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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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53 CHAPTER XXI The Scop chants Beowulf’s confident reply and the journey of Hrothgar, Beowulf, and the band along the trail of the Witch-Wife on to the bleak regions, till of a sudden along the cliff they came upon the head of the retainer the WitchWife had slaughtered and eaten. And he chants how the waters below were alive with Nicors and Sea-Serpents, and how Beowulf shot one of the dead with arrow, and how Beowulf then donned his armor and received from Unferth, who was now a staunch believer in Beowulf, the loan of Unferth’s famous sword called Hrunting. (For a sword in those days was so near and dear to a man that it often bore a personal personal name, like a trusted servant.) Beowulf made a speech then, son of Ecgtheow, he: “Sorrow not, thou Sage One,- for each it better be That his friend he wreaketh than bemourn him late. Our end of life in world here we must all await; Let who is able win him glory ere his death; In after-years for warrior dead that chiefly profiteth. Arise thou Kingdom’s Warden! Speedily let us hie Of this Kin of Grendel the trail for to spy. This to thee I promise: She’ll refuge in no rest Neither in earth’s bosom nor in hill-forest, Nor in sea-bottom, wheresoe’er she go! For this day have patience in thine every woe, As I ween thou wilt have.” Upleapt the Graybeard now; Thanked the Lord Almighty for what this man did vow. Then Hrothgar’s horse was bridled, his steed with braided mane; Stately rode the royal Sage; and afoot his train Of shield-bearers was stepping. Wide was there to see Her tracks across the wood- ways, her trail along the lea, Whither fared she forward over the murky moor, And with her bare the dead man, the best of kin- thanes sure Of all who once with Hrothgar warded well the home. Then the Son of aethelings now did over-roam The narrow-passes, the steep cliff-stone, The close defiles and the paths unknown, The beetling cragheads, the Nicors’ den. All ahead he hastened with a few wise men For to view the region, till a sudden he Found the joyless forest, found the mountain tree, Leaning o’er the hoar cliff. Under the wood, Blood-stained and troubled, there the waters stood. Unto the friends of Scyldings, unto every Dane, |
