2630when once in fight the foes had met!
Wiglaf spake,—and his words were sage;
sad in spirit, he said to his comrades:—
“I remember the time,[1] when mead we took,
- ↑ See the famous talk of Biarco and Hialto which Saxo (Bk. II, Holder, pp.59 f.) says he got from “an old Danish song.” In Elton’s translation Hialto says: “Sweet it is to repay the gifts received from our lord…let us do with brave hearts all the things that in our cups we boasted…let us keep the vows which we swore. . . .” And Biarco (Bjarki): “I will die overpowered near the head of my slain Captain, and at his feet thou also shalt slip on thy face in death, so that whoso scans the piled corpses may see in what wise we rate the gold our lord gave us!”—As to “remembering the mead,” see Finnsburg, vv. 39 ff. The very words of Wiglaf, however, are echoed in Maldon by Ælwine, as the faithful thane exhorts his comrades to fight on nor forsake their slain lord.
“Remember what time at the mead we talked,
when on the benches our boasts we made,
heroes in hall, of the hard encounter:
now may be kenned whose courage avails!
I will my kinship make clear to all,
that I was in Mercia of mighty race.
My agéd father was Ealhelm named. . . .
None of the lords of my land shall taunt me
I was fain from this field to flee away,
my life to save now my lord lies dead,
all hewn in combat,—my cruelest grief:
for he was my kinsman and captain both.”Offa exhorted in the same vein; and then—
Leofsunu spake and lifted his shield:—
“This is my hest that hence I flee not
a footbreadth’s space, but will further go
to revenge in fight my friend-and-lord.
Nor need at Sturmere steadfast thanes
jeer and taunt that I journeyed home,
when my liege had fallen, a lordless man.”
with praise and admiration of Germanic loyalty among the warriors of the first and second centuries. Cæsar, as one would expect, looks at the institution from a practical military man’s point of view.
