xxx + 180 + 47 pp. + 1 unnumbered plate (frontispiece facsimile of MS page). The second, significantly revised edition of Lumsden's 1881 translation: his "Preface to the Second Edition" indicates that not only is this one corrected, but "some parts have been entirely rewritten, and the passages formerly omitted as obscure or uninteresting have been inserted. Such as it is, the translation is now complete" (v). He states that the introduction has also been revised and some notes added (v). The translation is in rhymed couplets of iambic heptameter; MO1 (p. 168) refers to it as "ballad meter," which is accurate in terms of prosody and rhyme scheme, but Lumsden's frequent enjambment makes an association with the ballad somewhat misleading.

The translation is divided into three titled sections: "Grendel," "Grendel's Mother," and "The Fire Drake"; and within these major sections, into 18 titled subsections. Each major section is headed with its "argument," a prose summary. The translation is preceded by Lumsden's substantial introduction (vii-xxvii), and is followed by a lengthy series of notes (149-79; these are topical, not line-by-line, with topics including "The Sea Burial of Scyld," "Nicors," "The Arrangement of the Hall," and "Wiglaf's Denunciation") and by a long catalogue of other books by the publisher (occupying a newly paginated series of pp. 1-47).

Section I, "Grendel," begins:

                                   I.

                    THE SCYLDING KINGS.

Lo! we have heard of glory won by Gar-Dane Kings of old,
And mighty deeds these princes wrought. Oft with his warriors bold,
Since first an outcast he was found, did Scyld the Scefing hurl
From their mead-benches many a folk, and frighted many an earl.
Therein he took his pleasure,—great he waxed beneath the sky,
And throve in worship, till to him all folk who dwelt hard by,
And o'er the whale-path, tribute paid, and did his word obey.
Good king was he!

                                        To him was born an heir in after day,
A child in hall; the gift of God to glad the people sent;
The deadly wrongs and woes He knew they long while underwent;
And therefore did the Prince of life, the Lord of glory, shower
All worldly praise on him, the famed Beowulf; and the power
Of Scyld's great heir spread far and wide through all the Danish land. (3-4)

And the translation ends:

                                                              Then nobles twelve—the chief—
The bold in war—around the barrow rode and spoke their grief.
They mourned their king, and chanted dirge, and much of him they said;
His worthiness they praised, and judged his deeds with tender dread;
As well beseemeth it that men their dear lord's praise should show,
And love him with their hearts when he from lent flesh forth must go.

His hearthmates thus and Gothic folk bewailed their prince's fall,
'Mong kings of earth the mildest, kindest, lovingest of all! (146)

1883 edition with the completed translation not in MO2. MO1 (p. 168) notes this edition but not Lumsden's completion of the translation in it.

BAM.