I hope Tim Murphy will comment
 

This is particularly for Tim Murphy, but it might be of interest for several so I'm putting it here in GT.

I'm reading "Beowulf" as translated by Seamus Heaney (Faber and Faber, 1999) and in a parallel reading, the translation by Tim and Alan Sullivan (Longman Cultural Edition, 2004). Two quite different styles, but both highly enjoyable.

My comment concerns the line designated in Tim's version as line 1957 which mentions "raven". The lines aren't stated in the Heaney presentation and it might not exactly agree so I'm writing the significant passage below.

The translations are as follows:

(Heaney)

That great heart rested. The hall towered,
gold-shingled and gabled, and the guest slept in it
Until the black raven with raucous glee
announced heaven's joy, and a hurry of brightness
overran the shadows. (…)

(Sullivan & Murphy)

Beneath golden gables the great-hearted guest
dozed until dawn in the high-roofed hall,
when the black raven blithely foretold
joy under heaven. Daybreak hastened

Tim and Alan have an interesting footnote about the target word "raven"

(footnote 29)

29. black raven The raven makes an ironic bearer of joyful news. The Old English adjective modifying the bird could be either blæc, "black" or blac, "shining" which conveys the quality of the raven's glossy feathers. Brightness and luster seem to be an integral part of the comprehension of color in Old English.
This reference is surely to (Turdus merula) which we in Sweden call "koltrast" (literal translation "coal thrush"), in English it is called "blackbird" or "merle". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_blackbird

It has a beautiful song, very loud, offers it up at night, an hour or so before dawn. (At least I think the song is beautiful, though when I was younger and had been up partying until late, I didn't think it was so beautiful when it woke me up after a few hours sleep!)

This is the same bird of which Paul McCartney wrote "Blackbird singing in the dead of night…" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ehhZ53zysQ

So it seems to me that the footnote is spot on, that the translators Alan and Tim sensed instinctively that "raven" (genus Corvus) did not fit the context, but had never heard the purling song of turdus merula. The raven, all of the Corvus family, is indeed raucous and so NOT a bearer of joyful news. I think it wasn't a raucous raven that woke Beowulf's warriors who would be setting forth for Geat.

I did a quick google of "raven poem Beowulf" the first results cite commentary about the raven in the poem.
Delineates how the symbol of the raven which appears 5 times links up to other aspects of the poem.

And exactly what is the point you are making, Ross?

It is common knowledge that ravens are an important part of Old Norse mythology. They devour the bodies of warriors fallen in battle. The ravens Huginn (thought) and Muninn (memory or mind) sit on the shoulders of Odin.

I am asking Tim for his thoughts on whether the translation of blæc + bird (which probably is fugl like Swedish fågel and Danish, Norwegian and Old Norse fugl, and German vogel) might not plausibly be "blackbird" rather than "raven".

However it was useful to google "raven poem Beowulf" as Ross suggested since that indicates there is tradition of using "raven" as a target word.

http://www.jstor.org/stable/27708920...n_tab_contents

This link above is owned by those awful people at JSTOR who think that scholarly knowledge should not be shared unless paid for, but in general this abstract agrees with the abstract quoted below (from the academia link directly below).

http://www.academia.edu/1728196/Hyge...-hearted_raven


It seems to me that commentators are bending over backward to find a reason for "a blithe raven", for a "joyous raven".

That is why I am curious to know what the source word(s) is/are.

However another thing that aroused my curiosity is whether Beowulf (which exists in only one copy and is said to be written in England some time between the 8th and the early 11th century) might not hark back to a more ancient oral tale. The many references to the Christian god seem (to me) to be a revisionist text and it would make much more sense that the references were to the Norse god Odin (or Woden in German parlance). And since we have no other copy than the damaged one in the British library.

Christianity did not take root in Sweden until the year 1100s and coexisted parallel with the Norse gods until the 1300s. Denmark was converted earlier. But it is striking that the Beowulf story does not have any reference to Christ but only to a powerful God. And in the breakthrough for Christianity, (setting aside for the moment, the royal feuds and politics and forced conversion of the people), the Christ figure was an important early symbol.

Perhaps the reference to blaeck bird is the only usage between the raven and the blackbird, the first which caws raucously, the latter, a singer of wonderful songs. Perhaps it is due to color which I think is synonymous with both birds. That would make more sense, and in this case, size doesn't matter, only color. Of course, the red-wing blackbird seems to make some of the most strange and beautiful sounds of all birds. I don't know if they ever graced the Dane or Norse homelands.

In the original it's a "hrefn blaca"--a "shining (black?) raven," not merely a "shining (black?) bird."

One might argue that "hrefn" represents an emendation of the original word, except for the fact that the second half of the line speaks of "heofones wynne" (heaven's joy), and the mandatory alliteration between the two hemistichs requires the "h" of "hrefn," to match the "h" of "heofones."

So though your hypothesis is intriguing, Janice, the evidence of the text itself seems to be against it.

yours,
Peter

The answer to Aldhelm's Riddle 43 is "raven." The Aenigmata were written in the second half of the seventh century in southern Britain, maybe around 675.

Aldhelm's raven is a Christian symbol of rebellion against God (Genesis 8:6-7), but in Riddle 43 it probably has more than a hint of the pagan symbolism too. There were not clean lines between the traditions for many centuries--Aldhelm himself associated God with the pagan tradition by referring to God as "the Thunderer." Nonetheless, in the Christian literature of the time the raven was associated with independence, treachery and intelligence, not so much death, so it would not be incongruous for a raven to deliver this message--perhaps it could even be seen as making amends for not responding to the word of the Lord in the Old Testament.

[I cross-posted with the previous two posts, fyi]

Ravens (corvus in Latin) were common in Late Antique and early medieval literature--the more benign blackbird was not common, I believe, until later than Beowulf. I think Tim/Alan & Heaney are probably right in calling the bird a raven, but you should hold your expectations for clarity down--I think this passage is one of the ones primarily attributable to Alan.

I should note that "black raven" was not redundant--Anglo-Saxons referred to certain herons as "night ravens."

"Two ravens sit on Odin's shoulders, and whisper in his ear the tidings and events they have heard and witnessed. They are called Hugin and Munin (mind and memory). He sends them out at dawn of day to fly over the whole world, and they return at eve toward meal-time. Hence it is that Odin knows so many things, and is called the ravens' god."

(For anyone who's interested, the passage in question can be found at the bottom of f172r in the Nowell Codex, available online thanks to the British Library.)

Thanks, Janice, for a refreshingly intelligent thread. I for one have nothing to add but to assert confidently, without a shred of favoritism via Eratosphere, that Tim's and the late Alan's translation of this excerpt is superior to Heaney's. The latter doesn't have the tightness or control or the readability.

Hear hear, Don. I'very just reread it and it is amazingly crisp and lucid. Janice I don'the think there is any resolution beyond what Peter and Tim and Alan'so footnote have indicated. My dictionary gives blac for black and blac with a long a for pale, bright, shining, wan, etc., the cluster cognate with bleach etc.

Good to know. I've read three translations, and Heaney's is the best of those three...but I have yet to read the Alan and Tim translation. I should get on that.

How wonderful to find some scholarly interest in my question.

I want to make it clear that I am not insinuating that Tim and Alan or Heaney have mistranslated.

My question (or perhaps my suspicious, nagging wondering about how it fits in with facts, or what I think I know) goes beyond that. I was curious about the source word, so thanks, Peter so much for the link to the Nowell Codex.

Here is some further musing. (Just thinking out loud, not pretending to have cracked a Rosetta Stone.)

That there is only one extant copy of Beowulf, and that one is fire damaged, so we cannot ascertain its veracity.

That the whole set up of the poem is oral literature that has been written down (like the Iliad and Odyssey).

That the early church, the one a few centuries old, did its utmost to ruthlessly wipe out all traces of rival pagan beliefs.

That there are countless examples of manuscripts which exist in differing texts (not least the early gospels but also ancient texts in Hebrew).

That England was a bastion of Christianity during the span when the manuscript was made (eighth to eleventh century).

That the pagan Vikings were plundering Christendom until into the eleventh century.

That the Christianizing influences on (geographical) Sweden came from England (where it was established) in the ninth century. Whereas the influences of ditto on Denmark came from Germany and France and were earlier.

That these two religious spheres were in conflict with one another. Because the Christianizing of peoples was political, mandated in Scandinavia by convincing the kings that it was good for his power base and then the king told his people: convert or else. (This is contrary to popular belief which piously relies on the official propaganda.)

I happen to live in "Geat" and our history is very much alive being all around us. We have relics of early Christianity in our backyard, this being a seat of the early power struggles and later establishment. Everyone (well, lots of people anyway) knows the stories. This historical topic has long been an area of my particular, (if mostly amateur but sometime academic) study. So my question does not derive from an idle thought and a quick Google.

That there is hardly a bird that the Church has not added to its repertoire to use as a moral example. The pelicans, the crane, the raven, and many more are found inside churches as sculpture and also in legends--many, if not most, of which were retelling of pagan tales). This incorporation from other religions was a stock-in-trade trick to root out the old religions.

For instance, to veer somewhat, the Greek midsummer festivities (summer solstice) had the killjoy John the Baptist superimposed on them. What could be grimmer than to replace a carnal love feast with a celebration of that old ranter in the wilderness crying repent, repent. The Swedish midwinter Yule became Christmas (and the hog still reigns supreme on the Yule table to the horror of our new Muslim citizens). I could digress here but will control myself.

That copyists do make mistakes, intentionally or inadvertently.

That it makes MUCH MORE SENSE that a blackbird is joyfully singing on the morning of departure for home, than that a raven is joyfully singing.

There seems to be agreement among scholars (as I found out through Ross's post, thank you) that this is a thorny point, that the text there doesn't quite make sense. So the academics are twisting themselves into pretzels trying to find ways to make it fit. (Rather like the old joke among the military: if the map and the terrain do not agree, trust the map).

But thanks lovely Spherians for interest. My question was impulsively asked, knowing that friend Tim was somewhere about and might be able to give me some scoop about why "raven" was his choice. His answer might well be: Because there is scholarly consensus about those source-target words.

My interest was especially piqued because I've just (coincidentally) enjoyed the series on the origins and spread of the English language (long one of my special areas of interest) which I've recommended on another thread yesterday. But here it is again should anyone be interested--8 hours in all. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VsVz5U76kX0

I still think it is wrong--not wrongly translated, but that somewhere down the centuries the joyous song of the night-singing blackbird has been wrongly attributed or translated and become permanent.

But thanks again for all the thoughtful input on this.

I've written the above off thte top of my head before I have my morning coffee so may return (or not).

Now my morning java and continuing my read of this great saga. (FYI the Longman book contains much more than the Murphy-Sullivan translation of Beowulf.)

Just a quick comment. I printed out the text and read it for breakfast and want to say that Peter's argument based on alliteration is very compelling. The next thought that arises is whether "hrefn" might be a generic term for all black birds and (daring conjecture) the differences (say between raven and blackbird--in the modern sense--might then have been distinguished through pronunciation (inflection and stress) and context. English had a fairly limited vocabulary at that time.

I am very intrigued by Michael's reference to Aldhelm's Riddle 43. I am not knowledgeable about the old riddles (one of many knowledge gaps) and can't find a referential text. I agree fully about the blurred lines between the religions. Moreover it is not easy to discern when enthusiasm for the scribe's own faith took the upper hand and a text was embellished. I'll try to see if I can find out more about this.

A most interesting discussion from the depths of the collective Spherian brain. I am grateful for the interest and added knowledge. Thanks.

The poet doesn't call them "sweet-singing ," Janice, but "blithe-hearted." Although it is ominous making them heralds of heaven's joy, there is a basis in their typical behavior, which is social, communicative, playful, bold, inventive. You should read Tolkien's Beowulf and the Critics. Nothing better on the relationship of Christianity and paganism in the poem. Richard North's Origins of Beowulf is a fascinating compendium of source material, including likely tale-telling from Scandinavian sailors and heterodox scriptures.

Thanks so much, Bill. Just ordered "The Monsters and the Critics and Other Essays" and while I had my spending breeches on, I also boughtThe Origins of Beowulf: and the Pre-Viking Kingdom of East Anglia by Sam Newton (and) Kathy Herbert's Looking for the Lost Gods of England.

The Richard North tome will have to wait for another day. But is duly noted. Thank you.

As is your comment on "blithe-hearted". I wouldn't characterize a Corvus as blithe, though others might. "blithe" is a really ancient word, Old Norse that goes back to Old High German roots.

If this source is to be trusted, the nuance is not raven-like.

blithe (adj.) http://www.etymonline.com/graphics/dictionary.gifOld English bliþe "joyous, kind, cheerful, pleasant," from Proto-Germanic *blithiz "gentle, kind" (cognates: Old Saxon bliði "bright, happy," Middle Dutch blide, Dutch blijde, Old Norse bliðr "mild, gentle," Old High German blidi "gay, friendly," Gothic bleiþs "kind, friendly, merciful").
That said, I am enjoying this conversation very much. (And will make a few spelling and grammar corrections in my next which I noticed when I read the printed thread.)

Well, we definitely took hrefn blaec as black raven, not as blackbird. And he does appear many times, usually rending the corpses of the slain.

The Wulf is a monster of a poem, and our version is about 300 lines shorter than the original, simply because our language is so much more economical than Anglo Saxon and we wanted to avoid the padding found in so many translations.

When we finally read Heaney's translation, Alan dubbed it the Heaneywulf, the epic poem of the Celtic people!

Janet, I regard it as 8th C. and written in Scandinavia. It is monotheistic, no Christ, no conception of the trinity, no mention of the Germanic pantheon, only the All-father. So I date the poem by its theology. I believe the poet had some familiarity with the Old Testament, not the New. So it certainly couldn't have been written in England after St. Augustine converted the country.

You clearly both nerds of the first water, and I am in awe of you. This is a delightful thread.

Best,

Ed

Hi Tim. Good to see you and thank you so much for responding.

In the 700s (8th century) the Old Norse gods were still worshiped in Scandinavia.

I mentioned the absence of Christ in Beowulf only to make clear that (to my mind), had this poem been composed during a Christian period, it would have referenced "Vite Krist" (Hvítakristr) White Christ, for this term was intrinsic to the the religious struggle with "Röde Tor", Red Thor, who was a bloody warlike god in contrast to the supposedly peace-loving Christus. (N.B. Pre-Crusade.)

However, all the deity references in Beowulf are (as you said, Tim) to an All-Father figure. Odin was father to Thor and was the most powerful god in Old Norse mythology.

Let me add that I am deriving much pleasure from your and Alan's translation (as well as Mr. Heaney's) and especially your footnotes are enjoyable (something lacking in the Heaney rendition. Esp. I am happy when I find references to items and habits still alive in our contemporary language and culture.

Should your path wend through Scandinavia, I recommend that you (and all and sundry who share our interest) visit the Danish national museum (one of my favorite museums in all the world) which has the ground floor dedicated to Viking history--authentic chain-mail of the type mentioned in the poem and much more. Free entry. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nation...eum_of_Denmark

Also in Norway, there is a terrific museum containing longships excavated from barrows, burial mounds. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viking...eum_%28Oslo%29

And in England, don't miss the Sutton Ho burial exhibition at the British Museum. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sutton_Hoo

In Sweden, I say don't miss the Gold Room at http://historiska.se/utstallningar/guldrummet/

That said, thanks again for your contributions to the Beowulf translation. To which I shall now return.

Janice

Yes, wonderful thread. Janice, wouldn’t warriors of that time and place, at least in a heroic poem, be more cheered by a raucous raven than a sweet-singing blackbird? They weren’t John Keats.

A medieval bestiary that I have, translated from a twelfth-century Latin source, says two things about ravens: They were thought not to feed their young until the black of their feathers showed; and the first part of a corpse they pecked out was the eyes. And both these images strike me as things a warrior would think were pretty cool. The raven in the early morning could be a sort of mascot-shout.

PS to Michael.

Yes, the raven was sent out before the dove but we don't know what happened to it. I don't think the brain behind Beowulf would have access to that information as the action takes place in a very limited geographic area (Geat = Götaland, both east and west) and Denmark (which at that time controlled southern Sweden).

Of course, I am not saying so with any degree of certainty, but it doesn't seem probable to me. Until proven wrong, I'll stick to my notion that a Christian veneer has been superimposed on a pagan epic poem.

Likely I am not the first or only one to entertain this idea. I'm looking forward to the arrival of my new books.

Crossposted with Andrew.

Yes, I understand your point. But the context (to me) seems to call for a joyous blackbird rather than a raven. Also the blackbird sings at night. I don't believe the raven calls (or sings) nighttime.

Thanks again to all who have contributed thoughts and new angles.

Janice, I have heard the raven (Crow) caw at night but only when disturbed on the roost, and on another occasion, rousted from his roost. It's pretty rare, but I've seen it while coon hunting late at night. Also, if a raven knows that there is shelled corn scattered on the ground, he/they will come off the roost at the earliest of dawn to feed. I've seen them do it while deer hunting from my blind. I've also seen them peck out the eyes of fresh kills. It's fascinating. And then there's the time I saw five possums come out the back end of a dead cow that Dad kicked one night while we were coon hunting, but that's another story.

I read as much as I can about corvids. I think it was Heinrich's work in the The Mind of the Raven that talked about "happy" raven calls for friends as opposed to angry calls for foes and experiments showing the bird's memory of human faces as friend or foe even after years apart.
There are also anecdotal accounts of people experiencing rare night calls from crows and ravens that "warn" them of what (to the teller's of the tales) are mystical future happenings.

It's not deep night in the scene, it is just before dawn. I have definitely heard the little buggers at that hour.

Great, Emitt. Check out Mark Cocker's Crow Country, a recommendation from Steve Bucknell.

Ravens fed Elijah, right? And the Lord feeds His ravens.

Janice,

There's an article called "The Function of the "Hrefn Blaca": "Beowulf" 1801" by Kathryn Hume; Modern Philology Vol. 67, No. 1 (Aug., 1969), pp. 60-63 which seems to address this question (insofar as I've skimmed both it and this thread). It points out that Ravens do cry at daybreak, and in Norse and Latin literature are augeries of both good and bad fortune and concludes: "Whereas in the past the Danes frequently heard wip up dhafen, micel morgensweg (11 128-29), on this morning the raven contributes a blithe matins. Heorot, though once dishonored, is now redeemed, and it again towers high and gabled as it did before Grendel's depredations. Even as night is no longer fearsome, the raven is no longer a harbinger of slaughter, and the change in its role reinforces the edwenden in the condition of the Danes. Thus by altering a bird normally associated with carnage and ill omen to a bird of joy, victory and light, the poet has created a symbol which epitomizes this general change". PM me an email address if you'd like a pdf of the article.

Matt

I think it's in what I call The Lament of the Old Man, that the speaker's son is crucified and the hrefn pecks out his eyes, one of the truly great passages in Beowulf. That's me, not Alan, by the way. Not that anyone can tell the difference. Unlike Heaney, we are invisible as translators.

If anyone wants to read our Wulf, I'd recommend the Longman Anthology of World Literature, vol II, The Middle Ages. It has Dick Davis' Conference of the Birds, Bill Merwin's El Cid, lots of Vikram Seth's T'ang Dynesty translations, truly a great book.

I think the poet just made a mistake calling the raven's croak joyful. As everyone knows, we all make mistakes! Charlie, the raven is not a crow, but a much bigger bird. I have to go to the Rockies to see them.

Janice:

Since you fell into my trap by correctly noting the lack of a referential text, the University of Toronto is releasing my translation of Aldhelm's Aenigmata (with an extensive commentary--the first) on November 18.

To slay the dragons of Lord Amazon, they are offering 30% discounts if you preorder directly from them. You can go to @amjuster at Twitter if you want to see part of the very cool cover they created.

For that dragon-slaying discount: http://www.utppublishing.com/Saint-A...s-Riddles.html. I would also note that the release is a mere five weeks before Christmas for those of you who have friends who are fans of riddles, the Anglo-Saxon period, or God.

Mike

Or of Mike Juster! :)

Consider it ordered! Thanks.

Indeed Matt, I would love to read that pdf. I've PMed you. Many thanks.

Obviously I will never convince anyone who is determined not to be convinced, and please note that I am not here for a holmgang. On my part this remains conjecture, but here are some further thoughts.

It is a commonplace that a blackbird sings a joyful (blithe) song while it is still dark.

It is unusual that an uncitified Corvus will make a racket in the dead of night (even more unusual that it "sings") and when something unusual occurs in a poem it has significance. Like the scholar quoted in Post #4 and the one Matt mentioned in #28, I would expect an unusual occurrence in an epic work of this kind to be interpreted as an omen, although in my reasoning it would be not be a good omen but a bad omen. Unlike them I do not think it is literary or logical that the raven cry "reinforces the edwenden in the condition of the Danes". This is pretzel-like reasoning; surely a turn for the better would be symbolized by a bird or animal known to represent good fortune. (Note, I haven't yet read the full line of reasoning of either.)

If the bard intended a bad omen, I would expect him to exploit it further with a line or two to set up some suspense for the listener. (On such tricks is poetry built.) Something like:

That great heart rested. The hall towered,
gold-shingled and gabled, and the guest slept in it
until the black raven with raucous glee
shattered the joy and his hurry of darkness
reined in the bright globe's rising.

or

Beneath golden gables the great-hearted guest
dozed until dawn in the high-roofed hall,
when the black raven blithely foretold
how Daeghrefn haggled for Hygelac's dark fate.
Hell lies under heaven.

Or something more poetic, but you get my drift.

Ravens do call at night but only just before dawn, and then very rarely. I listen closely to raven calls and the long mournful sound is used to make the call carry, when crows ( sorry, we call them crows never ravens ) are close together their calls are much crisper, and more complex. While the overall sound is sombre, once you listen carefully to the changes in tone and duration, you can discern gleeful calls, excited calls etc.
I also recall but have no citation that the raven in Egyptian mythology was sacred to the sun God Ra because being a scavenger the raven cleaned up the world's left-over debris, the sun drying up and destroying in the same way.
I don't have a problem with the raven being a bringer of good tidings, they are the most intelligent of birds and easy to tame and really quite timid.

Probably mentioned, but as I recall from grad school, ravens in OE poetry are called the “beasts of battle,” along with wolves and eagles—eaters of carrion.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_raven and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torresian_crow

Ross, no matter what anyone calls them—owls, pussycats or general nuisances—even in Australia, crows (Corvus orru) and ravens (Corvus coronoides) are two different species, though in common parlance the words might be used interchangeably—in Oz, as in the scholarly work referenced below. But that is moot, it falls outside the question under discussion.

I shouldn't have to say this, or maybe I should, but it is a well-known fact that fowl of divers species call just before dawn. Yes, they do. I have not claimed otherwise. Yes, ravens, crows, all the species of Corvus are intelligent. I have not claimed otherwise.

I am willing to concede that the bird in question may have woke Beowulf and his men just before dawn and not in the middle of the night.

That said, what my original question was about is whether it makes more sense to say that the term "blithehearted" blíðheort as in gæst inne swæf oþ þæt hrefn blaca heofones wynne blíðheort bododea , is more likely to be applied to the sound of a raucous raven or melodious blackbird.

Even if it is obvious that some words such as blíðheort (blithehearted) and ecge (modern Swedish ägg, pronounced "egg" = English edge as in "sword edge", the cutting blade) have retained their meaning down the centuries, the meaning of other words may have, or certainly have, shifted.

I do not claim to be proficient in Old English or Old Norse though I can hear/see parts of the text that correspond to contemporary Swedish. Note that I am not trying to sail under the false flag of a scholar, or expert in Old English. I'm just asking the question I always ask as a translator: DOES THAT SOLUTION MAKE SENSE.

I've found the original text in yet another translation copyright 2002-12, Benjamin Slade here http://www.heorot.dk/beowulf-rede-text.html

Although in this text, "hrefn blaca" is translated as raven, the notes [1804-5] colloquially refer to a crow: "the crow caws at the sun-rise" ('joy of the sky'). [Note that the line numbers in each translation are unique and only approximate where the text can be found in other translations. One must always go by the line number of the original text. ]

Here is Benjamin Slade's translation of the text in question. If you are nerdy, go to the link above to read the Old English and modern rendition side by side.

sé for andrysnum ealle beweotede
who for courtesy looked after everything

þegnes þearfe swylce þý dógore
1797
of the hero's needs, such as in those days

heaþolíðende habban scoldon·
warrior-sailors were obliged to have;

reste hine þá rúmheort· reced hlíuade
rested him then, the large-hearted man; the hall towered

géap ond goldfáh· gæst inne swæf
vaulted and gold-adorned; the guest slept inside

oþ þæt hrefn blaca heofones wynne
until the black raven, the joy of the sky

blíðheort bodode. Ðá cóm beorht scacan
1802
declared glad-heartedly. Then came bright hurrying,

scaþan ónetton·
fighters hastening;

waéron æþelingas eft tó léodum
the nobles were back to their people

fúse tó farenne· wolde feor þanon
eager to fare; he wished far thence,

cuma collenferhð céoles néosan.
the high-spirited visitor, to seek his ship.

At the risk of seeming OCD, I'm adding a couple of thoughts.

One might argue that the "raven's joyous song" was meant as irony. But irony in Old Norse is usually laconic as in "It was his last swim" (Heaney's translation, no equivalent in the Tim&Alan ditto) to describe that the water monster had been killed—this is in the section just before Beowulf goes underwater to kill Grendel. (I do think that this text originated in Scandinavia as an oral epic and then was Christianized in England by some zealous monk but the Brits are famously masters of understatement).

Tim, are you referring to lines 1259-1261? I don't see any reference to the crucifixion or to eyes of a hung corpse being pecked out. So maybe you mean some other lament?

If anyone following along is trying to sort out who and where with help of a modern map, I'd like to clarify the geography which might seem confusing. The English translations "Sweden" and "Swedes" refers to that part of Sweden called (still) Svealand, that is the area around modern Stockholm which however did not exist then, rather the nearby island Birka was a trading center the site of the earliest documented town. It was the target of the earliest attempt to spread Christianity to this heathen land, by Asgar. Uppsala (the old religious seat of the Asa gods) are located and was the seat of one of the early royal dynasties. The area called "Geat" refers to Götaland which in earlier times was not as extensive as today. Today it includes Scania, the southernmost part, formerly Danish territory. But in ancient times Götaland/Geat (and other spellings exist) referred to the lands around the lake Vättern, east and west, but earliest to the east. This is where I live, a history-rich area from the stone age to iron age to medieval to industrial revolution and beyond.

The earliest king documented by name in "Sweden" was Erik (around 970), but an earlier presence of Viking chieftains and small kings is indicated by artifacts found in archeological digs.

OK, I'll give everybody a break and stop.

Martin Puhvel, in ‘The Blithe-Hearted Morning Raven in Beowulf,’ gives the example of Sigrun’s joy/happiness (fegin/fain) being likened to that of Odin’s Ravens ‘when they learn of slaughter, warm flesh, or dewy-feathered, they see the brow of day.’ Helgaqvioa Hundingsbana onnor(HHII) 43).
ELN 10 (1973): 243-7 : quoted in Old English and Early Medieval Latin Studies in Honour of Thomas D. Hill

Please don't, Janice. I'm enjoying it, as I think others are. It's all the more interesting that the question involves the place that you live in and know so well.

That is interesting, Steve, and I'll certainly put it in the compost heap from which thought grows. However in the text in question, there is no hint of slaughter. Beowulf and his men are departing for home and encountered no slaughter on the voyage or when they arrive.

It is as if all these scholars are determined to get that square peg into a round hole, even if they have to take a sledgehammer to it.

Andrew, it must be similar for you, living in Italy, with literary and historic reminders around you all day.

Slightly off-topic, but it seems an opportunity to mention that last year I received the gift of the FSG Book of Twentieth-Century Italian Poetry (Editor Geoffrey Brock) in which I was delighted to find several poems translated by you.

The ravens I grew up with in the Mojave Desert (heh! and you all thought I was raised by wolves) weren't "raucous," Janice. Unlike the crows I knew, they had a much broader repertoire than just cawing. For example, they often made a sound that was sort of like a cross between dripping water and rolling dice, and I thought it was beautifully musical. It wasn't exactly like the one in this video, but close.