Fr. Klaeber, Commentary on Beowulf
Fr. Klaeber, Ed.

[2024-69] The Heaðo-Bard Episode. See Intr. xxxiv ff.

The following is a summary of Saxo's narrative (vi 182 ff.).¹ Frotho, who succeeded to the Danish throne when he was in his twelfth year, overcame and subjugated the Saxon kings Swerting and Hanef. He proved an excellent king, strong in war, generous, virtuous, and mindful of honor. Meanwhile Swerting, anxious to free his land from the rule of the Danes, treacherously resolved to put Frotho to death, but the latter forestalled and slew him, though slain by him simultaneously. Frotho was succeeded by his son Ingellus, whose soul was perverted from honor. He forsook the examples of his forefathers, and utterly enthralled himself to the lures of wanton profligacy. He married the daughter of Swerting given him by her brothers, who desired to insure themselves against vengeance on the part of the Danish king. When Starcatherus, the old-time guardian of Frotho's son, heard that Ingellus was perversely minded, and instead of punishing his father's murderers, bestowed upon them kindness and friendship, he was vexed with stinging wrath² at so dreadful a crime. He returned from his wanderings in foreign lands, where he had been fighting, and, clad in mean garments, betook himself to the royal hall and awaited the king. In the evening, Ingellus took his meal with the sons of Swerting, and enjoyed a magnificent feast. The tables had been loaded with the profusest dishes. The stern guest, soon recognized by the king, violently spurned the queen's efforts to please him, and when he saw that the slayers of Frotho were in high favor with the king, he could not forbear from attacking Ingellus' character, but poured out the whole bitterness of his reproaches on his head, and thereupon added the following song ' Thou, Ingellus, buried in sin, why dost thou tarry in the task of avenging thy father ? Wilt thou think tranquilly of the slaughter of thy righteous sire? -- Why dost thou, sluggard, think only of feasting ? Is the avenging of thy slaughtered father a little thing to thee ? -- I have come from Sweden, traveling over wide lands, thinking that I should be rewarded, if only I had the joy to find the son of my beloved Frotho. -- But I sought a brave man, and I have come to a glutton, a king who is the slave of his belly and of vice. -- Wherefore, when the honors of kings are sung, and poets relate the victories of captains, I hide my face for shame in my mantle, sick at heart. -- I would crave no greater blessing, if I might see those guilty of thy murder, O Frotho, duly punished for such a crime.' Now he prevailed so well by this reproach [clothed by Saxo in seventy Latin stanzas] that Ingellus, roused by the earnest admonition of his guardian, leapt up, drew his sword, and forthwith slew the sons of Swerting.

Compared with the Beowulf, Saxo's version marks an advance in dramatic power in that the climax is brought about by a single act (not by exhortations administered on many occasions, mǣla gehewylce 2057), and that Ingellus himself executes the vengeance, whereas in the English poem the slaying of one of the queen's attendants by an unnamed warrior ushers in the catastrophe.³