Beowulf at Highbury

[anotherusedpage]

I simply couldn't resist the plotbunny that solar_type_star threw me the other day, so here we have a "missing scene" from Beowulf, staring Pires and Henry, written as an old English alliterative epic...



Disclaimer: Do I really need this? Don't own Beowulf, Henry, Pires or the metaphor about the raven and the wolf.
AN: Why yes, I am insane. Thank you for asking. LJ doesn't like the formatting of OE verse with the break in the middle of the line. Not quite sure what to do about that...


Forth came Henry fleet of foot,
And passed to Pires a perfect tap!
Greathearted they sped toward glorious goal,
All Highbury cheered for their high heroics!
The enemy stood straight and sure
Tall and terrible twixt them and glory.
Still forward they sped fast and fierce
Full well determined to do great deeds!
Their foes with fury fell upon them
Drove them back with dire dread.
Terrible the tackle that took Pires down!
And yet as true-hero tripped and tumbled
With princely power he made a pass
And still the ball sped swiftly forward
Taken by teammates toward true glory.
“No penalty given, please play the advantage,”
Quoth the referee, the rulebook’s raven,
While wolfish linesmen warily stalking
The battlefield’s edges brayed brash agreement.
And thus our hero, hopeful though hurting,
Limped bloody and broken from field of battle
While all around him his brothers in arms
Continued forward, their fear forgetting
Pressing onward toward one goal only,
In sight of victory, vanquishing vain foes,
Proud to play on in Pires’ name


From the sponsor’s seats Beowulf smiled
He found himself hooked on this pastime of heroes!
Quoth he, “I can quite see why it is called
The Beautiful Game – the ballskills are brill!
Full rare are warriors so wondrous and worthy!
The victor’s gold I will gladly give.”

Then thundered the ball through the final defence
The goalkeeper beaten the ball bounced home
Into the net! Now nearly was
The victory claimed! “Come on! Come on!”
Shouted true fans standing shoulder to shoulder
While on the pitch, praise passed between players
Who held and hugged in happiness
True Pires rejoined his triumphant team!
Back in play the ball belonged
To no one else except ever Arsenal
Then wondrously the whistle went!
One goal to nil! Great and good victory!

Then the team as one turned to Beowulf
“Where is the promised weregild? Where
The gold you offered, great Grendel’s bane?’
Beowulf blushed “Alas, I am broke!”
Quoth he “I cannot keep
The fealty I foolishly swore!
To gain the gold to give you, great heroes
I will have to dare defeat this here dragon…”

Comments

[shimgray.livejournal.com]

  works well enough; it forces the display of a whitespace character. So throw in a handful of those and you'll get a forced multi-space break in the line, like     so.

[anotherusedpage.livejournal.com]

Thanks for tip. Will fix it sometime when Chomsky is slightly less urgent...

[shimgray.livejournal.com]

Hey, if I can't make actual comments on content the least I can do is tell you how to hack it into better shape :-)

How is the break normally typeset?

[anotherusedpage.livejournal.com]

Each line is divided into two half lines of two stresses each. There's one alliterative word one side of the break, and two the other. Looks basically like two wonky columns.

It's not the way it's set out in the manuscripts where there are no line breaks at all, but when you've got stuff in the Anglo Saxon it makes it easier to work from. If you're writting anglo saxon style in modern english, you'd use the line breaks just because they're so instantly recognisable.

[shimgray.livejournal.com]

Eeenterestink. I guessed the source stuff wouldn't have much in the way of setting conventions, for some reason or another, but you'd have thought we'd have come up with a tasteful display method after five hundred years of handling it in type...

[anotherusedpage.livejournal.com]

Think it's only been in type for... well, two hundred years max. Anglo Saxon got mostly ignored after the norman conquest until the Romantic Nationalists picked up on it in the early 1800s, and even they didn't really know what to do with it. Don't think anyone really started setting them in print til the 1900s, when they started getting interested in philoogy. They weren't really translated properly until the 1920s, I don't think...

[foreverdirt.livejournal.com]

Brain: *breaks*

While on the pitch, praise passed between players
Who held and hugged in happiness

Did "homoeroticism" not scan in that last line? (And I'm rather geekily taken with the first of these two lines - you punned!)

[anotherusedpage.livejournal.com]

... now that you mention it, homoeroticism scans better. I may actually have to rewrite that: Who held and hugged with homoeroticism *grin*

And thank you. :)

[we-love-smudger.livejournal.com]

While all around him his brothers in arms
Continued forward, their fear forgetting
Pressing onward toward one goal only,
In sight of victory, vanquishing vain foes,
Proud to play on in Pires’ name

Oh. *loves*

And I know you have the reading list from hell m'dear but if you could just write a little more of this now and again...

*dances with Bob*

[anotherusedpage.livejournal.com]

*grin*

You'd've had some more of the Henry, Pires and the Holy Grail fic yesterday, except it turns out I don't have the file on this computer. Next week.

The reading list can't keep me away from fic all summer...

[we-love-smudger.livejournal.com]

Good girl, that's what we like to hear ;) LIE needs a kick up the arse. *reminds self* Perhaps if I immersed myself in Sir Philip Sidney for a few days....

*waits for next week impatiently*

[abbichicken.livejournal.com]

Genius, yes. Utterly. *loves* There should be more. It's like education, only pretty...

[anotherusedpage.livejournal.com]

Why thank you.


It's like education, only pretty...
Everything is pretty with added footballers

[solar-type-star.livejournal.com]

O_O That's wonderful! Now that's a crossover! You've kept the style and all, it's really amazing. :D

[anotherusedpage.livejournal.com]

Thank you! And for the bunny, too.

[solar-type-star.livejournal.com]

You're welcome! I didn't think it was a proper bunny until you raised it so well.

[anotherusedpage.livejournal.com]

*grin* as far as I'm concerned, almost anything is a bunny. It's probably a good job I don't get to write half as often as I'd like...

[solar-type-star.livejournal.com]

I wish you would, though. :)

[made-up.livejournal.com]

haet! hee, very clever, although mention of Beowulf still sends an Icy Chill of Fear all through me. I was unbelievably rubbish at OE so I'm full of respect for your skills.

[anotherusedpage.livejournal.com]

*grin* Thank you!

I'm not good at OE as such. Just prepared to be masochistic so I can write about dragons and slash...