|
Up in Smoke:
The Destruction of the Heroic World
|
Shira Loev
George Washington University,
Washington D.C.
…[O]ut of the curse of exile there sprang
ogres and elves and evil phantoms
and the giants too who strove with God
time and again until He gave them their reward.
─Beowulf
In Beowulf’s society of warrior bands and
battle-forged fraternity, being cast out is not only a
punishment but a curse. In this world, outsiders take the
shape of blood thirsty monsters and hideous, ungodly creatures,
waiting to prey on the righteous. However, the outsider’s role
is essentially definitional—without outsiders, how does one
define inclusion? The real danger to a community or a
brotherhood, then, is an imprudent leader. Whereas both
outcasts and kings are needed to define a community, only a king
can bring about its absolute downfall. While Grendel, a
monstrous descendent of Cain, causes much strife in the Danes’
mead-hall, the destruction is temporary. However, Beowulf’s
fatal and arguably misguided decision to fight the dragon leads
the Geats to total annihilation. For Beowulf’s poet, the
greatest threat to a society comes from within, and more
specifically, from the top.
Even before he introduces the monster by name, the
Beowulf poet makes Grendel’s exclusion from society quite
clear. He is a “prowler through the dark,” excluded from the
warmth, light, and joy of Heorot: “His hatred springs from the
pain of the have-not, the violent knocker at the door who wants
to return and possess or destroy the forbidden hall-joys that
torment him” (Berger and Leicester 52). Descended from Cain,
the Lord’s original outcast, Grendel and his gruesome kin
physically embody the evil they represent; their hideous,
inhuman forms reveal their inborn wickedness. Likewise, their
hellish territory in a far-off mere emphasizes their physical
separation and exile from civilization. Not even an animal will
risk entering this nightmarish place:
On its bank the heather-stepper halts:
the hart in flight from pursuing hounds
will turn to face them with firm-set horns
and die in the wood rather than dive
beneath its surface. That is no good place.
(1369-72)
A hunted animal, it would seem, has more of a place in human
civilization than Grendel and the other descendents of Cain.
The demonization of outcasts reflects the fear of
alien intrusion in a society in which brotherhood and belonging
are essential. In the poignant Anglo-Saxon poem “The Wanderer,”
the man with no place is “deserted and alone, lamenting his
unhappiness / day and night until death’s flood / brim[s] up in
his heart” (2267-70). And so, when an outcast becomes a
threat to the comfort of the community, as when Grendel attacks
Heorot, this outcast becomes a “powerful demon” and a
“God-cursed brute” (121). Grendel’s intrusion into Heorot is a
physical breach of society—a breach which necessitates horrific
results:
Greedy and grim, he grabbed thirty men
from their resting places and rushed to his lair,
flushed up and inflamed from the raid,
blundering back with the butchered corpses. (122-25)
The ghastliness of Grendel’s twelve-year “reign” would seem to
suggest that the intrusion of an outcast is the worst possible
affliction that could beset a society. However, as Berger and
Leicester suggest, “To create a family, a society, a dynasty, or
a gift-hall is to create those conditions which are inseparable
from, and have no meaning apart from, social order: treachery,
envy, isolation, and exile” (41). And so, a brotherhood or
community is inextricably bound to the exiles it creates:
without these exiles, inclusion would mean nothing.
So does the exile, which helps define the society,
have the ability to destroy it? Grendel, “the Lord’s outcast,”
fails to do so (168). Even during Grendel’s twelve-year
haunting of Heorot, Hrothgar holds court there by day. He even
receives Grendel’s eventual rival, Beowulf, in the mead-hall,
throwing a banquet complete with the mirth and merrymaking
Grendel despises:
…An attendant stood by
with a decorated pitcher, pouring bright
helpings of mead. And the minstrel sang,
filling Heorot with his head-clearing voice,
gladdening the great rally of Geats and Danes. (494-98)
Once Beowulf defeats Grendel (along with his mother), the Danes
can return to their normal way of life, able to rest safely
within the walls of Heorot. Beowulf himself assures the Danes
of their safety:
…Never need you fear
for a single thane of your sept or nation
young warriors or old, that laying waste of life
that you and your people endured of yore. (1673-76)
The Danes’ king, the poet tells us, rules peerlessly until his
old age, apparently undisturbed by Cain’s spawn for the rest of
his days. In fact, the greatest threat to Heorot is “the killer
instinct/ unleashed among in-laws” which eventually leads to the
burning of the great Hall at some point in the future (84-85).
This prophecy, revealed early in the poem, foreshadows not only
Heorot’s destruction, but also Beowulf’s destruction of his own
people: Heorot’s supposed caretakers cause its destruction,
just as the king of the Geats causes theirs.
Hrothgar, a wise and judicious ruler, warns Beowulf
of a king’s power to bring “death and destruction” upon his
people (1712). The story of Heremod, ostensibly told to
contrast this destructive king with Beowulf, reveals
Hrothgar’s reservations about the somewhat egotistical hero.
John Leyerle suggests that
Hrothgar sees in Beowulf’s behavior…a tendency to unreflective
confidence in his own strength, to impetuosity in acting, and to
excessive concern for praise, causing the king to caution
Beowulf in his moment of triumph in Heorot. (93)
While Hrothgar does predict Beowulf’s greatness as a king, he is
not blind to the reality of leadership; being a great king
himself, he knows the temptation of becoming “untroubled / by
envy or malice or the thought of enemies / with their hate-honed
swords” (1736-38). It is noteworthy that Hrothgar does not
warn Beowulf against the threat of monsters or outsiders, except
when he warns against becoming a complacent king. He even comes
close to blaming himself for Grendel’s intrusion into Danish
society:
…I came to believe
my enemies had faded from the face of the earth.
Still, what happened was a hard reversal
from bliss to grief. Grendel struck
after lying in wait. (1772-76)
For Hrothgar, then, a king is the greatest threat to a
people; a foolish king can cause destruction through indulgence,
stinginess, recklessness or arrogance. In his love for Beowulf,
Hrothgar wishes to warn the Geat against his own potential
weaknesses.
Unfortunately, when Beowulf becomes king of the
Geats, he can remember only the victory he gained in the hall of
Heorot and not the wise words spoken within. When a dragon
unleashes its fury on the Geats, Beowulf reacts in the same way
he reacted to Grendel’s attacks in his youth: he takes a troop to
the monster and proceeds to fight without their help. The
dragon, however, does not possess the same devilish evil as Grendel does; the dragon is no spawn of Cain. Rather, it is a
morally ambiguous creature, more gruesome or terrifying than
wicked. According to T. M. Gang, “we can call the dragon
‘evil’—but in a very different sense of the word; an impersonal,
amoral sense: rather as we might think of a disease as evil”
(6). Even Anglo-Saxon conventional wisdom does not demonize
dragons. In the Gnomic Verses, the dragon is described as
belonging in a barrow, just the same as a sword belongs
at one’s side: “The dragon lieth on the grave-mound, old,
exultant in treasure” (qtd. in Lawrence 208). The Beowulf
poet elaborates on this maxim within the text: “He [the dragon]
is driven to hunt out / hoards under ground, to guard heathen
gold / through age-long vigils, though to little avail”
(2276-78). One may have some degree of sympathy for the dragon,
a pathetic creature who dedicates its life to guarding useless
treasure.
The dragon poses no threat to man during his three
hundred year-long watch over the barrow. In fact, Wiglaf
believes that the dragon no longer threatens the Geats; if left
alone, he would “lie where he was long accustomed, / lurk there
under earth until the end of the world” (3082-83). Only when a
thief disrupts his hoard does the dragon unleash its fury.
According to W. W. Lawrence, “the dragon was quiescent until
disturbed; his raids were not made, like Grendel’s, out of
devilish malice, but in defense of his treasure. Altogether, he
was a somewhat more genial adversary” (208). The dragon’s
destructive reaction to the theft is simply retaliation for his
own loss. This reaction to loss does not seem unwarranted in a
society where “an eye for an eye” is the rule of law. Early in
the story, the poet suggests that Grendel need only “pay the
death-price” in order to repent (156). So, if the dragon’s
reaction is warranted, it becomes difficult to attribute the
same virtue to battling the dragon as to defeating the Grendel-kin.
Even if one believes that Beowulf made the moral
decision by battling the dragon, the way in which he did
so was clearly misguided. Despite the dragon’s immense size and
fiery breath, the poet relates that Beowulf “had scant regard /
for the dragon as a threat, no dread at all / of its courage or
strength” (2347-49). Although Beowulf does recognize that a
dragon-fight requires a sword, he fails to realize that swords
consistently fail in his hand. So, in his over-confidence,
Beowulf’s warns his men that
This fight is not yours,
nor is it up to any man except me
to measure his strength against the monster
or to prove his worth. I shall win the gold
by my courage, or else mortal combat,
doom of battle, will bear your lord away. (2532-37)
And yet, logically, it is up to someone else to “measure
his strength” against the dragon; did not Beowulf prove his
heroism in a monster-battle fought for a king? Moreover,
Beowulf ought to realize that, if he meets his death, a barrow
full of gold will not substitute for a powerful king. Beowulf
must recognize what Wiglaf, his only potential successor,
recognizes: “Wiglaf knows that his own presence on the throne
will confirm the enmity of the Swedish king, Eadgils, because
Wiglaf’s father…had killed Eanmund, the brother of Eadgils” (Leyerle
95-96). So when Beowulf fights the dragon alone instead of
employing his war band, he thoughtlessly, though
unintentionally, dooms his people.
Wiglaf takes Hrothgar’s place as the voice of reason
in the second part of the text; it is now Weohstan’s son who,
despite his love for Boewulf, knows that Beowulf’s misguided
actions will usher in catastrophe for the Geats. Unfortunately,
Beowulf is as deaf to Wiglaf’s warnings as he was to Hrothgar’s.
Wiglaf laments Beowulf failure to heed his advisors’ warnings:
Often when one man follows his own will
many are hurt. This happened to us.
Nothing we advised could ever convince
The prince we loved, our land’s guardian,
not to vex the custodian of the gold… (3077-81)
Wiglaf understands that a king’s foremost duty is to his people;
when a king loses sight of this duty “many are hurt.” Though he
never encountered the wise king, Wiglaf surely would have
approved of Hrothgar’s mode of leadership. Hrothgar’s chooses
to err on the side of caution, but rightly so. Even as Grendel
usurps his hall and murders his men, Hrothgar thinks ahead and
chooses not to battle the monster. He knows that
[t]he depredations of Grendel are less of a threat than the
consequences of a power struggle for the throne in the event of
Hrothgar’s death during the minority of his sons. . . . Hrothgar’s
restraint in avoiding battle with Grendel was the prudent choice
of the lesser evil. (Leyerle 92)
The Danes appreciate this approach: ". . . there was no laying blame
on Hrothgar; he was a good king” (861-62). It seems logical
that the Geats would have reacted similarly had Beowulf chosen
caution.
However, now that they are left leaderless (aside
from Wiglaf who will surely incite rage in the Swedish king and
who is largely untried in battle), the Geats must face their
troubling fate. Wiglaf seems to accept the fate of the Geats
with calm resignation, “stalwart to the end,” as he prepares for
Beowulf’s funeral pyre (3110). However, the cries of a Geatish
woman reveal the nation’s true fears:
[W]ith 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… (3151-55)
Neither Beowulf nor his hard-won gold can save the Geatish
nation as he rises up in the smoke of the funeral pyre. Perhaps
the Geats would have been better off enduring the smoke of the
dragon.
Nonetheless, Beowulf’s arguably misguided actions
and subsequent death do not condemn him in the eyes of the Geats,
or in the words of the poet. The poet reveals that Beowulf’s
“soul fled from his breast / to its destined place among the
steadfast ones” (2819-20). An evil king, such as Heremod, would
never be privy to a place such as this in the afterlife; though
Beowulf has brought destruction to his people, he was not
a tyrant or a burden to his people. David Williams observes
that “as king he [Beowulf] is the historical force of peace and
harmony in a long history of vengeance and regicide that holds
at bay the revenge of enemies” (61). This observation is
undoubtedly true if Beowulf’s death means the certain
destruction of the Geats.
Why, then, should such an admired leader bring about
the utter annihilation of his people? The answer is subtly
revealed in the closing lines of the poem: “They said that of
all the kings upon the earth / he was the man most gracious and
fair-minded, / kindest to his people and keenest to win fame”
(3180-82). The very last word on Beowulf, the conclusion to his
epic life story, reveals that fame is his ultimate goal.
Despite his fifty year reign as king of the Geats, Beowulf still
clings to the heroic goals of his youth—he has never outgrown
the desires of a champion. Upon close observation of the
language which describes Beowulf after his death, an
unmistakable theme appears: The messenger declares that
Beowulf, “worked for the people, but as well as that / he behaved
like a hero” (3005-06). Wiglaf praises Beowulf, saying, “of all
men / to have lived and thrived and lorded it on earth / his worth
and due as a warrior were the greatest” (3098-100). Beowulf’s
barrow is a “hero’s memorial” where the Geats “extolled his
heroic nature and exploits” (3173). He is not remembered as
Hrothgar most likely was—as a wise, judicious, and prudent
king. According to Leyerle, “Hrothgar himself, the embodiment
here of discretion and mensura, is the nearest to an
ideal king in the poem—not Beowulf” (97). Rather, Beowulf’s
ideal roles are that of warrior and hero. Even the poem itself,
a chronicle of Beowulf’s life, emphasizes his role as hero in
its structure; the poet focuses on Beowulf’s three major
monster-battles, glossing over his fifty year reign as king in a
few lines.
If Beowulf’s greatest role is hero and not
king, the people who depend on him as king must suffer.
In making decisions which require careful deliberation, such as
whether or not to fight the dragon, Beowulf uses the reasoning
of a hero instead of the reasoning of a king. As a hero, one
might take his safety quite lightly in the quest for fame, as
does Beowulf in his fight with Grendel’s mother: “Life doesn’t
cost him a thought” (1536). However as king, one must be
cautious with his life. Leyerle observes that “Charlamagne does
not fight in the rear guard at Roncesvalles. Hrothgar does not
fight beside Beowulf against Grendel in Heorot. Too much was at
stake for a wise king to risk his life in imprudent battle,
however heroic” (100). Beowulf is blind to this kingly mindset
of caution. In his fight with the dragon, Beowulf risks his
life and his kingdom for the “glory of winning,” ignoring the
consequences of his death for the Geats (2514).
However, Beowulf is not fully at fault; the bloody
society in which he lives helps seal his fate. Before one
becomes a king in this society, he must prove his valor in
battle and win fame and renown for heroic feats. Even the wise
king Hrothgar had his start as a warlord: “The fortunes of war
favoured Hrothgar. / Friends and kinsmen flocked to his ranks”
(64-65). Thus, the burden rests on the hero-turned-king to
change the goals and habits he lived by in his former life; this
is no easy task:
The hero follows a code that exalts indomitable will and valour
in the individual, but society requires a king who acts for the
common good, not for his own glory. The greater the hero, the
more likely his tendency to be an imprudent king. (Leyerle 89)
Beowulf is clearly a great hero, so his inability to evolve into
a prudent king should not come as much of a surprise. It takes
the wisdom of a man like Hrothgar to lay aside the sword and
take up the scepter. We perhaps see a glimmer of wisdom in
Beowulf’s initial hesitation to wear to the crown; maybe he
realizes that the responsibilities of a king are too great.
However, Beowulf’s ascension to the throne is inevitable, and he
obviously does not possess Hrothgar’s wisdom—his greatest
strength has always been in his arm.
The Beowulf poet weaves a doomsday tale of
not only a man or a nation but of a way of life. If a
society’s greatest heroes and kings are destined to bring ruin
to their people, how can this society survive? One prudent king
among many improvident leaders certainly cannot save this heroic
world; Hrothgar cannot even save his own Hall from ultimate
destruction. Hence, despite its glory and allure,
heroic society was inherently unstable, for men who had been
accustomed to conduct suitable to an individual hero could not
adjust to the rather different conduct suitable to a king. The
end of the heroic age, like the end of the Geats, was not
accidental. (Leyerle 98)
The Beowulf poet realized the instability of the heroic
world; therefore, the hero and the hall, the symbols and staples
of this way of life, cannot survive in his work. In the end,
Beowulf and the Geatish Hall go up in flames, just as Heorot
must. The only remnant of this heroic world, then, is the poem
which chronicles its destruction.
| 