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Beowulf
XXXIX
"THE bloody swath of Swedes and Geats and the storm of their strife,
were seen afar, how folk against folk the fight had wakened. The
ancient king with his atheling band sought his citadel, sorrowing
much: Ongentheow earl went up to his burg. He had tested Hygelac's
hardihood, the proud one's prowess, would prove it no longer, defied
no more those fighting-wanderers nor hoped from the seamen to save his
hoard, his bairn and his bride: so 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 one is told
presently; but this lay of beginnings is taken from Genesis.
{1e} A disturber of the border, one who sallies from his haunt in the
fen and roams over the country near by. This probably pagan nuisance
is now furnished with biblical credentials as a fiend or devil in good
standing, so that all Christian Englishmen might read about him.
"Grendel" may mean one who grinds and crushes.
{1f} Cain's.
{1g} Giants.
{2a} The smaller buildings within the main enclosure but separate from
the hall.
{2b} Grendel.
{2c} "Sorcerers-of-hell."
{2d} Hrothgar, who is the "Scyldings'-friend" of 170.
{2e} That is, in formal or prescribed phrase.
{3a} Ship.
{3b} That is, since Beowulf selected his ship and led his men to the
harbor.
{3c} One of the auxiliary names of the Geats.
{3d} Or: Not thus openly ever came warriors hither; yet...
{4a} Hrothgar.
{4b} Beowulf's helmet has several boar-images on it; he is the "man of
war"; and the boar-helmet guards him as typical representative of the
marching party as a whole. The boar was sacred to Freyr, who was the
favorite god of the Germanic tribes about the North Sea and the
Baltic. Rude representations of warriors show the boar on the helmet
quite as large as the helmet itself.
{5a} Either merely paved, the strata via of the Romans, or else
thought of as a sort of mosaic, an extravagant touch like the reckless
waste of gold on the walls and roofs of a hall.
{6a} The nicor, says Bugge, is a hippopotamus; a walrus, says Ten
Brink. But that water-goblin who covers the space from Old Nick of
jest to the Neckan and Nix of poetry and tale, is all one needs, and
Nicor is a good name for him.
{6b} His own people, the Geats.
{6c} That is, cover it as with a face-cloth. "There will be no need of
funeral rites."
{6d} Personification of Battle.
{6e} The Germanic Vulcan.
{6f} This mighty power, whom the Christian poet can still revere, has
here the general force of "Destiny."