XLII
A perilous path, it proved, he[1] trod
who heinously hid, that hall within,
3060wealth under wall! Its watcher had killed
one of a few,[2] and the feud was avenged
in woful fashion. Wondrous seems it,
what manner a man of might and valor
oft ends his life, when the earl no longer
3035in mead-hall may live with loving friends.
So Beowulf, when that barrow’s warden
he sought, and the struggle; himself knew not
in what wise he should wend from the world at last.
For[3] princes potent, who placed the gold,
3070with a curse to doomsday covered it deep,
so that marked with sin the man should be,
hedged with horrors, in hell-bonds fast,
racked with plagues, who should rob their hoard.
Yet no greed for gold, but the grace of heaven,
3075ever the king had kept in view.[4]
Wiglaf spake, the son of Weohstan:—
“At the mandate of one, oft warriors many
sorrow must suffer; and so must we.
The people’s-shepherd showed not aught
- ↑ Probably the fugitive is meant who discovered the hoard. Ten Brink and Gering assume that the dragon is meant. “Hid” (the Ms. reading) may well mean here “took while in hiding.”
- ↑ That is, “one and a few others.” But Beowulf seems to he indicated.
- ↑ Ten Brink points out the strongly heathen character of this part of the epic. Beowulf’s end came, so the old tradition ran, from his unwitting interference with spell-bound treasure.
- ↑ A hard saying, variously interpreted. In any case, it is the somewhat clumsy effort of the Christian poet to tone down the heathenism of his material by an edifying observation.
