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T W O O L D E N G L I S H F A T A L F E A S T M E T A P H O R S : E A L U S C E R W E N A N D M E O D U S C E R W E N HARVEY DE ROO Simon Fraser University M u c h ink hais been spilt over ealuscerwen of Beowulf 769a and its apparent echo in meoduscerwen of Andreas 1526b. No one so far has interpreted the spilling of ink itself as ‘distress, misery, terror,’ but it may be only a matter of time before the exercise calls forth such descriptions. Nonetheless, I must add speddropan to the rest, since I feel that several points remain still to be made concerning these much debated words and the uses they are put to in the two poems. Since adequate summaries of the controversy are provided in several works,1 I shall not take up time with any attempt at survey here. Rather, I wish to look at certain of the problems raised concerning the interpretation of these compounds, and try to answer them in the light of the contexts in which they occur. The problems are these. 1) Does ealu- mean ‘ale’2or ‘luck’ (in the latter case showing u-umlaut of *aelu, cognate with Runic Norse alu) ?3 2) Does -scerwen mean ‘deprivation’ (cf. bescerwan)i or ‘dispensing’ (assuming a 70-stem verbal noun cognate with OE scearu).5 3) If the meaning is ‘deprivation,’ is there a parallel in meaning between this expression and meodusetla ofteah [took away mead-seats] of Beowulf 5b?6 4) Is the compound, whatever the lexical meanings of its elements, re peated in sense by atelic egesa [dreadful terror] of 784a, so that we may say with Dobbie that “the one thing certain about it is that, like meoduscerwen in Andreas, it has the figurative meaning of ‘terror, distress’ ” ?7 5) Do these figurative senses contain a reminiscence of a poculum mortis metaphor?8 6) Finally, what is the nature of the parallel between ealuscerwen in Beowulf and meoduscerwen in Andreas? Is the parallel in fact based on a mishandling by the poet of AndreasF9 English Studies in Canada, v, 3, Autumn 1979 Since the answers to the first and second questions can go either way on purely lexicographical grounds, we have no recourse but to the immediate contexts in the poems themselves. Since ealuscerwen and meoduscerwen are undoubtedly parallel expressions (whatever the nature of the parallel), the most useful way of approaching the question of lexical meaning lies in a com parison of the compounds and their contexts in the two poems. The lexical meaning of meoduscerwen in Andreas is beyond question. Its literal sense must be ‘dispensing of mead,’ whatever its figurative sense, since the image and whatever experience it conveys are corroborated by other expressions which elaborate the notions of the dispensing and imbibing of drink. Paet waes sorgbyrfien, biter beorfiegu. Byrlas ne gaeldon, ombehtpegnas. Paer waes aelcum genog fram daeges orde drync sona gearu.10 [That was a burden (or ‘brew’) of sorrow, a bitter beer-imbibing. Pourers did not hold back, serving thegns. From break of day enough drink was straightway ready there for each man.] It is universally recognized that, since such language of the feast is used of a situation in which it cannot be seen as immediately appropriate, the use must be metaphorical. If the vehicle of the metaphor is that of a drinking feast and the activity which it describes is that of dying, we have a metaphor for which the name “fatal feast” seems appropriate.11 But what specifically is its tenor? Wrenn, in his glossary entry for ealuscerwen suggests that “the horror caused by a deadly flood is thus described,” and Dobbie, in his note to the same word, assumes that a common figurative sense of terror lies behind the expressions in either poem. However, these assumptions, at least as far as they concern Andreas, are not supported by the language of the text. The compound occurs in an extended sequence which elaborates, in the language of...
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