| |
| LO, praise of the prowess of people-kings | |
| of spear-armed Danes, in days long sped, | |
| we have heard, and what honor the athelings won! | |
| Oft Scyld the Scefing from squadroned foes, | |
| from many a tribe, the mead-bench tore, | 5 |
| awing the earls. Since erst he lay | |
| friendless, a foundling, fate repaid him: | |
| for he waxed under welkin, in wealth he throve, | |
| till before him the folk, both far and near, | |
| who house by the whale-path, heard his mandate, | 10 |
| gave him gifts: a good king he! | |
| To him an heir was afterward born, | |
| a son in his halls, whom heaven sent | |
| to favor the folk, feeling their woe | |
| that erst they had lacked an earl for leader | 15 |
| so long a while; the Lord endowed him, | |
| the Wielder of Wonder, with world’s renown. | |
| Famed was this Beowulf: 1 far flew the boast of him, | |
| son of Scyld, in the Scandian lands. | |
| So becomes it a youth to quit him well | 20 |
| with his father’s friends, by fee and gift, | |
| that to aid him, agéd, in after days, | |
| come warriors willing, should war draw nigh, | |
| liegemen loyal: by lauded deeds | |
| shall an earl have honor in every clan. | 25 |
| Forth he fared at the fated moment, | |
| sturdy Scyld to the shelter of God. | |
| Then they bore him over to ocean’s billow, | |
| loving clansmen, as late he charged them, | |
| while wielded words the winsome Scyld, | 30 |
| the leader belovéd who long had ruled…. | |
| In the roadstead rocked a ring-dight vessel, | |
| ice-flecked, outbound, atheling’s barge: | |
| there laid they down their darling lord | |
| on the breast of the boat, the breaker-of-rings, 2 | 35 |
| by the mast the mighty one. Many a treasure | |
| fetched from far was freighted with him. | |
| No ship have I known so nobly dight | |
| with weapons of war and weeds of battle, | |
| with breastplate and blade: on his bosom lay | 40 |
| a heapéd hoard that hence should go | |
| far o’er the flood with him floating away. | |
| No less these loaded the lordly gifts, | |
| thane’s huge treasure, than those had done | |
| who in former time forth had sent him | 45 |
| sole on the seas, a suckling child. | |
| High o’er his head they hoist the standard, | |
| a gold-wove banner; let billows take him, | |
| gave him to ocean. Grave were their spirits, | |
| mournful their mood. No man is able | 50 |
| to say in sooth, no son of the halls, | |
| no hero ’neath heaven,—who harbored that freight! | |
