other · epic

Beowulf

c. 700–1000 CE (oral tradition earlier) · Early Medieval (Anglo-Saxon) · England (Anglo-Saxon)

Lines 1–52 — The Lineage of Scyld Scefing

1Lo, praise of the prowess of people-kings
2Of spear-armed Danes, in days long sped,
3We have heard, and what honour the athelings won!
4Oft Scyld the Scefing from squadroned foes,
5From many a tribe, the mead-bench tore,
6Awing the earls. Since erst he lay
7Friendless, a foundling, fate repaid him:
8For he waxed under welkin, in wealth he throve,
9Till before him the folk, both far and near,
10Who house by the whale-path, heard his mandate,
11Gave him gifts: a good king he!
12Then his bairns to him, in his day of glory,
13Came, the children of chiefs, and chose him lord.
14So with ice on its back the ship was laden
15With weapons of war and weeds of battle.
16No beloved man more bravely fitted
17On the bosom of bark was borne to his grave.

Lines 710–836 — Grendel's Attack

18From the moorland, under misty hillsides,
19Grendel came, God's anger bearing.
20The monster was minded of mankind now
21Sundry to seize in the solemn building.
22Under welkin he walked till the wine-hall he saw,
23The gold-hall of men gleaming with gold-plates.
24Not the first was this foray to find him thus met.
25Then the door was unbarred though with bands of iron:
26He burst it open — bale in his bosom,
27Fell and frantic — and fell on the floor
28From his eyes there shot a sickly light
29Like flame. He saw in the hall many men
30Asleep, a throng of thanes and young warriors.
31His glee was gruesome; his greed was for each
32Ere day came, to drain of life.
33But fate willed not that he feed upon more
34Of liegemen on earth after that evening.
35The Mighty kinsman of Hygelac marked
36How the monster malign was making his visit.
37Bent was Beowulf's mind to bar the beast
38From harming aught. His arm lay wait;
39The fiend felt his fingers. Forward the monster
40Thought to run — no running availed him.
41Now Beowulf the bold embraced him — clutched him.
42The bone-lashings burst asunder;
43The gristle cracked. To Grendel came grief;
44He could flee to his fen, to his joyless dwelling.
45The battle was over. Beowulf had won.

Lines 1245–1290 — Grendel's Mother

46From the mere, Grendel's mother, ogress and monster,
47Her grief she would avenge — go a journey lorn
48To death-house, where Heorot harboured the Danes.
49She was come to the court. Came not the worst:
50The terror was less, as terror of woman,
51Her strength in strife than strength of the male.
52Into the hall went the horrible creature,
53And seized the single man that she found asleep,
54A famous follower of Hrothgar.
55Then the Geat champion made it his task
56The lake to descend. He listed not long.
57His corslet bright — wondrous, wave-proof,
58Could guard life's core — glided to the deep.
59The lake-wolf seized him, hurled to her lair.

Lines 2669–2820 — The Dragon and the Death of Beowulf

60Beowulf spoke, in spite of his hurt,
61His deadly wound: well he knew
62His day was done. Departed was now
63All joy of the world. "I was fifty winters,
64Lord of folk, when the land-king here,
65Guardian of gems, began his strife."
66Then the hero clasped his neck, with hand of gold
67The warrior young — the one Wiglaf was —
68Who alone of all had stood beside him,
69Had faced the fiend, had fought beside him
70When each and every other earl had fled.
71Beowulf spake, his bale-wounds sorely:
72"Give me, Wiglaf, in my last hour,
73The rings from my breast. The realm was mine
74Fifty winters. Of folk and treasure
75No warlike king of the neighbouring clans
76Durst damage me, deter me, harm me.
77I bided my time, held what was mine.
78I sought no quarrels, swore not falsely.
79In all of this I can still have solace.
80So, for that reason, the Ruler of Men
81Need not blame me when life leaves my body."
82Out went his spirit; the soul departed
83Of the righteous man to its recompense.
84Then Wiglaf, warrior, looked with sorrow
85On his fallen lord. The friend of Geats,
86His battle-companion, on the beach they bore him
87And began to build a barrow, a great mound,
88High and broad beside the briny waters.
89Ten days they toiled, the battle-brave men,
90And then they finished the fame of the war-man.

notes

Beowulf is the oldest surviving major epic poem in Old English, preserved in a single manuscript (Cotton Vitellius A.xv) dating to around 1000 CE, though the poem itself is generally dated to somewhere between 700 and 900 CE, and draws on oral traditions about Scandinavian heroes that are considerably older. Its 3,182 alliterative lines narrate three great battles fought by Beowulf, a Geatish (south Scandinavian) warrior: his defeat of the monster Grendel, who has been terrorising the Danish mead-hall Heorot; his defeat of Grendel's mother in her underwater lair; and fifty years later, his final battle against a dragon whose hoard has been disturbed. Beowulf dies from the dragon's venom but his fame is secured forever. The poem is remarkable for its elegiac tone — it is aware of loss and the passing of heroic ages from the very beginning. The monsters (Grendel, his mother, the dragon) are described as descendants of Cain, and Christian theology overlays what is clearly an older Germanic heroic tradition. The tension between pagan fate and Christian providence runs through the entire poem. Translation after John Hall (1892). Public domain.

currently held: British Library, London (Cotton Vitellius A.xv)

Hero EpicMortalityNorseKingship

related texts

The Poetic Eddaother · c. 900–1100 CE (poems); compiled c. 1270 CE

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