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water from his hand or from unstrapping Beowulf’s helmet, quite a feat for a onehanded
man.
Wiglaf faces much the same problem as the author of Maldon: How can he be an
honourable man and still alive, when it seems that only dishonourable men have
survived? This ought to have been a dilemma, but it turns out not to be, when we
realise that Wiglaf, rather than being a Pagan hero, is the equivalent of a death angle.
He is there not to change Beowulf’s fate or to save the Geatish nation by sacrificing
himself when he sees that his master needs help, but to interfere with fate a little in
order to make it more suitable by preventing the dragon’s rapid killing of the hero,
which would have deprived us of his last words. Wiglaf is good, but he is far from
being a Pagan hero; he is the merciful, loving Samaritan, and to some editors (cf.
Klaeber 1950 note to v. 2663) a highly misplaced exponent of a Christian ideal of
goodness. Like a brother in the hospice he closes the eyes of the incurably ill and
gives them a more or less dignified death.
Beowulf (Part II) is about the inevitable loss of a nation, the Geats, and for this
reason those who accompany Beowulf to his last fight cannot die with him, since that
would have amounted to saving their nation in spite of his death, in the same way as
the East Saxons were saved when Byrhtnoth’s men died together with him.
Part II is therefore a narrative about the collapse of the ideals of the good, and we
should expect the word to be used only in connection with a cultural critique of the
Pagan society or in a conventional sense. Nonetheless the tendency to use good
twice, if it is used at all, is obvious in the second part of the poem, but the word is
hardly ever used to structure the narratives.
There are no real epic digressions or episodes in the second part. Instead we are
offered a series of monologues and a few dialogues informing us about this or that. In
between the monologues there are passages which keep the narrative about the fight
with the dragon and its aftermath going. If good had structured the text this would
have been apparent in the speeches, but it is not (Fig. 30).
Half of the times the word is employed to call Beowulf good when it seems appropriate.
Only twice (vv. 2543 and 2563), when he is called good just before
beginning the fight with the dragon, do we see a parallel to the structuring principles
of the combat episodes in the first part of the poem. Otherwise the word occurs now
and again with reference to Beowulf, Hygelac or Ongantheow.
There are two sections in which we can find a thematic use of the word, albeit not
a structuring use: in verses 2249 and 2263 a lonely, anonymous, old and defeated
hero speaks of good men and a good falcon; they are part of and they adorn the
happy civilised life which created the treasures he is lamentingly about to bury, as he
has no one to give them to. Later in one of his speeches Wiglaf uses good a couple of
times (vv. 2641, 2648) to give his fellow retainers a bad conscience. He says that
Beowulf once thought them good and that Beowulf was good. Both these two passages
are meant to point out that the good no longer inspires the conduct of men.
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