Beowulf - Institutionen för arkeologi och antik historia

The last of the insiders are the men in the army. They represent the people and
those among them who are lucky enough to follow Lupus rather than other military
leaders. As always when a good aristocrat is leading the people, the latter are instrumental,
used to fulfil a task, and a loyal collective. This, as it happens, is true of the
dukes too, but their approval is at least sought. The insiders thus form a hierarchy
consisting of the King, his man Lupus, the dukes and the people, in this case disguised
as an army. This social hierarchy is a parallel to that in Hroðgar’s Denmark
and in the landnám sagas about Aud or Skalagrim (Herschend 1992; 1994)
It is easy to see that if Byrhtnoth’s expedition had been successful then Venantius’
tale about Lupus would have matched the character and behaviour of the East
Saxon thane returning to his king. Cato, Scipio and Pompey would have had their
Germanic counterparts in elected Gothic kings or perhaps in early warleaders such
as Arminius. Danes are always Danes and they are the ideal of a foreign enemy in
both poems. Lupus and Sigibert are the equivalents of Byrhtnoth and King Æthelred.
Thus the three poems Maldon, Lupus (Poem I), the official panegyric, and
Beowulf (Part I) together with their leading figures Byrhtnoth, Lupus and Beowulf
form a series of parallel scenes from ducal life: battles lost or won are at the centre of
all three narratives; attack is always the best course, and leaving the hall in order to
fight and return in triumph with reconciliation in mind constitutes the hero. If repeated,
such heroism perfects a man. However, Byrhtnoth loses his battle and Lupus
cannot repeat his success. Probably they both fail because they are so close to the
selective mechanisms and randomness of real life while Beowulf, who is not much
bothered by complex realities, succeeds.
The Private Panegyric
The panegyric, Book VII, poem 8, starts by telling us that it is a hot summer day in
July and everything is suffering under the burning sun (ll. 1–10). In this time and
space we meet a wanderer (ll. 11–30), who, tormented by the heat, happens to his
relief to find a murmuring spring and comforting shade under the leafy crown of a tree
moved by the wind. He starts to sing, that being what he can do and therefore what
he naturally wants to do. So, in the first 30 lines we experience a tense and difficult
situation and relief.
Since Venantius’ day there have been many movies starting with such a hot, tense
and threatening scene, but few have turned out after a minute or two to be introductions
to some light-hearted songs in a pastoral setting. This, however, is the result of
Venantius’ sentiments at the moment when he, not knowing whether Lupus is safe,
finds out that indeed he is:
sie ego, curarum valido defessus ab aestu,
noscens te salvum fonte refectus agor.
(Venantius Book VII, poem 8, ll. 31–33)
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