There at haven stood, hung with rings the ship,
Ice-bright, for the outpath eager, craft of Aethelings.
So their lord, the well-beloved, all at length they laid
In the bosom of the bark, him the bracelet-giver,--
By the mast the mighty king. Many gifts were there
Fretted things of fairness brought from far-off ways.--
Never heard I of a keel hung more comelily about
With the weeds of war, with the weapons of the battle,
With the bills and byrnies. On his breast there lay
A great heap of gems that should go with him,
Far to fare away in the Flood’s possession[2]. --Page 26.
[Footnote 1: The swimming-match is not available for illustration
here.]
[Footnote 2: In the second edition, the penultimate line reads,
‘Jewels great and heaped,’ &c.]
_Criticism of the Translation._
While the extracts cannot always be praised for their accuracy, they
are, perhaps, sufficiently faithful for a popular work. When the author
undertakes to emend the text for himself, or offers an original
interpretation, his work is not always trustworthy. Emendations in his
Beowulf selections, however, are rare.
The style of the extracts seems needlessly obscure. This is due in part
to following too closely the original word-order (see lines 4 and 5 of
the extract), and in part to the free use of archaic language. Mr.
Brooke does not hesitate to employ such forms as, ‘house-carles,’
‘grit-wall,’ ‘ness-slopes,’ ‘host-shafts,’ ‘war-wood,’ ‘gold-flakèd
shields,’ ‘grinning-masked helms,’ which it would seem must be quite
unintelligible to the majority of Mr. Brooke’s readers.
The verse, which has been fully discussed above, is, perhaps, the most
satisfactory feature of Mr. Brooke’s work. Of course it is not strictly
imitative, as he himself explains, but it gives a fairly good impression
of the movement of the Old English verse.