Steve Watson

Beowulf ll 3074 f

In continuing the Beowulf translation I came to ll. 3074f which are described as a locus desperatus in Klaeber in a long note (pp. 266 f.) There is no agreed upon solution to the problems of the text – which do not seem to be errors in transcription or copying, but in divining the sense of the poet.

The first problem is the sense of the word goldhwæte which occurs only in this poem. This seems to be largely solved now: other known compounds with –hwæt (see Wrenn’s glossary s.v.) indicate that ‘rich in gold’ or ‘abounding in gold’ is the intended sense. The earlier suggestion of enchantment is apparently now definitively dismissed.

There’s also the question of to whom the adjective applies. It may be referring back to the general hero of the passage, Beowulf, or to se secg on line 3071. If it refers to Beowulf, then the obvious sense of the passage is the implausible claim that Beowulf at this time was not rich in gold – and it takes a fair bit of force to get it to say something else. I think it’s easier to say that the passage continues the description of the curse on the hoard and that the person in question is the hypothetical robber (rather than the actual one.)

My own solution, which I have not seen elsewhere, is to consider the first half of the line 3074 to be grammatically separate from the remainder. I take gearwor to be a comparative in a consecutive phrase and read this as being contrastive with the condition that se secg might be a relatively poor man, and explicative of why he would attempt to take the treasure. As far as I can tell, this is grammatically possible, does not rely upon unattested meanings for goldhwæte or est and makes sense in the context of the poem at that point. So:

Næs he goldhwæte gearwor hæfde
Not gold-gifted was he: the more greedily he had 
Agendes est ær gesceawod.
the goods of the owner earlier gazed on.