xlvi + 160 pp. A rhyming verse translation, mainly in 4-stress couplets but allowing variation with non-consecutive lines that rhyme with each other (these usually have 3 stresses, but occasionally 4, as in the last quotation of sample text below). The translation observes the manuscript's division of the poem into fitts (called "Cantos" by Wackerbarth) and is surprisingly accurate in view of both its early date and Wackerbarth's chosen formal constraints. It is preceded by a fold-out map drawn by Wackerbarth himself (between pp. ii and iii; it has a note at the bottom, "A. D. Wackerbarth delin."), a Preface (vii-xiv), and a lengthy Introduction (xv-xlvi) dated 1847, and is followed by Notes (123-52) and an Index (153-59).

The opening of Wackerbarth's Preface:

Of the Drudges who do the lowlier Work in the Tillage of Learning's Vineyard, few perhaps will be met with who have a more thankless Task than the Translator: for not only has he to bear the just Lash of enlightened Criticism from the Scholar, (whereof of course he can have no Right to complain,) but those to whom his Original must, but for his Toil, have remained for ever a sealed Book, and who are utterly incapable either of testing his Accuracy or appreciating his Difficulties, lay Load upon him without Mercy, and make him answerable not only for his own Errors, but for any Obscurities which may exist in his Original, as well as for their own blundering Misconceptions of his or his Author's Meaning.—In short he is called to account not only for his own Faults but likewise for the Ignorance of many of his Readers. (vii)

Wackerbarth goes on to explain his reliance on Kemble's edition; the start of his own translation before Kemble's translation appeared; and the delays in finishing it that also allowed him, in the end, to benefit from Kemble's translation (Wackerbarth also notes, at Kemble's name in his index, "His Work is constantly used" [157]).

From Wackerbarth's Introduction: "That the Authour was a Christian is evident, and therefore the work must be subsequent to the Arrival of the Missionaries of the Holy See at the latter end of the Sixth Century, (for the Language is pure Anglo-Saxon, and was certainly written in England or by an Anglo-Saxon of this Country), and the Traditions are of heathen Date" (xliv); "The Language of the Poem, again, does not appear to me to differ so much from that of King Ælfred, or of Ceadmon, as to warrant our placing a very long Interval between the Productions: but it appears to forbid our considering it as belonging to the later Danish Dynasty of Cnut" (xlv-xlvi; "Ceadmon" sic).

The translation begins:

[title] INTRODUCTORY CANTO.

Lo! We have learn'd in lofty Lays
The Gár-Danes Deeds in antient Days
          And Ages past away,
The Glories of the Theod-Kings,
And how the valiant Æthelings
          Bare them in Battle's Day.
Oft Scyld, the son of Scéf, from Bands
Of foemen, drawn from numerous Lands,
          The Mead-thrones tare away;
For Dread he cast on all around
Sith he was first an Out-cast found,
Thus he abode in easy State,
And 'neath the Welkin waxéd great,
          And in his Glories thrave,
Till circling Nations far and wide
Over the Path the Whale doth ride
          Obeyed and Tribute gave.
This was a Monarch good:—and he
Was after bless'd with Progeny,
Young in his Palaces, by Heaven
A Comfort to the People given:
He knew the Ill they had sustain'd
While chieftainless they long remain'd. (1; indentation as in original)

And ends:

The Troop of Princes rode around,
The Beasts-of-war about the Mound,
In Number twelve, and they would sing,
And call to Mind their valiant King,
Themselves would speak, pour forth their Lays,
His Earlship laud, his Valour praise,
With Praise they judg'd him, as 'tis good
A Man his well-lov'd Sovereign should
Extol in Words and love in Heart,
When from the Body he must part,
          A useless Thing henceforth to be.
Their Sorrow for their well-lov'd Lord
The Geátic People thus out-poured,
          His Comrades dear, and said that he,
               Of Kings throughout the Earth,
     Was e'en the gentlest to Mankind,
     The Man of most benignant Mind
     The Prince most to his people kind,
               Most earnest after Worth. (122; varying grades of indentation as in original)

• Hugh Magennis, Translating Beowulf: Modern Versions in English Verse (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2011).

Fry interprets the description "translated from the Anglo-Saxon into English verse" as part of the title.

Fry, MO1 (p. 177), and MO2 characterize the translation as being in (respectively) "ballad measure in imitation of Scott," "ballad verse," or "ballad meter." Wackerbarth's rhyme scheme is irregular, so while his line lengths and rhythms are ballad-like, and many of his sequences read like medieval tail-rhyme, these descriptions can be misleading in giving an impression of stanzaic structure and song-like regularity.

BAM.