hardy heroes, and hails you all
welcome hither o’er waves of the sea!
395Ye may wend your way in war-attire,
and under helmets Hrothgar greet;
but let here the battle-shields bide your parley,
and wooden war-shafts wait its end.”
Uprose the mighty one, ringed with his men,
400brave band of thanes: some bode without,
battle-gear guarding, as bade the chief.
Then hied that troop where the herald led them,
under Heorot’s roof: [the hero strode,][1]
hardy ’neath helm, till the hearth he neared.[2]
405Beowulf spake,—his breastplate gleamed,
war-net woven by wit of the smith:—
“Thou Hrothgar, hail! Hygelac’s I,
kinsman and follower. Fame a plenty
have I gained in youth![3] These Grendel-deeds
410 I heard in my home-land heralded clear.
Seafarers say[4] how stands this hall,
- ↑ Grein’s insertion.
- ↑ “Hardy beneath his helmet” is a common phrase in epic description. See above, v. 296, and Nibelungen, under helme gân, in many places.—The hearth, always in the middle of the hall, would be close to the throne, as Heyne points out in his essay on the situation and structure of Heorot, referring to an Anglo-Saxon document of the eleventh century. “Hearth” is more specific and better visualized than the mere “interior” of some readings.
- ↑ So all the old epic heroes; they have no passion for modesty.
Sum pius Aeneas fama super aethera notus,
is more vigorous trumpeting than even this blast from Beowulf. Dryden notes in his Essay on Dramatic Poetry that only the later heroes made anything of reticence as a manly virtue.
- ↑ See ahove, v. 377, and Hildebrand, v. 44. These “seafarers” are not necessarily sailors by profession, but any persons who fare over sea and bring the news; cf. v. 1818, “we seafarers” = Beowulf and his men.
