‘that dark permanence of ancient forms’ very end of his translation, Heaney writes: ‘she unburdened herself|ofher worst
fears, a wild litany|of nightmare and lament: her nation invaded,|enemies on
the rampage, bodies in piles,|slavery and abasement.’^31 It would seem that Heaney
has himself introduced the phrase ‘her nation invaded’, which does not appear to
be in the original text or in any of the translations I have been able to consult.
This underscores the contemporary relevance of the event. Heaney writes in his
introduction, as if to prepare the reader:
The Geat woman who cries out in dread as the flames consume the body of her dead lord
could come straight from a late-twentieth-century news report, from Rwanda or Kosovo;
her keen is a nightmare glimpse into the minds of people who have survived traumatic, even
monstrous events and who are now being exposed to a comfortless future.^32
One could extend Heaney’s litany of disasters and suggest that the series would
include Rwanda, Kosovo, and his own native Ulster, which raises the inevitable
question of who exactly is the victim, and who exactly the invading army (is the
British Army functioning like the Hutu militia or the Serb war bands?). One reading
might be that the Geat woman becomes a sort of contemporary Dark Rosaleen, but
one who is less certain that her nation is destined to triumph. More importantly,
this addition suggests retroactively that Ulster is the space of which epics are made,
that the world ofBeowulfis a world that has relevance, and more than simply as a
warning, to the contemporary world.
(^31) Ibid. 98–9. (^32) Ibid.p.xxi.