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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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93 Then Wiglaf with the treasures found his King and Friend, His glorious Chief, ableeding, near his life’s end. Again he plashed with water; until the point of word Pierced athrough the breast-hoard of Beowulf, the old, And spake he in his grieving, with gaze upon the gold: “For this splendor-booty be thanks unto the Lord, Unto the King- of-Glory, for what I here behold, To God, the everlasting, in that ‘t is mine to give Such gifts unto my people, while an hour I live. Now have I bartered for the hoard of gold The end of this my old life. Look ye well, my fere, To my people’s needs now. I’m no longer here. Bid the battle-bold men build a mound to me, Shining, after death- pyre, on foreland by the sea; Out upon Whale’s Ness, it shall lift on high, Reminder to my people of the man was I, That ever thereafter sailor-folk will hail “Beowulf’s Barrow’ when home from far they sail, O’er the misty ocean, past the Ness-of-Whale.” From his neck he doffed then, he, the Sturdy-Souled, And gave to his Retainer, a collar of gold; Gave the young Spearman his helmet gold-bedight, His ring and his byrnie; bade him use them right: “Thou art only remnant of our common line, The Kin of the Waegmundings, Wiglaf mine. Wyrd has swept before ye all my stock and stem, The jarlmen in their glory. I must after them.” The last of words was that for which that aged Heart had breath, Ere he chose the bale-fire, the hot waves of death. And so from breast of Beowulf the soul took flight To seek the just award of souls soothfast in the right. |
