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Paco2004 Posted 21 years ago
Linguistics Studies

Beowulf Prologue

Hello

Is there any person who has learned Old English?

I'm Japanese and I'm not so much acquainted even with Modern English. But somehow I'm interested in learning Old English and now I began to challenge 'Beowulf'. But I got difficulty at the very first line. If you have some knowledge about Old English, could you kindly help me?

The first line is:
Hwæt! Wé Gárdena in geárdum þéodcyninga þrym gefrúnon. Hú ðá æþelingas ellen fremdon.
What I cannot get is the construct of 'Gárdena in geárdum þéodcyninga þrym'. I feel the whole of this phrase is the object of 'gefrúnon'. But I cannot get its internal structure. What does the prepositional phrase 'in geárdum' modify? Does it modify Gárdena? Or does it modify 'þéodcyninga'?

Thank you in advance.
paco
  

Top answer

This may help, Paco sama. html I'm not quite as ambitious as you. I'm only trying a short chapter of Canterbury Tales in Middle English, which is doable if I read it out loud.

— Julielai

  • This may help, Paco sama.
  • html I'm not quite as ambitious as you.
  • I'm only trying a short chapter of Canterbury Tales in Middle English, which is doable if I read it out loud.
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11 Answers
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This may help, Paco sama.

http://www.humanities.mcmaster.ca/~beowulf/old/oldpro.html

I'm not quite as ambitious as you. I'm only trying a short chapter of Canterbury Tales in Middle English, which is doa
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Hello Julielai

Thank you for the link. I had known the website when I put the previous posting. That project is really excellent, but I feel its modern translation is too elaborate to parse the original text grammatically. What I found better in this respect is [url=http://www.heorot.dk/beowulf-rede-text.
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If you are just starting don't you think you are taking on a bit of a tricky text? Even the experts are not sure what some of it means. Also, prose is rather easier to tackle than poetry.
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Forbes

Thanks for the advice. Did you learn OE? If you did, would you kindly tell me the titles of any readers that you think are good for beginners.

paco
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I never learned it properly - just investigated!

I have a book called Sweet's Anglo-Saxon Primer published by the Oxford University Press. I have no idea if it is still in print. I am sure there are a few beginner's books about.
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Hello Forbes

Thank you for the information. Likely that book is still now in print. Please take a look at [url=http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0198111789/102-0524582-1024156?v=glance] here[/url].
paco
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I recognise the text. It's from one of the gospels.
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Hello Forbes

Yes I know it. I think it would be almost impossible to find any textbook about computer science written in Old English, though I found online a sentence like "Læcas in Americalande fundon læcewyrte þe is "******" haten. Nu menn þe ær ne swifað, mid wife hæman magon. Micel feoh cumeð, soðlice".
paco
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Paco2004"Læcas in Americalande fundon læcewyrte þe is "******" haten. Nu menn þe ær ne swifað, mid wife hæman magon. Micel feoh cumeð, soðlice".

paco

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"gefrúnon" contains "rún" (rún is a name of letter in the runic alphabet, but rún is in pural form in icelandic rúnir. I would say that "gefrúnon" would be "in writing" put the poem in letters.
Þrym = to tell (loudly) (the poem)
Þéodcyninga = Þjóð konung = nations king.
geárdagum = I think it is misspelled in your text, this is the sam word as "gærdagur" in icelandic meaning yest

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