Purvis Beowulf

Editor's Preface

Upon the release of Maria Dahvana Headley’s Beowulf, critics raved about its new feminist approach. What these reviews failed to realize was that Headley was entering into a tradition that already existed of feminist approaches to Beowulf of both the scholarly and translatory nature. While Headley’s translation was groundbreaking as the first complete translation of Beowulf by a woman, the praise of a feminist, post-colonial reading cast a shadow over previous feminist scholars of the poem, seemingly doomed to always play second fiddle to Headleywulf. This was in no way the fault of Headley herself but rather the lack of non-scholarly awareness of any Beowulf texts outside of Seamus Heaney’s. One such text that has not been properly recognized is Meghan Purvis’s 2013 translation.

Purvis’s translation is not a complete translation and there are certainly some scholars who would argue that it is not a translation at all. Playing with theme and form, Purvis asks if Beowulf can be told in a non-traditional manner. Foreshadowing her fellow mere-wife admirer, like Headley, Purvis rejects strict meter and instead demonstrates a variety of poetic forms. Dividing the epic into smaller poems, each with their own title such as “SCOP” and “BEOWULF’S INVENTORY,” it is fragments and moments that are strung together between a cover that seem to harken back to the fragmented remains of Old English poetry itself. Emphasizing the voices of the margins, the voices that are “drowned out” by the scop singing about the hero, Purvis gives voice to Grendel’s Mother, to the nameless thanes who follow Beowulf across the whale road, to Wealhtheow, to the dragon.

One striking feature of Purvis’s translation is her use of the second person and the first person mixed between the third-person narrative. While there is the presence of a first-person narrator in the original which Purvis maintains, there are new voices that slip in and out of the story. At moments, a nameless voice will burst forth into the lines, cutting attention away from the main story and to a smaller moment that is only implied in the original. These “asides” break onto page but then slip away like a whisper in their often italicized font. For example, we hear the voice of a soldier that is left behind to watch after Beowulf dives after Grendel’s mother: After he dove, we sat on the cliffside, watching the ripples calm, / then ripple again…I saw Hrothgar leave…”

Purvis makes space for the voices that could have been both by interrupting the central tale but also in the physical space of her text. Italics, line breaks, sharp indents, floating words, capitalization—Purvis makes use of the physical page more other Beowulf translators. For this reason, it is difficult to capture digitally what she has done physically. In many ways, Purvis’s styling of her translation echoes back to the medieval manuscript tradition and the importance of the physical page. The black text swims forward through the white sea of the page, in many cases looking as if the text has done battle with the blank space.

In editing her translation, I have tried to maintain the sense of form—or lack thereof—as much as possible within this digital format. All stylistic decisions have been made to recreate as accurate an experience in a digital, scrolling format as one can.

To purchase the book from Penned in the Margins, click here.

For viewing of the TEI encoding click here. Please use Google Chrome to access.

Amelia Lehosit, Editor, 2023

A man falls asleep, his bed beneath a hung shield of bright wood.

Who made it for him? Who will remember it after tonight?

He goes to sleep for the last time, brimful from feasting, glad

for his bed, his armor set above him, a scarecrow to the night.

Identical under a blanket to the rest but not quite the same — he

squinted

when he laughed, he had a crooked thumb, but in a story set tight1

with blood and bone, we forget these, we pare these things

away. This one would pay dearly for his beauty sleep,2

for out in the dark, something of Grendel was waking.

His mother had met him at the end of his fleeing,

in the water-home Cain's mistake had left to them.

Grendel was torn apart, and she came looking for the meat

of her son, hanging from hooks in the ceiling.3

Her home was a death-house, was becoming Grendel's tomb;

the hell-dam came — and was she less frightening

for being a woman? — hardly.4 The men in the dark room

screamed out that "he" was here, too caught in pain5

and fear to see the claw at the end of an arm smooth

and hairless, sharp teeth in a softer jaw. There were drawn blades,

shields raised fast — helms sat watching, there was no time

for armor. She was quick — smart enough for a snatch-and-grab,

an eye for an eye, arm for long arm. She went to the night;

the man she carried made no sound. He was dear to Hrothgar —

a companion who had been with him for countless fights

and shared victories, now blood-remnants spattered

on what must surely be a deathbed. Don't look for Beowulf —

he is not here, he went to another bed after the treasures

at the feast. There were unending uproar in Heorot.

She had set a bloody brand under their old feud,

carried a beloved hand out to the crows and wolves.

Morning came blind and blinking, sorrow renewed.

I have never liked this kind of dealing, one bone

for another.7 The wise king looked about as if counting;

one day, his dearest thane was there, the next gone,

time being counted out like knotes along a backbone.

Troubles left, circled in the air, and returned.

Beowulf was fetched to the chamber in the full force of daylight.

He came to the hall with his troop, floor-timber creaking,

and asked if Hrothgar had spent a pleasant night,

blinking wide-eyed. He saw the grooves in the doorjamb.8

Do not speak of joy in my presence; it slices my tongue

as I form the word. Sorrow has come back — ÆSCHERE,

my confidant and my counselor, is dead. We fought together

years ago, and the ringing of his sword against steel

has always sounded in the same key as mine.

Now he is slain — carried off, like so many before him.

and we thought the job was finished. We left the roots,

Beowulf, and they have returned — this is her handshake9

in return for the one you gave her son. He fell in war

and the blow has come back — she was avenged him,

and now this debt hangs heavy round my neck.

Out in the moors, past the town walls, we see such things —

the two border-walkers who keep the lost places. One is a woman,

or the form of one, one a man; and the two walk an exiled path,

a road scrubbed clean of righteousness. The male is called Grendel,

and I hope to God he has no brothers in barrows or badger-dens,

no father to complete their twisted family tree.

They live on slopes left to the wolves, grey headlands

where wind takes off the tree-tops and the mountain stream falls

into darkness, under the shadow of the cliffs. Not four miles from here

a mere lies in a rimed grove. A tree leans out over the water,

roots curling back on the hillside like whitening knuckles.

At night the lake drinks light from the stars: things grow blacker,

the water shimmers with a skin of fire. No man or child lives

who knows the paths along that riverbed. I have seen a stag

refuse to leap to safety — a bunch of its haunches, jumping

to ledges below, and my hounds would have gone hungry.

It turned from the edge, nostrils flared in terror,

and planted its hooves. Even with my dog at its neck it fell

where it stood, at the cliff's edge, for the rest to take.

The water from the lake stretches up in the wind, pulling at clouds,

the air is an ice-cold veil. The sky weeps: this is not a pleasant place,

but it is yours, Beowulf, if you come for that creature.

Choke back your tears, old man.

his contempt for weakness — the curse

of a club foot, the betrayal of time10

We'll do better to avenge your friend

that to mourn him; a clenched fist

is manlier than a wiped eye.11

we line up behind you, curling fingers

Death comes to all of us, but a name

that lasts after death is the best bridge

to the next world we can hope for.

Let's follow the tracks. He

she, strong enough to kill

your best man, and a woman

will not escape into the brush,

or to the warren beneath the fields,

or into the trees — if the monster

stays they stay, and us always

with them on the seafloor,

we'll find him12 there.

The track was easy to follow — no footprints, no twin ruts

of dragged feet; the monster left a swath cut by bulk;

thistles at the path's edge capped with blood.

It stood out against the fens, a rope of scar tissue twisting

along an old man's back, following hills up into rocks,

a slope up to the cliff above a lake, an open mouth.

Their scout waited, white against a tree at the clifftop.

Æschere's head was next to him — hulled, discarded. Blood

wove below them, mist foaming and spitting at the troop.

Their warriors' knees buckled at the view below: water-dragons

cleaving waves, leathery skin of serpents laid out on the rocks,

catching what sun they could from the grey sky. They turned,

puffing up at the war-horn's song. One soldier drew an arrow,

leaning over the cliff to give muscle of his ash-bow room.

He hit a thing in the water low in its belly. Its fins flailed

and slowed; a strong wave rolled it onto a rock.

The men clenched their fists in revulsion: its swollen bulk,

snount crammed with teeth, blood leaking black into the lake.

Beowulf turned stonefaced to his chainmail, shaking it out,

war-cloth from a bloody clothesline. One of us helped put it on.13

Its weight clung to him, bone- and breast-plate settling.

next to each other, familiar. Next his helmet — he shook his head,

testing if the cap would stay on in the rush of water.

A boar along the helm-crest arched its back, defending.

alike against Frisian14 sword-bite or a monster's maw.

Unferth watched and handed him his own sword. Hrunting:

iron-edged, blood-tempered, it had never failed any man in battle.

Who knows what is in his heart?15 Perhaps my suspticious eyes

sell him short, perhaps he gave Beowulf his luck open-handed.

But he was afraid to kick through the waves himself, and we knew it.

He lost face that day. Beowulf spoke: Hrothgar, remember our words

when Æschere's blood gleamed on your door. If I don't come back,

send Hygelac what gold you would have sent with me.

When he sees it spread out, he'll know what I've done for you;

he'll know what you are worth. Hrunting will point as my compass

towards whichever fate the Lord sees fit to send me.

After this performance, he leapt off the cliff — no pause for an answer

or wait for applause, though I know he expected it —

our prayers went with him anyway. The surge took him.

It was a day before he saw the bottom. (Or did it merely feel

like one to Beowulf? The sun's path was hidden to all that day,

under sky or under stone.) Before he turned his face from the seafloor,

the creature was upon him — the water echoed his movement

like humming strands of a web, and she came, pulling the water,

seeing who disturbed its weft. She grabbed him, nails ready

to slice eddies of crimson, drops of copper cordial,

but his mail held: he twisted against her, a steely crab in his war-shell,

her fingers stabbed uselessly. The she-beast dragged him

through the spindly water-plants that fed on sea-sunk offal,

leaves whipping in their wake; Beowulf couldn't draw his sword.

She broke through ranks of monsters — horned creatures,

rows of flippers, twisted bodies knotting in rage at the sight of him —

but bite as they may, his protection held. Before he knew it

they were in a hall, the air fetid, rocks scratched out for a ceiling,

and all of it lit by — he turned his head. Something gleamed in the

dark.

Then she came, and all light blocked out in the grappling of bodies.

She swung an arm — Beowulf blocked with his battle-sword,

putting his weight into the swing. It should have cut her head in two,

thick-walled winter squash giving way to pulpy seeds within,

but the blow rang steel on steel, the blade twisted in his hand

like a tuning fork — the sword was useless. BBeowulf let it drop.

And round the fire after, he told us16 he never thought of his safety

as the sword clattered away, disappeared into the darkness,

he just tossed away his sword. Giving up a useless weapon: how brave,

but I toasted with the rest and kept my mouth shut.17

He grabbed her hair, twisting it between his knuckles,

threw her to the ground. She sprang, grabbing with pointed fingers,

and as he stepped back his ankle turned — he stumbled, fell

on the rocky floor, and the creature saw her chance. She sat on him,18

her knees weighted bags on his shoulders, stabbed at his chest

with a broad, bright dagger. She wanted to avenge her only son,

her only child, but Beowulf's corselet blocked her blade,

it would not let her in. Beowulf would have fallen to his end

deep under the earth, if it hadn't been for the war-mesh's help.19

Beowulf wriggled like the fish he had fought, found his feet —

and found something else, too: an ancient sword, edge still gleaming,

a worthy weapon left from the time of giants. No normal man

could wield it — no man living but one.

It sprang to his hand,

the animals along the ornamented sword-hilt turning upwards,

as if they and their wielder were all gripping the blade. Beowulf,

holding the sword of long-dead ghosts, in a stone coffin

under the water, in the belly of the earth, turned

in what might be his burial mound, and swung.20

The sword caught the monster hard on her neck, snapped it

with a noise like wire breaking. The tent-pole of her house

was broken; she fell to the floor. The sword shone red,

ice wrapped in rose petals, everything tipped in blood.

A light beckoned from the corner. Beowulf tensed,

sword across his chest like a benediction, ready to strike.

Grendel: greedy Grendel, man-devouring Grendel, lay on a bed

thick with marsh-leaves and filth, a husk among cattails

and reeds, the hole of his shoulder-knot towards Beowulf

like an open, beckoning palm. There was a debt to be paid.

Grendel's throat babbled silently as Beowulf took the head,

gave it the same answer as his arm. He dove into the water,

hilt and head in his hands. The water slowed, and stilled.

The creatures fled when they felt her death-throes.

The sea-cave's mouth was closed. I can tell you no more,

though I have seen it: there is no one left to speak for it now.21

After he dove, we sat on the cliffside, watching the ripples calm,

then ripple again. The water changed: churning, boiling on itself,

growing dark with blood. I saw Hrothgar's mouth go slack,

I saw men move their eyes away, staring at the horizon.

He was a good man, they said. We would not see his like again.

We knew the woman22 in the water had taken him.

The air grew colder, settling. I saw Hrothgar leave, leaning on his men;

an old man. We sat under the exhaled lung of the sky, sick at heart.

The blood on the giant's sword sank in, eating at the metal,

salt on an iron hinge; the sword an icicle at the world-turn of spring,

melting, winter's chains falling away. Frost-bonds unlocked.

In the dying light from his sword, Beowulf saw treasures —

gold piled in corners, jewels left where they lay like rotten fruit.

He left them all — everything except Grendel's head

and the hilt that was left. The blade was gone, melted away

from forge-lines outwards, the hell-dam's venom

taking the iron with it in a final blow. It was enough.

Soon he was swimming: an upwards dive, water passing unchecked

through a sea barren of dark creatures, barren of life.23

Beowulf made landfall with his cargo, the hilt heavy, head

already swelling with lake water. We ran to him then,

rejoicing in his body, dripping and unharmed.

We pulled off his armor, rivulets running back

to the lake, the water's face turned away, hidden

beneath clouds of staining blood. We went back with light spirits:

the country laid before us, orderly. The track was familiar.

Four men took Grendel's head on staves between them,

knotted him to it by his hair. We came to the hall,

brave in war and victory, Grendel's head dragging

along the floor, his cheek catching, cold and grey as stone.

Footnotes

Grendel's Mother

1. This line demonstrates Purvis's inclination to add details to the original text. Though she calls it a translation, the poem focuses less on accuracy in translation and more on presentation in poetic form.

2. Like Headley, Purvis's demonstrates a desire to include contemporary English phrases and stylings such as "beauty sleep."

3. The image conjured here is of a meatpacking plant in which works hang up large bits of meat on hooks. It creates an image of Grendel not being human, of him being animalistic in nature. Additionally, a contemporary audience might think of images in horror films such as Texas Chainsaw Massacre but here it is Beowulf, not Grendel, who is the butcher.

4. The use of enjambment throughout Purvis's text allows her to place emphasis on certain statements or moments that she finds important as is the case here. Though the first half of this line might have been more powerful had it been alone, the second part of the line mentioning "men" specifically juxtaposes the feminine versus the masculine.

5. The men in the hall confusing the gender of Grendel's mother is not present in the original text.

Wheel

6. The title of this poem very well could be a reference to the Boethian Wheel of Fortune, a popular figure in medieval thought but not referenced in the original Old English.

7. The first-person narration might either reflect the speech of Hrothgar or an omniscent narrator.

Hrothgar Summons Beowulf

8. Note how the stanza that is narrative and functions to explain the plot lacks any enjambment while the speech of Hrothgar, stylized with italics, has many moments of enjambment to represent being overfilled with emotion and sorrow.

9. A handshake, historically within Western manners, is seen as a masculine action but here is attributed to Grendel's mother as a match for Beowulf's own handshake. She is able to act with typically masculine mannerisms.

A Second Feat

10. The italics seem to be commentary from an external force symbolized by the italics, indentation, and the lack of punctuation.

11. Like Headley, Purvis's text focuses on drawing out presentations of masculinity found in the original text in order to critique them.

12. Note that, since this poem captures the speech Beowulf delivers to Hrothgar, Beowulf refers to "the monster" as a "he." Is this referencing to Grendel? Since he is talking about Æschere's capture, that interpretation does not make sense. Therefore, is Beowulf willingly dismissing or ignoring that Grendel's mother is a female?

A Track to the Mere

13. The use of the first person plural pronoun signals that this poem is told from the perspective of the nameless warriors.

14. The term Frisian refers to a Germanic group living in northwestern Germany and the Netherlands.

15. The Old English tells us that Unferth's boasting the previous night was a result of his being drunk and on the following day he was more aware of himself.

Stones Beneath the Sea

16. The italics draw the audience out of the moment of battle and reveal that this story is beind told second-hand by a nameless warrior similar to "The Track to the Mere."

17. The nameless narrator serves as a stand in for the critic of Beowulf. Here the speaker finds Beowulf's boasts of bravery to be unimpressive which Purvis also echoes within her edition.

18. As Liuzza points out, the translation of Grendel's mother sitting on Beowulf is popular but not necessarily correct. It is a frequently debated section of the Old English text.

19. Purvis removes any reference to the Christian God protecting Beowulf which is in the original Old English text.

20. In contrast to the other translations within this project, Purvis establishes a sense that there is a strong possibility that Beowulf could die. Due in part to her removal of God supporting Beowulf, Purvis's battle scene creates a tension between Beowulf and death that is not present in the original. In the Old English, it is assumed that he will win.

21. The shift to a first-person narration is interesting. Is this the unnamed warrior from before? Because it is not in italics, we might assume it is someone else. Is this Purvis? Or is this some other omniscient narrator filling in the place of scop?

22. The unnamed warrior refers to Grendel's mother not as a monster but as a woman unlike Hrothgar and Beowulf.

23. The repetition of "barren" forces audiences to ask "At what cost did Beowulf's victory come?"

BEOWULF

Anonymous

A new translation by

Meghan Purvis

2013

Editor's Preface

Footnotes