 |
The Heroic AgeIssue 5Summer/Autumn 2001 |
"The
Wealth They Left Us"
by Marijane
Osborn
Notes
1.
To these lines from Raoul de Cambrai (Duggan
1986:745) may be compared the saga-character Bosi's awareness
of his life as story. In rejecting the witch Busla's offer to
tutor him in magic, an effeminizing practice, "he said he
didn't want it written in his saga" (Pálsson
and Edwards 1985:200).
2.
The Exeter Book "Maxims" instruct us that mon sceal
(one must) lofes gearnian and dom areccan (earn
praise and tell of glory) (lines 139-140; Krapp
and Dobbie 1936:161)-in other words, live a life that may
be talked about. Bonjour (1950)
discusses most of the stories told about people in Beowulf,
in some cases several together. I list below, in Bonjour's categories,
only those stories in his list that are ostensibly "told"
(or in one case thought about) by persons in the world of the
poem. Line numbers refer to Klaeber's (1950)
edition. (1) Stories told about "Beowulf's Life and Geatish
History" include lines 419-24, 459-72, 499-603, 2153-89,
2426-2509, and 2910-3007; (2) "Historical, or Legendary,
Digressions Not Connected with Beowulf and the Geats" include
lines 867-915, 1709-24, 1924-60, 1063-1159, and 2020-69. Other
stories having generalized rather than specific protagonists
are related in Beowulf, for example, in lines 1724-57
and (Beowulf's own simile) 2444-62. These stories have the added
function of incorporating many divergent genres into the larger
epic structure of the poem. When Harris (1982)
suggests that Beowulf can be understood in some sense
as an anthology of the genres of its period, he is echoing the
idea of epic-as-cultural-encyclopedia that Havelock (1963,
esp. ch. 4).
3.
LeVine (1984:68) proposes that the
slippery concept "culture" represents "a consensus
on a wide variety of meanings among members of an interacting
community." Stories accepted by the culture confirm and
endorse these shared meanings.
4.
This idea is familiar to us from Yates' (1974)
well-known study, documenting the use in Renaissance culture,
both in metaphor and in practice, of "rooms" in which
to store memory. Swiderski (1995)
offers an ethnographic study of actual contemporary rooms that
house objects evoking vivid memories of cultural and personal
past experiences, objects central to people's stories about themselves.
5.
Holocaust stories are receiving particular attention these days
as the final survivors, far from the country of their birth,
approach the end of their lives. Myerhoff (1982:100)
discusses her work with a group of elderly Jews, immigrants from
Eastern Europe, whose group identity is "acutely self-conscious
. . . making itself up, knowing that this is going on, doing
it well, and appreciating the process." The main means by
which they achieve this construction of their group identity
is through orally performed individual life-histories (Myerhoff
1982:101).
6.
Toews (1986:291-97) cites Jones'
biography while tracing Freud's developing use of the Oedipus
myth. He analyses how Freud adapted the story as a life-narrative
for himself.
7.
Berger and Leicester (1974:37-79)
study these exchanges in detail, observing that "Beowulf's
address to Hrothgar (lines 407-55) threatens to swell his ethos
and the value of his offer, his risking of life beyond the limits
of repayment. During this speech, and before his beot,
he reminds Hrothgar that Heorot 'stands empty and useless,' and
he says that he came because the 'best wise earls' of the Geats,
knowing his strength, advised him to volunteer his services to
the king. Hrothgar meets this with a different account (lines
457-72), reminding him of a prior obligation" (Berger
and Leicester 1974:47-48). See also Bjork's (1994) fine and
detailed analysis of the exchange function of speeches in "Speech
as Gift in Beowulf."
8.
For a recent alternative view see Griffith (1995).
9.
Peltz speaks of how "re-membering, constructing a
life, composing a whole" is "a much more complicated
phenomenon than merely looking back" (Peltz
1995:30); it is "refashioning an identity for the present"
(Peltz 1995:42). As Beowulf lies
dying, he negoiates a coherent and positive self, as many persons
do on their deathbed, by linking the fragments of his life into
a reassuring whole.
10.
Hill (1995:110) refers to the complexities
of cultural understandings of "the inner self."
11.
Béroul's Romance of Tristran (Tristan) is most
recently edited with a facing-page translation by Gregory (1992). In this particular scene toward
the end of the fragmentary romance, the lovers have been dwelling
exiled in the Forest of Morrois for some time. King Mark, having
been told where they are asleep together, sets out with the firm
intention of killing them, but when he finds them sleeping clothed
and with Tristan's sword between them, he decides that they cannot
be unchaste, and his wrath turns to pity. Intending to be kind,
he places his glove where it shelters Iseut's face from the sun,
exchanges rings with her (noting how thin and frail her fingers
have become), and exchanges swords, leaving his where Tristan's
was. When the lovers awaken, they recognize the objects as Mark's,
but totally misconstrue their meaning, taking them as Mark's
threatening reaffirmation of sovereignty (Gregory
1992:94-101). For discussion, see Baron (1972).
12.
Quoting from Mercadel (1990:225),
Herman (1997:1047) explains the
term: "A script is 'a description of how a sequence of events
is expected to unfold . . . . A script is similar to a frame
in that it [a script] represents a set of expectations . . .
. Frames differ from scripts in that frames are used to represent
a point in time. Scripts represent a sequence of events that
take place in a time sequence'." In this article Herman
shows how these AI concepts may be useful for literary analysis.
For an introduction to the theory aimed at psychologists, the
reader may consult Mandler (1984);
and Palmer and Jankowiak (1998)
put the theory to an ethnographic purpose. I have wondered whether
the adoption of story as a private script is a strategy particularly
employed by women, especially when isolated for some reason within
their own group or, as queens frequently were, within an alien
group. Though Heilbrun (1988:43
and elsewhere) refers repeatedly to women's isolation, she touches
only briefly on how stories may offer both consolation and direction
in such isolation (e.g., Heilbrun 1988:74).
In her recent pseudonymous novel An Imperfect Spy by "Amanda
Sharp," however, Heilbrun's secondary protagonist, the "spy"
referred to in the title, who has isolated herself from her former
group through a simulated suicide, claims to be modelling her
life on the career of John le Carré's spy Smiley. But
we discover at the end of the novel that she has "really"
been following a Demeter script, and at the same time her imprisoned
daughter discovers that she has been perceiving herself as a
victim like Hardy's Tess, and breaks out from that role. There
is much to explore in regard to both the inspiration and insidiousness
of famous stories as scripts that women, especially when isolated,
may adopt as their own, either to their benefit or their harm.
13.
The Finnsburg affair is summarized by Klaeber (1950:231-32).
Overing (1990) and Hill (1997)
interpret Hildeburh's position at the end of the episode in diametrically
opposed ways. Overing sees Hildeburh as finally "a completely
passive image," a chess-piece, an object (Overing
1990:86), with "nowhere to go, no space or place to
be" (Overing 1990:87), whereas
Hill (1997:265) sees her as able
now to "assume a once familiar place in the world, where
her legal status has in fact remained."
14.
Beaty observes the echoing on the words secg and munde
in the Sigemund dragon-slaying digression, lines 867-71 of Beowulf,
but he does not notice that these words echo the components of
Sigemund's own name, "victory-hand," a name that thereby
honors Beowulf's deed of bare-handedly tearing off Grendel's
arm. The device may explain the poet's adoption of this particular
name when in other versions of the story the dragon was slain
by Sigemund's son Sigurd.
15.
The fragment is edited by Klaeber (1950:243-49),
and more recently by Fry (1974).
16.
Hill (1995:26-27) implies that the
Finnsburg episode is a victory song for the Danes in large part
because Hildeburh herself goes home avenged for her grievous
loss.
17.
This interpretation follows that by Robinson (1985:77-78),
endorsed by Clark (1990:89).
18.
Perhaps influenced by Renoir's (1990:299)
view of Wealhtheow as a "worried mother in a fragile world,"
Clark (1990:87. 89) twice refers
to the Danish queen in her speeches as "nearly distraught."
I see her more in terms of the ritually potent figure proposed
by Damico (1984), or the politically
and socially astute woman that Bloomfield (1994:195)
evokes. Forceful, smart, and tactful, Wealhtheow is using her
traditional role to take steps to ensure the kind of future that
she desires. Clark (1990:89) points
out that while Beowulf does not reply to Wealhtheow at this time,
as one might expect him to do, his farewell speech to Hrothgar
at lines 1818-39 "makes an answer to Wealhtheow's petition
which the queen should have approved and which Hrothgar receives
with deep gratitude." Beowulf promises to come with a "forest
of spears" (line 1834) should Hrothgar have need of aid,
and assures him that his son Hrethric will find friends if he
chooses to visit the Geats.
19.
Narrative songs understood as warnings or other secret messages
are occasionally found in literature, and presumably also in
life since such narrative can function as a private code. In
Book 13 of History of the Danes Saxo Grammaticus tells
the story of how in the year 1131 a Saxon minstrel "sought
to forewarn" Kanutus (King Knut Lavard) of an ambush that
he knew had been planned, by means of "a noble song"
about Grimhild's treachery toward her brothers in the famous
Volsung story (Christiansen 1980:127-28).
Similarly, the folk song "Follow the Drinking Gourd"
(the Great Bear constellation) has been said to offer secret
advice to escaped slaves to go north. Simpson (1968:155-206)
assembles and translates the Scandinavian stories about Hrolf
Kraki (Hrothulf) and his deeds.
20.
I have used much of the material in this section concerning Thryth
to a different purpose elsewhere (Osborn
1998:30-35).
21.
"Indeed, the wise Queen Hygd of Beowulf even bears
a name (like Alfred's Wisdom) which attests to her mental powers"
(Robinson 1993:162). Malone (1941:357) suggests that "the intellectual
(or at least reflective) twist which the poet gives to Hygd's
behavior was in all likelihood inspired by the queen's name."
Klaeber (in Dobbie 1953:215) objects
that using the word wegan ("weigh") not recorded
in this metaphoric use elsewhere in Old English, to represent
Hygd actively thinking about Thryth is "probably too modern
in conception." Yet it seems to me that her meaningful name
itself answers such an objection. In fact, Bosworth and Toller
(1898:1184; 1921:740)
do show metaphorical use of the word, and in my view line 12
of the seventh "Metrical Charm" (Dobbie
1953:125), uses the word-element wæge, meaning
"weight" (as used on a scales) in a similarly metaphorical
way; line 126 supports this interpretation. Cleasby and Vigfusson
(1957:689) point out that a metaphorical
meaning of the Icelandic verb vega, cognate of Old English
wegan, is pervasive in the sagas. King Alfred uses another
vivid metaphor for mental activity , when near the end of Preface
to the Pastoral Care he refers to our minds as hunting dogs
let loose on the track, that is, the written works, of our predecessors
(Bright 1966:27). The title for
my essay comes from the sentence in Alfred's Preface preceding
this one.
22.
Klaeber makes the two words mod and þryð
into the compound name "Modþryð" and finds
nothing to alleviate the suddenness of the digression. For an
extensive discussion of this "Modthryth" crux and the
various opinions about it by previous commentators and editors,
see Dobbie (1953:214-15). Like Hygd,
Thryth is not known as an Anglo-Saxon name in its simplex form
(Sisam 1965:84), but it is exactly
equivalent to Latin Drida (Klaeber
1950:197). The word is found as a second element in several
compound names apparently associated in some way with the story
at hand (Klaeber 1950:199). For
a brief discussion of the persons thus named and of possible
connections of Thryth's story with the plot of the Castaway Queen
romances, see where I (Osborn 1998:30-35
and notes) refer to previous scholarship, especially the extensive
studies by Rickert and Chambers.
23.
That Hygd, like Thryth, has become wise after adolescent difficulties
may be suggested both by the possibilities in her name (hygd
in excess becomes oferhygd, "pride" or "arrogance,"
as in line 1740) and by the word that further describes her in
line 1927; she is welþungen, perhaps "turned
to good purpose." If so, this would further explain her
having chosen Thryth's story to "weigh" in terms of
her own life.
24.
See Osborn (1998:259, n. 20) for
detailed discussion of the crux of the word sinfrea, translated
"great lord" at line 1934. I now think that "great
lord" may refer primarily to rank in that no man in Thryth's
home court has status equal to her father, that is, none is sufficiently
high-ranking, in Thryth's view, to aspire to her hand. Analogues
of the story, and possibly the phrasing of line 1934, are suggestive,
however, of a suppressed narrative concerning incest.
25.
The verb onhohsnod[e] occurs uniquely here. Though other
suggestions have been made for its meaning, Chambers (1920:96)
says that "the best suggestion is that of Bugge [Tidsskr
viii.302] who took onhohsnian as "hamstring: [cf.
O.E. hohsinu: Mod. Eng. hock, hough: M.H.G. (ent)
hahsenen]. Bugge interpreted the word in a figurative
sense, "stop or hinder." Despite Irving's view, however,
it is not Thryth whom Offa metaphorically hamstrings or otherwise
chastises in some unpleasant way; what he puts a stop to is the
stories about her unpleasant character. Scholars almost universally
refer to Thryth's character as negative, without giving her credit
for improving that character, and Schucking (in Dobbie
1953:214) even bases emendation of the text on the contrast
between Hygd and Thryth: "She, the good queen of the people,
did [not] have the pride of Thryth." Yet, at the end of
the poet's account of her, Thryth has become a model queen, like
young Hygd.
26.
There is a growing awareness that magnanimity or generosity is
a key concept of Beowulf. "To be generous is to be
noble; to be noble is to be generous," says Hill (1995:86),
citing studies by both Clark (1990)
and D. H. Green, to which should now be added Bloomfield (1994). These four scholars emphasize
that the word milde in Old English and related languages
means "generous," not "kind" as Klaeber glosses
it. Bloomfield (1994:190-191) offers
an excellent historical survey of the scholarship on this word
in connection with Wealhtheow's request to Hrothgar that he speak
to Beowulf mildum wordum (line 1172) and her later assertion
to Beowulf that the Danes are each true to each other, modes
milde (line 1229). Bloomfield (1994:192)
argues that in each case, as well as the other times that the
word milde is used in the poem, generosity and reciprocal
loyalty are the issue, not some sort of feminine gentleness alien
to the spirit of the poem and its culture. Hill (1995:181,
n. 6) notes that the words milde, liðe and monðwærust
are "terms of horizontal, kinship-like amity in Beowulf,
terms special to the conception of generous kingship embodied
in Beowulf as perceived by his people." He argues, however,
that "Wealhtheow does urge a 'kindness' of a sort from Beowulf
toward her sons: her language comes from the world of kinship
ties, not the warrior band (comitatus)" (John. M.
Hill, pers. comm., 9/18/97). It is on the basis of this understanding
that Hill (1995:141) is able to
say that at the hero's funeral his people "emphasize Beowulf's
socially cohesive behaviours."
27.
Howlett finds the name "Æthelstan" hidden in
the text and argues that Beowulf was either composed by
King Alfred's chaplain Æthelstan or possibly "as a
present to Æthelstan ætheling in 897"
(Howlett 1997:540), perhaps with
"inculcating heroic behavior" in mind (Howlett
1997:537). Niles (1977:8) lists
a number of distinguished "neotraditionalist scholars"
(as he calls them) who "tend to hold that the heroic world
of the poem offers models in conduct in the world that the audience
inhabited."
28.
"Shunning," for example, is regarded as dreadful punishment
within the close-knit Amish culture. We see much the same thing
dramatized in the Kingston story referred to earlier, causing
the unwed mother in Japan to drown herself and her baby. Shunning
appears also to be a cause of much current teenage suicide, when
not to be an accepted member of an "in" group erodes
the child's sense of self-worth. Adams (1853:239)
refers to the crisis of alienation when observing that the worst
thing (worse than poverty and more painful than gout) is not
to be seen: "To be wholly overlooked, and to know it, are
intolerable." Myerhoff (1982:101)
also makes the point that an important aspect of the work of
the group she is recording is to combat their cultural invisibility:
"Life histories are seen here as giving opportunities to
allow people to become visible."
29.
The term "The Quixotic Principle," referring to the
way previous literature can influence the character and actions
of persons in a story (as Don Quixote is influenced by his reading
of romances), was apparently coined by Levin (1970:45-66).
Sarbin (1982:167) elaborates the
idea and applies it to what he calls "belletristic"
psychology, thus still focusing on literary (non-oral) storytelling.
He does, however, apply the concept to real persons' role-taking
under the influence of literature they have read.
30.
Although no study of the subject as such as been done, Rodman
(1993:173-91) demonstrates brilliantly
how the idle questions of a visiting anthropologist in the New
Hebrides archipelago were understood allegorically by the young
man whom he was interrogating, and then acted upon by the latter
many years later to establish an important social movement in
Ambae. Analogies to this mode of understanding the words of others
as "qaltavalu, literally 'hidden talk,' a form of
communication based on a system of implicit meanings" (Rodman 1993:184) are found in all cultures,
and can lead to remarkable misunderstandings if the system of
meanings is not shared. "Hidden talk" is certainly
found in the culture of Germania; one thinks, for example, of
the oblique manner in which slayings are sometimes announced
in the sagas (notably in Amleth's Saga and Ref's Saga).
It is this ability to understand discourse allegorically and,
in particular, to perceive narrative as a personal life-message,
that I suggest warrants study.
31.
As Malinowski (1922:xviii) says
in the forward to Argonauts of the Western Pacific, for
which Frazer wrote the preface, "My first love for ethnology
is associated with the reading of the 'Golden Bough,' then in
its second edition"; probably Malinowski's chapters on native
myth and magic are the most quoted part of his book. Rosaldo
(1980:14) is ironic about her own
expectations raised by the classical texts of ethnology when
she confesses, "Having come, in part, in search of an exotic
world that would unsettle our conventional understandings, we
were initially distressed to find that Ilongots did not tell
nightly myths, make intricate plans for ritual feasts, or in
their daily lives reveal concern for detailed webs of ancient
wisdom."
32.
A frequently cited example of the use of narrative to incite
warriors comes from a passage deriving from Snorri Sturluson's
Heimskringla in "The Sworn-Brother's Saga":
"On the day of the Battle of Stiklastad [July 29, 1030],
the king [Olaf Tryggvason] asked Thormod to recite some poem
to entertain the troops, and he recited the Old Lay of Biarki.
The king said, 'Well chosen is the poem you have recited because
of the events which will take place here today. I shall give
it the title of Exhortation of the Housecarls" (Hollander 1949:172). In his discussion
of this use of song (or poem) de Vries (1963:250-52)
also mentions examples from Tacitus' Germania and other
early sources, and Taillefer's supposed recitation of the Song
of Roland before William the Conquerer's army at the Battle
of Hastings. See also Duggan (1986).
33.
Salisbury (1997:290) observes that
"much of the critical discourse on fairytales swirls around
their acculturating potential for a young audience," and
she cites Bruno Bettelheim, Stith Thompson, Max Luthi, Alison
Lurie, and Kay Stone. Fairytales, of course, are not presented
as history, and in any case it appears that there exists no comprehensive
study of the obvious and pervasive use of narratives of all genres,
those perceived as "true" as well as symbolic stories
like myths and fairytales, for the construction of personal identity.
Bruner and Weisser (1991:21) remark
on this lack: "The daunting task that remains now is to
show in detail how, in particular instances, narrative organizes
the structure of human experience - how, in a word, 'life' comes
to imitate 'art' and vice versa." More recently, disciplines
other than mine have taken up Bruner and Weisser's challenge,
as these notes demonstrate (for example, n.
29). Within the context of written texts, probably the most
haunting example of the imitation of art by life is the account
in Dante's Inferno of how the passionate love of Paolo
and Francesca was instigated by their reading together the story
of Lancelot. Readers of this essay will no doubt remember similar
experiences in which a shared story triggered emotion. Girard
(1978:2-8) discusses the Dantean
and analogous "mimetic desires" (his term).
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