Hrothgar and Etzel: Beowulf Analogues in Middle High German Literature

Abstract

ABSTRACTFigures identical to Hrothgar in Scandinavian analogues (i.e., Ro or Hróarr) shed minimal light on the king’s character in Beowulf. More promising insights into the literary history of Hrothgar can be obtained by comparing him with the figure of Etzel in Middle High German literature. Two passages involving Etzel, one from the Nibelungenlied and the other from the Klage, are identified herein as the closest extant analogues to two passages from Beowulf involving Hrothgar. Behind the two sets of analogous passages evidently lies an archaic character type that informs the representation of both Hrothgar and Etzel. The type is that of the sedentary overlord, whose cosmopolitan court attracts wealth and warriors from beyond its borders. The type is courteous and magnanimous, yet also tragic and pitiable, with a glorious past and a precarious present.KEYWORDS: BeowulfNibelungenliedKlageHildebrandsliedcomparative literature Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Notes1 For the canonical assemblage of recognized analogues to Beowulf (which are predominantly Scandinavian or Latin rather than Middle High German), see Garmonsway and Simpson, Beowulf and its Analogues; see also Chambers, Beowulf. There have, however, been disconnected and sporadic attempts to relate Beowulf with the Nibelungenlied: see, for example, Canitz, “Kingship in Beowulf and the Nibelungenlied”; Classen, “Friends and Friendship”; Renoir, “Oral-Formulaic Theme Survival”; Renoir, “The Heroic Oath”; Neidorf, “On Beowulf and the Nibelungenlied”; and Vowell, “Grendel’s Mother and the Women”.2 For comparative studies of the Nibelungenlied and the traditions informing it, see Andersson, Legend of Brynhild; Andersson, Preface to Nibelungenlied; Heusler, Nibelungensage und Nibelungenlied; Panzer, Nibelungenlied; Reichert, Nibelungenlied. For the history of Nibelungenlied studies, in which this approach looms large, see Thorp, The Study of the Nibelungenlied; and Kragl, Nibelungenlied und Nibelungensage.3 There is, however, an alternative tradition of Beowulf research in which analogues are understood to consist of works that exhibit similar arrangements of folkloric motifs. For examples, see Barnes, “Folktale Morphology and the Structure of Beowulf”; Chadwick, “The Monsters and Beowulf”; Fjalldal, “Beowulf and the Old Norse Two-Troll Analogues”; Grant, “Hrólfs saga Gautrekssonar”; Jorgensen, “The Two-Troll Variant”; Panzer, Studien; Shippey, “Fairy-Tale Structure”; and Stitt, Beowulf and the Bear’s Son.4 For use of the Liber Monstrorum, see Lapidge, “Beowulf, Aldhelm, the Liber Monstrorum and Wessex”. For use of Alcuin’s letter, see Bolton, Alcuin and Beowulf. For use of the Latin and Scandinavian sources pertaining to the Scyldings, see Osborn, “The Alleged Murder of Hrethric in Beowulf”. I cite one example for each because a comprehensive account of the use of these sources in Beowulf studies would be both otiose and unfeasible.5 For use of Widsith, see Tolkien, Finn and Hengest, 40–45. For use of the Northumbrian Liber Vitae, see Neidorf, “Beowulf before Beowulf.”6 Clarke, Sidelights on Teutonic History, 91.7 Garmonsway and Simpson, Beowulf and its Analogues, 128.8 Ibid., 129.9 Ibid., 129, 139.10 Clarke, Sidelights on Teutonic History, 92.11 For an overview of Etzel’s appearances in Middle High German sources, see Gillespie, Catalogue, 40–43, s.v. Etzel. For further discussion of Etzel, see Babcock, The Stories of Attila the Hun’s Death; de Boor, Attilabild; Hardt, “Attila – Atli – Etzel”; and Hatto, “The Secular Foe and the Nibelungenlied”. On the rather different depiction of Attila (Atli) in Old Norse poetry, see Reichert, “Attila in altnordischer Dichtung.” Brady remarks of the distinction: “Thus in South German legend, influenced as it was by later Ostrogothic tradition, Etzel is a gracious and hospitable lord over a glamorous court; in Norse story, having its roots apparently in the traditions of Salian Franks and Burgundians, Atli is a grasping and avaricious tyrant and murderer”, 167.12 On the positive conception of Attila in secular Germanic (as opposed to clerical Latin) sources, see especially de Boor, Attilabild, who argues for both the antiquity and durability of this conception. He writes: “Attila, durch die politisch-mönchischen Augen seiner westlichen Historiker gesehn, wurde ein ganz anderer, als der große Heerkönig durch germanisch-kriegerische Augen gesehn”, 44.13 On the presence of courtliness in Beowulf, see Stanley, “Courtliness and Courtesy in Beowulf”; and Neidorf, Art and Thought, 61–112.14 The text of Beowulf is cited throughout by line number from Fulk, Bjork, and Niles, Klaeber’s Beowulf and the Fight at Finnsburh. Translations are cited throughout from Fulk.15 On the potential Romanitas of the paved road and patterned floor, see Cramp, “Beowulf and Archaeology”, 76; Lerer, “On Fagne Flor”; and Whitbread, “Beowulf and Archaeology”, 68–70.16 On the conception of wine as a luxurious and originally exotic beverage, see Green, Language and History in the Early Germanic World, 201–29; and Hagen, Anglo-Saxon Food and Drink, 199–225.17 On Wealhtheow and the Wulfings, see Newton, The Origins of Beowulf, 122–28.18 For an overview of the evidence pertaining to Ing, see Pollington, The Elder Gods, 213–16.19 The text of Hildebrandslied is cited by line number from Braune, Althochdeutsches Lesebuch, 84–85. The translation is cited from Bostock, “The Lay of Hildebrand”, 44–47. For further discussion, see de Boor, Attilabild, 9–10. Norman writes: “Attila is circumlocuted as Huneo truhtin which, to a Germanic warrior, could only mean Attila”, 31, n. 18.20 The text of the Nibelungenlied is cited throughout by stanza number from de Boor, Nibelungenlied. Translations are cited throughout from Whobrey.21 For discussion of groups under Etzel’s control, see Drugas, “The Wallachians in the Nibelungenlied”; and Hatto, “The Secular Foe and the Nibelungenlied”.22 Gillespie, Catalogue, observes: “Etzel’s power is demonstrated by the exotic peoples welcoming [Kriemhild] at Tulne (Tulln in Austria): Riuzen, Kriechen, Pœlân, Walâchen, men of Kiev, Petschenære, but his leaders, apart from his brother Blœdel, bear Germanic names: Râmunc, Gibeche, Hornboge, Hâwart, Îrinc, Irnfrit”, 40.23 McConnell, Nibelungenlied, 53.24 Canitz, “Kingship in Beowulf and the Nibelungenlied”, 110.25 On the peculiar nature of the Klage, see Fichtner; McConnell, “Problem of Continuity”; Classen, “Medieval Manuscript Evidence”; and Gillespie, “Klage as a Commentary”, who writes that the Klage “is neither an heroic epic (‘Helden-epos’) nor is it truly heroic poetry (‘Heldendichtung’): it is a commentary, and its verse form underlines the difference of content and genre. The incantatory insistence of the Nibelungen strophe, whose foreboding fourth long line would anyway be superfluous in a retrospective commentary, has given way to the less elevated and less emotive, more argumentative, if at times more pedestrian speech rhythms of the rhyming couplet, the verse form of the Arthurian romance and the legend, which suits the analytic and explanatory approach of [the Klage]”, 174.26 On this aspect of Hrothgar’s character, see Roberts, “Understanding Hrothgar’s Humiliation”; and Woolf, “Hrothgar”, 42–43. Hrothgar’s melancholy tends, moreover, to figure into negative or ambivalent readings of his character: see DeGregorio, “Theorizing Irony in Beowulf”; Derolez, “Hrothgar, King of Denmark”; and Irving, Rereading Beowulf, 49–64. For more positive assessments of Hrothgar’s character, see Hill, “Hrothgar’s Noble Rule”; Karasawa, “Hrothgar in the Germanic Context of Beowulf”; and Woolf, “Hrothgar”. For a suggestion that Hrothgar is characterized as a Solomonic figure, see Leneghan, The Dynastic Drama of Beowulf, 216–19.27 Porck, Old Age in Early Medieval England, 204. For further discussion of the passage, see Sebo, “Ne Sorga”.28 According to the Nibelungenlied (st. 2377), Kriemhild had been cut “to pieces” (ze stücken) by Hildebrand, not merely decapitated. On the difference, see Gillespie, “Klage as a Commentary”, 161.29 The text of the Klage is cited throughout by line number (of the *B text) from Bumke. The translation is cited throughout from Whobrey.30 For a similar reading of a different speech in Beowulf, see Shippey, “Principles of Beowulfian Conversation”, 114–15.31 For discussion of this scene, see Clark, Between Medieval Men, 131–38; Mills, “Emotion and Gesture”; and Pàroli, “The Tears of the Heroes in Germanic Epic Poetry”.32 For discussion of the relevant passages, see Leneghan, The Dynastic Drama of Beowulf, 63–64, 72–76; Momma, “The Education of Beowulf”, 176–79; and Neidorf, Art and Thought, 84–90.