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Support the Monkey! Tell All your Friends and Teachers |
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Support the Monkey! Tell All your Friends and Teachers |
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101 CHAPTER XLII The Scop chants how in truth Beowulf had been doomed to die because the treasure was under a fatal spell. (Yet he tells us that Beowulf was under God’s Protecting care; and it would seem that here, as in several places in his poem, he has mingled heathen and Christian ideas-as many people do still.) He chants next the speech of the faithful kinsman, Wiglaf, who now bethought him of the funeral pyre. And then Wiglaf went with seven chosen men and pillaged the Hoard of all that remained. And the warriors pushed the Monster’s bulk over the cliff into the sea. And they laded a wagon with the treasure, and marched with the body of Beowulf to Whale’s Ness. Then ‘t was plain to seeing his quest had fared not well Who under wall had plundered wealth, within, against the spell. Erst had the Keeper slaughtered someone of a few, And so the feud avenged with horrible to-do. A wonder ‘t is the manner a man may meet his end, Even a famous jarlman, when with kin and friend, ‘T is his within the mead-house no longer now to dwell. And thus with Beowulf it was: when he that Keeper sought And that close encounter, he himself knew naught Of what should cause his parting from the world away; For the mighty chieftains who there the treasure hid Had spake a curse upon it till earth’s doomsdayThat whosoever robbed the floor should be a man forbid, Pent in demon-places, in hell-bonds fast, A sinner racked by plague-spots. Yet Beowulf, he cast His glances more on Heaven’s grace than gold unto the last. Wiglaf made a speech then, son of Weohstan: “Many a jarl must often, for will of one man, Suffer a great bitterness-even now as we. Nor might we rede our lief Lord, Shepherd of the free, Not to greet that Gold-Guard, but to let him lie Yonder where he long was and dwell his cavern by, Ever unto world’s end. But Beowulf, not he!Held he to his high fate. The Hoard is ours to see, Albeit grimly gotten. Too strong the destiny That thither lured our Folk-King. I was in the hall, And of that chambered treasure had my look at all; When by chance I’d found there, none too pleasantly, A pathway in and under that earth-wall. With hands I seized me swiftly, from the treasure-store, A burthen big and mickle; and hither out I bore Back unto my own King. Quick as yet was he, Wise, with wits about him, and spake he full and free, |
