Читать книгу The Tale of Beowulf, Sometime King of the Folk of the Weder Geats - Anonymous - Страница 13

Spake out then Hrothgar the helm of the Scyldings:

Thou Beowulf, friend mine, for battle that wardeth

And for help that is kindly hast sought to us hither.

Fought down thy father the most of all feuds;

460

To Heatholaf was he forsooth for a hand-bane

Amidst of the Wylfings. The folk of the Weders

Him for the war-dread that while might not hold.

So thence did he seek to the folk of the South-Danes

O'er the waves' wallow, to the Scyldings be-worshipped.

Then first was I wielding the weal of the Dane-folk,

That time was I holding in youth-tide the gem-rich

Hoard-burg of the heroes. Dead then was Heorogar,

Mine elder of brethren; unliving was he,

The Healfdene's bairn that was better than I.

470

That feud then thereafter with fee did I settle;

I sent to the Wylfing folk over the waters' back

Treasures of old time; he swore the oaths to me.

Sorrow is in my mind that needs must I say it

To any of grooms, of Grendel what hath he

Of shaming in Hart, and he with his hate-wiles

Of sudden harms framed; the host of my hall-floor,

The war-heap, is waned; Weird swept them away

Into horror of Grendel. It is God now that may lightly

The scather the doltish from deeds thrust aside.

480

Full oft have they boasted with beer well bedrunken,

My men of the battle all over the ale-stoup,

That they in the beer-hall would yet be abiding

The onset of Grendel with the terror of edges.

But then was this mead-hall in the tide of the morning,