power in the gripe of the grim one. Gruesome
march to Heorot this monster of harm had made!
Din filled the room; the Danes were bereft, castle-dwellers
and clansmen all, earls, of their ale. Angry
were both those savage hall-guards: the house
resounded. Wonder it was the wine-hall firm
in the strain of their struggle stood, to earth the
fair house fell not; too fast it was within and without
by its iron bands craftily clamped; though there crashed
from sill many a mead-bench — men have
told me — gay with gold, where the grim
foes wrestled. So well had weened the wisest
Scyldings that not ever at all might any man that
bone-decked, brave house break asunder, crush by craft,
— unless clasp of fire in smoke engulfed
it.
— Again uprose din redoubled.
Danes of the North with fear and frenzy were filled,
each one, who from the wall that wailing heard, God’s
foe sounding his grisly song, cry of the conquered,
clamorous pain from captive of hell. Too closely
held him he who of men in might was strongest in
that same day of this our life.
XII
Not in any wise would the earls’-defence
{12a} suffer that slaughterous stranger to live,
useless deeming his days and years to men on earth.
Now many an earl of Beowulf brandished blade ancestral,
fain the life of their lord to shield, their praised
prince, if power were theirs; never they knew, —
as they neared the foe, hardy-hearted heroes of war,
aiming their swords on every side the accursed to
kill, — no keenest blade, no farest of
falchions fashioned on earth, could harm or hurt that
hideous fiend! He was safe, by his spells, from
sword of battle, from edge of iron. Yet his end
and parting on that same day of this our life woful
should be, and his wandering soul far off flit to
the fiends’ domain. Soon he found, who
in former days, harmful in heart and hated of God,
on many a man such murder wrought, that the frame
of his body failed him now. For him the keen-souled
kinsman of Hygelac held in hand; hateful alive was
each to other. The outlaw dire took mortal hurt;
a mighty wound showed on his shoulder, and sinews
cracked, and the bone-frame burst. To Beowulf
now the glory was given, and Grendel thence death-sick
his den in the dark moor sought, noisome abode:
he knew too well that here was the last of life,
an end of his days on earth. — To all the
Danes by that bloody battle the boon had come.
From ravage had rescued the roving stranger Hrothgar’s
hall; the hardy and wise one had purged it anew.
His night-work pleased him, his deed and its honor.
To Eastern Danes had the valiant Geat his vaunt made
good, all their sorrow and ills assuaged, their bale
of battle borne so long, and all the dole they erst
endured pain a-plenty. — ’Twas proof
of this, when the hardy-in-fight a hand laid down,
arm and shoulder, — all, indeed, of Grendel’s
gripe, — ’neath the gabled roof.
