Books: There Be Dragons

The extent to which this poet or bard can be called a Christian has prompted much scholarly disagreement. He alludes to the Old Testament and expresses a monotheistic religious faith: "Almighty God rules over mankind/and always has." But the characters in the poem behave according to a moral code in which loving one's enemies and hoping to be redeemed in heaven figure not at all. As Beowulf prepares to fight his second monster, he announces his credo: "It is always better/to avenge dear ones than to indulge in mourning./For every one of us, living in this world/means waiting for our end. Let whoever can/win glory before death. When a warrior is gone,/that will be his best and only bulwark."

Beowulf may, by modern standards, seem bloodthirsty and deluded, but Heaney's poetry makes eloquently persuasive the hero's tragic stature. And when he dies, his people mourn not just in sorrow but in fear of the enemies who will surely descend on them now.

In his preface, Heaney acknowledges the irony of a Celtic poet's attempting to revivify an Anglo-Saxon poem. When younger, he notes, "I tended to conceive of English and Irish as adversarial tongues, as either/or conditions rather than both/ands." But this notion faded the deeper he got into his translation. Digging, delving into the loam of language, has been a central metaphor throughout his poetic career. (His most recent selection is titled Opened Ground.) What Heaney has brought to the surface with his Beowulf is an old and newly burnished treasure.