Beowulf translated by Gummere

Free US/UK Kindle Classic

Beowulf translated by Gummere, 1910. (US Edition) (UK Edition) Tolkien believed Beowulf dated from the 8th century, with is good enough for me!

When I read Beowulf, I get a primal tingling, a sense that my DNA was sitting around a fire in the Great Hall hearing this tale told at a time when fire, a spear and a strong arm might not be sufficient protection against what lurks in the dark beyond the door.  

So lived the clansmen in cheer and revel a winsome life,

till one began to fashion evils, that field of hell.

Grendel this monster grim was called, march-riever {1e} mighty,

in moorland living, in fen and fastness;

fief of the giants the hapless wight a while had kept

since the Creator his exile doomed.

On kin of Cain was the killing avenged

by sovran God for slaughtered Abel.

Ill fared his feud, {1f} and far was he driven,

for the slaughter’s sake, from sight of men.

Of Cain awoke all that woful breed,

Etins {1g} and elves and evil-spirits,

as well as the giants that warred with God

weary while: but their wage was paid them!

The footnotes, which you see in the text are linked to a list of footnotes at the end of the book.  You can easily click back and forth because they are cross-linked.  Here is an example from the text above.

{1e} A disturber of the border, one who sallies from his haunt in the fen and roams over the country near by. This probably pagan nuisance is now furnished with biblical credentials as a fiend or devil in good standing, so that all Christian Englishmen might read about him. “Grendel” may mean one who grinds and crushes.

It was once my pleasure to hear this read in the original language with slides translating to English and with original music performed on an instrument imagined to be like the stringed instrument of the time.  The only thing lacking was mead. 

All poetry is best read out loud, so perhaps you will want to read Beowulf to your cat, who I am sure will take the side of Grendel, or worse, his mother.

This blog is a guide to the best free and inexpensive classic literature for the US & UK Kindle. If you enjoy my suggestions, please tell your friends who read to give my blog a try. 

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For a nominal fee of 99 cents/pence, you can subscribe to this blog and have it automatically download on your Kindle. This gives you the convenience of being able to download the books directly to your Kindle, instead of downloading them to your computer and then transferring them to your Kindle. It also helps support my blog.

UK readers may go to this Amazon link to subscribe.  (Slightly more than half my readers are from the UK)

US readers may go to this Amazon link

Thank to all my readers, whether you subscribe on your Kindle or whether you read it online.  I love to get good reviews!  Who wouldn't?  Should you care to leave a review, follow these links for UK readers or US readers.

Ben-Hur; a tale of the Christ - by Lewis Wallace

Ben-Hur; a tale of the Christ by Lewis Wallace or as I was taught growing up in Indiana, Ben Hur by Lew Wallace, a famous American Civil War general.  This 1880 novel was the best selling American novel until displaced by a book about the Civil War - Gone with the Wind published in 1936.  (US Edition) (UK Edition)

Lew Wallace was one of many celebrated Indiana authors, a state that at one time seemed to produce more authors than any other.  (Can you tell I am a proud Hoosier?)

"I am a Bethlehemite," said Joseph, in his most deliberate way. "Is there not room for--" 

"There is not." 

"You may have heard of me--Joseph of Nazareth. This is the house of my fathers. I am of the line of David." These words held the Nazarene's hope. If they failed him, further appeal was idle, even that of the offer of many shekels. To be a son of Judah was one thing--in the tribal opinion a great thing; to be of the house of David was yet another; on the tongue of a Hebrew there could be no higher boast.

I hope I am not giving away the story to say that he finds somewhere to spend the night.

Later on (this is a long book,) we come to young Ben

"Well, Messala always had his share of the disagreeable quality. When he was a child, I have seen him mock strangers whom even Herod condescended to receive with honors; yet he always spared Judea. For the first time, in conversation with me to-day, he trifled with our customs and God. As you would have had me do, I parted with him finally. And now, O my dear mother, I would know with more certainty if there be just ground for the Roman's contempt. In what am I his inferior? Is ours a lower order of people? Why should I, even in Caesar's presence; feel the shrinking of a slave? Tell me especially why, if I have the soul, and so choose, I may not hunt the honors of the world in all its fields? Why may not I take sword and indulge the passion of war? As a poet, why may not I sing of all themes? I can be a worker in metals, a keeper of flocks, a merchant, why not an artist like the Greek? Tell me, O my mother--and this is the sum of my trouble--why may not a son of Israel do all a Roman may?"

The book is known as a popular success and not a critical success.  Does that make it a bad book?  You decide . . .

This blog is a guide to the best free and inexpensive classic literature for the US & UK Kindle. If you enjoy my suggestions, please tell your friends who read to give my blog a try. 

Join me on Twitter, FaceBook, or Pinterest.

-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~

For a nominal fee of 99 cents/pence, you can subscribe to this blog and have it automatically download on your Kindle. This gives you the convenience of being able to download the books directly to your Kindle, instead of downloading them to your computer and then transferring them to your Kindle. It also helps support my blog.

UK readers may go to this Amazon link to subscribe.  (Slightly more than half my readers are from the UK)

US readers may go to this Amazon link

Thank to all my readers, whether you subscribe on your Kindle or whether you read it online.  I love to get good reviews!  Who wouldn't?  Should you care to leave a review, follow these links for UK readers or US readers.