empty and idle, when evening sun
in the harbor of heaven is hidden away.
415So my vassals advised me well,—
brave and wise, the best of men,—
O sovran Hrothgar, to seek thee here,
for my nerve and my might they knew full well.
Themselves had seen me from slaughter come
420blood-flecked from foes, where five I bound,
and that wild brood worsted. I’ the waves I slew
nicors[1] by night, in need and peril
avenging the Weders,[2] whose woe they sought,—
crushing the grim ones. Grendel now,
425monster cruel, be mine to quell
in single battle! So, from thee,
thou sovran of the Shining-Danes,
Scyldings’-bulwark, a boon I seek,—
and, Friend-of-the-folk, refuse it not,
430O Warriors’-shield, now I’ve wandered far,—
that I alone with my liegemen here,
this hardy band, may Heorot purge!
- ↑ The nicor, says Bugge, is a hippopotamus; a walrus, says ten Brink. But that water-goblin who covers the space from Old Nick of jest to the Neckan and Nix of poetry and tale, is all one needs, and Nicor is a good name for him. Dan Michel in the fourteenth century renders sirens or sea-fairies by this word nicor. A glance, too, at Vigfusson’s Icelandic Dictionary, s.v. “Nykr,” is instructive. To square this story with vv. 550 ff., below, many emendations are proposed; but figures may be changed even in hunting-stories. Moreover, see vv. 574–7. There was genuine fear of sea-beasts among these men of the coast, and Horace’s monstra natantia (I, iii, 18) would have appealed to them as no matter for jests. They enhance the horror of Nicor’s Mere, below, v. 1425. Whales are specified in v. 541 as objects of fear; see note to v. 549.
- ↑ His own people, the Geats.
