Analysis of the extract (from line 5)

The narrator goes on telling the reader Beowulf’s reaction to the news. The narrator uses strong verbs like “order” and “ply” to underline the power of Beowulf’s decisions and his tools: in fact, even his boat has to be powerful and ply the waves. He even already has a plan: he wants to sail the “swan’s road” and find out that king who needs “defenders”. The imagine of the swan adds a sort of grace and gentleness to Beowulf’s power (his power is not that of the brute force) and the narrator, right from the start, describes him as a “defender”. A singular thing is that the narrator first refers to the needy person as a king, and immediately later as a prince.

The narrator goes on describing the reactions of the other men of the village about Beowulf’s decision: “no elder denied him”, on the contrary they “spurred his ambition to go”. The “elder” are also the sages of the village, and they agree with Beowulf’s decision: this makes him seem a somebody like a wise man and underlines another time his importance. But his importance is not only given by his hierarchical role: he was dear to them, so the reader can imagine he was a good person and everybody appreciated him.

The conveyed imagine of Beowulf is that of a strong men who acts “like the leader he was”, is ready to take decisions, and organize a group of men, who were not ordinary men: they were “the best he could find”. The narrator refers to Beowulf with many titles (leader, captain, pilot) and adjectives like “canny” (sharpened mind) that help to create an atmosphere of great wisdom, intelligence and reliability. This is his most evident characteristic: men believed in him and were exited and couldn’t wait to go with him (they “climbed eagerly up the gangplank”).

Then, the narrator describes the war-gear as shining and the ship as wood-weathered. The weapons are shining and powerful, maybe they are new. It means that the warriors are well-organized. The wood is weathered: the ship has already made many journeys. It may be old, but it had had the power to resist to bad weather many times and they hoped it would help them even this time. The sail is described using gentle words and a similitude with a bird. It takes up the idea of grace already suggested from the narrator about sailing in the seventh line.

At the end, the narrator tells the reader about the landing of the Geats. They arrived their destination “at the due hour” after a “easy crossing on a calm sea”. They had been very lucky and they thanked God for that. The hero, although he is a very strong, powerful, important and canny man, doesn’t attribute all his success to himself and his cleverness: he recognises the power of God and is grateful to Him.