Excerpt IV [beowulf’s funeral]

The people of the Geats then made ready for him on the ground a firm-built funeral pyre, hung round with helmets, battle-shields, bright corselets, as he had begged them to do. Then mighty men, lamenting, laid in its midst the famous prince, their beloved lord. The warriors then began to kindle on the mount the greatest of funeral pyres; the dark wood-smoke towered above the blazing mass; the roaring flame mingled with the noise of weeping - the raging of the winds had ceased - till it had crumbled up the body, hot to its core. Depressed in soul, they uttered forth their misery, and mourned their lord's death. Moreover, the Geatish woman with hair bound up, sang in memory of Beowulf a dole­ful dirge and said repeatedly that she greatly feared evil days for herself, much carnage, the terror of the foe, humiliation and captivity.

Heaven swallowed up the smoke.

Then people of the Geats raised a mound upon the cliff, which was high and broad and visible from far by voyagers on sea: and in ten days they built the beacon of the warrior bold in battle.

The remnant of the burning they begirt with a wall in such sort as skilled men could plan most worthy of him. In the barrow they placed collars and brooches - all such adornments as brave-minded men had before taken from the hoard. They left the wealth of nobles to the earth to keep - left the gold in the ground, where it still exists, as unprofitable to men as it had been before.

Then the warriors brave in battle, sons of nobles, twelve in all, rode round the barrow; they would lament their loss, mourn for their king, utter a dirge, and speak about their hero. They reverenced his manliness, extolled highly his deeds of valor; so it is meet that man should praise his friend and lord in words, and cherish him in heart when he must needs be led forth from the body.

Thus did the people of the Geats, his hearth-companions, mourn the death of their lord, and said that he had been of earthly kings the mildest and the gentlest of men, the kindest to his people, and the most eager for fame.

2. Anglo-Saxon Riddles

The surviving riddles of Old English, almost a hundred in number, are a most distinguished collection, of which The Bow is a characteristic example. Riddles at their best bring into being a complexity of metaphor, especially when they use the device of personifica­tion found in many old English riddles; and complex metaphor in turn expands and deepens one's perception of reality.

1. Read and try to solve the following riddles.

2. Which riddles resemble modern riddles? Which tell the reader they are riddles?

3. What characteristic features of the Old English poetry can you find in the riddles?

4. Analyse the language and stylistic devices.

Riddle 1

AGOB² is my name turned backyards. I am a curious creature, made for conflict. When I bend and a poisonous sting sticb out of my bosom, I am all ready to sweep that deadly evil far from me. When the master who devised that torment for me lets go my limbs,³ I get longer than before, until I spit out, in a deadly mix­ture, the all-fell poison that I swallowed earlier. Nor does anyone at all pass away easily from what I speak of here if what flies from my belly touches him so that he buys forcibly the deadly drink, with his life pays surely for the cup-mead.⁴ Unbowed I will not obey anyone unless I am cunningly bound.⁵ Say what I am called.

¹. The present editor's prose translation

². Boga (Old English, "bow")

³. I.e., the tips of the bow.

⁴. A sweet drink. ⁵. I.e., strung