Spake out then Beowulf, Ecgtheow's bairn: What! we the sea-spoils here to thee, son of Healfdene, High lord of the Scyldings, with lust have brought hither For a token of glory, e'en these thou beholdest. Now I all unsoftly with life I escaped, In war under the water dar'd I the work Full hard to be worked, and well-nigh there was The sundering of strife, save that me God had shielded. So it is that in battle naught might I with Hrunting One whit do the work, though the weapon be doughty; 1660 But to me then he granted, the Wielder of men, That on wall I beheld there all beauteous hanging An ancient sword, might-endow'd (often he leadeth right The friendless of men); so forth drew I that weapon. In that onset I slew there, as hap then appaid me, The herd of the house; then that bill of the host, The broider'd sword, burn'd up, and that blood sprang forth The hottest of battle-sweats; but the hilts thereof thenceforth From the foemen I ferry'd. I wreaked the foul deeds, The death-quelling of Danes, e'en as duly behoved. 1670 Now this I behote thee, that here in Hart mayst thou Sleep sorrowless henceforth with the host of thy men And the thanes every one that are of thy people Of doughty and young; that for them need thou dread not, O high lord of Scyldings, on that behalf soothly Life-bale for the earls as erst thou hast done. Then was the hilt golden to the ancient of warriors, The hoary of host-leaders, into hand given, The old work of giants; it turn'd to the owning, After fall of the Devils, of the lord of the Danes, 1680 That work of the wonder-smith, syth gave up the world The fierce-hearted groom, the foeman of God, The murder-beguilted, and there eke his mother; Unto the wielding of world-kings it turned, The best that there be betwixt of the sea-floods Of them that in Scaney dealt out the scat. Now spake out Hrothgar, as he look'd on the hilts there, The old heir-loom whereon was writ the beginning Of the strife of the old time, whenas the flood slew, The ocean a-gushing, that kin of the giants 1690 As fiercely they fared. That was a folk alien To the Lord everlasting; so to them a last guerdon Through the welling of waters the Wielder did give. So was on the sword-guards all of the sheer gold By dint of the rune-staves rightly bemarked, Set down and said for whom first was that sword wrought, And the choice of all irons erst had been done, Wreath-hilted and worm-adorn'd. Then spake the wise one, Healfdene's son, and all were gone silent: Lo that may he say, who the right and the soothfast 1700 Amid the folk frameth, and far back all remembers, The old country's warden, that as for this earl here Born better was he. Uprear'd is the fame-blast Through wide ways far yonder, O Beowulf, friend mine, Of thee o'er all peoples.