Who the people erst governed. His companions by no means
Were banded about him, bairns of the princes,
With valorous spirit, but they sped to the forest,
Seeking for safety. The soul-deeps of one were
Ruffled by care: kin-love can never
Aught in him waver who well doth consider.
[1] The clause 2520(2)-2522(1), rendered by ‘Wist I … monster,’ Gr., followed by S., translates substantially as follows: If I knew how else I might combat the boastful defiance of the monster.—The translation turns upon ‘wiðgrípan,’ a word not understood.
[2] B. emends and translates: I will not flee the space of a foot from the guard of the barrow, but there shall be to us a fight at the wall, as fate decrees, each one’s Creator.
[3] The translation of this passage is based on ‘unsláw’ (2565), accepted by H.-So., in lieu of the long-standing ‘ungléaw.’ The former is taken as an adj. limiting ‘sweord’; the latter as an adj. c. ‘gúð-cyning’: The good war-king, rash with edges, brandished his sword, his old relic. The latter gives a more rhetorical Anglo-Saxon (poetical) sentence.