in Literature. Born at Mossbawn farmhouse between Castledawson and Toomebridge, County Derry, he resided in Dublin until his death.

Read an Excerpt

Beowulf

A Verse Translation

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By Seamus Heaney

W. W. Norton & Company

Copyright ©2001 Seamus Heaney
All right reserved.
ISBN: 0393975800

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Chapter One

So. The Spear-Danes in days gone by
and the kings who ruled them had courage and greatness.
We have heard of those princes' heroic campaigns.

There was Shield Sheafson, scourge of many tribes,
a wrecker of mead-benches, rampaging among foes.
This terror of the hall-troops had come far.
A foundling to start with, he would flourish later on
as his powers waxed and his worth was proved.
In the end each clan on the outlying coasts
beyond the whale-road had to yield to him
and begin to pay tribute. That was one good king.

Afterwards a boy-child was born to Shield,
a cub in the yard, a comfort sent
by God to that nation. He knew what they had tholed,
the long times and troubles they'd come through
without a leader; so the Lord of Life,
the glorious Almighty, made this man renowned.
Shield had fathered a famous son:
Beow's name was known through the north.
And a young prince must be prudent like that,
giving freely while his father lives
so that afterwards in age when fighting starts
steadfast companions will stand by him
and hold the line. Behaviour that'sadmired
is the path to power among people everywhere.

Shield was still thriving when his time came
and he crossed over into the Lord's keeping.
His warrior band did what he bade them
when he laid down the law among the Danes:
they shouldered him out to the sea's flood,
the chief they revered who had long ruled them.
A ring-whorled prow rode in the harbour,
ice-clad, outbound, a craft for a prince.
They stretched their beloved lord in his boat,
laid out by the mast, amidships,
the great ring-giver. Far-fetched treasures
were piled upon him, and precious gear
I never heard before of a ship so well furbished
with battle tackle, bladed weapons
and coats of mail. The massed treasure
was loaded on top of him: it would travel far
on out into the ocean's sway.
They decked his body no less bountifully
with offerings than those first ones did
who cast him away when he was a child
and launched him alone out over the waves.
And they set a gold standard up
high above his head and let him drift
to wind and tide, bewailing him
and mourning their loss. No man can tell,
no wise man in hall or weathered veteran
knows for certain who salvaged that load.

Then it fell to Beow to keep the forts.
He was well regarded and ruled the Danes
for a long time after his father took leave
of his life on earth. And then his heir,
the great Halfdane, held sway
for as long as he lived, their elder and warlord.
He was four times a father, this fighter prince:
one by one they entered the world,
Heorogar, Hrothgar, the good Halga
and a daughter, I have heard, who was Onela's queen,
a balm in bed to the battle-scarred Swede.

The fortunes of war favoured Hrothgar.
Friends and kinsmen flocked to his ranks,
young followers, a force that grew
to be a mighty army. So his mind turned
to hall-building: he handed down orders
for men to work on a great mead-hall
meant to be a wonder of the world forever;
it would be his throne-room and there he would dispense
his God-given goods to young and old—but
not the common land or people's lives.
Far and wide through the world, I have heard,
orders for work to adorn that wallstead
were sent to many peoples. And soon it stood there,
finished and ready, in full view,
the hall of halls. Heorot was the name
he had settled on it, whose utterance was law.
Nor did he renege, but doled out rings
and torques at the table. The hall towered,
its gables wide and high and awaiting
a barbarous burning. That doom abided,
but in time it would come: the killer instinct
unleashed among in-laws, the blood-lust rampant.

Continues...

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Excerpted from Beowulf by Seamus Heaney Copyright ©2001 by Seamus Heaney. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Table of Contents

	List of Illustrations	vii
	Preface	ix
	Acknowledgments	xiii
	Old English Language and Poetics	xv
	Translator's Introduction	xxiii
	The Text of Beowulf	1
	Contexts	79
	The Beowulf Manuscript	81
	Genesis 4.1-16 Cain and Abel	84
	Hall-Feasts and the Queen	85
	Grettir the Strong and the Trollwoman	86
	The Frisian Slaughter: Episode and Fragment	89
	Alcuin "What has Ingeld to do with Christ?"	91
	Gregory of Tours History of the Franks [Hygelac's Raid into Frisia]	93
	William of Malmesbury [Genealogy of the Royal Family of Wessex]	93
	On the Wars between the Swedes and the Geats	94
	Genealogies of the Royal Families in Beowulf	95
	The Kingdoms and Tribes of Beowulf	96
	Map: The Scandinavian Setting of Beowulf	97
	Beowulf's Name	98
	Criticism	101
	Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics	103
	The Interlace Structure of Beowulf	130
	The Structural Unity of Beowulf: The Problem of Grendel's Mother	152
	The Beowulf Poet's Sense of History	167
	The Tomb of Beowulf	181
	The Christian Language and Theme of Beowulf	197
	Archaeology and Beowulf	212
	The Philologer Poet: Seamus Heaney and the Translation of Beowulf	237
	Glossary of Personal Names	248
	Selected Bibliography	251