the wise God all awards with difference,
on many an earl great honor lays,
wealth at will, but woe on others.
35—To say of myself the story now,
I was singer[1] erewhile to sons-of-Heoden,
dear to my master, Deor my name.
Long were the winters my lord was kind;
I was happy with clansmen; till Heorrenda[2] now
40by grace of his lays[3] has gained the land
which the haven-of-heroes[4] erewhile gave me.
That he[5] surmounted: so this may I!
II
WIDSITH
THIS word, beyond reasonable doubt, means “far-wanderer”; the poem surely describes the life and defines the vocation of a typical roving singer of the older times. How its parts were put together, what credit goes to its historical and biographical statements, how one is to reconstruct the wanderer’s itinerary, are questions still under lively debate;[6] they are not to be discussed now
- ↑ In the original, Scop. He was court-singer to the king of the Heodenings. See Widsith, v. 21.
- ↑ Horant is the sweet singer in Gudrun (a late offshoot of the Hild story) whose song makes all the birds cease their own lays and listen to him.
- ↑ Literally but awkwardly —
lay-craft’s man, the land has received. . . .
- ↑ The king. Frequent kenning in the Beowulf.
- ↑ Who? Is the refrain here a kind of echo? Is this Deor who surmounted his troubles, as also may the hearer or reader who repeats the poem? Was the whole a general poem of consolation?
- ↑ Well discussed by Dr. W. W. Lawrence in Modern Philology for October, 1906, who has shed light on several dark places in the poem. The short introduction, and the equally short epilogue, were almost surely written in England.
