134
THE OLDEST ENGLISH EPIC
2590elsewhere far, as must all men, leaving
this lapsing life!—Not long it was
ere those champions grimly closed again.
The hoard-guard was heartened; high heaved his breast
once more; and by peril was pressed again,
2595enfolded in flames, the folk-commander!
Nor yet about him his band of comrades,
sons of athelings, arméd stood
with warlike front: to the woods they bent them,
their lives to save.[1] But the soul of one
2600with care was cumbered. Kinship true
can never be marred in a noble mind!
XXXVI
Wiglaf his name was, Weohstan’s son,
linden-thane loved, the lord of Scylfings,[2]
Ælfhere’s kinsman. His king he now saw
2605with heat under helmet hard oppressed.
He minded the prizes his prince had given him,
- ↑ In 2532 the thanes were told to await the finish. Either this is conventional blame of coward retainers; or else the thanes are supposed to fly from their place where Beowulf stationed them, when they ought to have disregarded his instructions and helped. Beowulf’s other band waited for him by the uncanny and blood-stained mere. In Saxo (Bk. IX, Holder, p. 302) Ragnar fights two huge serpents, who try to crush him and kill him with their poison. He has no comrades; but the men of the court in that land fly to hiding-places and watch the fight “like scared girls.”
- ↑ As noted above to v. 2151, Weohstan was a kinsman of Hygelac and Beowulf, but had taken service under the Swedish king Onela, killing the rebel Eanmund and winning his weapons and armor. When Eadgils, Eanmund’s brother, succeeds to the Swedish throne, Weohstan returns to his own kindred. Evidently he makes his peace, gets the family estates, and leaves them to his son Wiglaf. (Gering, p. 119.)
