Specificity of the image of the epic medieval hero. High Middle Ages

Literature in Latin served as a bridge between Antiquity and the Middle Ages. But the basis of the new that appeared in European culture and determined its fundamental difference from the culture of Antiquity is not scientific literature, but folklore of peoples, appeared on the arena of history as a result of the migration of peoples and the death of ancient civilization.

Turning to this topic, it is necessary to dwell specifically on such a theoretical problem as the fundamental difference between literature and folklore.

Literature and folklore. There is a fundamental the difference between the folklore epic and the literary epic, especially the novel. M.M. Bakhtin identifies three main differences between the epic and the novel: “... epic serves national epic past, "absolute past", in the terminology of Goethe and Schiller, the source of the epic is the national tradition(A non-personal experience and the free fiction that grows out of it), the epic world is separated from the present, those. from the time of the singer (the author and his listeners), absolute epic distance"(Bakhtin M.M. The epic and the novel // Bakhtin M.M. Questions of literature and "aesthetics. - M., 1975. - P. 456 (the author refers to the heroic epic by the term" epic ")). The idea in a literary work expresses the author's attitude to the depicted. She is individual. In a heroic epic, where there is no individual author, only a general heroic idea can be expressed, which is thus the idea of ​​a genre (at the very least, a cycle or plot), and not a separate work. Let's call this genre idea an epic idea.

Rhapsode does not give a personal assessment of the depicted both for objective reasons (“the absolute epic distance” does not allow him to discuss the “first and highest”, “fathers”, “ancestors”), and for subjective reasons (the rhapsodist is not the author, not the writer, but the keeper of the legend). It is no coincidence that a number of assessments are put into the mouths of the heroes of the epic. Consequently, the glorification of characters or their exposure, even love or hatred belong to the whole people - the creator of the heroic epos.

However, it would be a mistake, on the basis of the above considerations, to draw a conclusion about the uncreative nature of the rhapsodist's activity. The narrator was not allowed liberties (ie, the author's beginning), but accuracy was not required of him. Folklore is not learned by heart, so a deviation from what has been heard is perceived not as a mistake (as it would be when transmitting a literary work), but as an improvisation. Improvisation- obligatory beginning in the heroic epic. The elucidation of this peculiarity leads to the conclusion that in the epic there is a different system of artistic means than in literature, it is determined by the principle of improvisation and initially acts not as an artistic, but as a mnemonic system that allows you to keep huge texts in memory and, therefore, is based on repetitions, constant motives, parallelism, similar images, similar actions etc. Later, the artistic significance of this system is also revealed, because the gradual universalization of the musical motive (recitative) leads to the restructuring of prose speech into poetic speech, the systematization of assonances and alliterations first generates assonance or alliterative verse, and then rhyme, repetition begins to play a large role in highlighting the most important moments. narratives, etc.

V.Ya. Propp. In the article “The Specifics of Folklore”, he wrote: “... Folklore has means specific to it (parallelisms, repetitions, etc.) ... the usual means of poetic language (comparisons, metaphors, epithets) are filled with a completely different content than in literature "(Propp V.Ya. Folklore and reality. - M., 1976. - P. 20.). So, epic works of folklore (heroic epic) and literature (for example, a novel) are built on completely different laws and should be read and studied differently.

Two groups of monuments of the European heroic epic of the Middle Ages. Monuments of the heroic epic of the Middle Ages, which have come down to us in the records of learned clergy since the 10th century, are usually divided into two groups: epic of the early Middle Ages(Irish epic, Icelandic epic, English epic monument "Beowulf", etc.) and epic of the era of developed feudalism(French heroic epic "The Song of Roland", the earliest record - the so-called Oxford List, c. 1170; German heroic epic "The Song of the Nibelungs", record c. 1200; Spanish heroic epic "The Song of my Sid", record circa 1140, possibly an author's work, but based on ancient German legends, etc.). Each of the monuments differs in its own characteristics both in content (for example, the cosmogonic representations of the northern peoples of Europe preserved only in the Icelandic epic) and in form (for example, the combination of poetry and prose in the Irish epic). But the allocation of two groups of monuments is associated with more a common feature - a way of reflecting reality in them. In the heroic epic of the early Middle Ages, not a specific historical event is reflected, but a whole era(although individual events and even characters had a historical basis), while the monuments of developed feudalism reflect even transformed according to the laws of folklore, but a specific historical event.

The mythology of the northern peoples of Europe in the Icelandic epic. Systemic representations of the ancient northern peoples about the origin of the world only in the Icelandic epic. The oldest surviving record of this epic is called "Elder Edda" by analogy with the "Edda" - a kind of textbook for poets written by the Icelandic skald (poet) Snorri Sturlusono (1178-1241) in 1222-1225. and now called "Junior Edda". The 10 mythological and 19 heroic songs of the "Elder Edda", as well as the retellings of Snorri Sturluson (1st part of the "Younger Edda") contain the richest material on Scandinavian cosmogony.

“At the beginning of time // there was no sand in the world // no sand, no sea, // no cold waters, // there was no earth yet // and the firmament, // the abyss gaped, the grass did not grow,” the song says “ Divination of the völva ”(i.e. prophetesses, sorceresses). The frost that filled the abyss from Niflheim ("dark world") under the influence of sparks from Muspellsheim ("fiery world") began to melt, and from it emerged the jotun (giant) Ymir, and then the cow Audumla, who fed him with her milk. From the salty stones that Audumla licked, Buri arose, the father of Bor, who, in turn, became the father of the gods Odin (the supreme deity of the ancient Germans), Vili and Ve. In the "Speech of Grimnir" it is reported that these gods subsequently killed Ymir, and from his flesh the earth arose, from the blood - the sea, from the bones - the mountains, from the skull - the sky, from the hair - the forest, from the eyelashes - the steppe of Midgard (literally, " the middle enclosed space”, i.e. the middle world, the habitat of man). In the center of Midgard, the world tree Yggdrasil grows, connecting the earth with Asgard - the seat of aces (gods). Ases create a man from ash, and a woman from alder. Warriors who die in battle with honor are carried away by the daughters of Odin, the Valkyries, to heaven, to Valhalla - the palace of Odin, where there is a continuous feast. Thanks to the cunning of the insidious god Loki - the personification of changeable fire - the young god Balder (a kind of Scandinavian Apollo) dies, a strife begins between the gods, Yggdrasil burns, the sky falls, which was supported by his crown, the death of the gods leads to the return of the world into chaos.

A Christian insert is often considered to be a story about the rebirth of life on earth, but perhaps this is a reflection of the original idea of ​​the Germans about the cyclical development of the Universe.

Irish epic. This is the epic of the Celtic peoples, the most ancient of the surviving legends of the peoples of Northern Europe. There are about 100 songs in the Ulad cycle. Judging by some details, for example, by the fact that the good king Ulada Conchobar is opposed by the evil sorceress Queen Medb of Connaught, who sends a disease to the Ulad warriors in order to freely capture the bull that brings prosperity grazing in Ulada, and also by the fact that the main character Ulada Cuchulainn and sent by order of Medb to fight with him, his brother Ferdiad studied martial arts from the warrior Scathach, it can be concluded that the Ulad cycle does not reflect a specific historical event (although the war between Ulad - present-day Ulster - and Connaught really went on from the 2nd century BC. BC to the 2nd century AD), and a whole historical era is the transition from matriarchy to patriarchy in its guardianship stage, when the power of women is associated either with past times or with an evil inclination.

French epic. "The Song of Roland". Among several hundred monuments of the French medieval heroic epic, one stands out "The Song of Roland". Recorded for the first time around 1170 (the so-called Oxford list), it refers to epic of developed feudalism. It is based on a real historical event. IN 778 g. young Charlemagne, who recently decided to recreate the Roman Empire, sent troops into Spain, which had been captured by the Moors (Arabs) since 711. The campaign was unsuccessful: in two months of hostilities, it was only possible to besiege the city Zaragoza, but its defenders had unlimited supplies of water in the fortress, so it turned out to be unrealistic to starve them out, and Karl, having lifted the siege, withdrew his troops from Spain. When they pass Ronceval Gorge in the Pyrenees local tribes attacked the rearguard of the troops Basque. Three noble Franks were killed in the battle, of which the chronicle calls the third prefect of the Breton March of Hruotland- the future epic Roland. The attackers scattered over the mountains, and Charles failed to avenge them. With this he returned to his capital Aachen.

This event in the "Song of Roland" as a result of folklore transformation looks completely different: the emperor Karl, who is over two hundred years old, leads to Spain a seven-year victorious war. Only the city of Zaragoza did not surrender. In order not to shed excess blood, Karl sends to the leader Moors Marsilius noble knight Ganelon. He, mortally offended by Roland, who gave this advice to Karl, negotiates, but then cheats on Karl. On the advice of Ganelon, Charles puts Roland at the head of the rearguard of the retreating troops. The rearguard is attacked by those who agreed with Ganelon Moors ("non-Christians", not Basques - Christians) and destroy all warriors. The last to die not from wounds, but from overexertion) Roland. Karl returns with troops and destroys Moors and all "pagans”, who joined them, and then in Aachen arranges God's judgment on Ganelon. The fighter of Ganelon loses the duel to the fighter of Karl, which means that God is not on the side of the traitor, and he is cruelly executed: they tie his arms and legs to four horses, let them gallop - and the horses tear Ganelon's body to pieces.

Authorship problem. The text of "The Song of Roland" was published in 1823 and immediately attracted attention with its aesthetic significance. At the end of the XIX century. the outstanding French medievalist Joseph Bedier decided to find out the author of the poem, relying on the last, 4002nd line of the text: "Turold's tales are interrupted here." He found not one, but 12 Turolds to whom the work could be attributed. However, even before Bedier, Gaston Paris suggested that this is a folklore work, and after Bedier's research, the Spanish medievalist Ramon Menendez Pidal convincingly showed that the "Song of Roland" refers to "traditional" texts that do not have an individual author.

Logic inversion. Approach to "The Song of Roland" as piece of folklore allows to clarify contradictions that strike the modern reader. Some of them can be explained by improvisation technique, other - layering of layers belonging to different eras. Some of the inconsistencies are explained indefinitely personal nature of the functions of heroes(the behavior of Ganelon, Marsilius, especially Charles, in the second part acquiring the function of Roland, and in the third losing this function). But a number of Karl's actions are not explained by the principle of combining or changing the functions of heroes. It is not clear why Karl sends Roland to the rearguard, considering Ganelon's advice diabolical, why he mourns Roland even before the battle in the gorge and calls Ganelon a traitor. A hundred thousandth army cries with Karl, suspecting Ganelon of treason. Or such a place: “The great Karl is tormented and crying, // But help them, alas! no power to give."

Psychological inconsistencies must be explained from two sides. Firstly, in the epic the laws of psychologism, which require reliability in the depiction of motives and psychological reactions, are not yet used, and contradictions were not noticeable to the medieval listener. Secondly, just their appearance is associated with the peculiarities of the epic time. To a certain extent the epic ideal is based on the dreams of the people, but they are brought into the past . epic time thus appears as "the future in the past". This type of time has a huge impact not only on the structure, but also on the very logic of the epic. Cause-and-effect relationships play an insignificant role in it.. Main principle epic logic is "logic of the end", which we will denote by the term "logical inversion". According to logical inversion, Roland died not because Ganelon betrayed him, but on the contrary, Ganelon betrayed Roland because he must die and thereby forever immortalize his heroic name. Karl sends Roland to the rearguard because the hero must die, and weeps because he is endowed with the knowledge of the end.

Knowledge of the end, future events by the narrator, listeners and the characters themselves is one of the manifestations of logical inversion. Events are foreshadowed many times, in particular, prophetic dreams and omens act as forms of foreshadowing. Logical inversion is also characteristic of the episode of Roland's death. His death on the hill is depicted in tirade 168, and the motives for climbing the hill and other dying actions are reported much later, and tirade 203.

So, in the "Song of Roland" a whole system of expression of logical inversion is revealed. It should be especially noted that logical inversion completely removes the theme of rock. Not a fatal combination of circumstances, not the power of fate over a person, but a strict pattern of testing a character and erecting him on a heroic pedestal or depicting his inglorious death - this is the typical way of depicting reality in The Song of Roland.

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The heroic epic is one of the most characteristic and popular genres of the European Middle Ages. In France, it existed in the form of poems called gestures, that is, songs about deeds, exploits. The thematic basis of the gesture is made up of real historical events, most of which date back to the 8th - 10th centuries. Probably, immediately after these events, legends and legends about them arose. It is also possible that these legends originally existed in the form of short episodic songs or prose stories that developed in the pre-knight's militia. However, very early episodic tales went beyond this environment, spread among the masses and became the property of the whole society: they were equally enthusiastic listened not only to the military class, but also to the clergy, merchants, artisans, and peasants.

Since initially these folk tales were intended for oral melodious performance by jugglers, the latter subjected them to intensive processing, which consisted in expanding the plots, in their cyclization, in the introduction of inserted episodes, sometimes very large ones, conversational scenes, etc. As a result, short episodic songs took gradually the appearance of plot-and stylistically-organized poems - a gesture. In addition, in the process of complex development, some of these poems were subject to a noticeable influence of church ideology, and all without exception - to the influence of knightly ideology. Since chivalry had a high prestige for all sectors of society, the heroic epic gained the widest popularity. Unlike Latin poetry, which was practically reserved for clerics alone, gestures were created in French and were understood by everyone. Originating from the early Middle Ages, the heroic epic took on a classical form and experienced a period of active existence in the 12th, 13th, and partly 14th centuries. Its written fixation also belongs to the same time. Gestures are usually divided into three cycles:

1) the cycle of Guillaume d "Orange (otherwise: the cycle of Garena de Montglan - named after great-grandfather Guillaume);

2) the cycle of "rebellious barons" (in other words: the cycle of Doon de Mayans);

3) the cycle of Charlemagne, King of France. The theme of the first cycle is the disinterested, driven only by love for the motherland, service of the faithful vassals from the Guillaume family to the weak, vacillating, often ungrateful king, who is constantly threatened by either internal or external enemies.

The theme of the second cycle is the rebellion of the proud and independent barons against the unjust king, as well as the cruel feuds of the barons among themselves. Finally, in the poems of the third cycle (“The Pilgrimage of Charlemagne”, “Big-Legs”, etc.), the sacred struggle of the Franks against the “pagan” Muslims is sung and the figure of Charlemagne is heroized, appearing as the center of virtues and the stronghold of the entire Christian world. The most remarkable poem of the royal cycle and of the entire French epic is the "Song of Roland", the recording of which dates back to the beginning of the 12th century.

Features of the heroic epic:

1) The epic was created in the conditions of the development of feudal relations.

2) The epic picture of the world reproduces feudal relations, idealizes a strong feudal state and reflects Christian beliefs, Christian ideals.

3) With regard to history, the historical basis is clearly visible, but at the same time it is idealized, exaggerated.

4) Heroes - defenders of the state, the king, the independence of the country and the Christian faith. All this is interpreted in the epic as a nationwide affair.

5) The epic is associated with a folk tale, with historical chronicles, sometimes with a chivalric romance.

6) The epic has been preserved in the countries of continental Europe (Germany, France).

Literature in Latin served as a certain bridge between antiquity and the Middle Ages. But the basis of the new that appeared in European culture and determined its fundamental difference from the culture of antiquity is not scientific literature, but the folklore of the peoples that appeared on the arena of history as a result of the migration of peoples and the death of ancient civilization.

Turning to this topic, it is necessary to dwell specifically on such a theoretical problem as the fundamental difference between literature and folklore.

Literature and folklore. There is a fundamental difference between the folklore epic and the literary epic, primarily the novel. M. M. Bakhtin identifies three main differences between the epic and the novel: “... 1) the subject of the epic is the national epic past, the “absolute past”, in the terminology of Goethe and Schiller; 2) the source of the epic is national tradition (and not personal experience and the free fiction that grows on its basis); 3) the epic world is separated from the present, that is, from the time of the singer (the author and his listeners), by an absolute epic distance. The idea in a literary work expresses the author's attitude to the depicted. She is individual. In a heroic epic, where there is no individual author, only a general heroic idea can be expressed, which is thus the idea of ​​a genre (at the very least, a cycle or plot), and not a separate work. Let's call this genre idea an epic idea.

The rhapsode does not give a personal assessment of what is depicted, both for objective reasons (“absolute epic distance” does not allow him to discuss the “first and highest”, “fathers”, “ancestors”), and for subjective reasons (the rhapsode is not the author, not the writer, but the keeper of the legend ), it is no coincidence that a number of assessments are put into the mouths of the heroes of the epic. Consequently, the glorification of characters or their exposure, even love or hatred belong to the whole people - the creator of the heroic epos. This folk estimate: 1) takes epic distance into account; 2) it is quite solid and definite (in the epic, the heroes are clearly divided into positive and negative, there are no complex natures here yet); 3) it is single, absolute and direct (in its tendency), that is, it does not change depending on the change of position, is not expressed in subtext through the opposite, etc. However, it would be a mistake, based on the above considerations, to conclude that the character is not creative activities of the rhapsodist. The narrator was not allowed liberties (that is, the author's beginning), but accuracy was not required from him. Folklore is not learned by heart, so a deviation from what has been heard is perceived not as a mistake (as it would be when transmitting a literary work), but as an improvisation. Improvisation is an obligatory beginning in a heroic epic. The elucidation of this peculiarity leads to the conclusion that in the epic there is a different system of artistic means than in literature, it is determined by the principle of improvisation and initially acts not as an artistic, but as a mnemonic system that allows you to keep huge texts in memory and, therefore, is based on repetitions, constant motives, parallelism, similar images, similar actions, etc. Later, the artistic significance of this system is also revealed, because the gradual universalization of the musical motive (recitative) leads to the restructuring of prose speech into poetic speech, the systematization of assonances and alliterations first generates assonance consonance or alliterative verse, and then rhyme, repetition begins to play a big role in highlighting the most important moments of the narrative, etc.

V. Ya. Propp came to the idea of ​​the difference between folklore and literary systems of artistic means (though not through the concept of improvisation) as early as 1946. In the article “The Specifics of Folklore”, he wrote: “... Folklore has means specific to it (parallelisms, repetitions, etc.) ... the usual means of poetic language (comparisons, metaphors, epithets) are filled with a completely different content than in literature." So, epic works of folklore (heroic epic) and literature (for example, a novel) are built on completely different laws and should be read and studied differently.

European heroic epic of the Middle Ages. Monuments of the heroic epic of the Middle Ages, which have come down to us in the records of learned clerics since the 10th century, are usually divided into two groups: the epic of the early Middle Ages (the Irish epic, the Icelandic epic, the English epic monument Beowulf, etc.) and the epic of the era of developed feudalism (French the heroic epic "The Song of Roland", the earliest record is the so-called Oxford List, circa 1170; the German heroic epic "The Song of the Nibelungs", a record of ca. 1200; the Spanish heroic epic "The Song of My Side", a record of ca. 1140, - possibly an author's work, but based on ancient German legends; etc.). Each of the monuments differs in its own characteristics both in content (for example, the cosmogonic representations of the northern peoples of Europe preserved only in the Icelandic epic) and in form (for example, the combination of poetry and prose in the Irish epic). But the separation of two groups of monuments is connected with a more general feature - the way they reflect reality. The heroic epic of the early Middle Ages reflects not a specific historical event, but a whole era (although individual events and even characters had a historical basis), while the monuments of developed feudalism reflect, albeit transformed according to the laws of folklore, but a specific historical event.

The mythology of the northern peoples of Europe in the Icelandic epic. The systemic ideas of the ancient northern peoples about the origin of the world were preserved only in the Icelandic epic. The oldest surviving record of this epic was called the "Elder Edda" by analogy with the "Edda" - a kind of textbook for poets, written by the Icelandic skald (poet) Snorri Sturluson (1178-1241) in 1222-1225. and is now called the "Younger Edda". The 10 mythological and 19 heroic songs of the "Elder Edda", as well as the retellings of Snorri Sturluson (1st part of the "Younger Edda") contain the richest material on Scandinavian cosmogony. “At the beginning of time // there was no sand in the world // no sand, no sea, // no cold waves, // the earth was not yet // and the firmament, // the abyss gaped, // the grass did not grow,” is narrated in the song "Divination of the Volva" (i.e., prophetesses, sorceresses). The frost that filled the abyss from Niflheim ("dark world") under the influence of sparks from Muspellsheim ("fiery world") began to melt, and from it emerged the jotun (giant) Ymir, and then the cow Audumla, who fed him with her milk. From the salty stones that Audumla licked, Buri arose, the father of Bor, who, in turn, became the father of the gods Odin (the supreme deity of the ancient Germans), Vili and Ve. In the "Speech of Grimnir" it is reported that these gods subsequently killed Ymir, and from his flesh the earth arose, from the blood - the sea, from the bones - the mountains, from the skull - the sky, from the hair - the forest, from the eyelashes - the walls of Midgard (lit. " the middle enclosed space”, i.e. the middle world, the habitat of man). In the center of Midgard, a world tree grows - Yggdrasil, connecting the earth with Asgard - the seat of aces (gods). Ases create a man from ash, and a woman from alder. Warriors who die in battle with honor are carried away by the daughters of Odin, the Valkyries, to heaven, to Valhalla - the palace of Odin, where there is a continuous feast. Thanks to the cunning of the insidious god Loki - the personification of changeable fire - the young god Balder (a kind of Scandinavian Apollo) dies, a strife begins between the gods, Yggdrasil burns, the sky falls, which was supported by his crown, the death of the gods leads to the return of the world into chaos. A Christian insertion is often considered to be a story about the rebirth of life on earth, but perhaps this is a reflection of the original idea of ​​the Germans about the cyclical development of the universe.

Icelandic epic songs have a distinctive art form. The narrative is interspersed with divination, sayings, dialogic competitions in wisdom and other genre modifications. Poetic lines have, as a rule, two stresses and are connected by alliterations in pairs. Stanzas consist of 8 lines (epic meter) or 6 lines (dialogic meter). Kennings (two-term poetic designations) and heiti (single-term poetic designations) are richly represented. Some examples of kennings (from the "Younger Edda"): to designate the sky - "Ymir's skull", "land of the Sun", "land of the day", "chalice of storms"; for the earth - “the flesh of Ymir”, “the bride of Odin”, “the sea of ​​animals”, “daughter of the Night”; for the sea - "the blood of Ymir", "guest of the gods", "land of ships"; for the sun - "sister of the Moon", "fire of the sky and air"; for the wind - “tree crusher”, “destroyer, killer, dog or wolf of trees, sails or gear”, etc. Some examples of hati: to denote poetry - “eloquence”, “inspiration”, “glorification”, “praise” ; for a bear - "tramp", "toothy", "gloomy", "red", "forester", "shaggy"; for time - “age”, “once”, “age”, “long ago”, “year”, “term”, etc.

Irish epic. This is the epic of the Celtic peoples, the most ancient of the surviving legends of the peoples of northern Europe. In the Ulad cycle (about 100 songs), judging by the fact that the good king Ulad Conchobar is opposed by the evil sorceress Queen Medb of Connaught, who sends a disease to the Ulad warriors in order to freely capture the bull that brings prosperity grazing in Ulad, and also judging by the fact that the main the hero Ulada Cuchulainn and his brother Ferdiad, sent by order of Medb to fight him, studied martial arts with the warrior Skatakh, and from other details it can be concluded that the Ulad cycle does not reflect a specific historical event (although the war between Ulada - present-day Ulster - and Connaught really went from the 2nd century BC to the 2nd century AD), and a whole historical era is the transition from matriarchy to patriarchy in its final stage, when the power of women is associated either with past times or with an evil inclination.

"The Song of Roland". Among several hundred monuments of the French medieval heroic epic, the "Song of Roland" stands out. Recorded for the first time around 1170 (the so-called Oxford list), it belongs to the epic of developed feudalism. It is based on a real historical event. In 778, the young Charlemagne, who had recently decided to recreate the Roman Empire, sent troops into Spain, which had been captured by the Moors (Arabs) since 711. The campaign was unsuccessful: in two months of hostilities, it was only possible to besiege the city of Zaragoza, but its defenders had unlimited supplies of water in the fortress, so it turned out to be unrealistic to starve them out, and Karl, having lifted the siege, withdrew troops from Spain. When they passed the Ronceval Gorge in the Pyrenees, the rearguard of the troops was attacked by local Basque tribes. Three noble Franks were killed in the battle, of which the chronicle calls the prefect of the Breton March Hruotland, the future epic Roland, the third of them. The attackers scattered over the mountains, and Charles failed to avenge them. With this he returned to his capital Aachen.

This event in the Song of Roland, as a result of folklore transformation, looks completely different: Emperor Charles, who is over two hundred years old, is waging a seven-year victorious war in Spain. Only the city of Zaragoza did not surrender. In order not to shed excess blood, Charles sends the noble knight Ganelon to the leader of the Moors Marsilius. He, mortally offended by Roland, who gave this advice to Karl, negotiates, but then cheats on Karl. On the advice of Ganelon, Charles puts Roland at the head of the rearguard of the retreating troops. The Moors, who agreed with Ganelon (“non-Christians”, not the Basques - Christians), attack the rearguard and destroy all the soldiers. The last to die (not from wounds, but from overexertion) is Roland. Charles returns with troops and destroys the Moors and all the "pagans" who have joined them, and then arranges God's judgment on Ganelon in Aachen. The fighter of Ganelon loses the duel to the fighter of Karl, which means that God is not on the side of the traitor, and he is cruelly executed: they tie his arms and legs to four horses, let them gallop - and the horses tear Ganelon's body to pieces.

The problem of authorship. The text of the "Song of Roland" was published in 1823 and immediately attracted attention for its aesthetic significance. At the end of the 19th century, the outstanding French medievalist Joseph Bedier decided to find out the author of the poem, relying on the last, 4002nd line of the text: "Turold's tales are interrupted here." He found not one, but 12 Turolds to whom the work could be attributed. However, even before Bedier, Gaston Paris suggested that this is a folklore work, and after Bedier's research, the Spanish medievalist Ramon Menendez Pidal convincingly showed that the "Song of Roland" refers to "traditional" texts that do not have an individual author.

Logic inversion. The folklore approach makes it possible to clarify the contradictions in the Song of Roland, which are striking to the modern reader. Some of them can be explained by the improvisational technique itself, others by the stratification of layers belonging to different eras. Some of them are explained by the indefinitely personal nature of the functions of the heroes (the behavior of Ganelon, Marsilius, especially Charles, in the second part acquiring the function of Roland, and in the third losing this function). But a number of moments of Karl's behavior cannot be explained by the principle of combining or changing the functions of the characters. It is not clear why Karl sends Roland to the rearguard, considering Ganelon's advice diabolical (Tir. 58, 61), why he mourns Roland even before the battle in the gorge (Tir. 66) and calls Ganelon a traitor (Tir. 67). A hundred thousandth army cries with Karl, suspecting Ganelon of treason (Tir. 68). Or such a place: “The great Karl is tormented and crying, // But help them, alas! no power to give."

Psychological inconsistencies must be explained from two sides: firstly, they are possible, because in the epic the laws of psychologism, which require reliability in the depiction of motives and psychological reactions, are not yet used. To the medieval listener, the contradictions were not noticeable; secondly, their very appearance is connected with the peculiarities of the epic time. To a certain extent, the basis of the epic ideal is the dreams of the people, but they are transferred to the past. Epic time thus appears as "the future in the past." This type of time has a huge impact not only on the structure, but also on the very logic of the epic. Cause-and-effect relationships play an insignificant role in it. The main principle of epic logic is the "logic of the end", which we will denote by the term "logical inversion". According to the logical inversion, Roland did not die because Ganelon betrayed him, but, on the contrary, Ganelon betrayed Roland because he must die and thereby forever immortalize his heroic name. Karl sends Roland to the rearguard, because the hero must die, but he cries because he is endowed with the knowledge of the end.

Knowledge of the end, future events by the narrator, listeners and the characters themselves is one of the manifestations of logical inversion. Events are foreshadowed many times; prophetic dreams and omens also act as forms of foreshadowing. The logical inversion is also characteristic of the episode of Roland's death. His death on the hill is depicted in tirade 168, and the motives for climbing the hill and other dying actions are reported much later, in tirade 203.

So, in the "Song of Roland" a whole system of expression of logical inversion is revealed. It should be especially noted that the logical inversion completely removes the theme of rock. Not a fatal combination of circumstances, not the power of fate over a person, but a strict pattern of testing a character and erecting him on a heroic pedestal or depicting his inglorious death - such is the epic way of depicting reality in The Song of Roland.

Medieval chivalric literature

Courtesy. By the XII century, chivalry, having realized itself as the ruling class, creates a special secular culture that separates it from other strata of society - courtesy. To the traditional requirements (courage, possession of weapons, loyalty to the overlord, etc.), new ones were added: the knight must be polite (that is, know etiquette), educated (be able to write, read, including ancient authors), in love (to love according to certain rules, his love must be faithful, undemanding, modest, etc., the object of love must be his overlord's wife) and sing the Lady of his heart in poems and songs.

Poetry of the troubadours. All these requirements were embodied in the poetry of the troubadours (Provence “writer”) - the poet-knights of Provence, a state in the south of present-day France, in the 12th century the most developed and prosperous in Europe, and in the 13th century died as a result of the religious Albigensian Wars - a fierce struggle Catholics against the Cathars - supporters of the Albigensian heresy, who settled in Provence.

The poetry of the troubadours is the author's. At least 500 names of troubadours are known, of which about 40 were widely known. Among them are Bernart de Ventadorne (he was not a knight, but most fully embodied the courtly ideal in his poems), Jauffre Rudel, Bertrand de Born, Guillaume de Cabestany and others. In the 13th century, biographies of troubadours were written, which collected not so much historical facts, how many legends about their life.

The troubadours were the first to sing of love as a new, previously unfamiliar feeling, as "sweet suffering" and the desire to serve the beloved being, introducing into poetry not only the image of the Lady, but also the image of the author - the poet in love. They were the first in European poetry to master rhyme, “this new decoration of verse, which at first glance means so little, had an important influence on the literature of the newest peoples,” as A. S. Pushkin wrote in the article “On Classical and Romantic Poetry” (1825). The troubadours developed a system of poetic genres, which included canson (cansos, chansons) - a song on love or religious themes with a complex stanza structure; sirventa (sirventes) - a strophic song, usually containing invectives against the enemies of the poet or his overlord; lamentation (planh) - a song in which the death of the overlord or his relatives, as well as people close to the poet, is mourned; tenson (tensos) - a dialogue, a dispute between two poets on love, philosophical, religious, aesthetic topics; ballad (balada) - a dance song with a chorus that cheers up the dancers; alba (alba, i.e. "dawn") - a strophic song with a constant plot: the parting of a knight in love and his lady at dawn after a secret rendezvous; pastorela (pastorela, pastoreta) - a dialogue song with a constant plot: the knight offers his love to the shepherdess, and she politely but decisively refuses him.

Of particular interest are three of the six poems that have come down to us by Jaufre Rüdel, in which a new motive appears - love from afar. In accordance with the legendary biography, the noble knight Rudel fell in love with the Palestinian princess Melissinda according to the stories of pilgrims about her, and she in return fell in love with him according to the poems addressed to her. Before his death, Ryudel went on a ship to Palestine and died in the arms of his beloved. “At the time of the long May days / Sweet chirping of birds from afar, / But it torments me more strongly / Love from afar. // And now there is no consolation, // And the wild rose is white, // Like the cold of winter, not sweet, ”Ryudel begins one of the canzones and continues, expressing a passionate desire to see his beloved:“ What happiness is more complete than this - // Rush to her from afar, // Sit next to her, make more room, // So that right there, not from afar, // I am in the sweet proximity of conversations, // Both a distant friend and a neighbor, // I greedily drank a beautiful voice! (Translated by V. Dynnik)

The love story of Jaufre Rudel and Melissinde provided the plot for the poetic drama of the French neo-romantic Edmond Rostand, The Princess of Dreams (1895).

The traditions of the troubadours were developed by northern French poets - trouvères, German poets - minnesingers, and at the end of the 13th century - by Italian poets of the "new sweet style".

A. Gurevich

The works of heroic poetry presented in this volume belong to the Middle Ages - early (Anglo-Saxon "Beowulf") and classical (Icelandic songs of the "Elder Edda" and the German "Nibelungenlied"). The origins of Germanic poetry about gods and heroes are much more ancient. Already Tacitus, who was one of the first to leave a description of the Germanic tribes, mentions their ancient songs about mythical ancestors and leaders: these songs, according to him, replaced history for the barbarians. The remark of the Roman historian is very significant: in the epic, memories of historical events are fused with myth and fairy tale, and the fantastic and historical elements are equally taken for reality. The distinction between "facts" and "fiction" in relation to the epic in that era was not carried out. But ancient Germanic poetry is unknown to us, there was no one to write it down. The themes and motifs that have existed in it orally for centuries are partly reproduced in the monuments published below. In any case, they reflect the events of the period of the Great Migration of Peoples (V-VI centuries). However, according to Beowulf or Scandinavian songs, not to mention the Nibelungenlied, it is impossible to restore the spiritual life of the Germans in the era of the dominance of the tribal system. The transition from the oral art of singers and storytellers to the "book epic" was accompanied by more or less significant changes in the composition, volume and content of the songs. Suffice it to recall that in the oral tradition, the songs from which these epic works then developed existed in the pagan period, while they acquired their written form centuries after Christianization. Nevertheless, Christian ideology does not determine the content and tone of epic poems, and this becomes especially clear when comparing the Germanic heroic epic with medieval Latin literature, which, as a rule, is deeply imbued with the church spirit (However, how different assessments the worldview basis of epic poetry received is clear at least from the following two judgments about the "Nibelungenlied": "basically pagan", "medieval-Christian". The first assessment - Goethe, the second - A.-W. Schlegel.).

An epic work is universal in its functions. The fantastic is not separated from the real in it. The epic contains information about gods and other supernatural beings, fascinating stories and instructive examples, aphorisms of worldly wisdom and examples of heroic behavior; its edifying function is as inalienable as its cognitive one. It covers both the tragic and the comic. At the stage when the epic arises and develops, the German peoples did not have knowledge about nature and history, philosophy, fiction or theater as separate spheres of intellectual activity - the epic gave a complete and comprehensive picture of the world, explained its origin and further destinies, including the most distant future, taught to distinguish good from evil, instructed how to live and how to die. The epic contained ancient wisdom, knowledge of it was considered necessary for every member of society.

The integrity of the life span corresponds to the integrity of the characters displayed in the epic. The heroes of the epic are carved from one piece, each personifies some quality that determines his essence. Beowulf is the ideal of a courageous and determined warrior, unchanging in loyalty and friendship, a generous and merciful king. Gudrun is the incarnation of devotion to the family, a woman who avenges the death of her brothers, not stopping at killing her own sons and husband, like (but at the same time in contrast to) Kriemhild, who destroys her brothers, punishing them for killing her beloved husband Siegfried and taking away she has a golden treasure. The epic hero is not tormented by doubts and hesitations, his character is revealed in actions; His words are as clear as his actions. This solidity of the hero of the epic is explained by the fact that he knows his fate, takes it for granted and inevitable, and boldly goes to meet it. The epic hero is not free in his decisions, in the choice of a line of behavior. Actually, his inner essence and the power that the heroic epic calls Fate coincide, are identical. Therefore, the only thing left for the hero is to fulfill his destiny in the best possible way. Hence - a peculiar, maybe a little primitive for a different taste, the greatness of epic heroes.

With all the differences in content, tonality, as well as in the conditions and time of their occurrence, epic poems do not have an author. The point is not that the name of the author is unknown (Science has made more than once - invariably unconvincing - attempts to establish the authors of the Eddic songs or the Nibelungenlied.), - the anonymity of epic works is fundamental: the persons who combined, expanded and reworked what was in them possessing poetic material, did not realize themselves as the authors of the works they wrote. This, of course, does not mean that in that era the concept of authorship did not exist at all. The names of many Icelandic skalds are known, who claimed their "copyright" to the songs they performed. The Nibelungenlied arose at a time when the largest German minnesingers were writing and chivalric novels were created according to French models; this song was written by a contemporary of Wolfram von Eschenbach, Hartmann von Aue, Gottfried of Strassburg and Walter von der Vogelweide. Nevertheless, poetic work on the traditional epic plot, on heroic songs and legends, which in an earlier form were familiar to everyone, in the Middle Ages was not evaluated as creativity either by society or by the poet himself, who created such works, but did not think about it. to mention your name (The foregoing also applies to some types of prose creativity, for example, to Icelandic sagas and Irish legends. See M.I. Steblin-Kamensky's preface to the publication of Icelandic sagas in the Library of World Literature.).

Drawing from the general poetic fund, the compiler of the epic poem focused on the heroes and plot chosen by him, pushing many other legends related to this plot to the periphery of the narrative. Just as a searchlight illuminates a separate piece of terrain, leaving most of it in darkness, so the author of an epic poem (the author in the sense indicated now, that is, a poet deprived of authorial self-consciousness), developing his theme, limited himself to allusions to its offshoots, being sure that his audience already knows all the events and characters, both sung by him, and those that he only mentioned in passing. The tales and myths of the Germanic peoples found only a partial embodiment in their epic poems, preserved in written form - the rest has either disappeared or can only be restored indirectly. In the songs of the Edda and in Beowulf, cursory references to kings, their wars and strife, mythological characters and legends are scattered in abundance. Laconic allusions were quite enough for the corresponding associations to arise in the minds of listeners or readers of the heroic epic. The epic usually does not report anything completely new. The strength of its aesthetic and emotional impact does not diminish in the least - on the contrary, in archaic and medieval society, the greatest satisfaction, apparently, was given not by obtaining original information, or not only it, but also by recognizing previously known, new confirmation of old ones, and therefore especially valuable truths (Wouldn't a comparison with a child's perception of a fairy tale be appropriate here? The child knows its content, but his pleasure from listening to it again and again does not decrease.).

The epic poet, processing material that did not belong to him, a heroic song, myth, legend, legend, widely using traditional expressions, stable comparisons and formulas, figurative clichés borrowed from oral folk art, could not consider himself an independent creator, no matter how much he really was his contribution to the final creation of the heroic epic is great. This dialectical combination of the new and the perceived from the predecessors constantly gives rise to disputes in modern literary criticism: science tends either to emphasize the folk basis of the epic, or in favor of the individual creative principle in its creation.

The tonic alliterative verse remained the form of German poetry for an entire era. This form was preserved for a particularly long time in Iceland, while among the continental Germanic peoples already in the early Middle Ages it was replaced by verse with a final rhyme. "Beowulf" and the songs of "Elder Edda" are sustained in the traditional alliterative form, "The Nibelungenlied" - in a new, based on rhyme. Old German versification was based on rhythm, determined by the number of stressed syllables in a line of poetry. Alliteration is the consonance of the initial sounds of words that were under semantic stress and repeated with a certain regularity in two adjacent lines of a verse, which, by virtue of this, turned out to be connected. Alliteration is audible and significant in Germanic verse, since the stress in Germanic languages ​​​​predominantly falls on the first syllable of the word, which is also its root. It is clear, therefore, that the reproduction of this form of versification in Russian translation is almost impossible. It is also very difficult to convey another feature of Scandinavian and Old English verse, the so-called kenning (literally, "designation") - a poetic paraphrase that replaces one noun in ordinary speech with two or more words. Kennings were used to designate the most essential concepts for heroic poetry: "leader", "warrior", "sword", "shield", "battle", "ship", "gold", "woman", "raven", and for each of these concepts, there were several or even many kennings. Instead of saying "prince", the expression "giver of rings" was used in poetry, the common kenning of a warrior was "battle ash", the sword was called the "battle stick", etc. In Beowulf and the Elder Edda, kennings are usually binomial , in skaldic poetry there are also polynomial kennings.

The Nibelungenlied is built on the "Kurenberg stanza", which consists of four rhyming verses in pairs. Each verse is divided into two half-lines with four stressed syllables in the first half-line, while in the second half-line of the first three lines there are three stresses, and in the second half-line of the last line, which completes the stanza both formally and in meaning, four stresses. The translation of the Nibelungenlied from Middle High German into Russian does not face such difficulties as the translation of alliterated poetry, and gives an idea of ​​its metrical structure.

Beowulf

The only existing manuscript of Beowulf dates from about the year 1000. But the epic itself belongs, according to most experts, to the end of the 7th or the first third of the 8th century. At that time, the Anglo-Saxons were already experiencing the beginning process of the emergence of feudal ties. The poem, however, is characterized by epic archaization. In addition, she draws reality from a specific point of view: the world of Beowulf is the world of kings and vigilantes, the world of feasts, battles and fights.

The plot of this largest of the Anglo-Saxon epics is simple. Beowulf, a young knight from the people of the Gauts, having learned about the disaster that has befallen the king of the Danes Higelak - about the attacks of the monster Grendel on his palace Heorot and about the gradual extermination of the king's warriors over the course of twelve years, goes overseas to destroy Grendel. Having defeated him, he then kills in a new single combat, this time in an underwater dwelling, another monster - Grendel's mother, who tried to avenge her son's death. Showered with awards and thanks, Beowulf returns to his homeland. Here he performs new feats, and later becomes the king of the Gauts and safely rules the country for fifty years. After this period, Beowulf enters into battle with the dragon, which devastates the surroundings, being angry at the attempt on the ancient treasure he guards. Beowulf manages to defeat this monster as well, but at the cost of his own life. The song ends with the scene of the solemn burning of the hero's body on the funeral pyre and the construction of a mound over his ashes and the treasure he conquered.

These fantastic feats, however, are transferred from the unreal world of a fairy tale to historical soil and take place among the peoples of Northern Europe: Danes, Swedes, Gauts appear in Beowulf (Who are the Gauts of Beowulf remains controversial. Different interpretations have been proposed in science: Sweden or the islands of Gotland, the Jutes of the Jutland Peninsula, and even the ancient Getae of Thrace, who, in turn, were mixed with the biblical Gog and Magog in the Middle Ages), other tribes are mentioned, the kings who once really ruled them are named. But this does not apply to the protagonist of the poem: Beowulf himself, apparently, had no historical prototype. Since then everyone unconditionally believed in the existence of giants and dragons, the combination of such stories with the story of wars between peoples and kings was quite natural. It is curious that the Anglo-Saxon epic ignores England (this gave rise, by the way, to the now rejected theory of its Scandinavian origin). But perhaps this feature of Beowulf will not seem so striking, if we keep in mind that in other works of Anglo-Saxon poetry we meet the most diverse peoples of Europe and that we will encounter the same fact in the songs of the Elder Edda, and partly in the Nibelungenlied.

In the spirit of the theories that prevailed in science in the middle of the 19th century, some commentators of Beowulf argued that the poem arose as a result of the combination of various songs; it was customary to cut it into four parts: a duel with Grendel, a duel with his mother, Beowulf's return to his homeland, a duel with a dragon. The point of view was expressed that the originally purely pagan poem was partially revised in the Christian spirit, as a result of which an interweaving of two worldviews arose in it. Then most researchers began to believe that the transition from oral songs to the "book epic" was not limited to their simple fixation; these scholars considered Beowulf as a single work, the "editor" of which, in his own way, combined and reworked the material at his disposal, setting out the traditional plots more extensively. However, it must be admitted that nothing is known about the process of becoming Beowulf.

There are many folklore motifs in the epic. At the very beginning, Skild Skevang - "foundling" is mentioned. The boat with the baby Skild washed up on the shores of Denmark, whose people were at that time defenseless due to the absence of the king; subsequently Skild became the ruler of Denmark and founded a dynasty. After the death of Skild, they put him back on the ship and sent him along with the treasures to where he came from - a purely fabulous story. The giants that Beowulf fights are akin to the giants of Scandinavian mythology, and combat with the dragon is a common theme in fairy tales and myths, including northern ones. In his youth, Beowulf, who, having grown up, acquired the strength of thirty people, was lazy and did not differ in valor - does this not remind you of the youth of other heroes of folk tales, for example, Ilya Muromets? The arrival of the hero on his own initiative to help those in distress, his quarrel with his opponent (exchange of speeches between Beowulf and Unferth), the test of the hero’s prowess (the story of the swimming contest between Beowulf and Breka), handing him a magic weapon (Hrunting sword), violation of the ban by the hero ( Beowulf takes away the treasure in a duel with the dragon, not knowing that a spell gravitates over the treasure), an assistant in the hero’s single combat with the enemy (Wiglaf, who came to the rescue of Beowulf at a time when he was close to death), three battles that the hero gives, moreover each subsequent one turns out to be more difficult (the battles of Beowulf with Grendel, with his mother and with the dragon) - all these are elements of a fairy tale. The epic keeps many traces of its prehistory rooted in folk art. But the tragic ending - the death of Beowulf, as well as the historical background against which his fantastic exploits unfold, distinguish the poem from the fairy tale - these are signs of a heroic epic.

Representatives of the "mythological school" in the literary criticism of the last century tried to decipher this epic in this way: monsters personify the storms of the North Sea; Beowulf - a good deity, curbing the elements; his peaceful reign is a blessed summer, and his death is the onset of winter. Thus, the epic symbolically depicts the contrasts of nature, growth and decay, rise and fall, youth and old age. Other scholars understood these contrasts in ethical terms and saw in Beowulf the theme of the struggle between good and evil. The symbolic and allegorical interpretation of the poem is not alien to those researchers who generally deny its epic character and consider it to be the work of a cleric or monk who knew and used early Christian literature. These interpretations largely rest on the question of whether the "spirit of Christianity" is expressed in "Beowulf" or in front of us - a monument of pagan consciousness. Supporters of understanding it as a folk epic, in which the beliefs of the heroic era of the Great Migration are alive, naturally, found Germanic paganism in it and minimized the significance of church influence. On the contrary, those modern scholars who rank the poem in the category of written literature transfer the center of gravity to Christian motifs; in paganism, "Beowulf" is seen as nothing more than an antique pastiche. In the latest criticism, there is a noticeable tendency to shift attention from the analysis of the content of the poem to the study of its texture and style. In the middle of our century, the denial of the connection of "Beowulf" with the epic folklore tradition prevailed. Meanwhile, in recent years, a number of experts tend to consider the prevalence of stereotypical expressions and formulas in the text of the poem as evidence of its origin from oral creativity. There is no accepted concept in science that satisfactorily explains Beowulf. Meanwhile, interpretation is indispensable. "Beowulf" is difficult for the modern reader, brought up on a completely different literature and inclined, albeit involuntarily, to transfer to ancient monuments the ideas that have developed when getting acquainted with the artistic creations of modern times.

In the heat of scientific disputes, it is sometimes forgotten that regardless of how the poem arose, whether it was composed of different pieces or not, it was perceived by the medieval audience as something whole. This also applies to the composition of Beowulf and the interpretation of religion in it. The author and his characters often commemorate the Lord God; in the epic there are hints of biblical stories, apparently understandable to the "public" of that time; paganism is clearly condemned. At the same time, Beowulf is replete with references to Fate, which either acts as a tool of the creator and is identical to divine Providence, or appears as an independent force. But belief in Destiny was central to the pre-Christian ideology of the Germanic peoples. Family blood feud, which the church condemned, although it was often forced to endure, is glorified in the poem and considered an obligatory duty, and the impossibility of revenge is regarded as the greatest misfortune. In short, the ideological situation depicted in Beowulf is rather contradictory. But this is a contradiction of life, and not a simple inconsistency between earlier and subsequent editions of the poem. The Anglo-Saxons of the 7th-8th centuries were Christians, but the Christian religion at that time not so much overcame the pagan worldview as pushed it out of the official sphere into the background of public consciousness. The Church managed to destroy the old temples and the worship of pagan gods, sacrifices to them, as for the forms of human behavior, here the situation was much more complicated. The motives that drive the actions of the characters in Beowulf are by no means determined by the Christian ideals of humility and submission to the will of God. "What do Ingeld and Christ have in common?" - the famous church leader Alcuin asked a century after the creation of Beowulf and demanded that the monks not be distracted from prayer by heroic songs. Ingeld appears in a number of works; He is also mentioned in Beowulf. Alcuin was aware of the incompatibility of the ideals embodied in such characters of heroic tales with the ideals preached by the clergy.

The fact that the religious and ideological climate in which Beowulf arose was ambiguous is also confirmed by an archaeological find in Sutton Hoo (East Anglia). Here, in 1939, a burial in a boat of a noble person was discovered, dating back to the middle of the 7th century. The burial was performed according to a pagan rite, along with valuable things (swords, helmets, chain mail, cups, a banner, musical instruments) that the king might need in another world.

It is difficult to agree with those researchers who are disappointed by the "banality" of the scenes of the hero's fights with monsters. These fights are placed in the center of the poem quite rightly - they express its main content. In fact, the world of culture, joyful and multicolored, is personified in Beowulf by Heorot - a hall whose radiance extends "to many countries"; in its banquet hall, the leader and his associates frolic and have fun, listening to the songs and legends of the osprey - a retinue singer and poet, glorifying their military deeds, as well as the deeds of their ancestors; here the leader generously presents the vigilantes with rings, weapons and other valuables. Such a reduction of the “middle world” (middangeard) to the palace of the king (for everything else in this world is passed over in silence) is explained by the fact that “Beowulf” is a heroic epic that has developed, at least in the form known to us, in a retinue environment.

Heorot, the “Deer Hall” (its roof is decorated with gilded deer horns) is opposed by wild, mysterious and full of horror rocks, wastelands, swamps and caves inhabited by monsters. The contrast of joy and fear corresponds in this opposition to the contrast of light and darkness. Feasts and fun in the shining golden hall take place in the light of day - the giants go out in search of bloody prey under the cover of night. The enmity between Grendel and the people of Heorot is not an isolated episode; this is emphasized not only by the fact that the giant raged for twelve winters before being slain by Beowulf, but above all by the very interpretation of Grendel. This is not just a giant - in his image combined (although, perhaps, they did not merge together) different hypostases of evil. The monster of German mythology, Grendel, at the same time, is a creature placed outside of communication with people, an outcast, an outcast, an “enemy”, and according to German beliefs, a person who stained himself with crimes that entailed expulsion from society, as if losing his human appearance, became a werewolf , hater of people. The poet's singing and the sounds of the harp coming from Heorot, where the king and his retinue are feasting, awaken rage in Grendel. But this is not enough - in the poem Grendel is called "a descendant of Cain." Old pagan beliefs are overlaid with Christian ideas. An ancient curse lies on Grendel, he is called a "pagan" and condemned to hellish torment. And at the same time, he himself is like the devil. The formation of the idea of ​​a medieval devil at the time when Beowulf was being created was far from over, and in Grendel's interpretation, which is not without inconsistency, we find a curious intermediate moment in this evolution.

The fact that pagan and Christian ideas are intertwined in this “multi-layered” understanding of the forces of evil is not accidental. After all, the understanding of the rich man in Beowulf is no less peculiar. In the poem, which repeatedly mentions the "ruler of the world", "the mighty god", the Savior Christ is never named. In the minds of the author and his audience, apparently, there is no place for heaven in the theological sense, which so occupied the thoughts of medieval people. The Old Testament components of the new religion, more understandable to recent pagans, prevail over the gospel teaching about the Son of God and the afterlife reward. On the other hand, we read in Beowulf about a "hero under heaven", about a man who cares not about saving his soul, but about affirming his earthly glory in people's memory. The poem ends with the words: Of all the earthly leaders, Beowulf was the most generous, merciful to his people and greedy for glory!

The thirst for glory, prey and princely awards - these are the highest values ​​for the German hero, as they are drawn in the epic, these are the main springs of his behavior. “Death awaits every mortal! - // let whoever can live deserve // ​​eternal glory! For for a warrior // the best payment is a worthy memory! (Article 1386 following). Such is the credo of Beowulf. When he has to deliver a decisive blow to his opponent, he focuses on the thought of glory. “(So hand-to-hand // a warrior should go in order to gain eternal glory // without caring about life!)” (Article 1534 next) “It’s better for a warrior // to die than to live in disgrace!” (verses 2889 - 2890).

No less than glory, warriors covet the gifts of the leader. Neck rings, bracelets, twisted or plate gold constantly appear in the epic. The steady designation of the king is “breaking hryvnias” (sometimes they gave not a whole ring, it was significant wealth, but parts of it). The modern reader, perhaps, will be depressing and seem monotonous all the newly renewed descriptions and enumerations of awards and treasures. But he can be sure: stories about gifts did not tire the medieval audience at all and found a lively response in it. Vigilantes wait for the leader's gifts, first of all, as convincing signs of their valor and merit, so they show them and are proud of them. But in that era, a deeper, sacred meaning was also invested in the act of giving jewelry by the leader to a faithful person. As already mentioned, the pagan belief in fate persisted during the period of the creation of the poem. Fate was understood not as a universal fate, but as an individual share of an individual, his luck, happiness; some have more luck, others less. A mighty king, a glorious leader - the most “rich” person in happiness. Already at the beginning of the poem, we find the following characterization of Hrothgar: “Hrothgar has risen in battles, successful, / / ​​his relatives submitted to him without disputes ...” (v. 64 following). There was a belief that the luck of the leader extended to the squad. Rewarding his warriors with weapons and precious items - the materialization of his luck, the leader could pass on to them a particle of this luck. “Keep, O Beowulf, to your own joy // Strong Warrior with our gifts - // ring and wrists, and may good luck accompany // you!” - says the queen of Walchteov to Beowulf. (Art. 1216 next)

But the motif of gold as a visible, tangible embodiment of the warrior's luck in Beowulf is supplanted, obviously under Christian influence, by its new interpretation as a source of misfortune. In this regard, of particular interest is the last part of the poem - the hero's single combat with the dragon. In retaliation for the theft of a treasure from the treasure, the dragon that guarded these ancient treasures attacks the villages, setting the surrounding country on fire and death. Beowulf fights the dragon, but it is easy to see that the author of the poem does not see the reason that prompted the hero to this feat in the atrocities committed by the monster. The goal of Beowulf is to take away the treasure from the dragon. The dragon sat on the treasure for three centuries, but even before these values ​​belonged to people, and Beowulf wants to return them to the human race. Having killed a terrible enemy and himself having received a fatal wound, the hero expresses his dying wish: to see the gold that he pulled out from the claws of his guard. The contemplation of these riches gives him deep satisfaction. However, then something happens that directly contradicts the words of Beowulf that he conquered a treasure for his people, namely: on the funeral pyre, along with the body of the king, his associates lay all these treasures and burn them, and the remains are buried in a barrow. An ancient spell weighed over the treasure, and it is useless to people; because of this spell, broken out of ignorance, Beowulf, apparently, dies. The poem ends with a prediction of the calamities that will befall the Gauts after the death of their king.

The struggle for glory and jewels, loyalty to the leader, bloody revenge as an imperative of behavior, the dependence of a person on the Destiny reigning in the world and a courageous meeting with it, the tragic death of a hero - all these are the defining themes not only of Beowulf, but also of other monuments of the German epic.

Elder Edda

Songs about gods and heroes, conditionally united by the name "Elder Edda" (The name "Edda" was given in the 17th century by the first researcher of the manuscript, who transferred to it the name of the book of the Icelandic poet and historian of the 13th century Snorri Sturluson, since Snorri relied on on songs about the gods. Therefore, Snorri's treatise is usually called the "Younger Edda", and the collection of mythological and heroic songs - the "Elder Edda". The etymology of the word "Edda" is unclear.) are preserved in a manuscript that dates from the second half of the 13th century. It is not known whether this manuscript was the first, or whether it had any predecessors. The background of the manuscript is as unknown as the background of the Beowulf manuscript. There are, in addition, some other recordings of songs that are also classified as Eddic. The history of the songs themselves is also unknown, and a variety of points of view and contradictory theories have been put forward on this score. The range in the dating of songs often reaches several centuries. Not all songs originated in Iceland: among them there are songs that go back to South German prototypes; in the Edda there are motifs and characters familiar from the Anglo-Saxon epic; a lot was apparently brought from other Scandinavian countries. Without dwelling on countless controversies about the origin of the Elder Edda, we only note that in the most general form, the development in science went from romantic ideas about the extreme antiquity and archaic nature of songs expressing the “spirit of the people” to interpreting them as book compositions of medieval scholars. - "antiquarians" who imitated ancient poetry and stylized their religious and philosophical views as a myth.

One thing is clear: songs about gods and heroes were popular in Iceland in the 13th century. It can be assumed that at least some of them arose much earlier, even in the non-literate period. Unlike the songs of the Icelandic skaldic poets, for almost all of whom we know the author, the Eddic songs are anonymous. Myths about the gods, stories about Helgi, Sigurd, Brynhild, Atli, Gudrun were public property, and the person who retold or wrote down the song, even recreating it, did not consider himself its author. Before us is an epic, but the epic is very peculiar. This originality cannot but be evident when reading the Elder Edda after Beowulf. Instead of a lengthy, leisurely flowing epic, here before us is a dynamic and concise song, in a few words or stanzas setting out the fate of heroes or gods, their speeches and actions. Specialists explain this unusual for the epic style compaction of Eddic songs by the specifics of the Icelandic language. But one more circumstance cannot be overlooked. A broad epic canvas like Beowulf or the Nibelungenlied contains several plots, many scenes, united by common characters and temporal sequence, while the songs of the Elder Edda usually (though not always) focus on one episode . True, their great "segmentation" does not prevent the presence in the text of songs of various associations with plots that are developed in other songs, as a result of which the isolated reading of a single song makes it difficult to understand it - of course, understanding by a modern reader, because medieval Icelanders, there is no doubt, knew the rest. This is evidenced not only by the hints of events scattered throughout the songs that are not described in them, but also by kennings. If only habit was enough to understand a kenning such as “land of necklaces” (woman) or “blood serpent” (sword), then such kennings as, for example, “guardian of Midgard”, “son of Ygg”, “son of Odin”, “descendant Chlodyun", "husband of Siv", "father of Magni" or "owner of goats", "serpent killer", "charioteer", suggested that readers or listeners had knowledge of myths, from which it was only possible to learn that in all cases the god Thor was meant .

Songs about gods and heroes in Iceland did not “swell” into vast epics, as was the case in many other cases (In Beowulf there are 3182 verses, in the Nibelungenlied there are three times as many (2379 stanzas of four verses each), then as in the longest of the Eddic songs, the "Speech of the High One" is only 164 stanzas (the number of verses in stanzas fluctuates), and no other song, except Atli's Greenlandic speeches, exceeds a hundred stanzas.). Of course, the length of the poem itself says little, but the contrast is nonetheless striking. The foregoing does not mean that the Eddic hymn in all cases was limited to the development of one episode. In the "Divination of the Volva" the mythological history of the world was preserved from its creation to the death predicted by the sorceress due to the evil that penetrated into it, and even to the rebirth and renewal of the world. A number of these plots are touched upon both in Vaftrudnir's Speeches and Grimnir's Speeches. The epic coverage also characterizes the “Prophecy of Gripir”, where the entire cycle of songs about Sigurd is summed up, as it were. But the broadest pictures of mythology or heroic life in the Elder Edda are always given very concisely and even, if you like, "concisely." This "conciseness" is especially visible in the so-called "tulas" - lists of mythological (and sometimes historical) names (See "Divination of the Völva", pp. 11-13, 15, 16, "Grimnir's Speeches", st. 27 next. , "Song of Hündl", item 11 next). The current reader is perplexed by the abundance of proper names, which are also given without further explanation, - they do not tell him anything. But for the Scandinavian of that time, the situation was completely different! Each name in his memory was associated with a certain episode of a myth or heroic epic, and this name served him as a sign, which was usually not difficult to decipher. To understand this or that name, a specialist is forced to turn to reference books, but the memory of a medieval Icelander, more capacious and active than ours, due to the fact that we had to rely only on it, without difficulty gave him the necessary information, and when meeting this name in his the whole story relating to him unfolded in his mind. In other words, there is much more content "encoded" in the concise and relatively laconic Eddic song than it might seem to the uninitiated.

The noted circumstances are that some features of the songs of the Elder Edda seem strange and devoid of aesthetic value to modern tastes (for what artistic pleasure can now be obtained from reading unknown whose names!), Equally, the fact that these songs do not unfold in a wide epic, like the works of the Anglo-Saxon and German epic, testify to their archaism. Folklore formulas, clichés and other stylistic devices characteristic of oral versification are widely used in songs. The typological comparison of the "Elder Edda" with other monuments of the epic also makes us attribute its genesis to very remote times, in many cases earlier than the beginning of the settlement of Iceland by the Scandinavians at the end of the 9th - beginning of the 10th century. Although the surviving manuscript of the Edda is a younger contemporary of the Nibelungenlied, Eddic poetry reflects an earlier stage of cultural and social development. This is explained by the fact that pre-class relations were not eliminated in Iceland even in the 13th century, and despite the adoption of Christianity back in 1000, the Icelanders learned it relatively superficially and retained a lively connection with the ideology of the pagan times. In the "Elder Edda" one can find traces of Christian influence, but in general its spirit and content are very far from it. It is rather the spirit of the warlike Vikings, and probably to the Viking Age, the period of wide military and migration expansion of the Scandinavians (IX-XI centuries) , a considerable part of the Eddic poetic heritage dates back. The heroes of the Edda songs are not concerned with the salvation of the soul, the posthumous reward is a long memory left by the hero among people, and the stay of the knights who fell in battle in the hall of Odin, where they feast and engage in military amusements.

Attention is drawn to the diversity of songs, tragic and comic, elegiac monologues and dramatized dialogues, teachings are replaced by riddles, divination - stories about the beginning of the world. The tense rhetoric and frank didacticism of many of the songs contrast with the calm objectivity of the narrative prose of the Icelandic sagas. This contrast is noticeable in the Edda itself, where verses are often interspersed with prose pieces. Perhaps these were comments added later, but it is possible that the combination of a poetic text with prose formed an organic whole even at the archaic stage of the existence of the epic, giving it additional tension.

Eddic songs do not constitute a coherent unity, and it is clear that only a part of them has come down to us. Individual songs seem to be versions of the same piece; thus, in songs about Helgi, about Atli, Sigurd and Gudrun, the same plot is interpreted in different ways. Atli's Speeches is sometimes interpreted as a later extended revision of the older Atli's Song.

In general, all Eddic songs are divided into songs about gods and songs about heroes. Songs about the gods contain the richest material on mythology, this is our most important source for the knowledge of Scandinavian paganism (albeit in a very late, so to speak, “posthumous” version of it).

The image of the world, developed by the thought of the peoples of Northern Europe, largely depended on their way of life. Pastoralists, hunters, fishermen and sailors, to a lesser extent farmers, they lived in an environment of harsh and poorly mastered nature, which their rich imagination easily inhabited by hostile forces. The center of their life is a separate rural yard. Accordingly, the entire universe was modeled by them in the form of a system of estates. Just as uncultivated wastelands or rocks stretched around their estates, so the whole world was conceived by them as consisting of spheres sharply opposed to each other: “the middle estate” (Midgard (emphasis on the first syllable)), that is, the human world, is surrounded by the world of monsters , giants, constantly threatening the world of culture; this wild world of chaos was called Utgard (literally: “what is behind the fence, outside the estate”) (Utgard includes the Country of giants - jotuns, the Country of alves - dwarfs.). Above Midgard rises Asgard - the stronghold of the gods - aces. Asgard is connected to Midgard by a bridge formed by a rainbow. The world serpent swims in the sea, its body encircles the entire Midgard. In the mythological topography of the peoples of the North, an important place is occupied by the ash tree Yggdrasil, which connects all these worlds, including the lower one - the kingdom of the dead Hel.

The dramatic situations depicted in songs about the gods usually arise as a result of collisions or contacts in which different worlds enter, opposed to one another either vertically or horizontally. One visits the kingdom of the dead - in order to force the volva to reveal the secrets of the future, and the country of the giants, where he asks Vaftrudnir. Other gods also go to the world of giants (to get a bride or Thor's hammer). However, the songs do not mention the visits of aces or giants to Midgard. The opposition of the world of culture to the world of non-culture is common to both the Eddic songs and Beowulf; as we know, in the Anglo-Saxon epic the land of people is also called the “middle world”. With all the differences between monuments and plots, here and there we are faced with the theme of the struggle against the carriers of the world's evil - giants and monsters.

As Asgard is an idealized dwelling of people, so the gods of the Scandinavians are in many ways similar to people, possess their qualities, including vices. The gods differ from people in dexterity, knowledge, especially in the possession of magic, but they are not omniscient in nature and gain knowledge from more ancient families of giants and dwarfs. The giants are the main enemies of the gods, and the gods wage an ongoing war with them. The head and leader of the gods Odin and other aces try to outwit the giants, while Thor fights them with his hammer Mjolnir. The struggle against the giants is a necessary condition for the existence of the universe; if the gods had not led her, the giants would have long ago destroyed both themselves and the human race. In this conflict, gods and humans are allies. Thor was often called the "protector of the people." One helps courageous warriors and takes the fallen heroes to him. He got the honey of poetry, sacrificing himself, got the runes - the sacred secret signs with which you can do all kinds of witchcraft. In Odin, the features of a "cultural hero" are visible - a mythical ancestor who endowed people with the necessary skills and knowledge.

The anthropomorphism of aces brings them closer to the gods of antiquity, however, unlike the latter, aces are not immortal. In the coming cosmic catastrophe, they, along with the whole world, will die in the fight against the world wolf. This gives their struggle against monsters a tragic meaning. Just as the hero of the epic knows his fate and boldly goes towards the inevitable, so do the gods: in the “Divination of the Volva”, the sorceress tells Odin about the impending fatal battle. The cosmic catastrophe will be the result of moral decline, because the aces once violated their vows, and this leads to the unleashing of evil forces in the world, which it is already impossible to control. The völva paints an impressive picture of the termination of all sacred ties: see stanza 45 of her prophecies, where the worst thing that can happen to a person is predicted, in the opinion of members of a society in which tribal traditions are still strong, feuds will break out between relatives, “brothers will begin to fight each other with a friend...".

The Hellenic gods had their favorites and wards among the people, who were helped in every possible way. The main thing among the Scandinavians is not the patronage of a deity to a separate tribe or individual, but the consciousness of the common destinies of gods and people in their conflict with the forces that bring decline and final death to all living things. Therefore, instead of a bright and joyful picture of Hellenic mythology, the Eddic songs about the gods paint a situation full of tragedy of the universal world movement towards an inexorable fate.

The hero in the face of Fate is the central theme of heroic songs. Usually the hero is aware of his fate: either he is gifted with the ability to penetrate into the future, or someone has revealed it to him. What should be the position of a person who knows in advance about the troubles that threaten him and the final death? This is the problem to which the Eddic songs offer an unequivocal and courageous answer. The knowledge of fate does not plunge the hero into a fatalistic apathy and does not induce him to try to evade the doom that threatens him; on the contrary, being sure that what has fallen to him is inevitable, he defies fate, boldly accepts it, caring only for posthumous glory. Invited by the treacherous Atli, Gunnar knows in advance of the danger that awaits him, but without hesitation sets off on his way: this is what a sense of heroic honor tells him to do. Refusing to pay off death with gold, he perishes. “... So the brave one, who gives rings, should protect goodness!” ("The Greenlandic Song of Atli", 31).

But the highest good is the good name of a hero. Everything is transient, say the aphorisms of worldly wisdom, and relatives, and wealth, and one's own life, - only the glory of the exploits of the hero remains forever ("Speech of the High", 76, 77). As in Beowulf, in the Eddic songs, glory is denoted by a term that simultaneously had the meaning of “sentence” (Old Norse domr, Old English dom), the hero is concerned that his deeds should not be forgotten by people. For it is the people who judge him, and not any supreme authority. The heroic songs of the Edda, despite the fact that they existed in the Christian era, do not mention God's judgment, everything happens on earth, and the hero's attention is riveted to it.

Unlike the characters of the Anglo-Saxon epic - leaders who lead kingdoms or squads, Scandinavian heroes act alone. There is no historical background (“The Song of Khlod”, which keeps echoes of some historical events, seems to be an exception.), And the kings of the era of the Great Migrations mentioned in the “Edda” [Atli - the king of the Huns Attila, Jormunrekk - the Ostrogothic king Germanaric (Ermanarich), Gunnar - the Burgundian king Gundachary] lost all connection with history. Meanwhile, the Icelanders of that time were closely interested in history, and from the 12th and 13th centuries, many historical works created by them have been preserved. The point, therefore, is not in their lack of historical consciousness, but in the peculiarities of the interpretation of the material in Icelandic heroic songs. The author of the song focuses all his attention exclusively on the hero, on his life position and fate (In Iceland, during the recording of heroic songs, there was no state; meanwhile, historical motifs intensively penetrate into the epic, usually in conditions of state consolidation.).

Another difference between the Eddic epic and the Anglo-Saxon epic is a higher appreciation of women and interest in her. Queens appear in Beowulf, serving as an ornament to the court and a guarantee of peace and friendly ties between the tribes, but that's all. What a striking contrast to this are the heroines of Icelandic songs! Before us are bright, strong natures, capable of the most extreme, decisive actions that determine the entire course of events. The role of women in the heroic songs of the Edda is no less than that of men. Revenging for the deceit into which she was introduced, Brynhild achieves the death of her beloved Sigurd and kills herself, not wanting to live after his death: “... a wife was not weak if she goes alive // ​​to the grave for a stranger’s husband ...” ("Short Song of Sigurd", 41). Sigurd's widow Gudrun is also seized with a thirst for revenge: but she takes revenge not on her brothers - the perpetrators of Sigurd's death, but on her second husband, Atli, who killed her brothers; in this case, the kindred duty operates flawlessly, and the victims of her revenge fall primarily on their sons, whose bloody meat Gudrun serves Atli as a treat, after which she kills her husband and dies herself in the fire ignited by her. These monstrous acts nevertheless have a certain logic: they do not mean that Gudrun was deprived of the feeling of motherhood. But her children from Atli were not members of her family, they were part of the Atli family; did not belong to her family and Sigurd. Therefore, Gudrun must take revenge on Atli for the death of her brothers, her closest relatives, but she does not take revenge on her brothers for killing Sigurd by them - even the thought of such a possibility does not occur to her! Let's remember this - after all, the plot of the Nibelungenlied goes back to the same legends, but develops in a completely different way.

Tribal consciousness generally dominates in songs about heroes. The convergence of legends of different origins, both borrowed from the south and Scandinavian ones proper, and combining them into cycles, was accompanied by the establishment of a common genealogy of the characters appearing in them. Högni was turned from a vassal of the Burgundian kings into their brother. Brynhild received a father and, more importantly, Atli's brother, as a result of which her death turned out to be causally connected with the death of the Burgundian Gyukungs: Atli lured them to him and killed them, carrying out blood vengeance for his sister. Sigurd had ancestors - the Volsungs, a clan that ascended to Odin. Sigurd also “married” with the hero of an initially completely separate legend - Helgi, they became brothers, sons of Sigmund. In the Song of Hyundl, the lists of noble families are in the center of attention, and the giantess Hyundla, who tells the young man Ottar about his ancestors, reveals to him that he is related to all the famous families of the North, including the Volsungs, Gyukungs, and ultimately account even with the aces themselves.

The artistic and cultural-historical significance of the Elder Edda is enormous. It occupies one of the honorable places in the world literature. The images of the Eddic songs, along with the images of the sagas, supported the Icelanders throughout their difficult history, especially at a time when this small nation, deprived of national independence, was almost doomed to extinction as a result of foreign exploitation, and from hunger and epidemics. The memory of the heroic and legendary past gave the Icelanders the strength to hold out and not die.

Song of the Nibelungs

In the Nibelungenlied, we again meet with heroes known from Eddic poetry: Siegfried (Sigurd), Kriemhild (Gudrun), Brunhild (Brunhild), Gunther (Gunnar), Etzel (Atli), Hagen (Högni). Their deeds and destinies have captured the imagination of Scandinavians and Germans for centuries. But how different are the interpretations of the same characters and plots! A comparison of Icelandic songs with the German epic shows what great opportunities for original poetic interpretation existed within the framework of one epic tradition. The "historical core" to which this tradition ascended, the death of the Burgundian kingdom in 437 and the death of the Hunnic king Attila in 453, served as an occasion for the emergence of highly original artistic creations. On Icelandic and German soil, works have developed that are deeply dissimilar to each other both in artistic terms and in their assessment and understanding of the reality they depicted.

Researchers separate the elements of myth and fairy tale from historical facts and truthful sketches of morality and everyday life, discover in the Nibelungenlied old and new layers and contradictions between them, which were not smoothed out in the final version of the song. But were all these “seams”, inconsistencies and layers noticeable to people of that time? We have already had occasion to express doubt that "poetry" and "truth" were as clearly opposed in the Middle Ages as in modern times. Despite the fact that the true events of the history of the Burgundians or the Huns are distorted beyond recognition in the Nibelungenlied, it can be assumed that the author and his readers perceived the song as a historical narrative, truthfully, due to its artistic persuasiveness, depicting the affairs of past centuries.

Each era explains history in its own way, based on its inherent understanding of social causality. How does the Nibelungenlied paint the past of peoples and kingdoms? The historical destinies of the states are embodied in the history of the ruling houses. The Burgundians are, in fact, Gunther and his brothers, and the death of the Burgundian kingdom consists in the extermination of its rulers and their troops. In the same way, the Hunnic state is entirely concentrated in Etzel. The poetic consciousness of the Middle Ages draws historical conflicts in the form of a clash of individuals whose behavior is determined by their passions, relationships of personal loyalty or blood feud, the code of tribal and personal honor. But at the same time, the epic elevates the individual to the rank of the historical. In order to make this clear, it is enough to outline, in the most general terms, the plot of the Nibelungenlied.

At the court of the Burgundian kings, the famous hero Siegfried of the Netherlands appears and falls in love with their sister Kriemhild. King Gunther himself wants to marry the Icelandic queen Brynhild. Siegfried undertakes to help him in the matchmaking. But this help is connected with deceit: the heroic feat, the accomplishment of which is a condition for the success of the matchmaking, was actually not done by Gunther, but by Siegfried, who took refuge under an invisibility cloak. Brynhild could not fail to notice the valor of Siegfried, but she is assured that he is only a vassal of Gunther, and she grieves because of the misalliance that her husband's sister entered into, thereby infringing on her class pride. Years later, at the insistence of Brynhilde, Gunther invites Siegfried and Kriemhilda to his place in Worms, and here, during a skirmish between queens (whose husband is more valiant?), the deceit is revealed. The offended Brynhild takes revenge on the offender Siegfried, who had the imprudence to give his wife the ring and belt he had taken from Brynhild. Revenge is carried out by Gunther's vassal Hagen. The hero is treacherously killed on a hunt, and the golden treasure, once won by Siegfried from the fabulous Nibelungs, the kings manage to lure from Kriemhild, and Hagen hides it in the waters of the Rhine. Thirteen years have passed. The Hun ruler Etzel has become a widower and is looking for a new wife. Word of Kriemhild's beauty has reached his court, and he sends an embassy to Worms. After a long struggle, the inconsolable widow Siegfried agrees to a second marriage in order to obtain the means to avenge the murder of her beloved. Thirteen years later, she gets Etzel to invite her brothers to visit them. Despite Hagen's attempts to prevent a visit that threatens to be fatal, the Burgundians and their retinue set off from the Rhine to the Danube. (In this part of the song, the Burgundians are called Nibelungs.) Almost immediately after their arrival, a quarrel breaks out, developing into a general massacre, in which the Burgundian and Hun squads, the son of Kriemhild and Etzel, the closest close associates of the kings and Gunnar's brothers die. At last Gunnar and Hagen are in the hands of the vengeful queen; she orders her brother to be beheaded, after which she kills Hagen with her own hands. Old Hildebrand, the only surviving combatant of King Dietrich of Bern, punishes Kriemhilde. Etzel and Dietrich, groaning from grief, remain alive. Thus ends "the story of the death of the Nibelungs."

In a few sentences, only the bare bones of the plot of a huge poem can be recounted. The epic, unhurried narrative depicts in detail court leisure and knightly tournaments, feasts and wars, scenes of matchmaking and hunting, travel to distant lands, and all other aspects of the magnificent and refined courtly life. The poet literally with sensual joy tells about rich weapons and precious robes, gifts that the rulers reward the knights, and the owners give to the guests. All these static images were undoubtedly of no less interest to the medieval audience than the dramatic events themselves. The battles are also depicted in great detail, and although large numbers of warriors take part in them, the fights in which the main characters enter are given in a "close-up". The song constantly anticipates the tragic outcome. Often such predictions of a fatal fate emerge in pictures of well-being and festivities - the awareness of the contrast between the present and the future gave rise to a feeling of intense expectation in the reader, despite his notorious knowledge of the plot, and cemented the epic as an artistic whole. The characters are delineated with exceptional clarity, they can not be confused with each other. Of course, the hero of an epic work is not a character in the modern sense, not the owner of unique properties, a special individual psychology. An epic hero is a type, the embodiment of qualities that were recognized in that era as the most significant or exemplary. The Nibelungenlied originated in a society essentially different from the Icelandic "people's rule" and underwent final processing at a time when feudal relations in Germany, having reached their peak, revealed their inherent contradictions, in particular the contradictions between the aristocratic elite and petty chivalry. The song expresses the ideals of feudal society: the ideal of vassal loyalty to the master and chivalrous service to the lady, the ideal of the ruler, who cares about the welfare of his subjects and generously rewards the vassals.

However, the German heroic epic is not content with demonstrating these ideals. His heroes, unlike the heroes of the chivalric novel, which arose in France and was adopted in Germany just at that time, do not pass safely from one adventure to another; they find themselves in situations in which following the code of knightly honor leads them to their death. Glitter and joy go hand in hand with suffering and death. This awareness of the closeness of such opposite principles, which is also inherent in the heroic songs of the Edda, forms the leitmotif of the Nibelungenlied, in the very first stanza of which the theme is indicated: “feasts, fun, misfortune and grief”, as well as “bloody feuds”. Every joy ends in grief - the whole epic is permeated with this thought. The moral precepts of behavior, obligatory for a noble warrior, are tested in the song, and not all of its characters stand the test with honor.

In this regard, the figures of kings are indicative, courtly and generous, but at the same time constantly revealing their failure. Gunther takes possession of Brynhild only with the help of Siegfried, in comparison with whom he loses both as a man, and as a warrior, and as a man of honor. The scene in the royal bedchamber, when the angry Brynhilde, instead of giving herself to the groom, binds him and hangs him on a nail, naturally, caused laughter from the audience. In many situations, the Burgundian king shows treachery and cowardice. Courage awakens in Gunther only at the end of the poem. And Etzel? At a critical moment, his virtues turn into indecision, bordering on complete paralysis of the will. From the hall where his people are being killed and where Hagen has just hacked to death his son, the Hun king is saved by Dietrich; Etzel goes so far as to beg his vassal for help on his knees! He remains in a daze until the end, able only to mourn the innumerable victims. Among kings, the exception is Dietrich of Bern, who tries to play the role of conciliator of warring cliques, but without success. He is the only one, besides Etzel, who remains alive, and some researchers see in this a glimmer of hope left by the poet after he painted a picture of universal death; but Dietrich, a model of "courtly humanity", is left to live a lonely exile, deprived of all friends and vassals.

The heroic epic existed in Germany at the courts of large feudal lords. But the poets who created it, relying on German heroic traditions, apparently belonged to petty chivalry (It is possible, however, that the Nibelungenlied was written by a clergyman. See notes.). This, in particular, explains their passion for praising princely generosity and for describing the gifts unrestrainedly squandered by lords to vassals, friends and guests. Is it not for this reason that the behavior of the faithful vassal turns out to be closer to the ideal in the epic than the behavior of the sovereign, who is increasingly turning into a static figure? Such is Margrave Rüdeger, faced with a dilemma: to take the side of friends or in defense of the lord, and who fell victim to fealty to Etzel. The symbol of his tragedy, very intelligible for a medieval person, was that the margrave died from the sword, which he himself presented, having given Hagen, a former friend, and now an enemy, his battle shield. Rüdeger embodies the ideal qualities of a knight, vassal and friend, but when faced with the harsh reality of their owner, a tragic fate awaits. The conflict between the requirements of vassal ethics, which does not take into account the personal inclinations and feelings of the participants in the fief treaty, and the moral principles of friendship are revealed in this episode with greater depth than anywhere else in medieval German poetry.

Högni does not play a major role in the Elder Edda. In the Nibelungenlied, Hagen rises to the forefront. His enmity with Kriemhild is the driving force behind the entire narrative. The gloomy, ruthless, prudent Hagen, without hesitation, goes to the treacherous murder of Siegfried, slays the innocent son of Krimhilda with a sword, makes every effort to drown the chaplain in the Rhine. At the same time, Hagen is a powerful, invincible and fearless warrior. Of all the Burgundians, he alone clearly understands the meaning of the invitation to Etzel: Kriemhild did not leave the thought of avenging Siegfried and considers him, Hagen, her main enemy. Nevertheless, energetically discouraging the Worms kings from going to the Hunnic state, he stops the disputes as soon as one of them reproaches him for cowardice. Having made up his mind, he shows maximum energy in the implementation of the adopted plan. Before crossing the Rhine, the prophetic wives reveal to Hagen that none of the Burgundians will return alive from the land of Etzel. But, knowing the fate to which they are doomed, Hagen destroys the canoe - the only way to cross the river so that no one can retreat. In Hagen, perhaps to a greater extent than in other heroes of the song, the old German faith in Fate is alive, which must be actively accepted. Not only does he not avoid a collision with Kriemhild, but he deliberately provokes it. What is the scene alone, when Hagen and his associate Shpilman Volker are sitting on a bench and Hagen refuses to stand in front of the approaching queen, defiantly playing with the sword, which he once removed from Siegfried, who he killed.

As gloomy as many of Hagen's deeds look, the song does not render him a moral verdict. This is probably explained both by the author's position (the author, who retells the "tellings of bygone days", refrains from active interference in the narrative and from assessments), and by the fact that Hagen was hardly presented as an unequivocal figure. He is a loyal vassal, serving his kings to the end. Unlike Rüdeger and other knights, Hagen is devoid of any courtesy. He has more of an old German hero than a refined knight familiar with the refined manners adopted from France. We know nothing about any of his marital and love affections. Meanwhile, serving a lady is an integral feature of courtesy. Hagen, as it were, personifies the past - heroic, but already overcome by a new, more complex culture.

In general, the difference between the old and the new is more clearly recognized in the Nibelungenlied than in the German poetry of the early Middle Ages. Fragments of earlier works that seem “undigested” to individual researchers in the context of the German epic (the themes of Siegfried’s fight with the dragon, his retaking of the treasure from the Nibelungs, martial arts with Brynhild, prophetic sisters predicting the death of the Burgundians, etc.), regardless of the author’s conscious intention , perform a certain function in it: they impart an archaic character to the narrative, which allows you to establish a temporal distance between modernity and bygone days. Probably, other scenes, marked by the stamp of logical inconsistency, also served this purpose: the crossing of a huge army in one boat, which Hagen managed in a day, or the battle of hundreds and thousands of warriors taking place in the banquet hall of Etzel, or the successful repulsion by two heroes of the attack of a whole horde of Huns . In an epic that tells about the past, such things are permissible, because in the old days the miraculous turned out to be possible. Time has brought great changes, as the poet says, and this also shows the medieval sense of history.

Of course, this sense of history is very peculiar. Time does not flow in the epic in a continuous stream - it goes, as it were, in jolts. Life is at rest rather than moving. Despite the fact that the song covers a time period of almost forty years, the characters do not age. But this state of rest is disturbed by the actions of the heroes, and then a significant time comes. At the end of the action, the time "turns off". "Spasmodic" is inherent in the characters of the characters. At the beginning Kriemhilda is a meek girl, then a heartbroken widow, in the second half of the song she is a “devil” seized with a thirst for revenge. These changes are outwardly conditioned by events, but there is no psychological motivation for such a sharp change in Krimhilda's state of mind in the song. Medieval people did not imagine the development of personality. Human types play in the epic the roles assigned to them by fate and the situation in which they are placed.

The Nibelungenlied was the result of reworking the material of Germanic heroic songs and tales into an epic on a large scale. This reworking was accompanied by gains and losses. Acquisitions - for the nameless author of the epic made the ancient legends sound in a new way and managed to unusually clearly and colorfully (Colorfully in the literal sense of the word: the author willingly and tastefully gives the color characteristics of the clothes, jewelry and weapons of the heroes. Contrasts and combinations of red, gold, white colors in his descriptions they vividly resemble a medieval book miniature, the poet himself, as it were, has it before his eyes (see stanza 286), to unfold in every detail each scene of the tales of Siegfried and Kriemhild, more concisely and concisely presented in the works of his predecessors. It took an outstanding talent and great art to ensure that the songs, which numbered more than one century, again acquired relevance and artistic power for the people of the 13th century, who in many respects already had completely different tastes and interests. Losses - for the transition from high heroism and pathos of the inexorable struggle with Fate, inherent in the early German epic, up to the “will to die”, which owned the hero of ancient songs, to greater elegiacism and glorification of suffering, to lamentations of sorrows that invariably accompany human joys, the transition, certainly incomplete, but nonetheless quite clear, was accompanied by the loss of the epic hero's former integrity and solidity, as well as the well-known refinement of the subject matter due to a compromise between the pagan and Christian-knightly traditions; The "swelling" of old lapidary songs into a verbose epic abounding in inserted episodes led to some weakening of the dynamism and tension of presentation. The Nibelungenlied was born out of the needs of a new ethic and new aesthetics, which in many respects departed from the canons of the archaic epic of the barbarian era. The forms in which ideas about human honor and dignity are expressed here, about the methods of their assertion, belong to the feudal era. But the intensity of the passions that overwhelmed the heroes of the epic, the sharp conflicts in which fate collides them, still cannot but captivate and shock the reader.

Bibliography

For the preparation of this work, materials from the site http://izbakurnog.historic.ru/ were used.

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The works of heroic poetry presented in this volume belong to the Middle Ages - early (the Anglo-Saxon Beowulf) and classical (the Icelandic songs of the Elder Edda and the German Nibelungenlied). The origins of Germanic poetry about gods and heroes are much more ancient. Already Tacitus, who was one of the first to leave a description of the Germanic tribes, mentions their ancient songs about mythical ancestors and leaders: these songs, according to him, replaced history for the barbarians. The remark of the Roman historian is very significant: in the epic, memories of historical events are fused with myth and fairy tale, and the fantastic and historical elements are equally taken for reality. The distinction between "facts" and "fiction" in relation to the epic in that era was not carried out. But ancient Germanic poetry is unknown to us, there was no one to write it down. The themes and motifs that have existed in it orally for centuries are partly reproduced in the monuments published below. In any case, they reflect the events of the period of the Great Migration of Peoples (V-VI centuries). However, according to Beowulf or Scandinavian songs, not to mention the Nibelungenlied, it is impossible to restore the spiritual life of the Germans in the era of the dominance of the tribal system. The transition from the oral art of singers and storytellers to the "book epic" was accompanied by more or less significant changes in the composition, volume and content of the songs. Suffice it to recall that in the oral tradition, the songs from which these epic works then developed existed in the pagan period, while they acquired their written form centuries after Christianization. Nevertheless, Christian ideology does not determine the content and tone of epic poems, and this becomes especially clear when comparing the Germanic heroic epic with medieval Latin literature, which, as a rule, is deeply imbued with the church spirit ( However, how different assessments the ideological basis of epic poetry received is clear from at least the following two judgments about the Nibelungenlied: “basically pagan”; "Medieval Christian". The first assessment - Goethe, the second - A.-V. Schlegel.).

An epic work is universal in its functions. The fantastic is not separated from the real in it. The epic contains information about gods and other supernatural beings, fascinating stories and instructive examples, aphorisms of worldly wisdom and examples of heroic behavior; its edifying function is as inalienable as its cognitive one. It covers both the tragic and the comic. At the stage when the epic arises and develops, the German peoples did not have knowledge about nature and history, philosophy, fiction or theater as separate spheres of intellectual activity - the epic gave a complete and comprehensive picture of the world, explained its origin and further destinies, including the most distant future, taught to distinguish good from evil, instructed how to live and how to die. The epic contained ancient wisdom, knowledge of it was considered necessary for every member of society.

The integrity of the life span corresponds to the integrity of the characters displayed in the epic. The heroes of the epic are carved from one piece, each personifies some quality that determines his essence. Beowulf is the ideal of a courageous and determined warrior, unchanging in loyalty and friendship, a generous and merciful king. Gudrun is the incarnation of devotion to the family, a woman who avenges the death of her brothers, not stopping at killing her own sons and husband, like (but at the same time in contrast to) Kriemhild, who destroys her brothers, punishing them for killing her beloved husband Siegfried and taking away she has a golden treasure. The epic hero is not tormented by doubts and hesitations, his character is revealed in actions; His words are as clear as his actions. This solidity of the hero of the epic is explained by the fact that he knows his fate, takes it for granted and inevitable, and boldly goes to meet it. The epic hero is not free in his decisions, in the choice of a line of behavior. Actually, his inner essence and the power that the heroic epic calls Fate coincide, are identical. Therefore, the only thing left for the hero is to fulfill his destiny in the best possible way. Hence - a peculiar, maybe a little primitive for a different taste, the greatness of epic heroes.

With all the differences in content, tonality, as well as in the conditions and time of their occurrence, epic poems do not have an author. It's not that the name of the author is unknown ( In science, there have been more than once - invariably unconvincing - attempts to establish the authors of the Eddic songs or the Nibelungenlied.) - the anonymity of epic works is fundamental: the persons who combined, expanded and reworked the poetic material at their disposal did not recognize themselves as the authors of the works they wrote. This, of course, does not mean that in that era the concept of authorship did not exist at all. The names of many Icelandic skalds are known, who claimed their "copyright" to the songs they performed. The Nibelungenlied arose at a time when the largest German minnesingers were writing and chivalric novels were created according to French models; this song was written by a contemporary of Wolfram von Eschenbach, Hartmann von Aue, Gottfried of Strassburg and Walter von der Vogelweide. Nevertheless, poetic work on the traditional epic plot, on heroic songs and legends, which in an earlier form were familiar to everyone, in the Middle Ages was not evaluated as creativity either by society or by the poet himself, who created such works, but did not think about it. to mention your name ( This also applies to certain types of prose writing, such as Icelandic sagas and Irish legends. See the preface by M. I. Steblin-Kamensky to the publication of the Icelandic sagas in the Library of World Literature.).

Drawing from the general poetic fund, the compiler of the epic poem focused on the heroes and plot chosen by him, pushing many other legends related to this plot to the periphery of the narrative. Just as a searchlight illuminates a separate piece of terrain, leaving most of it in darkness, so the author of an epic poem (the author in the sense indicated now, that is, a poet deprived of authorial self-consciousness), developing his theme, limited himself to allusions to its offshoots, being sure that his audience already knows all the events and characters, both sung by him, and those that he only mentioned in passing. The tales and myths of the Germanic peoples found only a partial embodiment in their epic poems, preserved in written form - the rest has either disappeared or can only be restored indirectly. In the songs of the Edda and in Beowulf, cursory references to kings, their wars and strife, mythological characters and legends are scattered in abundance. Laconic allusions were quite enough for the corresponding associations to arise in the minds of listeners or readers of the heroic epic. The epic usually does not report anything completely new. The strength of its aesthetic and emotional impact does not diminish in the least - on the contrary, in archaic and medieval society, the greatest satisfaction, apparently, was given not by obtaining original information, or not only it, but also by recognizing previously known, new confirmation of old ones, and therefore especially valuable truths ( Wouldn't a comparison with a child's perception of a fairy tale be appropriate here? The child knows its content, but his pleasure from listening to it again and again does not decrease.).

The epic poet, processing material that did not belong to him, a heroic song, myth, legend, legend, widely using traditional expressions, stable comparisons and formulas, figurative clichés borrowed from oral folk art, could not consider himself an independent creator, no matter how much he really was his contribution to the final creation of the heroic epic is great. This dialectical combination of the new and the perceived from the predecessors constantly gives rise to disputes in modern literary criticism: science tends either to emphasize the folk basis of the epic, or in favor of the individual creative principle in its creation.

The tonic alliterative verse remained the form of German poetry for an entire era. This form was preserved for a particularly long time in Iceland, while among the continental Germanic peoples already in the early Middle Ages it was replaced by verse with a final rhyme. "Beowulf" and the songs of "Elder Edda" are sustained in the traditional alliterative form, "The Nibelungenlied" - in a new, based on rhyme. Old German versification was based on rhythm, determined by the number of stressed syllables in a line of poetry. Alliteration is the consonance of the initial sounds of words that were under semantic stress and repeated with a certain regularity in two adjacent lines of a verse, which, by virtue of this, turned out to be connected. Alliteration is audible and significant in Germanic verse, since the stress in Germanic languages ​​​​predominantly falls on the first syllable of the word, which is also its root. It is clear, therefore, that the reproduction of this form of versification in Russian translation is almost impossible. It is also very difficult to convey another feature of Scandinavian and Old English verse, the so-called kenning (literally, "designation") - a poetic paraphrase that replaces one noun in ordinary speech with two or more words. Kennings were used to designate the most essential concepts for heroic poetry: "leader", "warrior", "sword", "shield", "battle", "ship", "gold", "woman", "raven", and for each of these concepts, there were several or even many kennings. Instead of saying "prince", the expression "giver of rings" was used in poetry, the common kenning of a warrior was "battle ash", the sword was called the "battle stick", etc. In Beowulf and the Elder Edda, kennings are usually binomial , in skaldic poetry there are also polynomial kennings.

The Nibelungenlied is built on the "Kurenberg stanza", which consists of four rhyming verses in pairs. Each verse is divided into two half-lines with four stressed syllables in the first half-line, while in the second half-line of the first three lines there are three stresses, and in the second half-line of the last line, which completes the stanza both formally and in meaning, four stresses. The translation of the Nibelungenlied from Middle High German into Russian does not face such difficulties as the translation of alliterated poetry, and gives an idea of ​​its metrical structure.

Beowulf

The only existing manuscript of Beowulf dates from about the year 1000. But the epic itself belongs, according to most experts, to the end of the 7th or the first third of the 8th century. At that time, the Anglo-Saxons were already experiencing the beginning process of the emergence of feudal ties. The poem, however, is characterized by epic archaization. In addition, she draws reality from a specific point of view: the world of Beowulf is the world of kings and vigilantes, the world of feasts, battles and fights.

The plot of this largest of the Anglo-Saxon epics is simple. Beowulf, a young knight from the people of the Gauts, having learned about the disaster that has befallen the king of the Danes Higelak - about the attacks of the monster Grendel on his palace Heorot and about the gradual extermination of the king's warriors over the course of twelve years, goes overseas to destroy Grendel. Having defeated him, he then kills in a new single combat, this time in an underwater dwelling, another monster - Grendel's mother, who tried to avenge her son's death. Showered with awards and thanks, Beowulf returns to his homeland. Here he performs new feats, and later becomes the king of the Gauts and safely rules the country for fifty years. After this period, Beowulf enters into battle with the dragon, which devastates the surroundings, being angry at the attempt on the ancient treasure he guards. Beowulf manages to defeat this monster as well, but at the cost of his own life. The song ends with the scene of the solemn burning of the hero's body on the funeral pyre and the construction of a mound over his ashes and the treasure he conquered.

These fantastic feats, however, are transferred from the unreal world of a fairy tale to historical soil and take place among the peoples of Northern Europe: Danes, Swedes, Gauts appear in Beowulf ( Who are the Gauts of Beowulf remains debatable. Different interpretations have been proposed in science: the Goths of Southern Sweden or the island of Gotland, the Jutes of the Jutland Peninsula, and even the ancient Getae of Thrace, who, in turn, were confused with the biblical Gog and Magog in the Middle Ages.), other tribes are mentioned, the kings who once really ruled them are named. But this does not apply to the protagonist of the poem: Beowulf himself, apparently, had no historical prototype. Since then everyone unconditionally believed in the existence of giants and dragons, the combination of such stories with the story of wars between peoples and kings was quite natural. It is curious that the Anglo-Saxon epic ignores England (this gave rise, by the way, to the now rejected theory of its Scandinavian origin). But perhaps this feature of Beowulf will not seem so striking, if we keep in mind that in other works of Anglo-Saxon poetry we meet the most diverse peoples of Europe and that we will encounter the same fact in the songs of the Elder Edda, and partly in the Nibelungenlied.

In the spirit of the theories that prevailed in science in the middle of the 19th century, some commentators of Beowulf argued that the poem arose as a result of the combination of various songs; it was customary to cut it into four parts: a duel with Grendel, a duel with his mother, Beowulf's return to his homeland, a duel with a dragon. The point of view was expressed that the originally purely pagan poem was partially revised in the Christian spirit, as a result of which an interweaving of two worldviews arose in it. Then most researchers began to believe that the transition from oral songs to the "book epic" was not limited to their simple fixation; these scholars considered Beowulf as a single work, the "editor" of which, in his own way, combined and reworked the material at his disposal, setting out the traditional plots more extensively. However, it must be admitted that nothing is known about the process of becoming Beowulf.

There are many folklore motifs in the epic. At the very beginning, Skild Skevang - "foundling" is mentioned. The boat with the baby Skild washed up on the shores of Denmark, whose people were at that time defenseless due to the absence of the king; subsequently Skild became the ruler of Denmark and founded a dynasty. After the death of Skild, they put him back on the ship and sent him along with the treasures to where he came from - a purely fabulous story. The giants that Beowulf fights are akin to the giants of Scandinavian mythology, and combat with the dragon is a common theme in fairy tales and myths, including northern ones. In his youth, Beowulf, who, having grown up, acquired the strength of thirty people, was lazy and did not differ in valor - does this not remind you of the youth of other heroes of folk tales, for example, Ilya Muromets? The arrival of the hero on his own initiative to help those in distress, his quarrel with his opponent (exchange of speeches between Beowulf and Unferth), the test of the hero’s prowess (the story of the swimming contest between Beowulf and Breka), handing him a magic weapon (Hrunting sword), violation of the ban by the hero ( Beowulf takes away the treasure in a duel with the dragon, not knowing that a spell gravitates over the treasure), an assistant in the hero’s single combat with the enemy (Wiglaf, who came to the rescue of Beowulf at a time when he was close to death), three battles that the hero gives, moreover each subsequent one turns out to be more difficult (the battles of Beowulf with Grendel, with his mother and with the dragon) - all these are elements of a fairy tale. The epic keeps many traces of its prehistory rooted in folk art. But the tragic ending - the death of Beowulf, as well as the historical background against which his fantastic exploits unfold, distinguish the poem from the fairy tale - these are signs of a heroic epic.

Representatives of the "mythological school" in the literary criticism of the last century tried to decipher this epic in this way: monsters personify the storms of the North Sea; Beowulf - a good deity, curbing the elements; his peaceful reign is a blessed summer, and his death is the onset of winter. Thus, the epic symbolically depicts the contrasts of nature, growth and decay, rise and fall, youth and old age. Other scholars understood these contrasts in ethical terms and saw in Beowulf the theme of the struggle between good and evil. The symbolic and allegorical interpretation of the poem is not alien to those researchers who generally deny its epic character and consider it to be the work of a cleric or monk who knew and used early Christian literature. These interpretations largely rest on the question of whether the "spirit of Christianity" is expressed in "Beowulf" or in front of us - a monument of pagan consciousness. Supporters of understanding it as a folk epic, in which the beliefs of the heroic era of the Great Migration are alive, naturally, found Germanic paganism in it and minimized the significance of church influence. On the contrary, those modern scholars who rank the poem in the category of written literature transfer the center of gravity to Christian motifs; in paganism, "Beowulf" is seen as nothing more than an antique pastiche. In the latest criticism, there is a noticeable tendency to shift attention from the analysis of the content of the poem to the study of its texture and style. In the middle of our century, the denial of the connection of "Beowulf" with the epic folklore tradition prevailed. Meanwhile, in recent years, a number of experts tend to consider the prevalence of stereotypical expressions and formulas in the text of the poem as evidence of its origin from oral creativity. There is no accepted concept in science that satisfactorily explains Beowulf. Meanwhile, interpretation is indispensable. "Beowulf" is difficult for the modern reader, brought up on a completely different literature and inclined, albeit involuntarily, to transfer to ancient monuments the ideas that have developed when getting acquainted with the artistic creations of modern times.

In the heat of scientific disputes, it is sometimes forgotten that regardless of how the poem arose, whether it was composed of different pieces or not, it was perceived by the medieval audience as something whole. This also applies to the composition of Beowulf and the interpretation of religion in it. The author and his characters often commemorate the Lord God; in the epic there are hints of biblical stories, apparently understandable to the "public" of that time; paganism is clearly condemned. At the same time, Beowulf is replete with references to Fate, which either acts as a tool of the creator and is identical to divine Providence, or appears as an independent force. But belief in Destiny was central to the pre-Christian ideology of the Germanic peoples. Family blood feud, which the church condemned, although it was often forced to endure, is glorified in the poem and considered an obligatory duty, and the impossibility of revenge is regarded as the greatest misfortune. In short, the ideological situation depicted in Beowulf is rather contradictory. But this is a contradiction of life, and not a simple inconsistency between earlier and subsequent editions of the poem. The Anglo-Saxons of the 7th-8th centuries were Christians, but the Christian religion at that time not so much overcame the pagan worldview as pushed it out of the official sphere into the background of public consciousness. The Church managed to destroy the old temples and the worship of pagan gods, sacrifices to them, as for the forms of human behavior, here the situation was much more complicated. The motives that drive the actions of the characters in Beowulf are by no means determined by the Christian ideals of humility and submission to the will of God. "What do Ingeld and Christ have in common?" - the famous church leader Alcuin asked a century after the creation of Beowulf and demanded that the monks not be distracted from prayer by heroic songs. Ingeld appears in a number of works; He is also mentioned in Beowulf. Alcuin was aware of the incompatibility of the ideals embodied in such characters of heroic tales with the ideals preached by the clergy.

The fact that the religious and ideological climate in which Beowulf arose was ambiguous is also confirmed by an archaeological find in Sutton Hoo (East Anglia). Here, in 1939, a burial in a boat of a noble person was discovered, dating back to the middle of the 7th century. The burial was performed according to a pagan rite, along with valuable things (swords, helmets, chain mail, cups, a banner, musical instruments) that the king might need in another world.

It is difficult to agree with those researchers who are disappointed by the "banality" of the scenes of the hero's fights with monsters. These fights are placed in the center of the poem quite rightly - they express its main content. In fact, the world of culture, joyful and multicolored, is personified in Beowulf by Heorot - a hall whose radiance extends "to many countries"; in its banquet hall, the leader and his associates frolic and have fun, listening to the songs and legends of the osprey - a retinue singer and poet, glorifying their military deeds, as well as the deeds of their ancestors; here the leader generously presents the vigilantes with rings, weapons and other valuables. Such a reduction of the “middle world” (middangeard) to the palace of the king (for everything else in this world is passed over in silence) is explained by the fact that “Beowulf” is a heroic epic that has developed, at least in the form known to us, in a retinue environment.

Heorot, the “Deer Hall” (its roof is decorated with gilded deer horns) is opposed by wild, mysterious and full of horror rocks, wastelands, swamps and caves inhabited by monsters. The contrast of joy and fear corresponds in this opposition to the contrast of light and darkness. Feasts and fun in the shining golden hall take place in the light of day - the giants go out in search of bloody prey under the cover of night. The enmity between Grendel and the people of Heorot is not an isolated episode; this is emphasized not only by the fact that the giant raged for twelve winters before being slain by Beowulf, but above all by the very interpretation of Grendel. This is not just a giant - in his image combined (although, perhaps, they did not merge together) different hypostases of evil. The monster of German mythology, Grendel, at the same time, is a creature placed outside of communication with people, an outcast, an outcast, an “enemy”, and according to German beliefs, a person who stained himself with crimes that entailed expulsion from society, as if losing his human appearance, became a werewolf , hater of people. The poet's singing and the sounds of the harp coming from Heorot, where the king and his retinue are feasting, awaken rage in Grendel. But this is not enough - in the poem Grendel is called "a descendant of Cain." Old pagan beliefs are overlaid with Christian ideas. An ancient curse lies on Grendel, he is called a "pagan" and condemned to hellish torment. And at the same time, he himself is like the devil. The formation of the idea of ​​a medieval devil at the time when Beowulf was being created was far from over, and in Grendel's interpretation, which is not without inconsistency, we find a curious intermediate moment in this evolution.

The fact that pagan and Christian ideas are intertwined in this “multi-layered” understanding of the forces of evil is not accidental. After all, the understanding of the rich man in Beowulf is no less peculiar. In the poem, which repeatedly mentions the "ruler of the world", "the mighty god", the Savior Christ is never named. In the minds of the author and his audience, apparently, there is no place for heaven in the theological sense, which so occupied the thoughts of medieval people. The Old Testament components of the new religion, more understandable to recent pagans, prevail over the gospel teaching about the Son of God and the afterlife reward. On the other hand, we read in Beowulf about a "hero under heaven", about a man who cares not about saving his soul, but about affirming his earthly glory in people's memory. The poem ends with the words: Of all the earthly leaders, Beowulf was the most generous, merciful to his people and greedy for glory!

The thirst for glory, prey and princely awards - these are the highest values ​​for the German hero, as they are drawn in the epic, these are the main springs of his behavior. “Death awaits every mortal! - // let whoever can live deserve // ​​eternal glory! For for a warrior // the best payment is a worthy memory! (Article 1386 following). Such is the credo of Beowulf. When he has to deliver a decisive blow to his opponent, he focuses on the thought of glory. “(So hand-to-hand // a warrior should go in order to gain eternal glory // without caring about life!)” (Article 1534 next) “It’s better for a warrior // to die than to live in disgrace!” (verses 2889 - 2890).

No less than glory, warriors covet the gifts of the leader. Neck rings, bracelets, twisted or plate gold constantly appear in the epic. The steady designation of the king is “breaking hryvnias” (sometimes they gave not a whole ring, it was significant wealth, but parts of it). The modern reader, perhaps, will be depressing and seem monotonous all the newly renewed descriptions and enumerations of awards and treasures. But he can be sure: stories about gifts did not tire the medieval audience at all and found a lively response in it. Vigilantes wait for the leader's gifts, first of all, as convincing signs of their valor and merit, so they show them and are proud of them. But in that era, a deeper, sacred meaning was also invested in the act of giving jewelry by the leader to a faithful person. As already mentioned, the pagan belief in fate persisted during the period of the creation of the poem. Fate was understood not as a universal fate, but as an individual share of an individual, his luck, happiness; some have more luck, others less. A mighty king, a glorious leader - the most “rich” person in happiness. Already at the beginning of the poem, we find the following characterization of Hrothgar: “Hrothgar has risen in battles, successful, / / ​​his relatives submitted to him without disputes ...” (v. 64 following). There was a belief that the luck of the leader extended to the squad. Rewarding his warriors with weapons and precious items - the materialization of his luck, the leader could pass on to them a particle of this luck. “Keep, O Beowulf, to your own joy // Strong Warrior with our gifts - // ring and wrists, and may good luck accompany // you!” - says the queen of Walchteov to Beowulf. (Art. 1216 next)

But the motif of gold as a visible, tangible embodiment of the warrior's luck in Beowulf is supplanted, obviously under Christian influence, by its new interpretation as a source of misfortune. In this regard, of particular interest is the last part of the poem - the hero's single combat with the dragon. In retaliation for the theft of a treasure from the treasure, the dragon that guarded these ancient treasures attacks the villages, setting the surrounding country on fire and death. Beowulf fights the dragon, but it is easy to see that the author of the poem does not see the reason that prompted the hero to this feat in the atrocities committed by the monster. The goal of Beowulf is to take away the treasure from the dragon. The dragon sat on the treasure for three centuries, but even before these values ​​belonged to people, and Beowulf wants to return them to the human race. Having killed a terrible enemy and himself having received a fatal wound, the hero expresses his dying wish: to see the gold that he pulled out from the claws of his guard. The contemplation of these riches gives him deep satisfaction. However, then something happens that directly contradicts the words of Beowulf that he conquered a treasure for his people, namely: on the funeral pyre, along with the body of the king, his associates lay all these treasures and burn them, and the remains are buried in a barrow. An ancient spell weighed over the treasure, and it is useless to people; because of this spell, broken out of ignorance, Beowulf, apparently, dies. The poem ends with a prediction of the calamities that will befall the Gauts after the death of their king.

The struggle for glory and jewels, loyalty to the leader, bloody revenge as an imperative of behavior, the dependence of a person on the Destiny reigning in the world and a courageous meeting with it, the tragic death of a hero - all these are the defining themes not only of Beowulf, but also of other monuments of the German epic.

Elder Edda

Songs about gods and heroes, conditionally united by the name "Elder Edda" ( The name "Edda" was given in the 17th century by the first researcher of the manuscript, who transferred to it the name of the book of the 13th-century Icelandic poet and historian Snorri Sturluson, since Snorri relied on songs about gods in his story about myths. Therefore, Snorri's treatise is usually called the "Younger Edda", and the collection of mythological and heroic songs - the "Elder Edda". The etymology of the word "Edda" is unclear.), are preserved in a manuscript that dates from the second half of the 13th century. It is not known whether this manuscript was the first, or whether it had any predecessors. The background of the manuscript is as unknown as the background of the Beowulf manuscript. There are, in addition, some other recordings of songs that are also classified as Eddic. The history of the songs themselves is also unknown, and a variety of points of view and contradictory theories have been put forward on this score. The range in the dating of songs often reaches several centuries. Not all songs originated in Iceland: among them there are songs that go back to South German prototypes; in the Edda there are motifs and characters familiar from the Anglo-Saxon epic; a lot was apparently brought from other Scandinavian countries. Without dwelling on countless controversies about the origin of the Elder Edda, we only note that in the most general form, the development in science went from romantic ideas about the extreme antiquity and archaic nature of songs expressing the “spirit of the people” to interpreting them as book compositions of medieval scholars. - "antiquarians" who imitated ancient poetry and stylized their religious and philosophical views as a myth.

One thing is clear: songs about gods and heroes were popular in Iceland in the 13th century. It can be assumed that at least some of them arose much earlier, even in the non-literate period. Unlike the songs of the Icelandic skaldic poets, for almost all of whom we know the author, the Eddic songs are anonymous. Myths about the gods, stories about Helgi, Sigurd, Brynhild, Atli, Gudrun were public property, and the person who retold or wrote down the song, even recreating it, did not consider himself its author. Before us is an epic, but the epic is very peculiar. This originality cannot but be evident when reading the Elder Edda after Beowulf. Instead of a lengthy, leisurely flowing epic, here before us is a dynamic and concise song, in a few words or stanzas setting out the fate of heroes or gods, their speeches and actions. Specialists explain this unusual for the epic style compaction of Eddic songs by the specifics of the Icelandic language. But one more circumstance cannot be overlooked. A broad epic canvas like Beowulf or the Nibelungenlied contains several plots, many scenes, united by common characters and temporal sequence, while the songs of the Elder Edda usually (though not always) focus on one episode . True, their great "segmentation" does not prevent the presence in the text of songs of various associations with plots that are developed in other songs, as a result of which the isolated reading of a single song makes it difficult to understand it - of course, understanding by a modern reader, because medieval Icelanders, there is no doubt, knew the rest. This is evidenced not only by the hints of events scattered throughout the songs that are not described in them, but also by kennings. If only habit was enough to understand a kenning such as “land of necklaces” (woman) or “blood serpent” (sword), then such kennings as, for example, “guardian of Midgard”, “son of Ygg”, “son of Odin”, “descendant Chlodyun", "husband of Siv", "father of Magni" or "owner of goats", "serpent killer", "charioteer", suggested that readers or listeners had knowledge of myths, from which it was only possible to learn that in all cases the god Thor was meant .

Songs about gods and heroes in Iceland did not "swell" into vast epics, as was the case in many other cases ( Beowulf has 3182 verses, the Nibelungenlied has three times as many (2379 stanzas of four verses each), while the longest of the Eddic songs, The High One's Orations, has only 164 stanzas (the number of verses in stanzas varies), and no other song, except Atli's Greenlandic speeches, exceeds a hundred stanzas.). Of course, the length of the poem itself says little, but the contrast is nonetheless striking. The foregoing does not mean that the Eddic hymn in all cases was limited to the development of one episode. In the "Divination of the Volva" the mythological history of the world was preserved from its creation to the death predicted by the sorceress due to the evil that penetrated into it, and even to the rebirth and renewal of the world. A number of these plots are touched upon both in Vaftrudnir's Speeches and Grimnir's Speeches. The epic coverage also characterizes the “Prophecy of Gripir”, where the entire cycle of songs about Sigurd is summed up, as it were. But the broadest pictures of mythology or heroic life in the Elder Edda are always given very concisely and even, if you like, "concisely." This "conciseness" is especially visible in the so-called "tula" - lists of mythological (and sometimes historical) names ( See The Völva's Prophecy, v. 11-13, 15, 16, Grimnir's Speeches, vv. 27 next, "The Song of Hündl", p. 11 next.). The current reader is perplexed by the abundance of proper names, which are also given without further explanation, - they do not tell him anything. But for the Scandinavian of that time, the situation was completely different! Each name in his memory was associated with a certain episode of a myth or heroic epic, and this name served him as a sign, which was usually not difficult to decipher. To understand this or that name, a specialist is forced to turn to reference books, but the memory of a medieval Icelander, more capacious and active than ours, due to the fact that we had to rely only on it, without difficulty gave him the necessary information, and when meeting this name in his the whole story relating to him unfolded in his mind. In other words, there is much more content "encoded" in the concise and relatively laconic Eddic song than it might seem to the uninitiated.

The noted circumstances are that some features of the songs of the Elder Edda seem strange and devoid of aesthetic value to modern tastes (for what artistic pleasure can now be obtained from reading unknown whose names!), Equally, the fact that these songs do not unfold in a wide epic, like the works of the Anglo-Saxon and German epic, testify to their archaism. Folklore formulas, clichés and other stylistic devices characteristic of oral versification are widely used in songs. The typological comparison of the "Elder Edda" with other monuments of the epic also makes us attribute its genesis to very remote times, in many cases earlier than the beginning of the settlement of Iceland by the Scandinavians at the end of the 9th - beginning of the 10th century. Although the surviving manuscript of the Edda is a younger contemporary of the Nibelungenlied, Eddic poetry reflects an earlier stage of cultural and social development. This is explained by the fact that pre-class relations were not eliminated in Iceland even in the 13th century, and despite the adoption of Christianity back in 1000, the Icelanders learned it relatively superficially and retained a lively connection with the ideology of the pagan times. In the "Elder Edda" one can find traces of Christian influence, but in general its spirit and content are very far from it. It is rather the spirit of the warlike Vikings, and probably to the Viking Age, the period of wide military and migration expansion of the Scandinavians (IX-XI centuries) , a considerable part of the Eddic poetic heritage dates back. The heroes of the Edda songs are not concerned with the salvation of the soul, the posthumous reward is a long memory left by the hero among people, and the stay of the knights who fell in battle in the hall of Odin, where they feast and engage in military amusements.

Attention is drawn to the diversity of songs, tragic and comic, elegiac monologues and dramatized dialogues, teachings are replaced by riddles, divination - stories about the beginning of the world. The tense rhetoric and frank didacticism of many of the songs contrast with the calm objectivity of the narrative prose of the Icelandic sagas. This contrast is noticeable in the Edda itself, where verses are often interspersed with prose pieces. Perhaps these were comments added later, but it is possible that the combination of a poetic text with prose formed an organic whole even at the archaic stage of the existence of the epic, giving it additional tension.

Eddic songs do not constitute a coherent unity, and it is clear that only a part of them has come down to us. Individual songs seem to be versions of the same piece; thus, in songs about Helgi, about Atli, Sigurd and Gudrun, the same plot is interpreted in different ways. Atli's Speeches is sometimes interpreted as a later extended revision of the older Atli's Song.

In general, all Eddic songs are divided into songs about gods and songs about heroes. Songs about the gods contain the richest material on mythology, this is our most important source for the knowledge of Scandinavian paganism (albeit in a very late, so to speak, “posthumous” version of it).

The image of the world, developed by the thought of the peoples of Northern Europe, largely depended on their way of life. Pastoralists, hunters, fishermen and sailors, to a lesser extent farmers, they lived in an environment of harsh and poorly mastered nature, which their rich imagination easily inhabited by hostile forces. The center of their life is a separate rural yard. Accordingly, the entire universe was modeled by them in the form of a system of estates. Just as uncultivated wastelands or rocks stretched around their estates, so the whole world was conceived by them as consisting of spheres sharply opposed to each other: “the middle estate” (Midgard ( stress on the first syllable)), that is, the human world, is surrounded by a world of monsters, giants, constantly threatening the world of culture; this wild world of chaos was called Utgard (literally: “what is beyond the fence, outside the estate”) ( The composition of Utgard includes the Country of giants - jotuns, the Country of alves - dwarfs.). Above Midgard rises Asgard - the stronghold of the gods - aces. Asgard is connected to Midgard by a bridge formed by a rainbow. The world serpent swims in the sea, its body encircles the entire Midgard. In the mythological topography of the peoples of the North, an important place is occupied by the ash tree Yggdrasil, which connects all these worlds, including the lower one - the kingdom of the dead Hel.

The dramatic situations depicted in songs about the gods usually arise as a result of collisions or contacts in which different worlds enter, opposed to one another either vertically or horizontally. One visits the kingdom of the dead - in order to force the volva to reveal the secrets of the future, and the country of the giants, where he asks Vaftrudnir. Other gods also go to the world of giants (to get a bride or Thor's hammer). However, the songs do not mention the visits of aces or giants to Midgard. The opposition of the world of culture to the world of non-culture is common to both the Eddic songs and Beowulf; as we know, in the Anglo-Saxon epic the land of people is also called the “middle world”. With all the differences between monuments and plots, here and there we are faced with the theme of the struggle against the carriers of the world's evil - giants and monsters.

As Asgard is an idealized dwelling of people, so the gods of the Scandinavians are in many ways similar to people, possess their qualities, including vices. The gods differ from people in dexterity, knowledge, especially in the possession of magic, but they are not omniscient in nature and gain knowledge from more ancient families of giants and dwarfs. The giants are the main enemies of the gods, and the gods wage an ongoing war with them. The head and leader of the gods Odin and other aces try to outwit the giants, while Thor fights them with his hammer Mjolnir. The struggle against the giants is a necessary condition for the existence of the universe; if the gods had not led her, the giants would have long ago destroyed both themselves and the human race. In this conflict, gods and humans are allies. Thor was often called the "protector of the people." One helps courageous warriors and takes the fallen heroes to him. He got the honey of poetry, sacrificing himself, got the runes - the sacred secret signs with which you can do all kinds of witchcraft. In Odin, the features of a "cultural hero" are visible - a mythical ancestor who endowed people with the necessary skills and knowledge.

The anthropomorphism of aces brings them closer to the gods of antiquity, however, unlike the latter, aces are not immortal. In the coming cosmic catastrophe, they, along with the whole world, will die in the fight against the world wolf. This gives their struggle against monsters a tragic meaning. Just as the hero of the epic knows his fate and boldly goes towards the inevitable, so do the gods: in the “Divination of the Volva”, the sorceress tells Odin about the impending fatal battle. The cosmic catastrophe will be the result of moral decline, because the aces once violated their vows, and this leads to the unleashing of evil forces in the world, which it is already impossible to control. The völva paints an impressive picture of the termination of all sacred ties: see stanza 45 of her prophecies, where the worst thing that can happen to a person is predicted, in the opinion of members of a society in which tribal traditions are still strong, feuds will break out between relatives, “brothers will begin to fight each other with a friend...".

The Hellenic gods had their favorites and wards among the people, who were helped in every possible way. The main thing among the Scandinavians is not the patronage of a deity to a separate tribe or individual, but the consciousness of the common destinies of gods and people in their conflict with the forces that bring decline and final death to all living things. Therefore, instead of a bright and joyful picture of Hellenic mythology, the Eddic songs about the gods paint a situation full of tragedy of the universal world movement towards an inexorable fate.

The hero in the face of Fate is the central theme of heroic songs. Usually the hero is aware of his fate: either he is gifted with the ability to penetrate into the future, or someone has revealed it to him. What should be the position of a person who knows in advance about the troubles that threaten him and the final death? This is the problem to which the Eddic songs offer an unequivocal and courageous answer. The knowledge of fate does not plunge the hero into a fatalistic apathy and does not induce him to try to evade the doom that threatens him; on the contrary, being sure that what has fallen to him is inevitable, he defies fate, boldly accepts it, caring only for posthumous glory. Invited by the treacherous Atli, Gunnar knows in advance of the danger that awaits him, but without hesitation sets off on his way: this is what a sense of heroic honor tells him to do. Refusing to pay off death with gold, he perishes. “... So the brave one, who gives rings, should protect goodness!” ("The Greenlandic Song of Atli", 31).

But the highest good is the good name of a hero. Everything is transient, say the aphorisms of worldly wisdom, and relatives, and wealth, and one's own life, - only the glory of the exploits of the hero remains forever ("Speech of the High", 76, 77). As in Beowulf, in the Eddic songs, glory is denoted by a term that simultaneously had the meaning of “sentence” (Old Norse domr, Old English dom), the hero is concerned that his deeds should not be forgotten by people. For it is the people who judge him, and not any supreme authority. The heroic songs of the Edda, despite the fact that they existed in the Christian era, do not mention God's judgment, everything happens on earth, and the hero's attention is riveted to it.

Unlike the characters of the Anglo-Saxon epic - leaders who lead kingdoms or squads, Scandinavian heroes act alone. There is no historical background ( The "Song of Khlod", which keeps the echoes of some historical events, seems to be an exception.), and the kings of the era of the Great Migrations mentioned in the Edda [Atli - king of the Huns Attila, Jormunrekk - the Ostrogothic king Germanaric (Ermanarich), Gunnar - the Burgundian king Gundacharius] have lost all connection with history. Meanwhile, the Icelanders of that time were closely interested in history, and from the 12th and 13th centuries, many historical works created by them have been preserved. The point, therefore, is not in their lack of historical consciousness, but in the peculiarities of the interpretation of the material in Icelandic heroic songs. The author of the song focuses all his attention exclusively on the hero, on his position in life and fate ( There was no state in Iceland during the recording of heroic songs; meanwhile, historical motifs intensively penetrate into the epic, usually in conditions of state consolidation.).

Another difference between the Eddic epic and the Anglo-Saxon epic is a higher appreciation of women and interest in her. Queens appear in Beowulf, serving as an ornament to the court and a guarantee of peace and friendly ties between the tribes, but that's all. What a striking contrast to this are the heroines of Icelandic songs! Before us are bright, strong natures, capable of the most extreme, decisive actions that determine the entire course of events. The role of women in the heroic songs of the Edda is no less than that of men. Revenging for the deceit into which she was introduced, Brynhild achieves the death of her beloved Sigurd and kills herself, not wanting to live after his death: “... a wife was not weak if she goes alive // ​​to the grave for a stranger’s husband ...” ("Short Song of Sigurd", 41). Sigurd's widow Gudrun is also seized with a thirst for revenge: but she takes revenge not on her brothers - the perpetrators of Sigurd's death, but on her second husband, Atli, who killed her brothers; in this case, the kindred duty operates flawlessly, and the victims of her revenge fall primarily on their sons, whose bloody meat Gudrun serves Atli as a treat, after which she kills her husband and dies herself in the fire ignited by her. These monstrous acts nevertheless have a certain logic: they do not mean that Gudrun was deprived of the feeling of motherhood. But her children from Atli were not members of her family, they were part of the Atli family; did not belong to her family and Sigurd. Therefore, Gudrun must take revenge on Atli for the death of her brothers, her closest relatives, but she does not take revenge on her brothers for killing Sigurd by them - even the thought of such a possibility does not occur to her! Let's remember this - after all, the plot of the Nibelungenlied goes back to the same legends, but develops in a completely different way.

Tribal consciousness generally dominates in songs about heroes. The convergence of legends of different origins, both borrowed from the south and Scandinavian ones proper, and combining them into cycles, was accompanied by the establishment of a common genealogy of the characters appearing in them. Högni was turned from a vassal of the Burgundian kings into their brother. Brynhild received a father and, more importantly, Atli's brother, as a result of which her death turned out to be causally connected with the death of the Burgundian Gyukungs: Atli lured them to him and killed them, carrying out blood vengeance for his sister. Sigurd had ancestors - the Volsungs, a clan that ascended to Odin. Sigurd also “married” with the hero of an initially completely separate legend - Helgi, they became brothers, sons of Sigmund. In the Song of Hyundl, the lists of noble families are in the center of attention, and the giantess Hyundla, who tells the young man Ottar about his ancestors, reveals to him that he is related to all the famous families of the North, including the Volsungs, Gyukungs, and ultimately account even with the aces themselves.

The artistic and cultural-historical significance of the Elder Edda is enormous. It occupies one of the honorable places in the world literature. The images of the Eddic songs, along with the images of the sagas, supported the Icelanders throughout their difficult history, especially at a time when this small nation, deprived of national independence, was almost doomed to extinction as a result of foreign exploitation, and from hunger and epidemics. The memory of the heroic and legendary past gave the Icelanders the strength to hold out and not die.

Song of the Nibelungs

In the Nibelungenlied, we again meet with heroes known from Eddic poetry: Siegfried (Sigurd), Kriemhild (Gudrun), Brunhild (Brunhild), Gunther (Gunnar), Etzel (Atli), Hagen (Högni). Their deeds and destinies have captured the imagination of Scandinavians and Germans for centuries. But how different are the interpretations of the same characters and plots! A comparison of Icelandic songs with the German epic shows what great opportunities for original poetic interpretation existed within the framework of one epic tradition. The "historical core" to which this tradition ascended, the death of the Burgundian kingdom in 437 and the death of the Hunnic king Attila in 453, served as an occasion for the emergence of highly original artistic creations. On Icelandic and German soil, works have developed that are deeply dissimilar to each other both in artistic terms and in their assessment and understanding of the reality they depicted.

Researchers separate the elements of myth and fairy tale from historical facts and truthful sketches of morality and everyday life, discover in the Nibelungenlied old and new layers and contradictions between them, which were not smoothed out in the final version of the song. But were all these “seams”, inconsistencies and layers noticeable to people of that time? We have already had occasion to express doubt that "poetry" and "truth" were as clearly opposed in the Middle Ages as in modern times. Despite the fact that the true events of the history of the Burgundians or the Huns are distorted beyond recognition in the Nibelungenlied, it can be assumed that the author and his readers perceived the song as a historical narrative, truthfully, due to its artistic persuasiveness, depicting the affairs of past centuries.

Each era explains history in its own way, based on its inherent understanding of social causality. How does the Nibelungenlied paint the past of peoples and kingdoms? The historical destinies of the states are embodied in the history of the ruling houses. The Burgundians are, in fact, Gunther and his brothers, and the death of the Burgundian kingdom consists in the extermination of its rulers and their troops. In the same way, the Hunnic state is entirely concentrated in Etzel. The poetic consciousness of the Middle Ages draws historical conflicts in the form of a clash of individuals whose behavior is determined by their passions, relationships of personal loyalty or blood feud, the code of tribal and personal honor. But at the same time, the epic elevates the individual to the rank of the historical. In order to make this clear, it is enough to outline, in the most general terms, the plot of the Nibelungenlied.

At the court of the Burgundian kings, the famous hero Siegfried of the Netherlands appears and falls in love with their sister Kriemhild. King Gunther himself wants to marry the Icelandic queen Brynhild. Siegfried undertakes to help him in the matchmaking. But this help is connected with deceit: the heroic feat, the accomplishment of which is a condition for the success of the matchmaking, was actually not done by Gunther, but by Siegfried, who took refuge under an invisibility cloak. Brynhild could not fail to notice the valor of Siegfried, but she is assured that he is only a vassal of Gunther, and she grieves because of the misalliance that her husband's sister entered into, thereby infringing on her class pride. Years later, at the insistence of Brynhilde, Gunther invites Siegfried and Kriemhilda to his place in Worms, and here, during a skirmish between queens (whose husband is more valiant?), the deceit is revealed. The offended Brynhild takes revenge on the offender Siegfried, who had the imprudence to give his wife the ring and belt he had taken from Brynhild. Revenge is carried out by Gunther's vassal Hagen. The hero is treacherously killed on a hunt, and the golden treasure, once won by Siegfried from the fabulous Nibelungs, the kings manage to lure from Kriemhild, and Hagen hides it in the waters of the Rhine. Thirteen years have passed. The Hun ruler Etzel has become a widower and is looking for a new wife. Word of Kriemhild's beauty has reached his court, and he sends an embassy to Worms. After a long struggle, the inconsolable widow Siegfried agrees to a second marriage in order to obtain the means to avenge the murder of her beloved. Thirteen years later, she gets Etzel to invite her brothers to visit them. Despite Hagen's attempts to prevent a visit that threatens to be fatal, the Burgundians and their retinue set off from the Rhine to the Danube. (In this part of the song, the Burgundians are called Nibelungs.) Almost immediately after their arrival, a quarrel breaks out, developing into a general massacre, in which the Burgundian and Hun squads, the son of Kriemhild and Etzel, the closest close associates of the kings and Gunnar's brothers die. At last Gunnar and Hagen are in the hands of the vengeful queen; she orders her brother to be beheaded, after which she kills Hagen with her own hands. Old Hildebrand, the only surviving combatant of King Dietrich of Bern, punishes Kriemhilde. Etzel and Dietrich, groaning from grief, remain alive. Thus ends "the story of the death of the Nibelungs."

In a few sentences, only the bare bones of the plot of a huge poem can be recounted. The epic, unhurried narrative depicts in detail court leisure and knightly tournaments, feasts and wars, scenes of matchmaking and hunting, travel to distant lands, and all other aspects of the magnificent and refined courtly life. The poet literally with sensual joy tells about rich weapons and precious robes, gifts that the rulers reward the knights, and the owners give to the guests. All these static images were undoubtedly of no less interest to the medieval audience than the dramatic events themselves. The battles are also depicted in great detail, and although large numbers of warriors take part in them, the fights in which the main characters enter are given in a "close-up". The song constantly anticipates the tragic outcome. Often such predictions of a fatal fate emerge in pictures of well-being and festivities - the awareness of the contrast between the present and the future gave rise to a feeling of intense expectation in the reader, despite his notorious knowledge of the plot, and cemented the epic as an artistic whole. The characters are delineated with exceptional clarity, they can not be confused with each other. Of course, the hero of an epic work is not a character in the modern sense, not the owner of unique properties, a special individual psychology. An epic hero is a type, the embodiment of qualities that were recognized in that era as the most significant or exemplary. The Nibelungenlied originated in a society essentially different from the Icelandic "people's rule" and underwent final processing at a time when feudal relations in Germany, having reached their peak, revealed their inherent contradictions, in particular the contradictions between the aristocratic elite and petty chivalry. The song expresses the ideals of feudal society: the ideal of vassal loyalty to the master and chivalrous service to the lady, the ideal of the ruler, who cares about the welfare of his subjects and generously rewards the vassals.

However, the German heroic epic is not content with demonstrating these ideals. His heroes, unlike the heroes of the chivalric novel, which arose in France and was adopted in Germany just at that time, do not pass safely from one adventure to another; they find themselves in situations in which following the code of knightly honor leads them to their death. Glitter and joy go hand in hand with suffering and death. This awareness of the closeness of such opposite principles, which is also inherent in the heroic songs of the Edda, forms the leitmotif of the Nibelungenlied, in the very first stanza of which the theme is indicated: “feasts, fun, misfortune and grief”, as well as “bloody feuds”. Every joy ends in grief - the whole epic is permeated with this thought. The moral precepts of behavior, obligatory for a noble warrior, are tested in the song, and not all of its characters stand the test with honor.

In this regard, the figures of kings are indicative, courtly and generous, but at the same time constantly revealing their failure. Gunther takes possession of Brynhild only with the help of Siegfried, in comparison with whom he loses both as a man, and as a warrior, and as a man of honor. The scene in the royal bedchamber, when the angry Brynhilde, instead of giving herself to the groom, binds him and hangs him on a nail, naturally, caused laughter from the audience. In many situations, the Burgundian king shows treachery and cowardice. Courage awakens in Gunther only at the end of the poem. And Etzel? At a critical moment, his virtues turn into indecision, bordering on complete paralysis of the will. From the hall where his people are being killed and where Hagen has just hacked to death his son, the Hun king is saved by Dietrich; Etzel goes so far as to beg his vassal for help on his knees! He remains in a daze until the end, able only to mourn the innumerable victims. Among kings, the exception is Dietrich of Bern, who tries to play the role of conciliator of warring cliques, but without success. He is the only one, besides Etzel, who remains alive, and some researchers see in this a glimmer of hope left by the poet after he painted a picture of universal death; but Dietrich, a model of "courtly humanity", is left to live a lonely exile, deprived of all friends and vassals.

The heroic epic existed in Germany at the courts of large feudal lords. But the poets who created it, relying on German heroic traditions, apparently belonged to petty chivalry ( It is possible, however, that the Nibelungenlied was written by a clergyman. See notes.). This, in particular, explains their passion for praising princely generosity and for describing the gifts unrestrainedly squandered by lords to vassals, friends and guests. Is it not for this reason that the behavior of the faithful vassal turns out to be closer to the ideal in the epic than the behavior of the sovereign, who is increasingly turning into a static figure? Such is Margrave Rüdeger, faced with a dilemma: to take the side of friends or in defense of the lord, and who fell victim to fealty to Etzel. The symbol of his tragedy, very intelligible for a medieval person, was that the margrave died from the sword, which he himself presented, having given Hagen, a former friend, and now an enemy, his battle shield. Rüdeger embodies the ideal qualities of a knight, vassal and friend, but when faced with the harsh reality of their owner, a tragic fate awaits. The conflict between the requirements of vassal ethics, which does not take into account the personal inclinations and feelings of the participants in the fief treaty, and the moral principles of friendship are revealed in this episode with greater depth than anywhere else in medieval German poetry.

Högni does not play a major role in the Elder Edda. In the Nibelungenlied, Hagen rises to the forefront. His enmity with Kriemhild is the driving force behind the entire narrative. The gloomy, ruthless, prudent Hagen, without hesitation, goes to the treacherous murder of Siegfried, slays the innocent son of Krimhilda with a sword, makes every effort to drown the chaplain in the Rhine. At the same time, Hagen is a powerful, invincible and fearless warrior. Of all the Burgundians, he alone clearly understands the meaning of the invitation to Etzel: Kriemhild did not leave the thought of avenging Siegfried and considers him, Hagen, her main enemy. Nevertheless, energetically discouraging the Worms kings from going to the Hunnic state, he stops the disputes as soon as one of them reproaches him for cowardice. Having made up his mind, he shows maximum energy in the implementation of the adopted plan. Before crossing the Rhine, the prophetic wives reveal to Hagen that none of the Burgundians will return alive from the land of Etzel. But, knowing the fate to which they are doomed, Hagen destroys the canoe - the only way to cross the river so that no one can retreat. In Hagen, perhaps to a greater extent than in other heroes of the song, the old German faith in Fate is alive, which must be actively accepted. Not only does he not avoid a collision with Kriemhild, but he deliberately provokes it. What is the scene alone, when Hagen and his associate Shpilman Volker are sitting on a bench and Hagen refuses to stand in front of the approaching queen, defiantly playing with the sword, which he once removed from Siegfried, who he killed.

As gloomy as many of Hagen's deeds look, the song does not render him a moral verdict. This is probably explained both by the author's position (the author, who retells the "tellings of bygone days", refrains from active interference in the narrative and from assessments), and by the fact that Hagen was hardly presented as an unequivocal figure. He is a loyal vassal, serving his kings to the end. Unlike Rüdeger and other knights, Hagen is devoid of any courtesy. He has more of an old German hero than a refined knight familiar with the refined manners adopted from France. We know nothing about any of his marital and love affections. Meanwhile, serving a lady is an integral feature of courtesy. Hagen, as it were, personifies the past - heroic, but already overcome by a new, more complex culture.

In general, the difference between the old and the new is more clearly recognized in the Nibelungenlied than in the German poetry of the early Middle Ages. Fragments of earlier works that seem “undigested” to individual researchers in the context of the German epic (the themes of Siegfried’s fight with the dragon, his retaking of the treasure from the Nibelungs, martial arts with Brynhild, prophetic sisters predicting the death of the Burgundians, etc.), regardless of the author’s conscious intention , perform a certain function in it: they impart an archaic character to the narrative, which allows you to establish a temporal distance between modernity and bygone days. Probably, other scenes, marked by the stamp of logical inconsistency, also served this purpose: the crossing of a huge army in one boat, which Hagen managed in a day, or the battle of hundreds and thousands of warriors taking place in the banquet hall of Etzel, or the successful repulsion by two heroes of the attack of a whole horde of Huns . In an epic that tells about the past, such things are permissible, because in the old days the miraculous turned out to be possible. Time has brought great changes, as the poet says, and this also shows the medieval sense of history.

Of course, this sense of history is very peculiar. Time does not flow in the epic in a continuous stream - it goes, as it were, in jolts. Life is at rest rather than moving. Despite the fact that the song covers a time period of almost forty years, the characters do not age. But this state of rest is disturbed by the actions of the heroes, and then a significant time comes. At the end of the action, the time "turns off". "Spasmodic" is inherent in the characters of the characters. At the beginning Kriemhilda is a meek girl, then a heartbroken widow, in the second half of the song she is a “devil” seized with a thirst for revenge. These changes are outwardly conditioned by events, but there is no psychological motivation for such a sharp change in Krimhilda's state of mind in the song. Medieval people did not imagine the development of personality. Human types play in the epic the roles assigned to them by fate and the situation in which they are placed.

The Nibelungenlied was the result of reworking the material of Germanic heroic songs and tales into an epic on a large scale. This reworking was accompanied by gains and losses. Acquisitions - for the nameless author of the epic made the ancient legends sound in a new way and managed to unusually clearly and colorfully ( Colorful in the literal sense of the word: the author willingly and tastefully gives the color characteristics of the clothes, jewelry and weapons of the heroes. The contrasts and combinations of red, gold, white colors in his descriptions are vividly reminiscent of a medieval book miniature. The poet himself, as it were, has it before his eyes (see stanza 286).), to expand in detail every scene of the legends about Siegfried and Kriemhild, more concisely and concisely presented in the works of his predecessors. It took an outstanding talent and great art to ensure that the songs, which numbered more than one century, again acquired relevance and artistic power for the people of the 13th century, who in many respects already had completely different tastes and interests. Losses - for the transition from high heroism and pathos of the inexorable struggle with Fate, inherent in the early German epic, up to the “will to die”, which owned the hero of ancient songs, to greater elegiacism and glorification of suffering, to lamentations of sorrows that invariably accompany human joys, the transition, certainly incomplete, but nonetheless quite clear, was accompanied by the loss of the epic hero's former integrity and solidity, as well as the well-known refinement of the subject matter due to a compromise between the pagan and Christian-knightly traditions; The "swelling" of old lapidary songs into a verbose epic abounding in inserted episodes led to some weakening of the dynamism and tension of presentation. The Nibelungenlied was born out of the needs of a new ethic and new aesthetics, which in many respects departed from the canons of the archaic epic of the barbarian era. The forms in which ideas about human honor and dignity are expressed here, about the methods of their assertion, belong to the feudal era. But the intensity of the passions that overwhelmed the heroes of the epic, the sharp conflicts in which fate collides them, still cannot but captivate and shock the reader.