Anglo-Saxon Exclamations

[aeolium]

I like this story querying whether the first word in Beowulf should be exclamatory:

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/news/listen-beowulf-opening-line-misinterpreted-for-200-years-8921027.html

My old copy, edited Wyatt & revised Chambers, does not show an exclamation mark after "HWAET". Chambers' introduction, quoting Wyatt about the punctuation of the text, says "I have, wherever possible, done away with parentheses, and with our modern meretricious marks of exclamation." The photograph of the first page of the manuscript in that edition shows no punctuation though the first letters in HWAET WE GARDEna are capitalised.

Any views from any resident experts in Anglo-Saxon?

(Who used "What ho!" as a translation of "Hwaet!"? P G Wodehouse?)

[richardfinegold]

I'm no Anglo Saxon expert, but it seems "Yo" would work better with modern audiences.
Imagine a rap beat in the background and a a Tupac Shakur look -alike, striding onto a stage saying "Yo! Listen up! I'm going to tell you about the Meanest Dude in the Hood!"
The BBC would be all over it.

[french frank]

I like this story querying whether the first word in Beowulf should be exclamatory:

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/news/listen-beowulf-opening-line-misinterpreted-for-200-years-8921027.html

My old copy, edited Wyatt & revised Chambers, does not show an exclamation mark after "HWAET". Chambers' introduction, quoting Wyatt about the punctuation of the text, says "I have, wherever possible, done away with parentheses, and with our modern meretricious marks of exclamation." The photograph of the first page of the manuscript in that edition shows no punctuation though the first letters in HWAET WE GARDEna are capitalised.

Any views from any resident experts in Anglo-Saxon?

Not an expert. My rather commoner 1957 Penguin (by D Wright) does indeed begin, Hear!

Can't quite understand what Bosworth Toller is saying. But that presumably not the last word :-) - it may have to be rewritten now!

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I'm quite taken by this suggestion: fond as I am of the traditional "Listen!" it does break up the rhythm of the opening; the new suggestion would move the stress to the word "Dena" (= "Danes") which makes good sense ("Hwaet we Gar-Dena" ... -.) and the alliteration "hWaet We" (balanced by "Gar Dena in Gear-Dagum") flows more clearly than after the pause which should follow the "Hush!" of the "traditional" reading. The BT would suggest an opening equivalent to "Oh we have heard of the Spear-wielding Danes of days gone by" (sort-of) which gives a good sense of awe and enthusiasm in the narrator's voice. I think Dr Walkden's comment "I’d like to say that the interpretation I have put forward should be taken into account by future translations,” is a fair one.

[jean]

There could have been no exclamation mark in a manuscript of that period, so it's all guesswork.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Oh, I think "guesswork" is far too harsh, Jean: "interpretation" of "possibilities" (that can be "taken into account") is fairer.


(Which is subtly but tellingly different from

Oh! I think "guesswork" is far too harsh, Jean: etc. The tone of voice in the second suggests that I'm much more "narked" by your comment than the gentler comma of the first.

Dr Walkden's suggestion offers new ways of reading the same words (which is why I'm attracted to it - it offers fresh responses) but these aren't based on "guesses". (Any more - or less - than was Grimm's original use of an exclamation mark. The rhythm of the lines and half-lines are a good "clue".)

[french frank]

"interpretation" of "possibilities" (that can be "taken into account") is fairer.

In any case, it isn't a matter of 'guesswork' in some arbitrary fashion. You read the text as it stands, and familiarity with that text and other texts allows one to see the range of possibilities, so even 'guessing' is evidence-based. And then making the evidence clear seems to be what the editorial task is about. The Independent's headline and caption perhaps overstate the absolute certainty of the case?

Further discussion here, including from George Walkden, introducing the factual basis which led to his conclusion.

[aeolium]

In any case, it isn't a matter of 'guesswork' in some arbitrary fashion. You read the text as it stands, and familiarity with that text and other texts allows one to see the range of possibilities, so even 'guessing' is evidence-based. And then making the evidence clear seems to be what the editorial task is about. The Independent's headline and caption perhaps overstate the absolute certainty of the case?

Further discussion here, including from George Walkden, introducing the factual basis which led to his conclusion.

Yes, I think the article-writer makes the issue out to be more black-and-white than it should be. Walkden appears to be more circumspect in suggesting that translators at least "take into account" his interpretation rather than assume that the standard interpretation - the first word as exclamation - is correct.

Thanks for including that link to further discussion. I agree with ferney that the altered sense which Walkden is suggesting seems to read (or rather, sound) better than when the line is broken up, and that the summary of Walkden's reasoning is at least plausible. I wonder if we will see a translation which is based on that interpretation.

[DracoM]

Public singers often use a strong percussive first note / bar to draw attention to their upcoming performance.
Given that Beowulf was probably meant to be recited aloud, maybe even chanted in part, then maybe the 'HWAET' is possibly a cry for attention - as in the Penguin: 'Ha!'.
Heaney has 'So.'

[french frank]

Public singers often use a strong percussive first note / bar to draw attention to their upcoming performance.
Given that Beowulf was probably meant to be recited aloud, maybe even chanted in part, then maybe the 'HWAET' is possibly a cry for attention - as in the Penguin: 'Ha!'.
Heaney has 'So.'

One would expect (some) other early poems to begin in the same way because it seems as if it would have been a convention. Anyone know of other examples?

[DracoM]

Arma Virumque CANO?

Hwæt, ic swefna cyst secgan wylle, - 'Dream of the Rood'?

[french frank]

Arma Virumque CANO?

Hwæt, ic swefna cyst secgan wylle, - 'Dream of the Rood'?

Maybe that will have to be reconsidered too!? Several editions print it as an exclamation, several other don't.

Hwæt! Ic swefna cyst secgan wylle

How does the meaning change without the exclamation?

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

One would expect (some) other early poems to begin in the same way because it seems as if it would have been a convention. Anyone know of other examples?

The trouble is that, whilst about 30,000 lines of Anglo-Saxon poetry that have survived (by far the greatest amount of poetry surviving from Europe in the first millennium) most of it is religious - The Dream of the Rood, Caedmon's Hymn Judith etc. (Which figures when you remember that the people writing down poems from an oral tradition were monks - Beowulf originally survived in a collection of "monster" stories, and these were given a Christian gloss; the references to Christianity in the poem we have may not have been in the original telling, but added when the poem was [literally] "transcribed".) The nature of religious poetry is that it wasn't usually told in the "festive" environment that poems like Beowulf were told. If "Hwaet!" is an exclamation to get the audience's attention, then such a (literally) start wouldn't have been necessary for the recitation of a religious poem.

The other heroic poems (like The Battle of Maldon) exist only in fragments - and their first lines are missing, so we can't say whether they began with a similar attention-grabbing "chord". It might be relevant (ie, it might not!) to bear in mind that the Gododdin doesn't.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Hwæt, ic swefna cyst secgan wylle, - 'Dream of the Rood'?

You're right, it does! "Listen! I want to tell you about the most wonderful of dreams ... "

"Ah, I want to tell you about ... " ? (Different tone - less urging, more "blissful"?)

[french frank]

It might be relevant (ie, it might not!) to bear in mind that the Gododdin doesn't.

I was looking that up just now :-). The thing about Old Welsh poems is tha they are written in a completely different style, even the narrative ones. Stylised, gnomic (who knows what they mean?). I'm not an expert here but I'd say even the oral style doesn't very often seem to have an obvious first person singer addressing his audience.