Untitled - California State University, Long Beach

geaf me treasure ond symbel, sibbe gemunde;
næs ic him to life laðra owihte,
beorn in burgum þonne his bearna hwylc,
Herebeald ond Hæðcyn oððe Hygelac min. (2428-2434)
[I was seven winters old when my lord of treasures / friend and
lord of the people, took me from my father / King Hrethel kept
and held me. / Gave me treasure and feast, kinship remembered.
/ I was not to him in life hostile aught, / a man in the residence,
than of whichever of his sons / Herebeald and Hæðcyn or my
(lord) Hygelac.]
Beowulf equivocates his own upbringing as equal to that of his uncles,
indicating that Beowulf was being groomed by Hreðel to assume the
throne potentially, a possibility that certainly becomes more real after the
death of Hreðel’s son Herebeald. Jamison discusses the close relationship
of matrilineal kinship that can easily be applied to Beowulf and what we
do know of his mother: “the union might be more tightly sealed if the
bride’s son were sent back to her own people to be raised by maternal
uncles and to live among maternal cousins” (14). The fact that Beowulf
rejects the throne he was clearly being groomed for by Hreðel and served
for under Hygelac shows that Beowulf has little regard for the wellbeing
of the bloodline to which both he and his mother belong. Given
that Beowulf was raised by Hreðel, the lack of discussion regarding her
whereabouts is even more alarming.
The uncertainty regarding Beowulf’s mother takes an even more
bizarre turn when Hroþgar gives a speech about Beowulf’s heroism
following Grendel’s mother’s defeat. Where one might expect Hroþgar to
praise Beowulf’s father Ecgþeow for raising a brave warrior who excels at
battle, Hroþgar instead turns his praise to Beowulf’s mother:
Hwæt, þæt secgan mæg
efne swa hwylc mægþa
68 | Sevi
swan ðone magan cende
æfter gumcynnum, gyf heo gyt lyfat,
þæt hyre ealdmetod este wære
bearngebyrdo. (942b-946a)
[What that may say / even so whichever of women / thus bore
this man, / among humankind, if she yet lives, / that the gold of
old was gracious to her / of child-bearing.]
Praising Beowulf’s mother for her excellence in child-bearing appears
to go against the conventions that we might expect for a warrior being
praised after battle. Hroþgar, here, contributes Beowulf’s success to the
good fortune of his mother, rather than his father Ecgþeow, to whom
Beowulf is linked, by name, seventeen times in the text. 4 When Beowulf
is fighting Grendel, however, he is consistently referred to, by the
schop, as “mæg Higelaces” or “kin of Hygelac” (see lines 737 or 758
for examples) thus affirming his association with his mother’s kin in
one of his most important victories. Given the fact that Beowulf was
raised by his mother’s family, perhaps Hroþgar is giving a nod to that
particular relationship—this becomes more likely when considering
Hroþgar’s own history with Ecgþeow—Hroþgar explains how he paid
the were-gild for a murder Beowulf’s father committed in lines 457-472,
concluding “he me aþas swor” [“he to me swore oaths”] (472)—which
cements Beowulf’s debt to Hroþgar and reminds Beowulf of his kinship
ties to his mother’s line. Given the seeming importance of the speech,
though, it is odd that Beowulf’s mother is not given a name (people are
given a name for much less reason in the narrative) and, moreover, it
is unclear whether she is still alive or dead. That this information is all
unknown, and especially unknown by Hroþgar who clearly has history
with Beowulf’s kin, is disquieting and shows Beowulf’s blatant disregard
to his mother’s kin who raised him and groomed him for kingship from
a young age. Beowulf then continually rejects his mother, and, when he
Sevi | 69