Work Text:
Appendix B: Related Works: Freawaru's Lament
Though never named, this poem's speaker is clearly Freawaru, daughter of Hrothgar and wife of Ingeld, whose situation parallels that of Hildiburh in the Finnsburg fragment. The work's date and provenance have proven as difficult to pin down as Beowulf's (see Appendix A.) Scholars are in general agreement that the Freawaru poet was familiar with Beowulf, or at the very least with its immediate sources; the "Lament" borrows considerably from the longer poem, not only in details of history and nomenclature, but in imagery and word choice as well. Attempts to identify the poem's authorship more clearly-- either to attribute it to the Beowulf poet, or to dissociate it from him-- have been universally inconclusive.
Wretched the woman who wakes alone,
And on the sea-cliffs from sun's rise
Till the deep waters drown its light
Watches the ship-road and the shore beyond
For men returning from the raven's feast,
The field of the slain far over the waves,
From fire and slaughter to the sheltering hall
Coming safe home-- sons and their father,
Her own dear lord from Denmark returning.
But no track crosses the tide-rocked waves,
No sight of sail sped by the wind
To the haven coming, and the high hall.
Ill go the days instead for the lady-
Smoke rises from the smoldering hall
A dark wake through the welling clouds--
Birds follow that track like fish that leap
In the shimmering paths of sharp-prowed ships,
But hither no ravens come-- to the heavens only
They fly, and between us the flood is still,
The sea is pathless; I shall not see them more.
Glad was I, in days past, to be given in marriage
To my lord and friend, Froda's son,
Ingeld the Heathobard, but heart-sore now
I long for my kinsmen and my lost maidenhood.
For my lord's house I left my father's
At fifteen, as a pledge of peace between them.
I sealed our kinship, sons I bore him,
In his hall, in his bed were the best of joys.
Sorrowful the woman whose sons with their kinsmen
No kinship honor, who come with battle
To walls that guarded her, a maid growing up,
To doors that now keep those dearest her apart!
Well I remember that renowned hall,
Horn-gabled Heorot, high roofs that rang
With voices singing; the shield-hung walls
Gleamed with firelight, filled with song.
There I saw Beowulf, the son of Ecgtheow
Who in later years was lord of the Geats,
Keenest of champions. When killing beset us,
When the mere-dweller with murder assailed us,
Ecgtheow's son came south over sea,
Eager for the fight, to my father's help.
No shield he bore when he bested the foe,
Nor drew no lordly light of battle,
No gold-wound sword with shining edge--
The hero needed only his hands' own strength.
Well-worked gold was the warrior's reward,
Lordly tributes and lasting fame.
One gift he gave us: Grendel's death.
What bliss for the Danes when that battle was won.
What joy in wine-- well I remember!--
In gold ring-gifts and the glee of the harp.
We ran to make ready the ruined hall,
When the news spread that our sorrow had passed.
The bloodied doors on their broken hinges
Were laid open to the people of the land of Scyld,
To noble and earl and old companions,
Gold-friends and warriors, and good men all.
Weapon-bearers, spearmen, with their women came,
Herdsmen from the hills, from the harbor, the sailors--
All came who heard tidings, or the token saw,
The arm of the monster to all eyes shown.
The fairest webs we hung, fires we kindled,
Brim-full I filled the fretted cup,
And deep they drank-- the Danes, the Geats,
Hrethric and Hrothmund and Hrothgar my father.
Then light-footed I tread the floor of the hall
To bear the honeyed cup to the hero himself,
To bring mead to the man by the Maker most blessed.
No gold I gave him, but the gift of bees,
Bright mead from my cup Beowulf drank.
Loud dinned the hall, long the men feasted;
The terror gone, they gathered in joy.
None could know that the nicor-wife,
Cruel wolf of the water watched the hall;
Nor did that man know when mead I poured for him,
That ere two suns had set he must seek a new foe
Over rime-cold fen follow her tracks,
Her dreadful spoor, spilled blood-drops.
Alone that one lived, lonely and wretched,
In the mere's mirk mourning her child
(And whether she missed some man as well,
A night-companion, none can say.)
To her pool he pursued her, pressed by need
Over flood and fold his feud drove him
To her secret home in the stream's deep bed,
To the guarded lake-floor of Grendel's mother.
But her hidden lair little availed her;
Nor did chill water ward her from death.
Then blood-dreared banners and broken doors,
Hinge and lintel were made level and whole,
On the floors, new color, and cladding of gold
Was laid on the beams and the bright gables.
Far over the land with light it shone,
Most glorious Heorot. Its gleaming roof
Alone of its adornments was ever unfallen,
Nor scathed in the slaughters of the shadow-dwellers.
Fear the foes brought but fire never.
Now over the sounding sea the smoke is high,
And the horn-crowned roofs from the heavens fall,
Crumble to gledes and glowing embers.
They have done it, my kin, what Cain's lineage,
The fearsome nicors could never do:
Burned the bench-floor with bale and flame,
Burned Heorot, wall and bower and roof.
From across the water, I watch the shore,
I wait for my children who worked this ruin.
But by the cold sea-road will they come no more--
Smoke treads a path, a pyre-road,
On the ravens' shore, and to my sea-girt home
Comes no man to seek me who mothered my sons,
Who bore the burners, the banes of the Scyldings.