trothbreakers, cowards,[1] ten together,
fearing before to flourish a spear
in the sore distress of their sovran lord.
2580Now in their shame their shields they carried,
armor of fight, where the old man lay;
and they gazed on Wiglaf. Wearied he sat
at his sovran’s shoulder, shieldsman good,
to wake him with water.[2] Nowise it availed.
2855Though well he wished it, in world no more
could he barrier life for that leader-of-battles
nor baffle the will of all-wielding God.
Doom of the Lord was law o’er the deeds
of every man, as it is to-day.
2860Grim was the answer, easy to get,
from the youth for those that had yielded to fear!
Wiglaf spake, the son of Weohstan,—
mournful he looked on those men unloved:—
“Who sooth will speak, can say indeed
2865that the ruler who gave you golden rings
and the harness of war in which ye stand
—for he at ale-bench often-times
bestowed on hall-folk helm and breastplate,
lord to liegemen, the likeliest gear
2870which near or far he could find to give,—
threw away and wasted these weeds of battle,
- ↑ In Maldon the antitype of cowardice and false thaneship is furnished by the three sons of Odda,—Godric, who mounts his lord’s own horse when the chieftain falls, and flies to the woods and the fastness, Godwine, and Godwig. They will not stay to fall about their lord’s body, faithful in death, as do the rest.
- ↑ Trying to revive him. In the Anglo-Saxon Genesis, water “wakes” land into fertility.
