Hersenskim: September 2013

“Internationally recognized as the greatest Irish poet since WB Yeats…*”, and a winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, the first poetry of Heaney’s which I read was his masterful translation of Beowulf. Though at that time I’d only heard of the poem, I had been searching for it in the local bookshops for some months before finding the slim volume hidden among other volumes on the “Poetry and Literature” shelf. When at last I got my hands on it, I had no idea of the impact it would have on my life.

Opening lines of Beowulf

As someone mostly ignorant of Anglo-Saxon poetry (and the richness of the language and culture) at that time, the poem opened up a whole new world. It was a world veiled by time, culture and many of the prejudices held about the Dark and Middle Ages. But it is a world steeped in legends and myths; the heroes great but fallible, the warriors and lords capable of great destruction, and yet lament at the death of friends. One of my favourite passages in the poem – and one which still move me to tears, is when Hrothgar laments his counselor Aeschere’s death:

Then Hrothgar, the Shieldings’ helmet, spoke:

‘Rest? What is rest? Sorrow has returned.

Alas for the Danes! Aeschere is dead.

He was Yrmenlaf’s elder brother

and a soul-mate to me, a true mentor,

my right-hand man when the ranks clashed

and our boar-crests had to take a battering

in the line of action. Aeschere was everything

the world admires in a wise man and a friend.

(Heaney 2000:44)

There are also videos of Heaney reading from his own translation:

Seamus Heaney - Beowulf (1/7) by poetictouch

Yes, Heaney left a body of work worthy of remembrance and celebration. His name will be remembered and his works will endure. Yet, my sorrow at the news of his passing was the sorrow of someone who was deeply touched by a work over a thousand years old; a body literature suddenly made accessible. It was the sorrow of someone who could never say “Thank you, you have touched my life and led me on a path I could never have foreseen”.

In his foreword to TheWord Exchange, Heaney noted “… Anglo-Saxon poetry isn’t all stoicism and melancholy, isn’t all about battle and exile and a gray dawn breaking: it can be unexpectedly rapturous as in The Vision of the Cross and happily didactic as in the allegory of Whale. It can be intimate and domestic, and take us to places far behind the shield wall…” (Delanty & Matto 2011:XII).

Yet, in the end, there is perhaps not much more than I can say, but to quote from the Maxims found in The Word Exchange (Delanty& Matto 2011:13):

A tree must shed its leaves, its branches be barren;

the traveler must embark on the start of travels;

all the mortals must meet their fate

But, Mr. Heaney, may your words live forever, bringing new inspiration to those who already know your work and those who pick up one of your volumes for the first time. Thank you for touching my life.