The Collected Works of William Morris :: :: University of Virginia Library

Then it was to be seen that throve not the way
To him that unrightly had hidden within there
The fair gear 'neath the wall. The warder erst slew
Some few of folk, and the feud then became
Wrothfully wreaked. A wonder whenas

Wiglaf speaketh to them

A valour-strong earl may reach on the ending
Of the fashion of life, when he longer in nowise
One man with his kinsmen may dwell in the mead-hall!
So to Beowulf was it when the burg's ward he sought,
For the hate of the weapons: he himself knew not
Wherethrough forsooth his world's sundering should be.
So until Doomsday they cursed it deeply,
Those princes the dread, who erst there had done it,
That that man should be of sins never sackless,
A-hoppled in shrines, in hell-bonds fast set,
With plague-spots be punish'd, who that plain should plunder.
But naught gold-greedy was he, more gladly had he
The grace of the Owner erst gotten to see.

Now spake out Wiglaf, that son was of Weohstan:
“Oft shall many an earl for the will but of one
Dree the wrack, as to us even now is befallen:
Nowise might we learn the lief lord of us,
The herd of the realm, any of rede,
That he should not go greet that warder of gold,
But let him live yet, whereas long he was lying,

272

And wonne in his wicks until the world's ending;
But he held to high weird and the hoard hath been seen,
Grimly gotten: o'er hard forsooth was that giving,
That the King of the folk e'en thither enticed.
Lo! I was therein, and I look'd it all over,
The gear of the house, when for me room was gotten,
But I lightly in nowise had leave for the passage
In under the earth-wall; in haste I gat hold
Forsooth with my hands of a mickle main burden
Of hoard-treasures, and hither then out did I bear them
Out unto my king, and then quick was he yet,

He biddeth them array the bale

Wise, and wit-holding: a many things spake he,
That aged in grief-care, and bade me to greet you,
And pray'd ye would do e'en after your friend's deeds
Aloft in the bale-stead a howe builded high,
Most mickle and mighty, as he amongst men was
The worthfullest warrior wide over the world,
While he the burg-weal erewhile might brook.
Then so let us hasten this second of whiles
To see and to seek the throng of things strange,
The wonder 'neath wall; I shall wise you the way,
So that ye from a-near may look on enough
Of rings and broad gold; and be the bier swiftly
All yare thereunto, whenas out we shall fare.
Then let us so ferry the lord that was ours,
The lief man of men, to where long shall he
In the All-Wielder's keeping full patiently wait.”

Bade then to bid the bairn of that Weohstan,
The deer of the battle, to a many of warriors,
The house-owning wights, that the wood of the bale
They should ferry from far, e'en the folk-owning men,
Toward the Good One.

“And now shall the gleed fret away,
The wan flame a-waxing, the strong one of warriors,
Him who oft-times abided the shower of iron
When the storm of the shafts driven on by the strings

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Shook over the shield-wall, and the shaft held its service,
And eager with feather-gear follow'd the barb.”

Now then the wise one, that son was of Weohstan,
Forth from the throng then call'd of the king's thanes
A seven together, the best to be gotten,
And himself went the eighth in under the foe-roof;
One man of the battlers in hand there he bare
A gleam of the fire, of the first went he inward.
It was nowise allotted who that hoard should despoil,

They lay Beowulf on the bale

Sithence without warden some deal that there was
The men now beheld in the hall there a-wonning,
Lying there fleeting; little mourn'd any,
That they in all haste outward should ferry
The dear treasures. But forthwith the drake did they shove,
The Worm, o'er the cliff-wall, and let the wave take him,
The flood fathom about the fretted works' herd.

There then was wounden gold on the wain laden
Untold of each kind, and the Atheling borne,
The hoary of warriors, out on to Whale-ness.