National Epics Part 20

Meanwhile a troop is on its way, From Latium's city sped, An offshoot from the host that lay Along the host in close array, Three hundred hors.e.m.e.n, sent to bring A message back to Turnus, king, With Volscens at their head.

Now to the camp they draw them nigh, Beneath the rampart's height, When from afar the twain they spy, Still steering from the right; The helmet through the glimmering shade At once the unwary boy betrayed, Seen in the moon's full light.

Not lost the sight on jealous eyes: "Ho! stand! who are ye?" Volscens cries, "Whence come, or whither tend?"

No movement deign they of reply, But swifter to the forest fly, And make the night their friend.

With fatal speed the mounted foes Each avenue as with network close, And every outlet bar.

It was a forest bristling grim With shade of ilex, dense and dim: Thick brushwood all the ground o'ergrew: The tangled ways a path ran through, Faint glimmering like a star.

The darkling boughs, the c.u.mbering prey Euryalus's flight delay: His courage fails, his footsteps stray: But Nisus onward flees; No thought he takes, till now at last The enemy is all o'erpast, E'en at the grove, since Alban called, Where then Latinus' herds were stalled: Sudden he pauses, looks behind In eager hope his friend to find: In vain: no friend he sees.

"Euryalus, my chiefest care, Where left I you, unhappy? where?

What clue may guide my erring tread This leafy labyrinth back to thread?"

Then, noting each remembered track, He thrids the wood, dim-seen and black.

Listening, he hears the horse-hoofs' beat, The clatter of pursuing feet.

A little moment--shouts arise, And lo! Euryalus he spies, Whom now the foemen's gathered throng Is hurrying helplessly along.

While vain resistance he essays, Trapped by false night and treacherous ways.

What should he do? what force employ To rescue the beloved boy?

Plunge through the spears that line the wood, And death and glory win with blood?

Not unresolved, he poises soon A javelin, looking to the Moon: "Grant, G.o.ddess, grant thy present aid, Queen of the stars, Latonian maid, The greenwood's guardian power; If, grateful for success of mine, With gifts my sire has graced thy shrine, If e'er myself have brought thee spoil, The tribute of my hunter's toil, To ornament thy roof divine, Or glitter on thy tower, These ma.s.ses give me to confound, And guide through air my random wound."

He spoke, and hurled with all his might; The swift spear hurtles through the night: Stout Sulmo's back the stroke receives: The wood, though snapped, the midriff cleaves.

He falls, disgorging life's warm tide, And long-drawn sobs distend his side.

All gaze around: another spear The avenger levels from his ear, And launches on the sky.

Tagus lies pierced through temples twain, The dart deep buried in his brain.

Fierce Volscens storms, yet finds no foe, Nor sees the hand that dealt the blow, Nor knows on whom to fly.

"Your heart's warm blood for both shall pay,"

He cries, and on his beauteous prey With naked sword he sprang.

Scared, maddened, Nisus shrieks aloud: No more he hides in night's dark shroud, Nor bears the o'erwhelming pang: "Me, guilty me, make me your aim, O Rutules! mine is all the blame; He did no wrong, nor e'er could do; That sky, those stars attest 't is true; Love for his friend too freely shown, This was his crime, and this alone."

In vain he spoke: the sword, fierce driven, That alabaster breast had riven.

Down falls Euryalus, and lies In death's enthralling agonies: Blood trickles o'er his limbs of snow; "His head sinks gradually low": Thus, severed by the ruthless plough, Dim fades a purple flower: Their weary necks so poppies bow, O'erladen by the shower.

But Nisus on the midmost flies, With Volscens, Volscens in his eyes: In clouds the warriors round him rise, Thick hailing blow on blow: Yet on he bears, no stint, no stay, Like thunderbolt his falchion's sway: Till as for aid the Rutule shrieks Plunged in his throat the weapon reeks: The dying hand has reft away The life-blood of its foe.

Then, pierced to death, asleep he fell On the dead breast he loved so well.

Blest pair! if aught my verse avail, No day shall make your memory fail From off the heart of time, While Capitol abides in place, The mansion of the Aeneian race, And throned upon that moveless base Rome's father sits sublime.

_Conington's Translation, Book IX_.

BEOWULF.

Beowulf, the only Anglo-Saxon epic preserved entire, was composed in southwest Sweden probably before the eighth century, and taken to England, where it was worked over and Christianized by the Northumbrian poets.

It is variously attributed to the fifth, seventh, and eighth centuries; but the seventh is most probably correct, since the Higelac of the poem has been identified with Chocilaicus of the "Gesta Regum Francorum," a Danish king who invaded Gaul in the days of Theuderic, son of Clovis, and died near the close of the sixth century.

The only ma.n.u.script of the poem in existence is thought to be of the tenth century. It is preserved in the British Museum. Since 1837 much interest has been manifested in the poem, and many editions of it have been given to the public.

Beowulf contains three thousand one hundred and eighty-four lines. It is written in alliterative verse. The lines are written in pairs, and each perfect line contains three alliterating words,--two in the first part, and one in the second.

The unknown writer of Beowulf cannot be praised for his skill in composition; the verse is rude, as was the language in which it was written. But it is of the greatest interest to us because of the pictures it gives of the everyday lives of the people whose heroic deeds it relates,--the drinking in the mead-halls, the relation of the king to his warriors, the description of the armor, the s.h.i.+ps, and the halls. The heroes are true Anglo-Saxon types,--bold, fearless, ready to go to the a.s.sistance of any one in trouble, no matter how great the risk to themselves; and as ready to drink mead and boast of their valor after the peril is over. In spite of the attempt to Christianize the poem, it is purely pagan; the most careless reader can discover the priestly interpolations. And it has the greater value to us because it refused to be moulded by priestly hands, but remained the rude but heroic monument of our Saxon ancestors.

BIBLIOGRAPHY AND CRITICISM, BEOWULF.

B. Ten Brink's Early English Literature, Tr. by Kennedy;

S. A. Brooke's History of Early English Literature, 1892, p. 12;

W. F. Collier's History of English Literature, p. 19;

G. W. c.o.x and E. H. Jones's Popular Romances of the Middle Ages, 1871, pp.

382-398; in 1880 ed. pp. 189-201;

Isaac Disraeli's Amenities of Literature, i. 65-73;

J. Earle's Anglo-Saxon Literature;

T. W. Hunt's Ethical Teaching in Beowulf (in his Ethical Teachings in Old English Literature, 1892, pp. 66-77);

H. Morley's English Writers, 1887, pp. 276-354;

H. A. Taine's History of English Literature, 1886, i. 62;

S. Turner's Anglo-Saxons, iii. 326; in ed. 3, i. 456;

J. Harrison's Old Teutonic Life in Beowulf (in the Overland Monthly, July, 1894);

F. A. March's The World of Beowulf (in Proceedings of American Philological a.s.sociation, 1882).

STANDARD ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS, BEOWULF.

Beowulf, edition with English translation, notes and glossary by Thomas Arnold, 1876;

The Deeds of Beowulf, 1892;

Beowulf, Tr. by J. M. Garnett, 1882 (translated line for line);

Beowulf, Tr. by J. L. Hall, 1892, metrical translation;

Beowulf, Tr. by J. M. Kemble, with copious glossary, preface, and philological notes, 2 vols., 1833-37;

Beowulf translated into modern rhymes, by H. W. Lumsden, 1881;

Beowulf, Tr. by Benjamin Thorpe, Literal translation, notes and glossary, 1875.