BEOWULF spake, bairn of Ecgtheow:

“Sorrow not, sage! It beseems us better

friends to avenge than fruitlessly mourn them.

Each of us all must his end abide

in the ways of the world; so win who may

glory ere death! When his days are told,

that is the warrior’s worthiest doom.

Rise, O realm-warder! Ride we anon,

and mark the trail of the mother of Grendel.

No harbor shall hide her — heed my promise! —

enfolding of field or forested mountain

or floor of the flood, let her flee where she will!

But thou this day endure in patience,

as I ween thou wilt, thy woes each one.”

Leaped up the graybeard: God he thanked,

mighty Lord, for the man’s brave words.

For Hrothgar soon a horse was saddled

wave-maned steed. The sovran wise

stately rode on; his shield-armed men

followed in force. The footprints led

along the woodland, widely seen,

a path o’er the plain, where she passed, and trod

the murky moor; of men-at-arms

she bore the bravest and best one, dead,

him who with Hrothgar the homestead ruled.

On then went the atheling-born

o’er stone-cliffs steep and strait defiles,

narrow passes and unknown ways,

headlands sheer, and the haunts of the Nicors.

Foremost he 62 fared, a few at his side

of the wiser men, the ways to scan,

till he found in a flash the forested hill

hanging over the hoary rock,

a woful wood: the waves below

were dyed in blood. The Danish men

had sorrow of soul, and for Scyldings all,

for many a hero, ’twas hard to bear,

ill for earls, when Aeschere’s head

they found by the flood on the foreland there.

Waves were welling, the warriors saw,

hot with blood; but the horn sang oft

battle-song bold. The band sat down,

and watched on the water worm-like things,

sea-dragons strange that sounded the deep,

and nicors that lay on the ledge of the ness —

such as oft essay at hour of morn

on the roa............