be helpful in deed and uphold his joys!
Here every earl to the other is true,
mild of mood, to the master loyal!
1230Thanes are friendly, the throng obedient,
liegemen are revelling: list and obey!”[1]
Went then to her place.—That was proudest of feasts;
flowed wine for the warriors. Wyrd they knew not,
destiny dire, and the doom to be seen
1235by many an earl[2] when eve should come,
and Hrothgar homeward hasten away,
royal, to rest. The room was guarded
by an army of earls, as erst was done.
They bared the bench-boards; abroad they spread
1240beds and bolsters.—One beer-carouser
in danger of doom[3] lay down in the hall.—
At their heads they set their shields of war,
bucklers bright; on the bench were there
over each atheling, easy to see,
1245the high battle-helmet, the haughty spear,
the corselet of rings. ’Twas their custom so
ever to be for battle prepared,
at home, or harrying, which it were,
even as oft as evil threatened
- ↑ Literally, “Do as I bid.”
- ↑ Litotes for “all.” The fatal stroke hovered over them all, though only one was actually stricken.
- ↑ Literally, “ready to go [sc. to death], and fey,” on the verge of death, and a marked man.
- ↑ The Gnomic poetry of the Exeter Ms., 178 ff., describes. In what may be stanzaic verse, how clansmen or comites ought to live in fellowship, and especially that they should sleep under one roof, remaining a united band by night as well as by day:
