Lesson 1.4 · Unit 1 · RL.11-12.2, RL.11-12.5

The dragon, and the ending's verdict on the code

The last third of the poem takes place fifty years later, and it is a different kind of story. Beowulf is a king rather than a young champion, the enemy wants nothing that can be negotiated, and the ending is a funeral with a prophecy attached.

The key ideas
  1. Fifty years pass between the Grendel episode and the dragon, and Beowulf is now an old king.
  2. The dragon is roused by a stolen cup, taken by a fugitive from a hoard nobody was using.
  3. The hoard belonged to a vanished people, whose last survivor buried it in a speech the poem quotes.
  4. Treasure in a hoard is dead, because its entire social function is to be given away.
  5. Beowulf's retainers flee, which is the comitatus failing at its single obligation.
  6. Only Wiglaf stays, and his speech condemns the others in the code's own terms.
  7. The poem ends with a funeral and with a woman's prophecy of the invasion to come.
  8. The treasure is buried again with Beowulf, useless, which is the poem's last image.

Where students lose marks: reading the ending as a celebration. The poem's last movement is a systematic demonstration that everything the code promised has failed to arrive.

Worked example

The text. Beowulf, Gummere translation, 1910. Public domain. The Lay of the Last Survivor, and Wiglaf's rebuke.

Now hold thou, earth, since heroes may not,
what earls have owned! Lo, erst from thee
brave men brought it! But battle-death seized
and cruel killing my clansmen all,
robbed them of life and a liegeman's joys.

Now the sword-gift, surely, and swords bestowed,
and all the estates your ease that gave,
and your kin, shall fail.

Wiglaf

Step one: read who is speaking in the first passage. The last member of a people that no longer exists, burying treasure because there is nobody left to give it to. The poem stops its plot to give him a speech.

Step two: state what that speech argues. Treasure exists to circulate. "Now hold thou, earth, since heroes may not" concedes that the objects have outlived the arrangement that made them meaningful, so the ground can have them.

Step three: connect that to the dragon. A dragon sitting on gold is the exact image of wealth that does not circulate. The poem has spent two thousand lines showing treasure as obligation made visible, and the dragon is that system stopped.

Step four: notice the cause of the disaster. A fugitive takes one cup from a hoard nobody was using. The destruction of a kingdom follows from a theft that harmed no living person, which is a very strange thing for the poem to arrange.

Step five: read the retainers' flight. They run, and the comitatus has one obligation, which is to die with the lord. Everything the code promised is void at the moment it is called in.

Step six: work Wiglaf's rebuke. He does not call them cowards in general terms. He says the gifts, the estates and the standing of their families will fail, which is the precise reciprocal consequence the code specifies.

Step seven: state what the prophecy adds. A woman at the funeral foretells invasion, slavery and slaughter. The poem's last new information is that the Geats are finished, which means Beowulf's fifty years of protection ended with him.

Step eight: state the ending's verdict. The treasure is buried again, the people are doomed, and what survives is lof, the praise the poem itself is. That is either a bleak assessment of the heroic code or a demonstration that poetry is the only thing that actually keeps a promise, and the poem permits both.

Practice · 10 questions

Questions 1 to 5 are recall. Questions 6 to 10 ask for reasoning.

  1. How much time passes before the dragon episode?
    Show the full solution

    Fifty years

  2. What rouses the dragon?
    Show the full solution

    A stolen cup, taken by a fugitive

  3. Who buried the hoard, and why?
    Show the full solution

    The last survivor of a vanished people, because nobody was left to give it to

  4. Who stays with Beowulf?
    Show the full solution

    Wiglaf

  5. What does the woman at the funeral foretell?
    Show the full solution

    Invasion, slavery and slaughter for the Geats

  6. What does the Last Survivor's speech argue?
    Show the full solution

    That treasure exists to circulate. "Now hold thou, earth, since heroes may not" concedes that the objects have outlived the arrangement that gave them meaning, so the ground may as well have them. The poem stops its plot for this speech because the speech states the economics the whole last third depends on. Treasure without circulation is dead, so the earth may keep it

  7. How does the dragon embody the poem's economics?
    Show the full solution

    A dragon sitting on gold is wealth that does not move. The poem has spent two thousand lines presenting treasure as obligation made visible, given by a ring-giver and binding those who receive it, and the dragon is that entire system stopped. The monster is a picture of hoarding rather than of appetite. It is the image of wealth that does not circulate

  8. Why is the cause of the disaster strange?
    Show the full solution

    Because a fugitive takes one cup from a hoard nobody was using, harming no living person, and a kingdom is destroyed as a result. The poem deliberately arranges a catastrophe with a negligible cause, which removes any account of the ending as a punishment earned or a fate deserved. A theft that harmed nobody destroys a kingdom

  9. Analyze Wiglaf's rebuke.
    Show the full solution

    He does not call the retainers cowards in general terms. He says the sword-gifts, the estates and their families' standing will fail, which is exactly the reciprocal consequence the code specifies. The rebuke is delivered in the code's own vocabulary, which makes it a formal finding rather than an insult. He states the code's own penalty, not a general insult

  10. State the ending's verdict on the heroic code.
    Show the full solution

    The retainers flee, the treasure is reburied useless, and the people are prophesied to be destroyed, so everything the code promised is void at the moment it is called in. What survives is lof, the praise, which is the poem itself. That is either a bleak assessment of the arrangement or a claim that poetry is the only thing that keeps its promise, and the text supports both. Everything fails except the praise, which is the poem

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