l. 545 _seq._ "Five nights Beowulf and Breca kept together, not swimming, but sailing in open boats (to swim the seas is to sail the seas), then storm drove them asunder ... Breca is afterwards chief of the Brondings, a tribe mentioned in _Wîdsíth_. The story seems legendary, not mythical."--Br., pp. 60, 61.

ll. 574-578. B. suggests swâ þær for hwäðere, = _so there it befell me_. But the word at l. 574 seems = _however_, and at l. 578 = _yet_; cf. l. 891; see S.; _Beit._ ix. 138; _Tidskr_. viii. 48; _Zacher_, iii. 387, etc.

l. 586. Gr. and Grundt. read fâgum sweordum (no ic þäs fela gylpe!), supplying fela and blending the broken half-lines into one. Ho. and Kl. supply geflites.

l. 599. E. translates nýd-bâde by _blackmail_; adding "nêd bâd, _toll_; nêd bâdere, _tolltaker_."--Land Charters, Gloss, v.

l. 601. MS. has ond = _and_ in three places only (601, 1149, 2041); elsewhere it uses the symbol 7 = _and_.

l. 612. _seq._ Cf. the drinking ceremony at l. 1025. "The royal lady offers the cup to Beowulf, not in his turn where he sate among the rest, but after it has gone the round; her approach to Beowulf is an act apart."--E.

l. 620. "The [loving] cup which went the round of the company and was tasted by all," like the Oriel and other college anniversary cups.--E.

l. 622. Cf. ll. 160, 1191, for the respective places of young and old.

l. 623. Cf. the circlet of gold worn by Wealhþeów at l. 1164.

l. 631. gyddode. Cf. Chaucer, _Prol._ l. 237 (ed. Morris):

"Of _yeddynges_ he bar utterly the prys."

Cf. _giddy_.

l. 648. Kl. suggests a period after geþinged, especially as B. (_Tidskr_. viii. 57) has shown that oþþe is sometimes = ond. Th. supplies ne.

l. 650. oþþe here and at ll. 2476, 3007, probably = _and_.

l. 651. Cf. 704, where sceadu-genga (the _night-ganger_ of _Leechdoms_, ii. 344) is applied to the demon.--E.

l. 659. Cf. l. 2431 for same formula, "to have and to hold" of the Marriage Service.--E.

l. 681. B. considers þeáh ... eal a precursor of Mod. Eng. _although_.

l. 682. gôdra = _advantages in battle_ (Gr.), _battle-skill_ (Ha.), _skill in war_ (H.-So.). Might not nât be changed to nah = ne + âh (cf. l. 2253), thus justifying the translation _ability_ (?) --_he has not the ability to_, etc.

l. 695. Kl. reads hiera.--_Beit._ ix. 189. B. omits hîe as occurring in the previous hemistich.--_Beit._ xii. 89.

l. 698. "Here Destiny is a web of cloth."--E., who compares the Greek Clotho, "spinster of fate." Women are also called "weavers of peace," as l. 1943. Cf. Kent's _Elene_, l. 88; _Wîdsîð_, l. 6, etc.

l. 711. B. translates þâ by _when_ and connects with the preceding sentences, thus rejecting the ordinary canto-division at l. 711. He objects to the use of com as principal vb. at ll. 703, 711, and 721. (_Beit_, xii.)

l. 711. "Perhaps the Gnomic verse which tells of Thyrs, the giant, is written with Grendel in the writer's mind,--þyrs sceal on fenne gewunian âna inuan lande, _the giant shall dwell in the fen, alone in the land_ (Sweet's Read., p. 187)."--Br. p. 36.

l. 717. Dietrich, in _Haupt._ xi. 419, quotes from Ælfric, _Hom._ ii. 498: hê beworhte þâ bigelsas mid gyldenum læfrum, _he covered the arches with gold-leaf_,--a Roman custom derived from Carthage. Cf. Mod. Eng. _oriel_ = _aureolum_, a gilded room.--E. (quoting Skeat). Cf. ll. 2257, 1097, 2247, 2103, 2702, 2283, 333, 1751, for various uses of gold-sheets.

l. 720. B. and ten Br. suggest _hell-thane_ (Grendel) for heal-þegnas, and make häle refer to Beowulf. Cf. l. 142.

l. 723. Z. reads [ge]hrân.

l. 727. For this use of standan, cf. ll. 2314, 2770; and Vergil, _Ecl._ ii. 26:

"Cum placidum ventis _staret_ mare."

l. 757. gedräg. _Tumult_ is one of the meanings of this word. Here, appar. = _occupation, lair_.

l. 759. R. reads môdega for gôda, "because the attribute cannot be separated from the word modified unless the two alliterate."

l. 762. Cf. _Andreas_, l. 1537, for a similar use of ût = _off_.--E.

l. 769. The foreign words in _Beówulf_ (as ceaster-here) are not numerous; others are (aside from proper names like _Cain, Abel_, etc.) deófol (diabolus), candel (l. 1573), ancor (l. 303), scrîfan (for- ge-), segn (l. 47), gigant (l. 113), mîl- (l. 1363), stræt (l. 320), ombeht (l. 287), gim (l. 2073), etc.

l. 770. MS. reads cerwen, a word conceived by B. and others to be part of a fem. compd.: -scerwen like -wenden in ed-wenden, -ræden, etc. (cf. meodu-scerpen in _Andreas_, l. 1528); emended to -scerwen, _a great scare under the figure of a mishap at a drinking-bout_; one might compare bescerwan, _to deprive_, from bescyrian (Grein, i. 93), hence ealu-seerwen would = _a sudden taking away, deprivation, of the beer_.--H.-So., p. 93. See B., _Tidskr_. viii. 292.

l. 771. Ten Br. reads rêðe, rênhearde, = _raging, exceeding bold_.

l. 792. Instrumental adverbial phrases like ænige þinga, nænige þinga (_not at all_), hûru þinga (_especially_) are not infrequent. See Cook's Sievers' Gram., p. 178; March, _A.-S. Gram._, p. 182.

l. 811. myrðe. E. translates _in wanton mood_. Toller-Bosw. does not recognize _sorrow_ as one of the meanings of this word.

ll. 850, 851. S. reads deóp for deóg and erases semicolon after weól, = _the death-stained deep welled with sword-gore_; cf. l. 1424. B. reads deáð-fæges deóp, etc., = _the deep welled with the doomed one's gore_.--_Beit._ xii. 89.

l. 857. The meaning of blaneum is partly explained by fealwe mearas below, l. 866. Cf. Layamon's "and leop on his _blancke" = steed_, l. 23900; Kent's _Elene_, l. 1185.

l. 859. Körner, _Eng. Stud_. i. 482, regards the oft-recurring be sæm tweónum as a mere formula = _on earth_; cf. ll. 1298, 1686. tweóne is part of the separable prep. _between_; see be-. Cf. Baskerville's _Andreas_, l. 558.

l. 865. Cf. _Voyage of Ôhthere and Wulfstân_ for an account of funeral horse-racing, Sweet's Read., p. 22.

l. 868. See Ha., p. 31, for a variant translation.

l. 871 _seq._ R. considers this a technical description of improvised alliterative verse, suggested by and wrought out on the spur of the moment.

l. 872. R. and B. propose secg[an], = _rehearse_, for secg, which suits the verbs in the next two lines.

ll. 878-98. "It pleases me to think that it is in English literature we possess the first sketch of that mighty saga [the Volsunga Saga = Wälsinges gewin] which has for so many centuries engaged all the arts, and at last in the hands of Wagner the art of music."--Br., p. 63. Cf. _Nibelung. Lied_, l. 739.

l. 894. Intransitive verbs, as gân, weorðan, sometimes take habban, "to indicate independent action."--Sw. Cf. hafað ... geworden, l. 2027.

l. 895. "brûcan (_enjoy_) always has the genitive."--Sw.; cf. l. 895; acc., gen., instr., dat., according to March, _A.-S. Gram._, p. 151.

l. 898. Scherer proposes hâte, = _from heat_, instr. of hât, _heat_; cf. l. 2606.

l. 901. hê þäs âron þâh = _he throve in honor_ (B.). Ten Br. inserts comma after þâh, making siððan introduce a depend. clause.--_Beit._ viii. 568. Cf. weorð-myndum þâh, l. 8; ll. 1155, 1243.--H.-So.

l. 902. Heremôdes is considered by Heinzel to be a mere epithet = _the valiant_; which would refer the whole passage to Sigmund (Sigfrid), the eotenas, l. 903, being the Nibelungen. This, says H.-So., gets rid of the contradiction between the good "Heremôd" here and the bad one, l. 1710 _seq._--B. however holds fast to Heremôd.--_Beit._ xii. 41. on feónda geweald, l. 904,--_into the hands of devils_, says B.; cf. ll. 809, 1721, 2267; _Christ_, l. 1416; _Andreas_, l. 1621; for hine fyren onwôd, cf. _Gen._ l. 2579; Hunt's _Dan._ 17: hîe wlenco anwôd.

l. 902 _seq._ "Heremôd's shame is contrasted with the glory of Sigemund, and with the prudence, patience, generosity, and gentleness of Beowulf as a chieftain."--Br., p. 66.

l. 906. MS. has lemede. Toller-Bosw. corrects to lemedon.

l. 917. Cf. Hunt's _Exod._, l. 170, for similar language.

l. 925. hôs, G. hansa, _company_, "the word from which the mercantile association of the 'Hanseatic' towns took their designation."--E.

l. 927. on staþole = _on the floor_ (B., Rask, ten Br.).--_Beit._ xii. 90.

l. 927. May not steápne here = _bright_, from its being immediately followed by golde fâhne? Cf. Chaucer's "his eyen _stepe_," _Prol._ l. 201 (ed. Morris); Cockayne's _Ste. Marherete_, pp. 9, 108; _St. Kath._, l. 1647.

l. 931. grynna may be for gyrnna (= _sorrows_), gen. plu. of gyrn, as suggested by one commentator.

l. 937. B. (_Beit._ xii. 90) makes gehwylcne object of wîd-scofen (häfde). Gr. makes weá nom. absolute.

l. 940. scuccum: cf. G. scheuche, scheusal; Prov. Eng. _old-shock_; perhaps the pop. interjection _O shucks!_ (!)

l. 959. H. explains we as a "plur. of majesty," which Beówulf throws off at l. 964.