How Old is this Freaking Geat

Beowulf, this is how your age mates are doing.

How old is this freaking Geat, for Pete’s sake? I mean, let’s assume he was at least twenty when he killed Grendel and Grendel’s mother. Then, he’s King for fifty winters before he does what? Slays a dragon? This man has got to be seventy-something years old, and he is about to slay a dragon. Um...okay…and what was the average life expectancy of a man during this time period?

Whatever, all mathematics and real-world logic aside, I still don’t know how I feel about the structure of this dragon/worm/serpent section of the poem. The narrator begins with an attempt to rationalize the hoard, which the dragon seems to guard:

“There were many such

antique riches in that earth-hall,

for in ancient days an unknown man

had thought to hide them carefully there,

the rich legacy of a noble race,

precious treasures.” (Lines 2232-2236)

(Wait – “noble race”? Hm, that’s a strange construal coming from Europeans – not.) In addition to this vague explanation for the entire existence of the hoard and the dragon, footnote three on page 187 clarifies a critical reference: “a cup is taken from the dragon’s hoard.” Is this The Holy Grail? DUH. Okay, I understand that literature likes to drop subtle hints and leave things up to the imagination, but my imagination is too big for this. If you’re going to provide me with a backstory, give me the whole backstory, please! Now, I have about four note pages of thoughts. Did this unknown man find The Holy Grail, or had it always been in his possession? How? Why would the dragon be there? Did a demonic or Holy body place the dragon there? Did the unknown man die and get reincarnated as a badass dragon to protect his stuff? Could Beowulf commit suicide and come back to kick his ass as a maximum CP Zapdos? Does this dragon just have hoarding disorder? Can he sell it on Let Go? Isn’t there a Spongebob episode about this? These are my real questions.

On a serious note, this section made me realize just how thematic “fair fights” are to this poem, and from a historical perspective, that makes perfect sense. Battles between two people or even two countries used to be consistently fair. Each opponent would have a chance to prepare, they’d have the same grade of weapons at their disposal to use, and they’d usually be allowed to surrender. We can’t know if anybody in this poem would have cared if his or her opponent suddenly waved a white flag, but that part doesn’t matter so much.

Beowulf’s battles are fair because he performs them out of vengeance for the lives his opponents took first, and I think that sort of replaces the idea that Grendel, Grendel’s mother, and the dragon didn’t get a chance to prepare. One could also argue that his opponents aren’t human; therefore, they don’t know nor abide by the moral rules of battle. Beowulf also uses only the weapons he needs to match his opponent’s abilities. His technical reasoning for this has something to do with wyrd or fate. Beowulf believes the party that's supposed to win will always win, regardless of who is more powerful. I don’t know about that, I think it’s just nice to try and play on level ground. Winning feels sweeter that way. For some reason, today's world doesn’t fight the way Beowulf fights. We sneak up on each other, steal, lie, and cheat with our own interests in mind all the time. We’d do anything for a Klondike bar. What is wrong with us? Why don't we want to fight fairly anymore?

Beowulf, II. ed. by R.M. Liuzza