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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.

IX.

UNFERTH CONTENDETH IN WORDS WITH BEOWULF.

• SPAKE out then Unferth that bairn was of Ecglaf,
• And he sat at the feet of the lord of the Scyldings,
• He unbound the battle-rune; was Beowulf’s faring,
• Of him the proud mere-farer, mickle unliking,
• Whereas he begrudg’d it of any man other
• That he glories more mighty the middle-garth over
• Should hold under heaven than he himself held:
• Art thou that Beowulf who won strife with Breca
• On the wide sea contending in swimming,
• When ye two for pride’s sake search’d out the floods
• And for a dolt’s cry into deep water
• Thrust both your life-days? No man the twain of you,
• Lief or loth were he, might lay wyte to stay you
• Your sorrowful journey, when on the sea row’d ye;
• Then when the ocean-stream ye with your arms deck’d,
• Meted the mere-streets, there your hands brandish’d!
• O’er the Spearman ye glided; the sea with waves welter’d,
• The surge of the winter. Ye twain in the waves’ might
• For a seven nights swink’d. He outdid thee in swimming,
• And the more was his might; but him in the morn-tide
• To the Heatho-Remes’ land the holm bore ashore,
• And thence away sought he to his dear land and lovely,
• The lief to his people sought the land of the Brondings,
• The fair burg peace-warding, where he the folk owned,
• The burg and the gold rings. What to thee-ward he boasted,
• Beanstan’s son, for thee soothly he brought it about.
• Now ween I for thee things worser than erewhile,
• Though thou in the war-race wert everywhere doughty,
• In the grim war, if thou herein Grendel darest
• Night-long for a while of time nigh to abide.
• Then Beowulf spake out, the Ecgtheow’s bairn:
• What! thou no few of things, O Unferth my friend,
• And thou drunken with beer, about Breca hast spoken,
• Saidest out of his journey; so the sooth now I tell:
• To wit, that the more might ever I owned,
• Hard wearing on wave more than any man else.
• We twain then, we quoth it, while yet we were younglings,
• And we boasted between us, the twain of us being yet
• In our youth-days, that we out onto the Spearman
• Our lives would adventure; and e’en so we wrought it.
• We had a sword naked, when on the sound row’d we,
• Hard in hand, as we twain against the whale-fishes
• Had mind to be warding us. No whit from me
• In the waves of the sea-flood afar might he float
• The hastier in holm, nor would I from him hie me.
• Then we two together, we were in the sea
• For a five nights, till us twain the flood drave asunder,
• The weltering of waves. Then the coldest of weathers
• In the dusking of night and the wind from the northward
• Battle-grim turn’d against us, rough grown were the billows.
• Of the mere-fishes then was the mood all upstirred;
• There me ’gainst the loathly the body-sark mine,
• The hard and the hand-lock’d, was framing me help,
• My battle-rail braided, it lay on my breast
• Gear’d graithly with gold. But me to the ground tugg’d
• A foe and fiend-scather; fast he had me in hold
• That grim one in grip: yet to me was it given,
• That the wretch there, the monster, with point might I reach,
• With my bill of the battle, and the war-race off bore
• The mighty mere-beast through the hand that was mine.