"Here, and in all other
places where cniht occurs in this poem, it seems to carry that technical
sense which it bore in the military
hierarchy
[of a noble youth placed out
and learning the elements of the art of war in the service of a qualified
warrior, to whom he is, in a military sense, a servant], before it bloomed
out in the full sense of _knight_.
Beowulf
preterit, like
sculan, durran, magan, etc. For various inflections, see ll. 573, 590,
1822, 526. Cf. _do_ in "that will _do_"; _doughty_, etc.
l. 372. Cf. l. 535 for a similar use; and l. 1220. Bede, _Eccles. Hist._,
ed. Miller, uses the same expression several times.
"Here, and in all other
places where cniht occurs in this poem, it seems to carry that technical
sense which it bore in the military
hierarchy
[of a noble youth placed out
and learning the elements of the art of war in the service of a qualified
warrior, to whom he is, in a military sense, a servant], before it bloomed
out in the full sense of _knight_.
"--E.
l. 373. E. remarks of the hyphened eald-fæder, "hyphens are risky toys to
play with in fixing texts of pre-hyphenial antiquity"; eald-fæder could
only = _grandfather_. eald here can only mean _honored_, and the hyphen is
unnecessary. Cf. "old fellow," "my old man," etc.; and Ger. _alt-vater_.
l. 378. Th. and B. propose Gēatum, as presents from the Danish to the
Geatish king.
