Page:The Journal of English and Germanic Philology Volume 18.djvu/218

 212 Moore VIII syftSan hie gefricgeat5 frean userne ealdor-leasne, )?one (5e aer geheold wit5 hettendum hord ond rice aefter haelet5a hryre; hwate[s] Scildingas folc-red fremede oc5(5e furSur gen eorl-scipe efnde (3002ff.) Klaeber, after a thoro canvass of the various interpretations of line 3005, concludes: "Obviously, there is no getting around the fact that neither Scyldingas nor Scylfingas can be forced into a reasonable or plausible interpretation. Would it not, then, be a safer course frankly to admit that the author (or the scribe) at this point became momentarily confused and instead of pen- ning, say Sageatas, blundered into the (far more familiar) Scildingas? " 21 Klaeber's emendation, tho spoken of with approval by Chambers, has not been adopted in any edition of Beowulf. I would suggest, as an alternative that demands only a very slight alteration of the transmitted text, the reading hwates Scildingas, and, punctuating the text as it is printed above, would translate : " he accomplished the relief of the brave Scilding "[i. e. Hrothgar]" and still went on doing brave deeds. " 22 So interpreted lines 3005b, 3006a are structurally analagous to: no he him f?a ssecce ondred, ne him aes Wynnes wig for wiht dyde, eafot5 ond ellen, forfton he aer fela, nearo ne"3ende, nit5a gedigde, hilde-hlemma, syftSan he" HrotSgares, sigor-eadig secg, sele fselsode, ond set gufte forgrap Grendeles mjegum laSan cynnes (2347 ff.) and Nolde ic sweord beran, wsfepen to wyrme, gif ic wiste hu witS tSam aglaecean elles meahte gylpe wiSgrlpan, swa ic gio wiS Grendle dyde (2518 ff.), 21 JOURNAL OF ENGLISH AND GERMANIC PHILOLOGY, VIII, 259. 22 Toller's Supplement cites as other examples of furfior gen in this sense Juliana 317 and Phoenix 236. The genitive singular in as occurs in Beowulf 63, 2453, and 2921.