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The Two Notes If the second poem is concerned with Lupus as a father, then the third poems depicts Lupus as a man who fulfils the duties of everybody in Venantius’ family, since what they ought to have done, Lupus does with his presents. Such melodramatic exaggeration is merely a polite way for Venantius to express his gratitude, but nevertheless he has not got time to express his feelings in more than 10-odd lines, which in Venantius’ terms is no more than a starter. The poem seems most of all to be an introduction or a background to the fourth, which is a petition by Venantius to Magnulfus, Lupus’ brother, on behalf of Lupus. This petition is explained by the third poem. Venantius is obliged to address Magnulfus because of the patronage he has benefited from and the hard times experienced by Lupus. It is in this connection that he turns to the concept of the good. The poem is a reference to the good rather than a narrative about it. It points out Magnulfus as a person, who, due to his qualities, is obliged to do good and especially so towards his brother, who is one of the best. Like Wealhtheow’s speech it is a I-hope-you-do-not-forget note: 1 Quam cito fama volat pernicibus excita pinnis et loca cuncta suis actibus aucta replet! nam tibi cum Rhenus, mihi sit Liger ecce propinquus, hic, Magnulfe, decens, magnus honore places. sic tuba praeconis Sigimundi missa cucurrit, ut tua diffuso sint bona nota loco. quod tamen in brevibus vix signat epistula verbis: non quia cuncta canit, nec reticere cupit. iuredico in primis pollens torrente relatu 10 sic regis, ut revoces facta vetusta novis, cuius in officiis aequi cultoris aratro semine iustitiae plebs sua vota metit. nemo caret propriis; alienis nemo recumbit: sic facit ut pupulum non vacet esse reum. sollicitudo tua reliquis fert dona salutis, et labor unius fit populosa quies. aequalis concors ut ab omnibus, alme, voceris, legibus hinc iudex hinc bonitate parens. da paucis veniam, quoniam mihi portitor instat: 20 nam de fratre Lupi res monet ampla loqui. sic tribuat dominus, meritis reparetis ut illum, quem pariter tecum cordis amore colo. 113
How fast does Fame fly, rising on fast wings, filling all places, having grown by herown actions! For you are at the Rhine and I am close to the Loire and here you are most popular, courteous Magnulfus, and much honoured. So (far) has the herald’s trumpet sent out by Sigimund travelled that your deeds are well-known (i.e., bona nota) in a wide area. But a letter with short words can hardly express it, since neither can it sing of everything, nor does it want to keep anything in silence. Your principal strength is the flow of words in executing the law; (10) and you rule so that with the new you recall the old. During your office, with the plough of the just cultivator, the people reap the benefit of their desires from the seeds of justice. No one is without his property, no one steals that of others. You see to it that the people has no opportunity to be criminal. Your care gives others their salvation and one man’s work becomes the peace of the multitude. You are just and mild so that by everyone you are called on one hand judge for your cleverness in the law, on the other father for your goodness (i.e., bonitate). Forgive me for expressing myself briefly, the letter carrier waits; (20) but about Lupus’ brother the cause urges one to speak lengthily. May the Lord grant that you by your merits rehabilitate him whom I, together with you, love with all my heart! Venantius’ point is that since Magnulfus is the defender of the good, it follows that he should act on behalf of his brother. Reading the two last poems as one we first get an example of the contractual aspect of goodness that was found also in Maldon and <strong>Beowulf</strong>—Venantius has received a present and acts accordingly. When writing to Magnulfus Venantius does not formally appeal to the love between brothers. Instead Venantius’ appeal is motivated by the fact that Magnulfus, who has just experienced some military success, is one of the good, in the same way as Lupus. So, although the good Christian Venantius must think it sufficient to point out that a brother should be helpful and good to his brother, he does not explicitly say so, and the reason for that must be that he knows the weakness of his argument among the Merovingians and Germans to whom a brother is not good per se. Helping each other within the family may have been a great Merovingian and Frankish notion, but it was not common practice, to say the least. However, even in Venantius’ own case he felt it appropriate to point out to Lupus that his own parents, brothers and sisters, had been found wanting in this respect and it is one of the points in the third poem that Lupus is the kind of person who steps in to fulfil the duties of an absent family. This in loco familiae situation is also a <strong>Beowulf</strong>ian quality inasmuch as it shows the unconditional initial goodness between the powerful man and the weak child or newcomer. As usual Venantius, the mediator, shows himself capable of mixing Christian and Pagan ideals. We may expect Venantius to have written hundreds of small notes of this kind without including them in his collected works since he was a technically gifted poet, who was probably carried away by almost any occasion in a very similar fashion. Considering his seemingly close relations with Lupus it is strange that he should only once have received presents or written only once after the first years, and this cir- 114
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Occasional Papers in Archaeology 15
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Published with grants from Swedish
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6 The Two Panegyrics ..............
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I. Introduction This study seeks an
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(Herschend 1993). It has also becom
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democratic congregation had been es
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ample of a need for large storage f
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mately the sense applied to the oth
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is found at Borg in Lofoten and dat
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Figures 3a and b. (a) The hall at W
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(b) An early phase of a farm at Cow
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The Farm Owner’s Seat The positio
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place. Living quarters are limited
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Figure 9. A proposed schematic deve
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When eventually hall and power, kin
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Figures 12a and b. A comparison bet
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kitchen. The tempo in Northern Norw
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have their obvious counterparts in
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they, contrary to most of the guest
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accessible, elevated and at the sam
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Figures 17a-c. Three sections of ro
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this farm, however, the village was
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Figure 19. The Oelandic Iron Age vi
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50 Figures 21a and b. (a), Early Me
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question. This is certainly a matte
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the sources used, houses as well as
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Although we may accept the argument
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The change in the meaning of the wo
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60 UlfR ok þeR Ragnarr restu sten
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Earlier discussions of the Old Engl
Page 65 and 66: Figure 22. The structure of Wealhth
Page 67 and 68: than pious disposition, ought to do
Page 69 and 70: Figure 25. Two partly overlapping e
Page 71 and 72: good father, good son or good broth
Page 73 and 74: 72 In reality it gives a significan
Page 75 and 76: and immediately afterwards he is cu
Page 77 and 78: current, throughout the poem as wel
Page 79 and 80: 2209 hé gehéold tela fiftig wintr
Page 81 and 82: Figure 30. The use of the word good
Page 83 and 84: to introduce Beowulf and to describ
Page 85 and 86: mate success, but there is no sharp
Page 87 and 88: Wealhtheow, whose name means ‘cel
Page 89 and 90: In verse 1810 the sword Hrunting is
Page 91 and 92: you and perhaps take a liking to yo
Page 93 and 94: it must be discussed how a Late Cla
Page 95 and 96: 45 Post tenebras noctis stellarum l
Page 97 and 98: Sigibert burn to marry the maid. Th
Page 99 and 100: why is the description of Brunhild
Page 101 and 102: Skírne-motif and hints at the para
Page 103 and 104: fourth belongs to a period after Si
Page 105 and 106: The second poem seems ultimately to
Page 107 and 108: 106 You have adopted the custom of
Page 109 and 110: Distant or stand-offish Germanic ki
Page 111 and 112: 110 So am I, exhausted by the might
Page 113: the first poem to express the unite
Page 117 and 118: order to survive and develop, but a
Page 119 and 120: Their peaceful role in general and
Page 121 and 122: eciprocal connection between a pair
Page 123 and 124: esult of a philosophical developmen
Page 125 and 126: connections is marked and dispropor
Page 127 and 128: and humans and animals on each side
Page 129 and 130: competition on the farm was smooth
Page 131 and 132: The established aristocracy is alwa
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Page 135 and 136: peasants, namely the marriage betwe
Page 137 and 138: have been their obvious right to ex
Page 139 and 140: not free to pass through the lower
Page 141 and 142: 174 Then Ælfwine said, he talked b
Page 143 and 144: was a child. Today we would not cou
Page 145 and 146: Beowulf in the first part of the po
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Page 149 and 150: Andersson, K., 1993. Romersk guldsm
Page 151 and 152: Fabech, C., 1998. Slöinge i perspe
Page 153 and 154: ⎯ 1993. The origin of the hall in
Page 155 and 156: Knudsen, S. Aa. & Hertz, E., 1994.
Page 157 and 158: Nielsen, K. M., 1945. Var thegnerne
Page 159 and 160: ⎯ 1993. Vikingetidens volde og bo
Page 161 and 162: Williams, T. A., M. Shaw & V. Debha
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214
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3 Dejbjerg. The hall from Dejbjerg
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on a central farm among other large
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186 Appendix II An English version
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188 To him who strengthless fled th
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190 When I, as a stranger, saw Germ
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Notes 1 The translation follows the
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always fasting, incessantly praying
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7. When Atharidos got to know this
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