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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.

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 afore-time:
• 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.
• 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,
• 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
• 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 within-ward
• 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
• 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
• With his battle-bill; never his hand withheld sword-swing,
• So that there on her head sang the ring-sword for-sooth
• 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,
• 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,
• 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.
• 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.