Anon — The Tale of Beowulf, Sometime King of the Folk of the Weder Geats — XXIII. BEOWULF REACHETH THE MERE-BOTTOM IN A DAY’S WHILE, AND CONTENDS WITH GRENDEL’S DAM.

XXIII. BEOWULF REACHETH THE MERE-BOTTOM IN A DAY’S WHILE, AND CONTENDS WITH GRENDEL’S DAM.

Out then spake Beowulf, Ecgtheow's bairn:

Forsooth be thou mindful, O great son of Healfdene,

O praise of the princes, now way-fain am I,

O gold-friend of men, what we twain spake aforetime:

If to me for thy need it might so befall

That I cease from my life-days, thou shouldest be ever

To me, forth away wended, in the stead of a father.

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Do thou then bear in hand these thanes of my kindred,

My hand-fellows, if so be battle shall have me;

Those same treasures withal, which thou gavest me erst,

O Hrothgar the lief, unto Hygelac send thou;

By that gold then shall wot the lord of the Geat-folk,

Shall Hrethel's son see, when he stares on the treasure,

That I in fair man-deeds a good one have found me,

A ring-giver; while I might, joy made I thereof.

And let thou then Unferth the ancient loom have,

The wave-sword adorned, that man kenned widely,

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The blade of hard edges; for I now with Hrunting

Will work me the glory, or else shall death get me.

So after these words the Weder-Geats' chieftain

With might of heart hasten'd; nor for answer then would he

Aught tarry; the sea-welter straightway took hold on

The warrior of men: wore the while of a daytide

Or ever the ground-plain might he set eyes on.

Soon did she find, she who the flood-ring

Sword-ravening had held for an hundred of seasons,

Greedy and grim, that there one man of grooms

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The abode of the alien-wights sought from above;

Then toward him she grasp'd and gat hold on the warrior

With fell clutch, but no sooner she scathed withinward

The hale body; rings from without-ward it warded,

That she could in no wise the war-skin clutch through,

The fast locked limb-sark, with fingers all loathly.

So bare then that sea-wolf when she came unto bottom

The king of the rings to the court-hall adown

In such wise that he might not, though hard-moody was he,

Be wielding of weapons. But a many of wonders

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In sea-swimming swink'd him, and many a sea-deer

With his war-tusks was breaking his sark of the battle;

The fell wights him follow'd. 'Twas then the earl found it

That in foe-hall there was he, I wot not of which,

Where never the water might scathe him a whit,

Nor because of the roof-hall might reach to him there

The fear-grip of the flood. Now fire-light he saw,

The bleak beam forsooth all brightly a-shining.

Then the good one, he saw the wolf of the ground,

The mere-wife the mighty, and main onset made he

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With his battle-bill; never his hand withheld sword-swing

So that there on her head sang the ring-sword forsooth

The song of war greedy. But then found the guest

That the beam of the battle would bite not therewith,

Or scathe life at all, but there failed the edge

The king in his need. It had ere thol'd a many

Of meetings of hand; oft it sheared the helm,

The host-rail of the fey one; and then was the first time

For that treasure dear lov'd that its might lay a-low.

But therewithal steadfast, naught sluggish of valour,

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All mindful of high deeds was Hygelac's kinsman.

Cast then the wounden blade bound with the gem-stones

The warrior all angry, that it lay on the earth there,

Stiff-wrought and steel-edged. In strength now he trusted,

The hard hand-grip of might and main; so shall a man do

When he in the war-tide yet looketh to winning

The praise that is longsome, nor aught for life careth.

Then fast by the shoulder, of the feud nothing recking,

The lord of the War-Geats clutch'd Grendel's mother,

Cast down the battle-hard, bollen with anger,

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That foe of the life, till she bow'd to the floor;

But swiftly to him gave she back the hand-guerdon

With hand-graspings grim, and griped against him;

Then mood-weary stumbled the strongest of warriors,

The foot-kemp, until that adown there he fell.

Then she sat on the hall-guest and tugg'd out her sax,

The broad and brown-edged, to wreak her her son,

Her offspring her own. But lay yet on his shoulder

The breast-net well braided, the berg of his life,

That 'gainst point and 'gainst edge the entrance withstood.

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Gone amiss then forsooth had been Ecgtheow's son

Underneath the wide ground there, the kemp of the Geats,

Save to him his war-byrny had fram'd him a help,

The hard host-net; and save that the Lord God the Holy

Had wielded the war-gain, the Lord the All-wise;

Save that the skies' Ruler had rightwisely doom'd it

All easily. Sithence he stood up again.