Beowulf Silences Unferth—Glee Is High
“So ill-meaning enemies often did cause me Sorrow the sorest. I served them, in quittance, With my dear-lovèd sword, as in sooth it was fitting; They missed the pleasure of feasting abundantly, Ill-doers evil, of eating my body, Of surrounding the banquet deep in the ocean; But wounded with edges early at morning They were stretched a-high on the strand of the ocean, Put to sleep with the sword, that sea-going travelers No longer thereafter were hindered from sailing The foam-dashing currents. Came a light from the east, God’s beautiful beacon; the billows subsided, That well I could see the nesses projecting, The blustering crags. Weird often saveth The undoomed hero if doughty his valor! But me did it fortune to fell with my weapon Nine of the nickers. Of night-struggle harder ’Neath dome of the heaven heard I but rarely, Nor of wight more woeful in the waves of the ocean; Yet I ’scaped with my life the grip of the monsters, Weary from travel. Then the waters bare me To the land of the Finns, the flood with the current, The weltering waves. Not a word hath been told me Of deeds so daring done by thee, Unferth, And of sword-terror none; never hath Breca At the play of the battle, nor either of you two, Feat so fearless performèd with weapons Glinting and gleaming ⋮ ⋮ I utter no boasting; Though with cold-blooded cruelty thou killedst thy brothers, Thy nearest of kin; thou needs must in hell get Direful damnation, though doughty thy wisdom. I tell thee in earnest, offspring of Ecglaf, Never had Grendel such numberless horrors, The direful demon, done to thy liegelord, Harrying in Heorot, if thy heart were as sturdy, Thy mood as ferocious as thou dost describe them. He hath found out fully that the fierce-burning hatred, The edge-battle eager, of all of your kindred, Of the Victory-Scyldings, need little dismay him: Oaths he exacteth, not any he spares Of the folk of the Danemen, but