Bugge tries to explain Hengest's action on similar lines: "He does not hesitate to enter the service of Finn in order thereby to carry out his revenge[[473]]."
But the circumstances are entirely different. Wiggo was left alone, the only survivor of Rolf's household, to face a whole army. But Hengest is no single survivor: he and his fellows have made so good a defence that Finn cannot overcome them by conflict on the meðel-stede. Not only so, but, if we accept the interpretation that almost every critic and editor has put upon the passage (ll. 1184-5), Hengest's position is even stronger. Finn has lost almost all his thegns; the usual interpretation puts him at the mercy of Hengest: at best it is a draw[[474]]. If, then, Hengest wants vengeance upon Finn, why does he not pursue it? Instead of which, according to Bugge, he enters Finn's service in order that he may get an opportunity for revenge.
And note, that Wiggo did not swear the oath of fealty to the murderer of his master Rolf: he merely put himself in the posture to do so, and then, instead, ran the tyrant through forthwith. But Hengest does swear the oath, and does not forthwith slay the tyrant. He spends the winter with him, receives a sword from Hunlafing, after which his name does not occur again. Finn is ultimately slain, but the names which are found in that connection are those of Guthlaf and Oslaf [Ordlaf].
So Bugge's explanation comes to this: Hengest is fighting with success against Finn, but he refrains from vengeance: instead, he treacherously enters his service in order that he may take an opportunity of vengeance, which opportunity, however, it is never made clear to us that he takes.
Had Hengest been a man of that kind, he would not have been a hero of Old English heroic song.
Section VI. Recent Elucidations. Prof. Ayres' Comments
It is one of the merits of Bugge's view—one of the proofs of its general soundness—that it admits of successive improvements at the hands of succeeding commentators. No one has done more in this way than has Prof. Ayres to clear up the story, particularly the latter part of the Episode. Ayres evolves unity out of what had been before "a rapid-fire of events that hit all around a central tragic situation and do not once touch it." Hengest does not, Ayres thinks, enter the service of Finn with any such well-formed plan of revenge as Bugge had attributed to him. Hengest was in a difficult situation. It is his mental conflict, "torn between his oath to Finn and his duty to the dead Hnæf," which gives unity to all that follows. It is a tragedy of Hengest, hesitating, like Shakespeare's Hamlet, over the duty of revenge. Prof. Ayres' statement here is too good to summarize; it must be quoted at length:
"How did he feel during that long, blood-stained winter? He naturally thought about home (eard gemunde, 1129), but there was no question of sailing then, no need yet of decision while the storm roared outside. By and by spring came round, as it has a way of doing. How did he feel then? Then, like any other Northerner, he wanted to put to sea:
fundode wrecca,
gist of geardum.
That is what he would naturally do. He would speak to Finn and be off; in the spring his business was on the sea. That is all right as to Finn, but as to the dead Hnæf it is very like running away; it is postponing vengeance sadly. Will he prove so unpregnant of his cause as that? No; though he would like to go to sea, he thought rather of vengeance, and staid in the hope of managing a successful surprise against Finn and his people:
hē tō gyrn-wræce
swīðor þōhte þonne tō sǣ-lāde,
gif hē torn-gemōt þurhtēon mihte,
þæt hē Eotena bēarn inne gemunde.
All this says clearly that Hengest was thinking things over, whether he should or should not take vengeance upon Finn; it tells us also very clearly, with characteristic anticipation of the outcome of the story, that in the end desire for vengeance carried the day:
Swā hē ne-forwyrnde worold-rǣdenne,
he did not thus prove recreant to his duty. But we have not been told the steps by which Hengest arrived at his decision. That seems to be what we should naturally want to know at this point, and that is precisely what we are about to be told. Occasions gross as earth informed against him[[475]]."