Page:The Journal of English and Germanic Philology Volume 18.djvu/219

 Beowulf Notes 213 that is, they constitute another of the backward allusions by means of which the poet ties together Beowulf's adventure against Grendel and his adventure against the dragon. For reah f>e ic scyppendum, wuldorcyninge waccor hyrde, ricum dryhtne, J>onwe min raed waere (Gebete IV, 15 ff.), Nis ]>(Bt ponne naenig man >(Rt purfe one deopan grund f>aes hatan leges & >aes heardan leges gesecean, buton J>a f>e heora sylfra raed on ofergeotolnesse Godes beboda forlaetatS (Blickling Homilies 103, 14 ff.). The use of the dative construction (except with to r&de) is much less common ; I know of only one example : f>set is healic raed monna gehwylcum (Christ 430 f.).* 4 IX naes he gold-hwaete, gearwor haefde Agendes est aer gesceawod (3074 f.) This passage seems fairly entitled to the term locus despera- tus which Bugge applied to it, for Trautmann, Holthausen, 1, 2, 4, Sch licking, and Sedgefield all emend the text, each in his latest edition adopting a different emendation, and Chambers, who keeps the MS reading, acknowledges that neither Bugge 's nor Cosijn's rendering of it gives very good sense. I wish to suggest consideration of the following interpretation of the MS reading: "He [Beowulf] was not gold-greedy, he had rather regarded 88 Cf. Genesis 1936 L: drugon heora selfra ecne unrsed. 24 If we wish to emend on the basis of the dative construction we may read hwate Scyldinge instead of favates Scyldingas.