Beowulf by Anonymous Anonymous

Author:Anonymous Anonymous
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Xist Publishing
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

22 BEOWULF SEEKS GRENDEL’S MOTHER.

Beowulf answered, Ecgtheow’s son:

Beowulf exhorts the old king to arouse himself for action.

“Grieve not, O wise one! for each it is better,

His friend to avenge than with vehemence wail him;

Each of us must the end-day abide of

5

His earthly existence; who is able accomplish

Glory ere death! To battle-thane noble

Lifeless lying, ’tis at last most fitting.

Arise, O king, quick let us hasten

To look at the footprint of the kinsman of Grendel!

10

I promise thee this now: to his place he’ll escape not,

To embrace of the earth, nor to mountainous forest,

Nor to depths of the ocean, wherever he wanders.

[49]

Practice thou now patient endurance

Of each of thy sorrows, as I hope for thee soothly!”

Hrothgar rouses himself. His horse is brought. 15

Then up sprang the old one, the All-Wielder thanked he,

Ruler Almighty, that the man had outspoken.

Then for Hrothgar a war-horse was decked with a bridle,

Curly-maned courser. The clever folk-leader

They start on the track of the female monster.

Stately proceeded: stepped then an earl-troop

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Of linden-wood bearers. Her footprints were seen then

Widely in wood-paths, her way o’er the bottoms,

Where she faraway fared o’er fen-country murky,

Bore away breathless the best of retainers

Who pondered with Hrothgar the welfare of country.

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The son of the athelings then went o’er the stony,

Declivitous cliffs, the close-covered passes,

Narrow passages, paths unfrequented,

Nesses abrupt, nicker-haunts many;

One of a few of wise-mooded heroes,

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He onward advanced to view the surroundings,

Till he found unawares woods of the mountain

O’er hoar-stones hanging, holt-wood unjoyful;

The water stood under, welling and gory.

’Twas irksome in spirit to all of the Danemen,

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Friends of the Scyldings, to many a liegeman

The sight of Æschere’s head causes them great sorrow.

Sad to be suffered, a sorrow unlittle

To each of the earlmen, when to Æschere’s head they

Came on the cliff. The current was seething

With blood and with gore (the troopers gazed on it).

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The horn anon sang the battle-song ready.

The troop were all seated; they saw ’long the water then

The water is filled with serpents and sea-dragons.

Many a serpent, mere-dragons wondrous

Trying the waters, nickers a-lying

On the cliffs of the nesses, which at noonday full often

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Go on the sea-deeps their sorrowful journey,

Wild-beasts and wormkind; away then they hastened

One of them is killed by Beowulf.

Hot-mooded, hateful, they heard the great clamor,

The war-trumpet winding. One did the Geat-prince

[50]

Sunder from earth-joys, with arrow from bowstring,

50

From his sea-struggle tore him, that the trusty war-missile

The dead beast is a poor swimmer

Pierced to his vitals; he proved in the currents

Less doughty at swimming whom death had offcarried.

Soon in the waters the wonderful swimmer

Was straitened most sorely with sword-pointed boar-spears,

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Pressed in the battle and pulled to the cliff-edge;

The liegemen then looked on the loath-fashioned stranger.

Beowulf prepares for a struggle with the monster.

Beowulf donned then his battle-equipments,

Cared little for life; inlaid and most ample,

The hand-woven corslet which could cover his body,

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Must the wave-deeps explore, that war might be powerless

To harm the great hero, and the hating one’s grasp might

Not peril his safety; his head was protected

By the light-flashing helmet that should mix with the bottoms,

Trying the eddies, treasure-emblazoned,

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Encircled with jewels, as in seasons long past

The weapon-smith worked

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