Tímarit Þjóðræknisfélags Íslendinga - 01.01.1967, Page 71

UNDERSTATEMENT IN OLD ENGLISH AND OLD ICELANDIC
53
beíearn wurdun/æt camp-
stede„
• • . (He was deprived of his
kinsmen, friends felled on the
battlefield, slain in the fight,
and left his sons on the battle-
ground, cut down by wounds,
young ones in the battle. The
white-haired warrior did not
need to boast of the clash of
swords, the old evil one; nor
did Olaf any more; with the
remnants of their army, they
did not need to laugh — that
they came out better on the
battlefield).
It would seem that the violence of
the scene is emphasized through the
contrasting understatements. Hé
w®s his mæga sceard appears in
^he s e n s e of “his kinsmen were
killed.” Although this is an account
°f the fate of the enemies, from the
Point of view of the Anglo-Saxon
P°ot, a certain pathos may be per-
ceived in t h e statement that the
loser his sunu forlét . . . wundum
fergrunden. The repetition in gelpan
ne þorfie and hlehhan ne þorftun
has an effect somewhat reminiscent
°f some of the passages from Old
fcelandic quoted earlier. The chief
'fifference seems to be that the Old
®nglish poet is deadly serious, and
the understatement is less terse and
n°t as sudden as in the Old Icelandic
texts.
In Beowulf, at a time of dramatic
suspense in the narrative, just when
Urendel approaches Heorot in the
^ark of the night, while Beowulf
ls waiting to tackle him, we are told
that
Ue wæs þæt forma síð/þæt hé
Hráþgares hám gesóhte;/næ-
fre hé on aldordagum ær né
siþðan/heardran hæle, heal-
þegnas fand.
We are reminded of the ravages
wrought by Grendel previously in
the assertion that this “was not the
first time” that he came to Hroth-
gar’s mead hall. Then it is quietly
stated that “never in his life, before
or after, did he have such bad luck”
in dealing with the retainers. It
might be mentioned here that any
audience hearing the poem recited
would already know the gist of the
story. Such awareness of Grendel’s
imminent fate at the hands of Beo-
wulf w o u 1 d , of course, give the
understatement a special effect.
Occasionally, an even stronger ef-
fect is created in Old English poetry
through a sudden transition from an
exaggerated statement to a terse
understatement, much like what we
observed in Old Icelandic. “Soul and
Body” contains lengthy descriptions
of how the wretched body decom-
poses in t h e grave, devoured by
worms:
Bið séo iunge ióiogen on iýn
healfe / hungrum io hróþor;
forþon héo ne mæg horsclíce
wordum wrixlan w i ð þone
wérgan gæsi.
After being told that the tongue
has been “torn into ten parts” by the
hungry worms, we learn that “it
cannot bravely exchange words with
the weary spirit.” A similar effect
is achieved in Beowulf, following a
description of the lake that is the
abode of frightening monsters: