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• Argument
• The Story of Beowulf
• I.: And First of the Kindred of Hrothgar.
• II.: Concerning Hrothgar, and How He Built the House Called Hart. Also Grendel Is Told Of.
• III.: How Grendel Fell Upon Hart and Wasted It.
• IV.: Now Comes Beowulf Ecgtheow’s Son to the Land of the Danes, and the Wall-warden Speaketh With Him.
• V.: Here Beowulf Makes Answer to the Land-warden, Who Showeth Him the Way to the King’s Abode.
• VI.: Beowulf and the Geats Come Into Hart.
• VII.: Beowulf Speaketh With Hrothgar, and Telleth How He Will Meet Grendel.
• VIII.: Hrothgar Answereth Beowulf and Biddeth Him Sit to the Feast.
• IX.: Unferth Contendeth In Words With Beowulf.
• X.: Beowulf Makes an End of His Tale of the Swimming. Wealhtheow, Hrothgar’s Queen, Greets Him; and Hrothgar Delivers to Him the Warding of the Hall.
• XI.: Now Is Beowulf Left In the Hall Alone With His Men.
• XII.: Grendel Cometh Into Hart: of the Strife Betwixt Him and Beowulf.
• XIII.: Beowulf Hath the Victory: Grendel Is Hurt Deadly and Leaveth Hand and Arm In the Hall.
• XIV.: The Danes Rejoice; They Go to Look On the Slot of Grendel, and Come Back to Hart, and On the Way Make Merry With Racing and the Telling of Tales.
• XV.: King Hrothgar and His Thanes Look On the Arm of Grendel. Converse Betwixt Hrothgar and Beowulf Concerning the Battle.
• XVI.: Hrothgar Giveth Gifts to Beowulf.
• XVII.: They Feast In Hart. the Gleeman Sings of Finn and Hengest.
• XVIII.: The Ending of the Tale of Finn.
• XIX.: More Gifts Are Given to Beowulf. the Brising Collar Told Of.
• XX.: Grendel’s Dam Breaks Into Hart and Bears Off Aeschere.
• XXI.: Hrothgar Laments the Slaying of Aeschere, and Tells of Grendel’s Mother and Her Den.
• XXII.: They Follow Grendel’s Dam to Her Lair.
• XXIII.: Beowulf Reacheth the Mere-bottom In a Day’s While, and Contends With Grendel’s Dam.
• XXIV.: Beowulf Slayeth Grendel’s Dam, Smiteth Off Grendel’s Head, and Cometh Back With His Thanes to Hart.
• XXV.: Converse of Hrothgar With Beowulf.
• XXVI.: More Converse of Hrothgar and Beowulf: the Geats Make Them Ready For Departure.
• XXVII.: Beowulf Bids Hrothgar Farewell: the Geats Fare to Ship.
• XXVIII.: Beowulf Comes Back to His Land. of the Tale of Thrytho.
• XXIX.: Beowulf Tells Hygelac of Hrothgar: Also of Freawaru His Daughter.
• XXX.: Beowulf Forebodes Ill From the Wedding of Freawaru: He Tells of Grendel and His Dam.
• XXXI.: Beowulf Gives Hrothgar’s Gifts to Hygelac, and By Him Is Rewarded. of the Death of Hygelac and of Heardred His Son, and How Beowulf Is King of the Geats: the Worm Is First Told Of.
• XXXII.: How the Worm Came to the Howe, and How He Was Robbed of a Cup; and How He Fell On the Folk.
• XXXIII.: The Worm Burns Beowulf’s House, and Beowulf Gets Ready to Go Against Him. Beowulf’s Early Deeds In Battle With the Hetware Told Of.
• XXXIV.: Beowulf Goes Against the Worm. He Tells of Herebeald and HÆthcyn.
• XXXV.: Beowulf Tells of Past Feuds, and Bids Farewell to His Fellows. He Falls On the Worm, and the Battle of Them Begins.
• XXXVI.: Wiglaf Son of Weohstan Goes to the Help of Beowulf: NÆgling, Beowulf’s Sword, Is Broken On the Worm.
• XXXVII.: They Two Slay the Worm. Beowulf Is Wounded Deadly: He Biddeth Wiglaf Bear Out the Treasure.
• XXXVIII.: Beowulf Beholdeth the Treasure and Passeth Away.
• XXXIX.: Wiglaf Casteth Shame On Those Fleers.
• Xl.: Wiglaf Sendeth Tiding to the Host: the Words of the Messenger.
• Xli.: More Words of the Messenger. How He Fears the Swedes When They Wot of Beowulf Dead.
• Xlii.: They Go to Look On the Field of Deed.
• Xliii.: of the Burial of Beowulf.

III.

HOW GRENDEL FELL UPON HART AND WASTED IT.

• NOW went he a-spying, when come was the night-tide,
• The house on high builded, and how there the Ring-Danes
• Their beer-drinking over had boune them to bed;
• And therein he found them, the atheling fellows,
• Asleep after feasting. Then sorrow they knew not
• Nor the woe of mankind: but the wight of wealth’s waning,
• The grim and the greedy, soon yare was he gotten,
• All furious and fierce, and he raught up from resting
• A thirty of thanes, and thence aback got him
• Right fain of his gettings, and homeward to fare,
• Fulfilled of slaughter his stead to go look on.
• Thereafter at dawning, when day was yet early,
• The war-craft of Grendel to men grew unhidden,
• And after his meal was the weeping uphoven,
• Mickle voice of the morning-tide: there the Prince mighty,
• The Atheling exceeding good, unblithe he sat,
• Tholing the heavy woe; thane-sorrow dreed he
• Since the slot of the loathly wight there they had look’d on,
• The ghost all accursed. O’er grisly the strife was,
• So loathly and longsome. No longer the frist was
• But after the wearing of one night; then fram’d he
• Murder-bales more yet, and nowise he mourned
• The feud and the crime; over fast therein was he.
• Then easy to find was the man who would elsewhere
• Seek out for himself a rest was more roomsome,
• Beds end-long the bowers, when beacon’d to him was,
• And soothly out told by manifest token,
• The hate of the hell-thane. He held himself sithence
• Further and faster who from the fiend gat him.
• In such wise he rul’d it and wrought against right,
• But one against all, until idle was standing
• The best of hall-houses; and mickle the while was,
• Twelve winter-tides’ wearing; and trouble he tholed,
• That friend of the Scyldings, of woes every one
• And wide-spreading sorrows: for sithence it fell
• That unto men’s children unbidden ’twas known
• Full sadly in singing, that Grendel won war
• ’Gainst Hrothgar a while of time, hate-envy waging,
• And crime-guilts and feud for seasons no few,
• And strife without stinting. For the sake of no kindness
• Unto any of men of the main-host of Dane-folk
• Would he thrust off the life-bale, or by fee-gild allay it,
• Nor was there a wise man that needed to ween
• The bright boot to have at the hand of the slayer.
• The monster the fell one afflicted them sorely,
• That death-shadow darksome the doughty and youthful
• Enfetter’d, ensnared; night by night was he faring
• The moorlands the misty. But never know men
• Of spell-workers of Hell to and fro where they wander.
• So crime-guilts a many the foeman of mankind,
• The fell alone-farer, fram’d oft and full often,
• Cruel hard shames and wrongful, and Hart he abode in,
• The treasure-stain’d hall, in the dark of the night-tide;
• But never the gift-stool therein might he greet,
• The treasure before the Creator he trow’d not.
• Mickle wrack was it soothly for the friend of the Scyldings,
• Yea heart and mood breaking. Now sat there a many
• Of the mighty in rune, and won them the rede
• Of what thing for the strong-soul’d were best of all things
• Which yet they might frame ’gainst the fear and the horror.
• And whiles they behight them at the shrines of the heathen
• To worship the idols; and pray’d they in words,
• That he, the ghost-slayer, would frame for them helping
• ’Gainst the folk-threats and evil. So far’d they their wont,
• The hope of the heathen; nor hell they remember’d
• In mood and in mind. And the Maker they knew not,
• The Doomer of deeds: nor of God the Lord wist they,
• Nor the Helm of the Heavens knew aught how to hery,
• The Wielder of Glory. Woe worth unto that man
• Who through hatred the baneful his soul shall shove into
• The fire’s embrace; nought of fostering weens he,
• Nor of changing one whit. But well is he soothly
• That after the death-day shall seek to the Lord,
• In the breast of the Father all peace ever craving.