"beowulf" - читать интересную книгу автора (Beowulf)

was the high-seat midway between the doors. Opposite this, on the other
raised space, was another seat of honor. At the banquet soon to be
described, Hrothgar sat in the south or chief high-seat, and Beowulf oppo-
site to him. The scene for a flying (see below, v.499) was thus very
effectively set. Planks on trestles -- the "board" of later English litera-
ture -- formed the tables just in front of the long rows of seats, and were
taken away after banquets, when the retainers were ready to stretch them-
selves out for sleep on the benches.
[2] Fire was the usual end of these halls. See v. 781 below. One thinks
of the splendid scene at the end of the Nibelungen, of the Nialssaga, of
Saxo's story of Amlethus, and many a less famous instance.
[3] It is to be supposed that all hearers of this poem knew how Hrothgar's
hall was burnt, -- perhaps in the unsuccessful attack made on him by his
son-in-law Ingeld.
[4] A skilled minstrel. The Danes are heathens, as one is told presently;
but this lay of beginnings is taken from Genesis.
[5] A disturber of the border, one who sallies from his haunt in the fen
and roams over the country near by. This probably pagan nuisance is now
furnished with biblical credentials as a fiend or devil in good standing, so
that all Christian Englishmen might read about him. "Grendel" may
mean one who grinds and crushes.
[6] Cain's.
[7] Giants.


II

WENT he forth to find at fall of night
that haughty house, and heed wherever
the Ring-Danes, outrevelled, to rest had gone.
Found within it the atheling band
asleep after feasting and fearless of sorrow,
of human hardship. Unhallowed wight,
grim and greedy, he grasped betimes,
wrathful, reckless, from resting-places,
thirty of the thanes, and thence he rushed
fain of his fell spoil, faring homeward,
laden with slaughter, his lair to seek.
Then at the dawning, as day was breaking,
the might of Grendel to men was known;
then after wassail was wail uplifted,
loud moan in the morn. The mighty chief,
atheling excellent, unblithe sat,
labored in woe for the loss of his thanes,
when once had been traced the trail of the fiend,
spirit accurst: too cruel that sorrow,
too long, too loathsome. Not late the respite;
with night returning, anew began
ruthless murder; he recked no whit,
firm in his guilt, of the feud and crime.