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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.

XXXIV.

BEOWULF GOES AGAINST THE WORM. HE TELLS OF HEREBEALD AND HÆTHCYN.

• OF that fall of the folk-king he minded the payment
• In days that came after: unto Eadgils he was
• A friend to him wretched; with folk he upheld him
• Over the wide sea, that same son of Ohthere,
• With warriors and weapons. Sithence had he wreaking
• With cold journeys of care: from the king took he life.
• Now each one of hates thus had he outlived,
• And of perilous slaughters, that Ecgtheow’s son,
• All works that be doughty, until that one day
• When he with the Worm should wend him to deal.
• So twelvesome he set forth all swollen with anger,
• The lord of the Geats, the drake to go look on.
• Aright had he learnt then whence risen the feud was,
• The bale-hate against men-folk: to his barm then had come
• The treasure-vat famous by the hand of the finder;
• He was in that troop of men the thirteenth
• Who the first of that battle had set upon foot,
• The thrall, the sad-minded; in shame must he thenceforth
• Wise the way to the plain; and against his will went he
• Thereunto, where the earth-hall the one there he wist,
• The howe under earth anigh the holm’s welling,
• The wave-strife: there was it now full all within
• With gems and with wires; the monster, the warden,
• The yare war-wolf, he held him therein the hoard golden,
• The old under the earth: it was no easy cheaping
• To go and to gain for any of grooms.
• Sat then on the ness there the strife-hardy king
• While farewell he bade to his fellows of hearth,
• The gold-friend of the Geats; sad was gotten his soul,
• Wavering, death-minded; weird nigh beyond measure,
• Which him old of years gotten now needs must be greeting,
• Must seek his soul’s hoard and asunder must deal
• His life from his body: no long while now was
• The life of the Atheling in flesh all bewounden.
• Now spake out Beowulf, Ecgtheow’s bairn:
• Many a one in my youth of war-onsets I outliv’d,
• And the whiles of the battle: all that I remember.
• Seven winters had I when the wielder of treasures,
• The lord-friend of folk, from my father me took,
• Held me and had me Hrethel the king,
• Gave me treasure and feast, and remember’d the friendship.
• For life thence I was not to him a whit loather,
• A berne in his burgs than his bairns were, or each one,
• Herebeald, or Hæthcyn, or Hygelac mine.
• For the eldest there was in unseemly wise
• By the mere deed of kinsman a murder-bed strawen,
• Whenas him did Hæthcyn from out of his hornbow,
• His lord and his friend, with shaft lay alow:
• His mark he miss’d shooting, and shot down his kinsman,
• One brother another with shaft all bebloody’d;
• That was fight feeless by fearful crime sinned,
• Soul-weary to heart, yet natheless then had
• The atheling from life all unwreak’d to be ceasing.
• So sad-like it is for a carle that is aged
• To be biding the while that his boy shall be riding
• Yet young on the gallows; then a lay should he utter,
• A sorrowful song whenas hangeth his son
• A gain unto ravens, and naught good of avail
• May he, old and exceeding old, anywise frame.
• Ever will he be minded on every each morning
• Of his son’s faring otherwhere; nothing he heedeth
• Of abiding another withinward his burgs,
• An heritage-warder, then whenas the one
• By the very death’s need hath found out the ill.
• Sorrow-careful he seeth within his son’s bower
• The waste wine-hall, the resting-place now of the winds,
• All bereft of the revel; the riders are sleeping,
• The heroes in grave, and no voice of the harp is,
• No game in the garths such as erewhile was gotten.