>>6141315>tragedy, the moral purpose??>>6144151>Iron Age setting>THE HERO DIESyou should also include a random woman, the "Geatish Woman", she appears, cries RAPE laments and wails about the fate of war captive sex slaves and then recedes mysteriously into the background
>Heofon rēce swealg>HEAVEN SWALLOWS THE REEKI imagine this is the Beowulf equivalent to "imagine the smell".
As with all these translations the meanings and atmosphere evoked can differ quite a bit. I use the Seamus Heaney one which can be quite idiosyncratic but it is presented as a convenient bilingual edition. I particularly enjoy the Beowulf verdict on Iron Age monetary policy and central banking, as presented below
***
The Geat people built a pyre for Beowulf,
stacked and decked it until it stood four-square,
hung with helmets, heavy war-shields
and shining armour, just as he had ordered.
Then his warriors laid him in the middle of it,
On a height they kindled the hugest of all
funeral fires; fumes of woodsmoke
billowed darkly up, the blaze roared
and drowned out their weeping, wind died down
and flames wrought havoc in the hot bone-house,
burning it to the core. They were disconsolate
and wailed aloud for their lord’s decease.
A Geat woman too sang out in grief;
with hair bound up, she unburdened herself
of her worst fears, a wild litany
of nightmare and lament: her nation invaded,
enemies on the rampage, bodies in piles,
slavery and abasement. Heaven swallowed the smoke.
(...)
And they buried torques in the barrow,
and jewels and a trove of such things as trespassing men
had once dared to drag from the hoard.
They let the ground keep that ancestral treasure,
gold under gravel, gone to earth,
as useless to men now as it ever was.
Pic related is from the Robert Eggers Northman (2022) I wasn't too convinced by this kingslayer scene they did the whole samurai struck by arrows in snow forest lol it felt a bit too Hollywood overacting. I think it would have been more dramatic if the assassins just rode up and hacked off his arm or something, without saying anything at all
