The prince’s journey by prudent folk
was little blamed, though they loved him dear;
they whetted the hero, and hailed good omens.[1]
205And now the bold one from bands of Geats
comrades chose, the keenest of warriors
e’er he could find; with fourteen men[2]
the sea-wood[3] he sought, and, sailor[4] proved,
led them on to the land’s confines.
210Time had now flown;[5] afloat was the ship,
boat under bluff. On board they climbed,
warriors ready; waves were churning
sea with sand; the sailors bore
on the breast of the bark their bright array,
215their mail and weapons: the men pushed off,
on its willing way, the well-braced craft.
Then moved o’er the waters by might of the wind
that bark like a bird with breast of foam,
till in season due, on the second day,
220the curved prow such course had run
- ↑ Literally, “looked about for signs and omens”; but by implication the omens are good. Many of these old customs are preserved in tradition or by record; and the chapter of Tacitus’s Germania is familiar which describes one of them in detail. By Hygelac’s own account (vv. 1994 ff.) the friends of Beowulf did try to hold him back from his perilous undertaking.
- ↑ In the language of the original, and of modern golf, Beowulf goes on a “fifteen-some,” as one of fifteen.
- ↑ Ship.
- ↑ In the Nibelungen Lay one is told that Siegfried—also a slayer of dragons and a winner of gold—is a good sailor (367, 3):In the next stanza the start of the ship is described; and Siegfried himself helps to push off from shore, using “a pole.”
Die rehten wazzersträze sint mir wol bekant.
- ↑ That Is, since Beowulf selected his ship and led his men to the harbor.
