in his wanton mood, of weapons recks not;
435hence shall I scorn—so Hygelac stay,
king of my kindred, kind to me!—
brand or buckler to bear in the fight,
gold-colored targe: but with gripe alone
must I front the fiend and fight for life,
440 foe against foe. Then faith be his[1]
in the doom of the Lord whom death shall take.
Fain, I ween, if the fight he win,
in this hall of gold my Geatish band
will he fearless eat,—as oft before,—
445my noblest thanes.[2] Nor need’st thou then
to hide my head;[3] for his shall I be,
dyed in gore, if death must take me;
and my blood-covered body he’ll bear as prey,
ruthless devour it, the roamer-lonely,
450with my life-blood redden his lair in the fen:
no further for me need’st food prepare![4]
To Hygelac send, if Hild[5] should take me,
- ↑ Klaeber, with Earle: “he shall resign himself to the judgment.” It is a kind of trial by battle; and perhaps the sense is that the one who falls in the fight may well have cause to believe in God’s justice. But the common and ancient belief that “Wyrd goes as she must” is in the background.
- ↑ Literally, “the flower of my men” (Schücking); it is parallel to “Geatish band.” This interpretation removes grave difficulties from the passage. “As oft before” is a general and pregnant phrase referring to Grendel’s previous attacks on the Danish clansmen.
- ↑ That is, cover it as with a face-cloth. “There will be no need of funeral rites.”
- ↑ The fondness for emphasis by understatement—litotes—here takes the form of anticlimax.
- ↑ Personification of Battle. That personal and mythological force lingers in the word seems clear from its uses in poetry.
