It was either by chance or by god's providence that I had picked up Constance Hieatt's translation of the Old English epic poem, Beowulf, and randomly placed my finger on this clause:
"Then Hrothgar was granted success in battle and glory in war, so that his friends and kinsmen obeyed him willingly, and his band of warriors grew large. It came into his mind to order a great mead-hall to be built, larger than the children of men had ever heard of; within it he would give out all that God gave him (except the public land and the lives of men) to young and old. He ordered work to adorn the building from nations far and wide throughout this earth. The time soon came when the greatest of halls was quite ready, and the ruler gave it the name of Heorot. He did not forget to give out rings and treasures at the feast. The hall towered, high and wide-gabled; it awaited the hostile flames of hateful fire."
A mead hall was supposedly the safest place in the kingdom because the king resided there. Mead is honey wine. Grain mash may be included in the fermentation, and it may be flavored with hops, therefore the product is sometimes referred to as beer. Suffice it say that it is an alcoholic beverage that may inspire war as well as peace, depending on temperament of the imbibers. Mead brewed with the blood of a wise mythological figure may make a poet of the drinker so that he may render a saga of the battles.
Hrothgar's great hall will be destroyed because of an old feud with the Heathobards, the Danes' enemies, with whom Hrothgar tried to make peace by giving his daughter to Ingeld, the son of their slain king. But old memories die hard:
"It is very seldom that the deadly spear rests for long after a king has fallen, however admirable the bride may be," quoth the unknown poet.
After a few brews in the national beer hall, Ingeld is provoked by a Danish soldier. A fight breaks out, blood is shed, and total war eventually ensues:
"On both sides the oaths of lords are broken and Ingeld seethes with deadly hate. His love for his wife shall be cooled by the waves of sorrow."
One might suppose that a beer hall divided shall not stand, notwithstanding the prior mention of an omnipotent national God who purportedly endows booty and tribute to the leading warlord for redistribution except public property and lives essential to the society’s existence as such. Wherefore taxation may not be misconstrue d as theft but as divinely sanctioned charity if the redistribution is fair.
Now if I were a pious man I might congregate with my clan in a gilded and antlered hall and there heft a few horns of mead and let loose with a string of oaths just to prove my piety, may Grendel the grisly monster be damned! At least until I pass out and am devoured by the beast—I could care less in my deepest sleep. Alas for society, however, for besotted slumber oft precedes the fall of government:
"When night fell, Grendel went to inspect the great house. He came to see the Danes had settled down after drinking beer. There he found the band of warriors sleeping after the feast, unconscious of sorrow and the misery of mankind. The evil creature was alert at once. The cruel and savage monster took thirty thanes in their beds. Exulting in his booty, he went back to seek out his home with his fill of slaughter."
As we know very well, gruesome Grendel came back for refills until Beowulf, a Swedish foreigner, saved the Danes from themselves.
It is with self-salvation in mind that I swore off ale, one day at a time, until again hefting pints every night. I never tried mead, which is brewed from honey rather than malt. I suppose I shall never again desist unto my impending death, for I am no longer a mean drunk. A vacation does us all some good now and then.
Leaving Las Vegas had become my favorite movie. Beer halls were my churches, but the spirits got me down and my humor became extra dry. After I had sobered up for some time, I had uncensored dreams that Freud would not have to analyze, as well as a few Jungian dreams of monsters hitherto unseen by humankind.
One night I had an oracular dream: "Make a clean-breasted approach to things!" a deep voice commanded. I abruptly awoke with conscience tweaked by guilt, had my coffee, and realized I had been doing too much lying to please the civilized world. Hence I swore like a barbarian that I would make a clean breast of things in my essays whatever their subject might be.
Now an essay used to be a "trial" until the usage became obsolete. As for the subject matter, any subject tried might do as far as I was concerned at the time. It was not long thereafter that I heard the command once again. I was daydreaming in the stacks at Hamilton Library on the Manoa Campus of the University of Hawaii after reading some Hegel.
“Make a clean-breasted approach!” the Voice commanded, just in time, for there was approaching a damsel with memorable endowments, a vision that bedazzled me far more delightfully than the Hegelian daze. I was soon weaned again, exchanged mother’s milk for words much to the loss of objects in the rhetoric, yet the babe persists in the man.
As a subjectivist I would fain take up my beloved unity of apperception, my vain self, as the ultimate Subject, rather than fool around with multiple objects at my feet, but good writing today is supposedly about something specific or objective instead of nothing in particular. Therefore an author should seize some object, like a dog seizes a bone, and stick with it. Still, that is the hardest thing for me, my main subject, to do, with so many objects around to choose from. In my opinion, getting to the point is for pinheads who forget that an infinite number of angels can fit on the hid of one pin. I love to run along the chain of freely associated links until the chain's full extent has me barking hysterically in circles.
I do not frequent beer halls to heft beers and ales, let alone mead, not because I do not want the company but because prices tripled and my income fell by 90% since the days that I was accustomed to worship in saloons. I jokingly say that I should take up booze, women, and other drugs as an incentive to get rich quick. I drink alone, or with my friend, who prefers vodka, especially the Tito vodka from Texas I introduced her to because it is far better than the Russian Standard. I said I was encouraged at my age (born 1946) as we were watching Maria Bello (born 1967) and Tommy Lee Jones (born 1946) love each other in their roles in The Company Men. She said no woman would love an old coot like me unless I had a powerful role. Well, it does not bother me to be all washed up in that department, although I do love company. Besides, I have had enough experience to fear the fair sex even more than the Danes feared Grendel.
Beer gives older men occasion to awake even more frequently than nature has many of them do before heading to the bathroom, therefore they have more dreams. I am alienated from beer halls, yet I am sometimes so happy in my dreams that I would not mind dying in bliss. Grendel does not visit my solitude. But I heard the Voice this morning in a hangover dream. It commanded me to do what I do best, in the form of a book, but a book about what? And by what right can I say that it is my book if I make a clean breast of my subject so that everyone understands it? Everyone was born of woman. These words and thoughts are not mine alone.
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