Beowulf by - (red queen ebook txt) 📖

he bent him again, old, to his earth-walls. Yet after him came with slaughter for Swedes the standards of Hygelac o’er peaceful plains in pride advancing, till Hrethelings fought in the fenced town. {39a}

Then Ongentheow with edge of sword,

the hoary-bearded, was held at bay,

and the folk-king there was forced to suffer Eofor’s anger. In ire, at the king

Wulf Wonreding with weapon struck;

and the chieftain’s blood, for that blow, in streams flowed ‘neath his hair. No fear felt he, stout old Scylfing, but straightway repaid in better bargain that bitter stroke

and faced his foe with fell intent.

Nor swift enough was the son of Wonred answer to render the aged chief;

too soon on his head the helm was cloven; blood-bedecked he bowed to earth,

and fell adown; not doomed was he yet, and well he waxed, though the wound was sore.

Then the hardy Hygelac-thane, {39b}

when his brother fell, with broad brand smote, giants’ sword crashing through giants’-helm across the shield-wall: sank the king, his folk’s old herdsman, fatally hurt.

There were many to bind the brother’s wounds and lift him, fast as fate allowed

his people to wield the place-of-war.

But Eofor took from Ongentheow,

earl from other, the iron-breastplate, hard sword hilted, and helmet too,

and the hoar-chief’s harness to Hygelac carried, who took the trappings, and truly promised rich fee ‘mid folk, — and fulfilled it so.

For that grim strife gave the Geatish lord, Hrethel’s offspring, when home he came, to Eofor and Wulf a wealth of treasure, Each of them had a hundred thousand {39c}

in land and linked rings; nor at less price reckoned mid-earth men such mighty deeds!

And to Eofor he gave his only daughter in pledge of grace, the pride of his home.

 

“Such is the feud, the foeman’s rage, death-hate of men: so I deem it sure that the Swedish folk will seek us home for this fall of their friends, the fighting-Scylfings, when once they learn that our warrior leader lifeless lies, who land and hoard

ever defended from all his foes,

furthered his folk’s weal, finished his course a hardy hero. — Now haste is best,

that we go to gaze on our Geatish lord, and bear the bountiful breaker-of-rings to the funeral pyre. No fragments merely shall burn with the warrior. Wealth of jewels, gold untold and gained in terror,

treasure at last with his life obtained, all of that booty the brands shall take, fire shall eat it. No earl must carry memorial jewel. No maiden fair

shall wreathe her neck with noble ring: nay, sad in spirit and shorn of her gold, oft shall she pass o’er paths of exile now our lord all laughter has laid aside, all mirth and revel. Many a spear

morning-cold shall be clasped amain,

lifted aloft; nor shall lilt of harp

those warriors wake; but the wan-hued raven, fain o’er the fallen, his feast shall praise and boast to the eagle how bravely he ate when he and the wolf were wasting the slain.”

 

So he told his sorrowful tidings,

and little {39d} he lied, the loyal man of word or of work. The warriors rose; sad, they climbed to the Cliff-of-Eagles, went, welling with tears, the wonder to view.

Found on the sand there, stretched at rest, their lifeless lord, who had lavished rings of old upon them. Ending-day

had dawned on the doughty-one; death had seized in woful slaughter the Weders’ king.

There saw they, besides, the strangest being, loathsome, lying their leader near,

prone on the field. The fiery dragon, fearful fiend, with flame was scorched.

Reckoned by feet, it was fifty measures in length as it lay. Aloft erewhile

it had revelled by night, and anon come back, seeking its den; now in death’s sure clutch it had come to the end of its earth-hall joys.

By it there stood the stoups and jars; dishes lay there, and dear-decked swords eaten with rust, as, on earth’s lap resting, a thousand winters they waited there.

For all that heritage huge, that gold of bygone men, was bound by a spell, {39e}

so the treasure-hall could be touched by none of human kind, — save that Heaven’s King, God himself, might give whom he would, Helper of Heroes, the hoard to open, —

even such a man as seemed to him meet.

XL

A PERILOUS path, it proved, he {40a} trod who heinously hid, that hall within,

wealth under wall! Its watcher had killed one of a few, {40b} and the feud was avenged in woful fashion. Wondrous seems it,

what manner a man of might and valor

oft ends his life, when the earl no longer in mead-hall may live with loving friends.

So Beowulf, when that barrow’s warden he sought, and the struggle; himself knew not in what wise he should wend from the world at last.

For {40c} princes potent, who placed the gold, with a curse to doomsday covered it deep, so that marked with sin the man should be, hedged with horrors, in hell-bonds fast, racked with plagues, who should rob their hoard.

Yet no greed for gold, but the grace of heaven, ever the king had kept in view. {40d}

Wiglaf spake, the son of Weohstan: —

“At the mandate of one, oft warriors many sorrow must suffer; and so must we.

The people’s-shepherd showed not aught of care for our counsel, king beloved!

That guardian of gold he should grapple not, urged we, but let him lie where he long had been in his earth-hall waiting the end of the world, the hest of heaven. — This hoard is ours but grievously gotten; too grim the fate which thither carried our king and lord.

I was within there, and all I viewed, the chambered treasure, when chance allowed me (and my path was made in no pleasant wise) under the earth-wall. Eager, I seized such heap from the hoard as hands could bear and hurriedly carried it hither back

to my liege and lord. Alive was he still, still wielding his wits. The wise old man spake much in his sorrow, and sent you greetings and bade that ye build, when he breathed no more, on the place of his balefire a barrow high, memorial mighty. Of men was he

worthiest warrior wide earth o’er

the while he had joy of his jewels and burg.

Let us set out in haste now, the second time to see and search this store of treasure, these wall-hid wonders, — the way I show you, —

where, gathered near, ye may gaze your fill at broad-gold and rings. Let the bier, soon made, be all in order when out we come,

our king and captain to carry thither — man beloved — where long he shall bide safe in the shelter of sovran God.”

Then the bairn of Weohstan bade command, hardy chief, to heroes many

that owned their homesteads, hither to bring firewood from far — o’er the folk they ruled —

for the famed-one’s funeral. ” Fire shall devour and wan flames feed on the fearless warrior who oft stood stout in the iron-shower, when, sped from the string, a storm of arrows shot o’er the shield-wall: the shaft held firm, featly feathered, followed the barb.”

And now the sage young son of Weohstan seven chose of the chieftain’s thanes, the best he found that band within,

and went with these warriors, one of eight, under hostile roof. In hand one bore

a lighted torch and led the way.

No lots they cast for keeping the hoard when once the warriors saw it in hall, altogether without a guardian,

lying there lost. And little they mourned when they had hastily haled it out,

dear-bought treasure! The dragon they cast, the worm, o’er the wall for the wave to take, and surges swallowed that shepherd of gems.

Then the woven gold on a wain was laden —

countless quite! — and the king was borne, hoary hero, to Hrones-Ness.

XLI

THEN fashioned for him the folk of Geats firm on the earth a funeral-pile,

and hung it with helmets and harness of war and breastplates bright, as the boon he asked; and they laid amid it the mighty chieftain, heroes mourning their master dear.

Then on the hill that hugest of balefires the warriors wakened. Wood-smoke rose black over blaze, and blent was the roar of flame with weeping (the wind was still), till the fire had broken the frame of bones, hot at the heart. In heavy mood

their misery moaned they, their master’s death.

Wailing her woe, the widow {41a} old, her hair upbound, for Beowulf’s death sung in her sorrow, and said full oft she dreaded the doleful days to come, deaths enow, and doom of battle,

and shame. — The smoke by the sky was devoured.

The folk of the Weders fashioned there on the headland a barrow broad and high, by ocean-farers far descried:

in ten days’ time their toil had raised it, the battle-brave’s beacon. Round brands of the pyre a wall they built, the worthiest ever that wit could prompt in their wisest men.

They placed in the barrow that precious booty, the rounds and the rings they had reft erewhile, hardy heroes, from hoard in cave, —

trusting the ground with treasure of earls, gold in the earth, where ever it lies useless to men as of yore it was.

Then about that barrow the battle-keen rode, atheling-born, a band of twelve,

lament to make, to mourn their king,

chant their dirge, and their chieftain honor.

They praised his earlship, his acts of prowess worthily witnessed: and well it is

that men their master-friend mightily laud, heartily love, when hence he goes

from life in the body forlorn away.

 

Thus made their mourning the men of Geatland, for their hero’s passing his hearth-companions: quoth that of all the kings of earth, of men he was mildest and most beloved, to his kin the kindest, keenest for praise.

 

Footnotes:

 

{0a} Not, of course, Beowulf the Great, hero of the epic.

 

{0b} Kenning for king or chieftain of a comitatus: he breaks off gold from the spiral rings — often worn on the arm — and so rewards his followers.

 

{1a} That is, “The Hart,” or “Stag,” so called from decorations in the gables that resembled the antlers of a deer. This hall has been carefully described in a pamphlet by Heyne. The building was rectangular, with opposite doors — mainly west and east — and a hearth in the middle of th single room. A row of pillars down each side, at some distance from the walls, made a space which was raised a little above the main floor, and was furnished with two rows of seats. On one side, usually south, was the high-seat midway between the doors. Opposite this, on the other raised space, was another seat of honor. At the banquet soon to be described, Hrothgar sat in the south or chief high-seat, and Beowulf opposite to him. The scene for a flying (see below, v.499) was thus very effectively set.

Planks on trestles — the “board” of later English literature —

formed the tables just in front of the long rows of seats, and were taken away after banquets, when the retainers were ready to stretch themselves out for sleep on the benches.

 

{1b} Fire was the usual end of these halls. See v. 781 below. One thinks of the splendid scene at the end of the Nibelungen, of the Nialssaga, of Saxo’s story of Amlethus, and many a less famous instance.

 

{1c} It is to be supposed that all hearers of this poem knew how Hrothgar’s hall was burnt, — perhaps in the unsuccessful attack made on him by his son-in-law Ingeld.

 

{1d} A skilled minstrel. The Danes are heathens, as