BEOWULF
43
VII
Hrothgar spake, the Scyldings’-helmet:—
“For fight defensive. Friend my Beowulf,
to succor and save, thou hast sought us here.
Thy father’s combat[3] a feud enkindled
460when Heatholaf with hand he slew
among the Wylfings; his Weder kin
for horror of fighting feared to hold him.
Fleeing, he sought our South-Dane folk,
over surge of ocean the Honor-Scyldings,
465when first I was ruling the folk[4] of Danes,
wielded, youthful, this widespread realm,
this hoard-hold of heroes. Heorogar was dead,
my elder brother, had breathed his last,
Healfdene’s bairn: he was better than I!
470Straightway the feud with fee[5] I settled,
to the Wylfings sent, o’er watery ridges,
treasures olden: oaths he[6] swore me.
- ↑ The Germanic Vulcan. See below, Deor’s Song, and notes.
- ↑ Compare the personifying force in a phrase of the Heliand, “Thy Wyrd stands near thee,”—thy fated hour is nigh. This mighty power, whom the Christian poet can still revere, has here the general force of “Destiny.” Chaucer glosses the plural (Wirdes) as Destiny, but Macbeth has no doubt of the “personification” when he meets the Weird-Sisters, that is, sister fates.
- ↑ There is no irrelevance here. Hrothgar sees in Beowulf’s mission a heritage of duty, a return of the good offices which the Danish king rendered to Beowulf’s father in time of dire need.—F. Seebohm, Tribal Customs in Anglo-Saxon Law, London, 1902, comments on this ethical side of the feud, and makes great use of the material in Beowulf.
- ↑ Repeated from v. 463, also in the original.
- ↑ Money, for wergild, or man-price.
- ↑ Ecgtheow, Beowulf’s sire.
