If earth-joys thou endest earlier than he doth;
I reckon that recompense he’ll render with kindness
Our offspring and issue, if that all he remember,
What favors of yore, when he yet was an infant,
We awarded to him for his worship and pleasure.”
Then she turned by the bench where her sons were carousing,
Hrethric and Hrothmund, and the heroes’ offspring,
The war-youth together; there the good one was sitting
’Twixt the brothers twain, Beowulf Geatman.
[1] For 1130 (1) R. and Gr. suggest ‘elne unflitme’ as 1098 (1) reads. The latter verse is undisputed; and, for the former, ‘elne’ would be as possible as ‘ealles,’ and ‘unflitme’ is well supported. Accepting ‘elne unflitme’ for both, I would suggest ‘very peaceably’ for both places: (1) Finn to Hengest very peaceably vowed with oaths, etc. (2) Hengest then still the slaughter-stained winter remained there with Finn very peaceably. The two passages become thus correlatives, the second a sequel of the first. ‘Elne,’ in the sense of very (swíðe), needs no argument; and ‘unflitme’ (from ‘flítan’) can, it seems to me, be more plausibly rendered ‘peaceful,’ ‘peaceable,’ than ‘contestable,’ or ‘conquerable.’