An Aging Warrior – Beowulf

I’m not one of the young guys anymore, and I’ve been fine with that for some time now. More and more the stories of the young adventurer appeal less to me, and stories of the aging veteran are more in my vein of interest.

There was an interpretation of the Zeus and Chronos through the podcast Mythology that I heard a couple years back. Which focuses on two different paths of aging. The first is the path of Chronos, who is defeated and usurped by his son.

Having two sons, mine are both young but my oldest is a teenager now. And there will come a time when that tension of wanting to see him grow into a man, and hopefully a better man than myself, whatever that means. I think most father’s want to see their sons grow tall and strong, but we don’t want to be overtaken, to have anyone better than us. Even our sons.

The other tension, which was the curse of Chronos onto Zeus, was to become irrelevant, and forgotten. Zeus wasn’t usurped, the world forgot him. Overtime the Greek state faded in power, the Romans rose, his name changed to Jupiter and eventually time forgot the roman pantheon in favor of Christianity.

When I consider these two binary paths, there is a bittersweet nature to one’s son taking the “Throne” but the path of irrelevance is terrifying.

Retiring from the military, I recently conducted my last training in the field. There were a few key individual events, and my only goal was to prove to myself, one last time that I still had fight in me. For myself that had great value.

To reference another great hero of legend, and for the record I’m not comparing myself to Chronos, or Beowulf, or Zeus. These stories were told to educate, and they still have a lot of relevance today.

When Beowulf defeated Grendel his “Gift” from the Danish king Hrothgar was a sermon. See below, pulled from Sparknotes. My original interpretation I listened to on the podcast Professing Literature.

5. O flower of warriors, beware of that trap.
Choose, dear Beowulf, the better part,
eternal rewards. Do not give way to pride.
For a brief while your strength is in bloom
but it fades quickly; and soon there will follow
illness or the sword to lay you low,
or a sudden fire or surge of water
or jabbing blade or javelin from the air
or repellent age. Your piercing eye
will dim and darken; and death will arrive,
dear warrior, to sweep you away.
(1758–1768)

That set the tone for the rest of the story, Beowulf *Spoiler Alert* lived a great life, was a powerful king and in the end he had one last dragon to fight and he died doing it.

Not to say I intend to die battling a dragon, epic as that may be, but I think there is something to be said about considering the nature of aging, and passing the torch. Being respectful of the cycle of life and one’s place within it.

I don’t really have a point, other than to continue to do my best to fade gracefully from the spotlight of my story, to know that the stories I will tell as I age, I’ve probably already lived. Now my place is to help my children to prepare for their own adventures and guide them along the path. That isn’t a disgraceful path I think. Maybe I do have some adventures left, but I’m an accountant / writer. Not exactly the lifestyle that lends itself to adventure.

Photo by zhao chen on Unsplash