"Anonymous - Beowulf" - читать интересную книгу автора (Anonymous)

high, gabled wide, the hot surge waiting
of furious flame.2 Nor far was that day
when father and son-in-law stood in feud
for warfare and hatred that woke again.3
With envy and anger an evil spirit
endured the dole in his dark abode,
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that he heard each day the din of revel
high in the hall: there harps rang out,
clear song of the singer. He sang who knew4
tales of the early time of man,
how the Almighty made the earth,
fairest fields enfolded by water,
set, triumphant, sun and moon
for a light to lighten the land-dwellers,
and braided bright the breast of earth
with limbs and leaves, made life for all
of mortal beings that breathe and move.
So lived the clansmen in cheer and revel
a winsome life, till one began
to fashion evils, that field of hell.
Grendel this monster grim was called,
march-riever5 mighty, in moorland living,
in fen and fastness; fief of the giants
the hapless wight a while had kept
since the Creator his exile doomed.
On kin of Cain was the killing avenged
by sovran God for slaughtered Abel.
Ill fared his feud,6 and far was he driven,
for the slaughter's sake, from sight of men.
Of Cain awoke all that woful breed,
Etins7 and elves and evil-spirits,
as well as the giants that warred with God
weary while: but their wage was paid them!

[1] That is, "The Hart," or "Stag," so called from decorations in the
gables that resembled the antlers of a deer. This hall has been carefully
described in a pamphlet by Heyne. The building was rectangular, with
opposite doors -- mainly west and east -- and a hearth in the middle of the
single room. A row of pillars down each side, at some distance from the
walls, made a space which was raised a little above the main floor, and was
furnished with two rows of seats. On one side, usually south, was the
high-seat midway between the doors. Opposite this, on the other raised
space, was another seat of honor. At the banquet soon to be described,
Hrothgar sat in the south or chief high-seat, and Beowulf oppo- site to
him. The scene for a flying (see below, v.499) was thus very effectively
set. Planks on trestles -- the "board" of later English litera- ture --
formed the tables just in front of the long rows of seats, and were taken