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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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87 CHAPTER XXXVI The Scop chants of Wiglaf, the one faithful brave retainer, a young kinsman of Beowulf. Wiglaf had a sword, inherited from his father, as many swords in those days were handed down from father to son; his father had taken it in battle from Eanmund, one of those two Swedish outlaw-princes; and with this good sword in hand he upbraided the coward companions. (But how could Beowulf, so experienced and wise, have picked out for special honor young warriors who so dreadfully betrayed his confidence? Perhaps Beowulf, so generous and brave himself, always had a childlike faith in the generosity and bravery of his retainers. Many great men, too, are so intent on their great works that they lack practical shrewdness in judging the weaknesses of their fellowmen-perhaps that was the case with Beowulf.) Wiglaf then rushed up to aid Beowulf and the twain together fought the Dragon; but Beowulf’s sword, Naegling, was shivered and the Dragon got its fangs into Beowulf’s neck. (What the Scop says about the sword is puzzling. He says Beowulf’s strength was so great that every sword went to pieces when he wielded it; yet Beowulf had a sword so dear to him that it bore special name, and besides had not Beowulf himself boasted before of his victor-blows with the sword? Perhaps the Scop has made use of two different traditions about Beowulf,- a tradition of Beowulf brave in battle, bearing like other great warriors a good sword, and another tradition, probably the more wide-spread and old, of Beowulf as the Strong Man needed no weapon. Or perhaps, after all, it was only sometimes that Beowulf found that a sword shivered in his mighty arm.) Hight was that one Wiglaf, the son of Weohstan, And Lord of the Scylfings, beloved Shield-man, Aelfhere’s kinsman. His Liege-Lord he saw Under his casque of battle front that flaming maw. Then he recalled the giftings from him his Lord and Head, The lands of the Waegmundings, the rich homestead, And each of all the folk-rights his father used to wield. No longer might he hold back; his fingers clasped the shield, The wood of yellow linden; his olden sword he drew. This sword was Eanmund’s relic, as all men knew, Whom in the fray by falchion-edge Weohstan slew Eanmund, son of Ohthere, the exile forlorn. And Weohstan to Eanmund’s Kin, Onela, had borne The brown- bright helmet, the byrnie of the rings, The old sword of ettins,- Eanmund’s battle-things, The war-gear furbished of a brother’s |
