"One shall sharp hunger slay; One shall the storms beat down; One be destroyed by darts, One die in war. Orre shall live losing The light of his eyes, Feel blindly with his fingers; And one lame of foot. With sinew-wound wearily Wasteth away. Musing and mourning; With death in his mind. * * * * * One shall die by the dagger, In wrath, drenched with ale, Wild through the wine, on the mead bench Too swift with his words Too swift with his words; Shall the wretched one lose."[9] The songs that we have noted, together with _Beowulf_, the greatest of them all, will give a fair idea of _scopic_ poetry. BEOWULF The Oldest Epic of the Teutonic Race.--The greatest monument of Anglo-Saxon poetry is called _Beowulf_, from the name of its hero. His character and exploits give unity and dignity to the poem and raise it to the rank of an epic. The subject matter is partly historical and partly mythical. The deeds and character of an actual hero may have furnished the first suggestions for the songs, which were finally elaborated into _Beowulf_, as we now have it. The poem was probably a long time in process of evolution, and many different _scops_ doubtless added new episodes to the song, altering it by expansion and contraction under the inspiration of different times and places. Finally, it seems probable that some one English poet gave the work its present form, making it a more unified whole, and incorporating in it Christian opinions. We do not know when the first _scop_ sang of Beowulf's exploits; but he probably began before the ancestors of the English came to England. We are unable to ascertain how long _Beowulf_ was in process of evolution; but there is internal evidence for thinking that part of the poem could not have been composed before 500 A.D. Ten Brink, a great German authority, thinks that Beowulf was given its present form not far from 700 A.D. The unique manuscript in the British Museum is written in the West Saxon dialect of Alfred the Great's time (849-901). The characters, scenery, and action of _Beowulf_ belong to the older Angle-land on the continent of Europe; but the poem is essentially English, even though the chief action is laid in what is now known as Denmark and the southern part of Sweden. Hrothgar's hall, near which the hero performed two of his great exploits, was probably on the island of Seeland. [Illustration: FACSIMILE OF BEGINNING OF COTTON MS. OF BEOWULF.] TRANSLATION Lo! we, of the Gar-Danes in distant days, The folk-kings' fame have found. How deeds of daring the aethelings did. Oft Scyld-Scefing from hosts of schathers, From many men the mead seats [reft]. The student who wishes to enter into the spirit of the poem will do well to familiarize himself with the position of these coasts, and with a description of their natural features in winter as well as in summer. Heine says of the sea which Beowulf sailed:--