shield answers shaft. Yon shines the moon
full from the clouds; and foul deeds rise
10to whelm this people with peril and death.
But waken ye now, warriors mine;
seize your shields, be steadfast in valor,
fight at the front, and fearless bide!”
Then rose from rest, with ready courage,[1]
15many gold-decked thanes, and girt them with swords.
Then went to the door those warriors doughty,
Sigeferth[2] and Eawa, swords they drew;
to the other entrance, Ordlaf and Guthlaf,[3]
whom Hengest himself all hastily followed.
20Yet with Garulf[4] pleaded Guthere then
to draw no sword[5] at the door of the hall
nor risk at first rush his royal life
where the rugged-in-war[6] would wrest it from him.
- ↑ Conjectural, to mend a deficient line.
- ↑ See below, v. 26, and Widsith, v. 31, where he appears as Sæferth.
- ↑ See Beowulf, 1148, where the two are mentioned, Ordlaf appearing as Oslaf. Later they return to Frisian land and help to take vengeance on Finn. Gering points out that the names are “good Norse.”
- ↑ Garulf and Guthere are Frisians of the attacking party; one of them asks the other not to risk life in the first desperate onrush (Gering: in this his first battle).—Which is the petitioner? Recently Klaeber has proposed a reading which makes Guthere the spokesman and assumes that he is uncle to Garulf. As Hagen with Patafrid in the Waltharius, as Hildebrand with Wolfhart in the Nibelungen, so here Guthere pleads with his sister’s son not to risk life in the first onrush.
- ↑ Literally, not to carry his war-gear to the door, not to go there.
- ↑ Perhaps Sigeferth, whom Guthere sees at the door; but it may simply mean that a veteran and heroic champion is sure to be at the post, and that Garulf should wait for the general engagement rather than rush on sure death.
not be prosed into “rattled on,” or “clashed,” instead of “spoke.” Compare the passage (Andreas, 442) describing an ocean storm, where “The billow oft answered, one wave the other.”
