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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.

XXII.

THEY FOLLOW GRENDEL’S DAM TO HER LAIR.

• SPAKE out then Beowulf the Ecgtheow’s bairn:
• O wise of men, mourn not; for to each man ’tis better
• That his friend he awreak than weep overmuch.
• Lo! each of us soothly abideth the ending
• Of the life of the world. Then let him work who work may
• High deeds ere the death: to the doughty of war-lads
• When he is unliving shall it best be hereafter.
• Rise up, warder of kingdom! and swiftly now wend we
• The Grendel Kinswoman’s late goings to look on;
• And this I behote thee, that to holm shall she flee not,
• Nor into earth’s fathom, nor into the fell-holt,
• Nor the grounds of the ocean, go whereas she will go.
• For this one of days patience dree thou a while then
• Of each one of thy woes, as I ween it of thee.
• Then leapt up the old man, and lightly gave God thank,
• That mighty of Lords, for the word which the man spake.
• And for Hrothgar straightway then was bitted a horse,
• A wave-maned steed: and the wise of the princes
• Went stately his ways; and stepp’d out the mantroop,
• The linden-board bearers. Now lightly the tracks were
• All through the woodland ways wide to be seen there,
• Her goings o’er ground; she had gotten her forthright
• Over the mirk-moor: bore she of kindred thanes
• The best that there was, all bare of his soul,
• Of them that with Hrothgar heeded the home.
• Overwent then that bairn of the athelings
• Steep bents of the stones, and stridings full narrow,
• Strait paths nothing pass’d over, ways all uncouth,
• Sheer nesses to wit, many houses of nicors.
• He one of the few was going before
• Of the wise of the men the meadow to look on,
• Until suddenly there the trees of the mountains
• Over the hoar-stone found he a-leaning,
• A wood without gladness: the water stood under
• Dreary and troubled. Unto all the Danes was it,
• To the friends of the Scyldings, most grievous in mood
• To many of thanes such a thing to be tholing,
• Sore evil to each one of earls, for of Aeschere
• The head did they find e’en there on the holmcliff;
• The flood with gore welled (the folk looking on it),
• With hot blood. But whiles then the horn fell to singing
• A song of war eager. There sat down the band;
• They saw down the water a many of worm-kind,
• Sea-drakes seldom seen a-kenning the sound;
• Likewise on the ness-bents nicors a-lying,
• Who oft on the undern-tide wont are to hold them
• A course full of sorrow all over the sail-road.
• Now the worms and the wild-deer away did they speed
• Bitter and wrath-swollen all as they heard it,
• The war-horn a-wailing: but one the Geats’ warden
• With his bow of the shafts from his life-days there sunder’d,
• From his strife of the waves; so that stood in his life-parts
• The hard arrow of war; and he in the holm was
• The slower in swimming as death away swept him.
• So swiftly in sea-waves with boar-spears forsooth
• Sharp-hook’d and hard-press’d was he thereupon,
• Set on with fierce battle, and on to the ness tugg’d,
• The wondrous wave-bearer; and men were beholding
• The grisly guest. Beowulf therewith he gear’d him
• With weed of the earls: nowise of life reck’d he:
• Needs must his war-byrny, braided by hands,
• Wide, many-colour’d by cunning, the sound seek,
• E’en that which his bone-coffer knew how to ward,
• So that the war-grip his heart ne’er a while,
• The foe-snatch of the wrathful his life ne’er should scathe;
• Therewith the white war-helm warded his head,
• E’en that which should mingle with ground of the mere,
• And seek the sound-welter, with treasure beworthy’d,
• All girt with the lordly chains, as in days gone by
• The weapon-smith wrought it most wondrously done,
• Beset with the swine-shapes, so that sithence
• The brand or the battle-blades never might bite it.
• Nor forsooth was that littlest of all of his mainstays,
• Which to him in his need lent the spokesman of Hrothgar,
• E’en the battle-sword hafted that had to name Hrunting,
• That in fore days was one of the treasures of old,
• The edges of iron with the poison twigs o’er-stain’d,
• With battle-sweat harden’d; in the brunt never fail’d he
• Any one of the warriors whose hand wound about him,
• Who in grisly wayfarings durst ever to wend him
• To the folk-stead of foemen. Not the first of times was it
• That battle-work doughty it had to be doing.
• Forsooth naught remember’d that son there of Ecglaf,
• The crafty in mighty deeds, what ere he quoth
• All drunken with wine, when the weapon he lent
• To a doughtier sword-wolf: himself naught he durst it
• Under war of the waves there his life to adventure
• And warrior-ship work. So forwent he the glory,
• The fair fame of valour. Naught far’d so the other
• Syth he to the war-tide had gear’d him to wend.