Where did I get this quotation or sentiment? I had thought it was straight out of Beowulf, specifically Seamus Heaney’s translation, but some searching shows that this was wrong.
I know it is the sentiment of Beowulf, or at least a popular modern interpretation of the work. Do some translations contain it? Am I thinking of a famous critical work about Beowulf? Is it from another work entirely?
Help?
Game of Thrones?
Is that a shot in the dark, or do you mean it? I’ve read the books and I wasn’t associating the quotation with them.
Supposedly, when Ghengis Khan conquered China, one of the Chinese court officials told him, “You can conquer an empire from horseback, but you cannot rule it from horseback.”
I cannot say that I have ever heard Sattua’s exact quote, but I have heard similar sentiments expressed about the leaders of the Crusades and the Wars of the Roses.
Don’t know if it’s a direct quote from any work. But when I was studying early medieval literature in college, that’s what I was taught was one of the themes of, as you said, Beowulf. Beowulf goes home from Heorot and eventually becomes king of the Geats. When a dragon ravishes his kingdom, Beowulf tries to kill it himself, taking only a single kinsman with him. The *Beowulf *poet criticizes him for this, contrasting him to Hrothgar and pointing out that his death at the dragon’s hands leaves his people kingless and vulnerable; his proper role as king was to send his war-thanes to kill the dragon.
Just seems to be a common assessment of Robert Baratheon.
Renly Baratheon, Robert’s younger brother, says something of the sort in the first season of Game of Thrones, but I don’t remember it being said in the books.