Beozmilf and the Homeric Poems 343 



birds, wild beasts, birds and beasts, or dogs and winged fowls (//. 

 1.4; 17.272; Oc?. 3. 271 ; 5.473; 24.292; cf. Aeschylus, 5'i//'/'/. 

 800; Sophocles, Ajax 830).^ Of these, the most accessible to a 

 beginner in Homer would naturally be //. i. 4, where the wrath of 

 Achilles is represented as giving the bodies of heroes to be 'a prey 

 to dogs and all winged fowls.' Now, the first in order of Old 

 English poets to have his imagination fired by this picture — if 

 indeed we allow that he received the impulse from Homer — 

 was the author of Beozviilf, who thus bettered his borrowing^ 

 (3024-7). 'But the black raven, poised in flight from the battle- 

 field {lit. ready to depart above the dead), shall chatter without 

 end to the eagle of how he sped at the feast, where he wrenched 

 away the slain from^ the wolf.' With this before them, the later 

 poets dealt with the conception as they were able, for the most 

 part dwelling upon the yelp, or croak, or scream of beast and bird 

 under the figure of a song. In dramatic vividness, it is clear, the 

 author of Beozviilf surpassed all his successors. 



IX. THE COMPOSER OF BEOWULF 



After all, who was the composer of the Beozvulf? I presume 

 no one will expect me to answer this question. What I have 

 endeavored is to suggest the probable agency of King Aldf rith in 

 prompting, encouraging, and otherwise aiding the poet — very 

 likely a courtier — in his undertaking. As to how the foreign 

 material was acquired, and then shaped and modified in detail, I 

 have nothing to oiTer beyond what will inevitably occur to any 

 serious student of the poem who is inclined to regard its present 

 form as pretty faithfully representing, apart from dialectal 

 changes, what issued from the hands of its author in the earliest 

 decade or decades of the eighth century. That Aldfrith himself 

 ever saw or heard the poem in its absolutely final form will not 



^ Cf . Gildas, Dc Excidio Britannia: 24 ; Salvian, De Gubcrnatione Dei, 

 ed. Pauly, 6. 15. 84. 



° More graphic than Homer are Job 39. 28-30; Prov. 30. 17 (cf. Matt. 

 24. 28; Lk. 17. 2,7)- 



^ Grimm {Andreas und Elcnc, p. XXVI) misinterprets ivid wiilf (c) ivcel 

 reafode as 'una cum liipo cadavera spolianti,' and has been followed by- 

 various editors and translators. 



