The Oldest English Epic/Chapter 1/Beowulf 06
VI
Hrothgar answered, helmet of Scyldings:—
“I knew him of yore in his youthful days;
his agéd father was Ecgtheow named,
to whom, at home, gave Hrethel the Geat
375his only daughter.[1] Their offspring bold
fares hither to seek the steadfast friend.
And seamen, too, have said me this,—
who carried my gifts to the Geatish court,
thither for thanks,—he has thirty men’s
380 heft of grasp in the gripe of his hand,
the bold-in-battle. Blesséd God
out of his mercy this man hath sent
to Danes of the West, as I ween indeed,
against horror of Grendel. I hope to give
385the good youth gold for his gallant thought.
Be thou in haste, and bid them hither,
clan of kinsmen, to come before me;
and add this word,—they are welcome guests
to folk of the Danes.”
[To the door of the hall
380Wulfgar went][2] and the word declared:—
“To you this message my master sends,
East-Danes’ king, that your kin he knows,
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,][3]
hardy ’neath helm, till the hearth he neared.[4]
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![5] These Grendel-deeds
410 I heard in my home-land heralded clear.
Seafarers say[6] how stands this hall,
of buildings best, for your band of thanes
empty and idle, when evening sun
in the harbor of heaven is hidden away.
415So my vassals advised me well,—
brave and wise, the best of men,—
O sovran Hrothgar, to seek thee here,
for my nerve and my might they knew full well.
Themselves had seen me from slaughter come
420blood-flecked from foes, where five I bound,
and that wild brood worsted. I’ the waves I slew
nicors[7] by night, in need and peril
avenging the Weders,[8] whose woe they sought,—
crushing the grim ones. Grendel now,
425monster cruel, be mine to quell
in single battle! So, from thee,
thou sovran of the Shining-Danes,
Scyldings’-bulwark, a boon I seek,—
and, Friend-of-the-folk, refuse it not,
430O Warriors’-shield, now I’ve wandered far,—
that I alone with my liegemen here,
this hardy band, may Heorot purge!
More I hear, that the monster dire,
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[9]
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.[10] Nor need’st thou then
to hide my head;[11] 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![12]
To Hygelac send, if Hild[13] should take me,
best of war-weeds, warding my breast,
armor excellent, heirloom of Hrethel
455and work of Wayland.[14] Fares Wyrd[15] as she must.”
- ↑ It is point of honor in the sovran—and the late Queen Victoria was proud of her accomplishment in this respect—to know all the nobles and royal persons in their relationship and descent. So Hildebrand, trying to make his son believe that the paternal claim is true, asks to be put to the test of genealogies and kinship: “If thou namest one only, the others I know.” The loquacity of Hrothgar is both the royal leisurely way, and also an attempt of the poet to characterize the king, and set him apart.
- ↑ Grein’s insertion to mend an evident omission of the scribe.
- ↑ 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.
- ↑ The nicor, says Bugge, is a hippopotamus; a walrus, says ten Brink. But that water-goblin who covers the space from Old Nick of jest to the Neckan and Nix of poetry and tale, is all one needs, and Nicor is a good name for him. Dan Michel in the fourteenth century renders sirens or sea-fairies by this word nicor. A glance, too, at Vigfusson’s Icelandic Dictionary, s.v. “Nykr,” is instructive. To square this story with vv. 550 ff., below, many emendations are proposed; but figures may be changed even in hunting-stories. Moreover, see vv. 574–7. There was genuine fear of sea-beasts among these men of the coast, and Horace’s monstra natantia (I, iii, 18) would have appealed to them as no matter for jests. They enhance the horror of Nicor’s Mere, below, v. 1425. Whales are specified in v. 541 as objects of fear; see note to v. 549.
- ↑ His own people, the Geats.
- ↑ 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.
- ↑ 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.