Om end du giør dig kry,
Det giør slet ingen Gode,
Du brænder dig paany;
Ia, vil en Nat du vove
At bie Grændel her,
Da tør derfor jeg love,
Dig times en Ufærd.’
Criticism of the Translation.
The poem departs so far from the text of Beowulf that any discussion of its accuracy would be out of place. As has been shown by the section on the nature of the translation, the author had no intention of being true to the letter of the text. Grundtvig’s scholarship has been discussed above.
The translation may properly be called nothing more than a paraphrase. Whole sentences are introduced that have no connection with the original text. Throughout the translation is evident the robust, but not always agreeable, personality of the translator. In his preface[5] Grundtvig remarked that he put nothing into his poem that was not historically and poetically true to the original. The statement can only be regarded as an unfortunate exaggeration. Grundtvig’s style cannot be called even a faint reflection of the Beowulf style. He has popularized the story, and he has cheapened it. There is no warrant in the original for the coarse invective of the extract that has just been cited. In the Old English, Hunferth taunts Beowulf, but he never forgets that his rival is ‘doughty in battle’ (l. 526). Beowulf is always worthy of his respect. In Grundtvig, the taunting degenerates into a scurrilous tirade. Hunferth calls Beowulf a ‘mudscow’; Breca and Beowulf swim like two ‘dead herrings.’ In like manner the character of Hunferth is cheapened. In Beowulf he is a jealous courtier, but he is always heroic. In Grundtvig he is merely a contemptible braggart, ‘with his nose high in air,’ who will not allow himself to be ‘thrown to the rubbish heap.’