The dear consort of the warlike Swede.
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o Hrothgar in time came triumph in battle, The glory of the sword, and his friendly kinsmenFlocked to serve him till the band of them was great,A host of eager retainers. And his mind Stirred him to command a hall to be built, A huger mead-house to be made and raised 2 Than any ever known to the children of men, 70Where he under its roof to young and oldWould distribute such gifts as God gave him,Everything but the lands and lives of his people.Not few, we are told, were the tribes who thenWere summoned to the work far throughout this world,To adorn that dwelling-place. And so in due time,Quickly as men laboured, it was all prepared,Most massive of halls; and he called it HeorotWhose word was authority far and wide.And his promise he performed, he presented rings, 80Treasure at banqueting. The hall towered upClifflike, broad-gabled: (it awaited flame-battling,Fire’s hostility; and not far offLay that sword-hatred ready to be rousedIn the deadly feud of father and son-in-law).But the outcast spirit haunting darknessBegan to suffer bitter sorrowWhen day after day he heard the happinessOf the hall resounding: the harp ringing,Sweet minstrelsinging—as the tongue skilled 9°In the distant conception and creation of menSang how the Almighty made the earth-fieldsBrilliant in beauty, bound by the sea,Set exulting sun and moonAs lamps for the light of living men,And loaded the acres of the world with jewelworkOf branch and leaf, bringing then to lifeEach kind of creature that moves and breathes.—So those retainers lived on in joyHappy all, till this one spirit, 100Hell in his mind, his malice began.Grendel the fiend’s name: grim, infamous,Wasteland-stalker, master of the moorsAnd the fen-fortress; the world of demonkindWas for long the home of the unhappy creatureAfter his Creator had cast him outWith the kin of Cain, the everlasting Lord 3 110 130 140 Destining for the death of Abel killed;A joyless feud, for he banished him far,His Maker for his crime, far from mankind.Progenitor he was of the miscreations,Kobolds and gogmagogs, lemurs and zombiesAnd the brood of titans that battled with GodAges long; for which he rewarded them. He went then to visit at the fall of nightThat lofty hall, to see how the DanesFared as they lay at the end of their carousing.Within it he found the band of warriorsSleeping after the feast; they were far from sorrow And the misery of men. The creature was like pestilence Raging and ravenous, quick at his task, Savage and unsparing, seizing thirty
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