Beowulf (Bilingual Edition)

by Seamus Heaney

  had gone mildly to earth, that maddened spirit,

  the terror of those twilights, came to attack us

  where we stood guard, still safe inside the hall.

  There deadly violence came down on Handscio

  and he fell as fate ordained, the first to perish,

  rigged out for the combat. A comrade from our ranks

  had come to grief in Grendel’s maw:

  2080 he ate up the entire body.

  There was blood on his teeth, he was bloated and furious,

  all roused up, yet still unready

  to leave the hall empty-handed;

  renowned for his might, he matched himself against me,

  wildly reaching. He had this roomy pouch,

  a strange accoutrement, intricately strung

  and hung at the ready, a rare patchwork

  of devilishly fitted dragon-skins.

  I had done him no wrong, yet the raging demon

  wanted to cram me and many another

  2090 into this bag—but it was not to be

  once I got to my feet in a blind fury.

  It would take too long to tell how I repaid

  the terror of the land for every life he took

  and so won credit for you, my king,

  and for all your people. And although he got away

  to enjoy life’s sweetness for a while longer,

  his right hand stayed behind him in Heorot,

  evidence of his miserable overthrow

  2100 as he dived into murk on the mere bottom.

  Beowulf recalls the feast in Heorot

  “I got lavish rewards from the lord of the Danes

  for my part in the battle, beaten gold

  and much else, once morning came

  and we took our places at the banquet table.

  There was singing and excitement: an old reciter,

  a carrier of stories, recalled the early days.

  At times some hero made the timbered harp

  tremble with sweetness, or related true

  and tragic happenings; at times the king

  2110 gave the proper turn to some fantastic tale,

  or a battle-scarred veteran, bowed with age,

  would begin to remember the martial deeds

  of his youth and prime and be overcome

  as the past welled up in his wintry heart.

  He tells about Grendel’s mother

  “We were happy there the whole day long

  and enjoyed our time until another night

  descended upon us. Then suddenly

  the vehement mother avenged her son

  and wreaked destruction. Death had robbed her,

  2120 Geats had slain Grendel, so his ghastly dam

  struck back and with bare-faced defiance

  laid a man low. Thus life departed

  from the sage Aeschere, an elder wise in counsel.

  But afterwards, on the morning following,

  the Danes could not burn the dead body

  nor lay the remains of the man they loved

  on his funeral pyre. She had fled with the corpse

  and taken refuge beneath torrents on the mountain.

  It was a hard blow for Hrothgar to bear,

  2130 harder than any he had undergone before.

  And so the heartsore king beseeched me

  in your royal name to take my chances

  underwater, to win glory

  and prove my worth. He promised me rewards.

  Hence, as is well known, I went to my encounter

  with the terror-monger at the bottom of the tarn.

  For a while it was hand-to-hand between us,

  then blood went curling along the currents

  and I beheaded Grendel’s mother in the hall

  2140 with a mighty sword. I barely managed

  to escape with my life; my time had not yet come.

  But Halfdane’s heir, the shelter of those earls,

  again endowed me with gifts in abundance.

  “Thus the king acted with due custom.

  I was paid and recompensed completely,

  given full measure and the freedom to choose

  from Hrothgar’s treasures by Hrothgar himself.

  These, King Hygelac, I am happy to present

  to you as gifts. It is still upon your grace

  2150 that all favour depends. I have few kinsmen

  who are close, my king, except for your kind self.”

  Beowulf presents Hygelac with the treasures he has won

  Then he ordered the boar-framed standard to be brought,

  the battle-topping helmet, the mail-shirt grey as hoar-frost

  and the precious war-sword; and proceeded with his

  speech.

  “When Hrothgar presented this war-gear to me

  he instructed me, my lord, to give you some account

  of why it signifies his special favour.

  He said it had belonged to his older brother,

  King Heorogar, who had long kept it,

  2160 but that Heorogar had never bequeathed it

  to his son Heoroweard, that worthy scion, speach

  loyal as he was.

  Enjoy it well.”

  I heard four horses were handed over next.

  Beowulf bestowed four bay steeds

  to go with the armour, swift gallopers,

  all alike. So ought a kinsman act,

  instead of plotting and planning in secret

  to bring people to grief, or conspiring to arrange

  the death of comrades. The warrior king

  2170 was uncle to Beowulf and honoured by his nephew:

  each was concerned for the other’s good.

  I heard he presented Hygd with a gorget,

  the priceless torque that the prince’s daughter,

  Wealhtheow, had given him; and three horses,

  supple creatures, brilliantly saddled.

  The bright necklace would be luminous on Hygd’s breast.

  Beowulf’s exemplary life is extolled

  Thus Beowulf bore himself with valour;

  he was formidable in battle yet behaved with honour

  and took no advantage; never cut down

  2180 a comrade who was drunk, kept his temper

  and, warrior that he was, watched and controlled

  his God-sent strength and his outstanding

  natural powers. He had been poorly regarded

  for a long time, was taken by the Geats

  for less than he was worth: and their lord too

  had never much esteemed him in the mead-hall.

  They firmly believed that he lacked force,

  that the prince was a weakling; but presently

  every affront to his deserving was reversed.

  Hygelac presents Beowulf with a sword and great tracts of land

  2190 The battle-famed king, bulwark of his earls,

  ordered a gold-chased heirloom of Hrethel’s

  to be brought in; it was the best example

  of a gem-studded sword in the Geat treasury.

  This he laid on Beowulf’s lap

  and then rewarded him with land as well,

  seven thousand hides, and a hall and a throne.

  Both owned land by birth in that country,

  ancestral grounds; but the greater right

  and sway were inherited by the higher born.

  Time passes Beowulf rules the Geats for fifty years

  2200 A lot was to happen in later days

  in the fury of battle. Hygelac fell

  and the shelter of Heardred’s shield proved useless

  against the fierce aggression of the Shylfings:

  ruthless swordsmen, seasoned campaigners,

  they came against him and his conquering nation,

  and with cruel force cut him down

  so that afterwards

  the wide kingdom

  reverted to Beowulf. He ruled it well
/>
  for fifty winters, grew old and wise

  2210 as warden of the land

  until one began

  to dominate the dark, a dragon on the prowl

  from the steep vaults of a stone-roofed barrow

  where he guarded a hoard; there was a hidden passage,

  unknown to men, but someone managed

  to enter by it and interfere

  with the heathen trove. He had handled and removed

  a gem-studded goblet; it gained him nothing,

  though with a thief’s wiles he had outwitted

  the sleeping dragon; that drove him into rage,

  2220 as the people of that country would soon discover.

  A dragon awakes. An accidental theft provokes his wrath

  The intruder who broached the dragon’s treasure

  and moved him to wrath had never meant to.

  It was desperation on the part of a slave

  fleeing the heavy hand of some master,

  guilt-ridden and on the run,

  going to ground. But he soon began

  to shake with terror;………in shock

  the wretch….….….……….….….….

  ….….….……….….….…. panicked and ran

  2230 away with the precious….………

  metalwork. There were many other

  heirlooms heaped inside the earth-house,

  because long ago, with deliberate care,

  somebody now forgotten

  had buried the riches of a high-born race

  in this ancient cache. Death had come

  and taken them all in times gone by

  and the only one left to tell their tale,

  the last of their line, could look forward to nothing

  2240 but the same fate for himself: he foresaw that his joy

  in the treasure would be brief.

  Long ago, a hoard was hidden in the earth-house by the last survivor of a forgotten race

  A newly constructed

  barrow stood waiting, on a wide headland

  close to the waves, its entryway secured.

  Into it the keeper of the hoard had carried

  all the goods and golden ware

  worth preserving. His words were few:

  “Now, earth, hold what earls once held

  and heroes can no more; it was mined from you first

  by honourable men. My own people

  2250 have been ruined in war; one by one

  they went down to death, looked their last

  on sweet life in the hall. I am left with nobody

  to bear a sword or burnish plated goblets,

  put a sheen on the cup. The companies have departed.

  The hard helmet, hasped with gold,

  will be stripped of its hoops; and the helmet-shiner

  who should polish the metal of the war-mask sleeps;

  the coat of mail that came through all fights,

  through shield-collapse and cut of sword,

  2260 decays with the warrior. Nor may webbed mail

  range far and wide on the warlord’s back

  beside his mustered troops. No trembling harp,

  no tuned timber, no tumbling hawk

  swerving through the hall, no swift horse

  pawing the courtyard. Pillage and slaughter

  have emptied the earth of entire peoples.”

  And so he mourned as he moved about the world,

  deserted and alone, lamenting his unhappiness

  day and night, until death’s flood

  2270 brimmed up in his heart.

  The dragon nests in the barrow and guards the gold

  Then an old harrower of the dark

  happened to find the hoard open,

  the burning one who hunts out barrows,

  the slick-skinned dragon, threatening the night sky

  with streamers of fire. People on the farms

  are in dread of him. He is driven to hunt out

  hoards under ground, to guard heathen gold

  through age-long vigils, though to little avail.

  For three centuries, this scourge of the people

  had stood guard on that stoutly protected

  2280 underground treasury, until the intruder

  unleashed its fury; he hurried to his lord

  with the gold-plated cup and made his plea