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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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17 CHAPTER IV Now as we sit in our banquet hall before our tankards at ease with the thanes (our banquet hall, not infested with any Monster as was Heorot), the Scop chants, renewing the notes of his harp, notes he has struck before in other banquet halls. And he chants the honest reply of Beowulf to the Coast Guard on horseback, and tells how that friendly Coast Guard then guided Beowulf and his fourteen young men-at-arms to King Hrothgar. And he chants the farewell words of the Coast Guard to Beowulf, when Heorot Hall appeared shining in the distance, and how the Coast Guard wheeled his horse around and returned to his lookout by the sea. Him answered then the eldest, the war-band Leader, he, His chest of words unlocking: “Of Geatish kin are we, And Hyglac’s hearth- fellows. Wide was my father’s fame; The high-born Warrior- Chieftain, and Ecgtheow his name. He tarried many winters before he fared away From his courts, an old man; and wide o’er earth today Him the wise remember, In faithful mood we come Seeking the son of Halfdane, thy Folk-King at home. Be to us good of guidance. To Danemen’s monarch bold, We have a mickle errand,- which must not lurk untold: Thou wottest if it be so, as we have heard for sooth, That ‘mongst ye Danes some dusky Scather without ruth, Some Doer in the dark night, is dealing spite uncouth, Dastard shame and carnage. I can in generous mood Teach a rede to Hrothgar, how he, the sage and good, This Fiend may overmaster,- if e’er to be it is That toil and teen shall alter, help come to him and his, And seething cares grow cooler; or else forevermore He tholeth days of sorrow, dearth so sad and sore, Whilst there upon its high-place the best of halls shall bide.” The Watchman, doughty servitor, from his steed replied: “Behooveth the keen shieldman, he who thinketh well, ‘Twixt words and works the tokens cunningly to tell. I hear this band is friendly unto the great Scylding: Bear forth your weeds and weapons; I’ll guide you to my King, And bid my faithful kin-thanes ‘gainst aught of foes to guard Your boat upon the beach here, this floater newly-tarred, Till once more, o’er the sea-streams, the curved-neck timber bear To Weder-mark the dear men,- those to whomsoe’er It shall be granted safely to bide the coming fray.” They gat them, then, to fare forth; at rest the floater lay, On hawser fast at anchor, broad-breasted ship ashore. |
