Beowulf: A New Translation

by Beowulf Poet

I was about eight, and on the hunt for any sort of woman-warrior. Wonder Woman and She-Ra were fine, but Grendel’s mother was better. She had a ferocious look and seemed to give precisely zero fucks, not that I had that language to describe her at that point in my life.

The phrase “That was a good king” recurs throughout the poem, because the poem is fundamentally concerned with how to get and keep the title “Good.” The suspicion that at any moment a person might shift from hero into howling wretch, teeth bared, causes characters ranging from scops to ring-lords to drop cautionary anecdotes. Does fame keep you good? No. Does gold keep you good? No. Does your good wife keep you good? No. What keeps you good? Vigilance. That’s it.

Every English-language translator’s take on how to translate this text is motivated by different ideas of how to use modern English to convey things inexpressible in it.

It is both pleasurable and desirable to read more than one translation of this poem, because when it comes to translating Beowulf, there is no sacred clarity. What the translated text says is a matter of study, interpretation, and poetic leaps of faith. Every translator translates this poem differently. That’s part of its glory.

There are noble characters in Beowulf, but the poem itself is not noble. There is elevated language in Beowulf, but the poem feels populist. It’s entertaining, episodic, and full of wonders.

As I constructed the persona of the narrator, other things about the poem fell into place—the insistent periodic recaps for a distracted multinight audience, the epithets and adamant character calibrations interspersed throughout (“That was a good king”). I emphasized those things where I found them, both for the mnemonic aid factor and for the feeling of a communal, colloquial history.

Language is a living thing, and when it dies, it leaves bones. I dropped some fossils here, next to some newborns.

I’m as interested in contemporary idiom and slang as I am in the archaic. There are other translations if you’re looking for the language of courtly romance and knights. This one has “life-tilt” and “rode hard … stayed thirsty” in it.

Depending on tone, “bro” can render you family or foe. The poem is about that notion, too. Marital pacts are made and catastrophes ensue, kingdoms are offered and rejected, familial bonds are ensured not with blood, but with gold. When I use “bro” elsewhere in the poem, whether in the voice of Beowulf, Hrothgar, or the narrator, it’s to keep us thinking of the ways that family can be sealed by formulation, the ways that men can afford (or deny) one another power and safety by using coded language, and erase women from power structures by speaking collegially only to other men.

I don’t know that Grendel’s mother should be perceived in binary terms—monster versus human. My own experiences as a woman tell me it’s very possible to be mistaken for monstrous when one is only doing as men do: providing for and defending oneself.

the reams of lore about single, self-sustaining women, and particularly about solitary elderly women, suggest that many human women have been, over the centuries, mistaken for supernatural creatures simply because they were alone and capable.

Bro! Tell me we still know how to speak of kings! In the old days, everyone knew what men were: brave, bold, glory-bound. Only stories now, but I’ll sound the Spear-Danes’ song, hoarded for hungry times.

Privilege is the way men prime power, the world over.

Even ghosts must be fitted to fight.

Finally, Beow rolled into righteous rule, daddying for decades after his own daddy died. At last, though, it was his turn for erasure: his son, the Halfdane, ran roughshod, smothering his father’s story with his own.

More than just a mead-hall, a world’s wonder, eighth of seven.

The hall loomed, golden towers antler-tipped; it was asking for burning, but that hadn’t happened yet.

You know how it is: every castle wants invading, and every family has enemies born within it. Old grudges recrudesce.

Speaking of grudges: out there in the dark, one waited.

Grendel was the name of this woe-walker, Unlucky, fucked by Fate.

His creation was cursed under the line of Cain, the kin-killer. The Lord, long ago, had taken Abel’s side. Though none of that was Grendel’s doing, he’d descended from bloodstains.

From Cain had come a cruel kind, seen by some as shadow-stalked: monsters, elves, giants who’d ground against God, and for that, been banished.

A hellion’s home is anywhere good men fear to tread; who knows the dread this marauder mapped?

They, too, were cursed, yet thought themselves clear. Bro, lemme say how fucked they were, in times of worst woe throwing themselves on luck rather than on faith, fire-walkers swearing their feet uncharred, while smoke-stepping. Why not face the Boss, and at death seek salves, not scars?

while in the dark his people shuddered, salt-scourged by weeping,

“How dare you come to Denmark costumed for war? Chain mail and swords?! There’s a dress code! You’re denied.

Spies, state your secrets, or be denounced. Who are you, what’s your business, where’d you come from? I’ll ask one more time. You’re not coming past this cliff. Answer now, or bounce. You, men: Who? Where? Why?”

Their leader unlocked his word-hoard.

The rest is in the proving.

in all my years I’ve never seen such an impressive assembly of outlanders. You’ve too much style to be exiles, so I expect you must be heroes, sent to Hrothgar?”

Anyone who fucks with the Geats? Bro, they have to fuck with me. They’re asking for it, and I deal them death. Now, I want to test my mettle on Grendel, best him, a match from man into meat. Just us two, hand to hand. Sweet.

Horrors happen, I’m grown, I know it. Bro, Fate can fuck you up.”

Benches bloody, no sign of those brave soldiers, the floor a pool, where once it was a playground for poets. It’s all written in red. Know before you dine, Beowulf: your predecessors are deceased. But sit down, my new old friend. Boy, enjoy the feast. Take your place in the tale of my heroes and their hopes.”

He’d historically been glorious, and the notion that another, more notorious under Heaven, might enjoy greater greatness, made him gnash.

No matter your other battles, the tales you told, the lines you sold, buddy, at least you lived. This time? Bro, know it: no one’s ever lasted a night clasped in Grendel’s arms.” Beowulf, Ecgtheow’s son, wasn’t fazed: “Well actually, buddy, sit down, you’re drunk.

We knew there were sharks. No one here is stupid.

My own strength sank that sea monster, and soon I was fighting again, lower than any human’s sight, outside even the edges of God’s light. Dark deeps, Hell’s creatures 560 in them, swinging my sword beneath the eyes of the world.

If a man’s brave enough, Fate, when on the fence, will often spare him.

Hashtag: blessed.

The hostess was impressed by Beowulf’s boasts. 640 Brass balls, if nothing else.

They’d stitched themselves to God, and knew no enemy could hem them in, not without Almighty approval.

And a poet, a long-term comrade of the king, a man mindful of meter with a 870 memory made of myriad myths, began to compose The Tale of Beowulf: his enviable exploits, and Geatish feats, the sentences rhyming rapturously, since now the man was elite enough for permanence.

You have to look at it this way, and reconcile yourself: 1060 God’s in charge, always has been, always will be, and anyone who lives long will endure both ecstasy and ugliness.

Any season is a season for blood, if you look at it in the right light.

They were the cream of the crop, but soon they’d be chaff, scythed from swordsmen into skeletons. She was the one to do it. The horror wasn’t muted by the measure of women’s strength against men’s brawn.

Boot to boot with his band, he marched to the room where Hrothgar waited, grim and gloomy, wondering if his fate was fucked forever, the Almighty refusing to relent.

Beowulf and his boys threw the doors open to sunlight and rattled the floorboards, no ground given to grief.

“No worries, wise one, I’ve got this. When a friend needs to be avenged, it’s better to fight than cry. Even when mourning, this is how it goes. We’re all going to die, but most of us won’t go out in glory. Here’s what matters, though, for men: not living, but living on in legend. I’m not afraid.

Meanwhile, Beowulf gave zero shits.

As she swam, a shoal came seeking to school him: a scrimshaw selection of sea monsters, rising out of the dark, tunneling with 1510 tooth and tusk, spearing and jeering.