for the grace that I give such gifts to my folk
or ever the day of my death be run!
Now I’ve bartered here for booty of treasure
2800the last of my life, so look ye well
to the needs of my land! No longer I tarry.
A barrow bid ye the battle-famed raise
for my ashes. ’Twill shine by the shore of the flood,
to folk of mine memorial fair
2805on Hronës Headland high uplifted,
that ocean-wanderers oft may hail
Beowulf’s Barrow, as back from far[1]
they drive their keels o’er the darkling wave.”
From his neck he unclasped the collar of gold,
2810valorous king, to his vassal gave it
with bright-gold helmet, breastplate, and ring,
to the youthful thane: bade him use them in joy.
“Thou art end and remnant of all our race,
the Wægmunding name. For Wyrd hath swept them,
2815all my line, to the land of doom,
earls in their glory: I after them go.”
This word was the last which the wise old man
harbored in heart ere hot death-waves
of balefire he chose. From his bosom fled
- ↑ Besides the Germanic Yngwar, who was buried by the sea, there are famous classical cases. Achilles had his tomb “high on a jutting headland over wide Hellespont, that it might be seen from far off the sea by men that now are and by those that shall be hereafter.” So the Odyssey, in Butcher and Lang’s translation of the last book. In Book XI, Elpenor asks for such a tomb. According to Vergil, Æn. VI, 232, Misenus was buried by Æneas on a huge mound on a cliff by the sea.
- ↑ A Christian term,—“the splendid state of the redeemed, of the martyrs,”—heaven.
