In this fitt, Beowulf takes his revenge on King Onela of the Swedes for killing Heardred.
Coming back to the present, we are told that twelve men, including Beowulf, are in the dragon-hunting party, not including the person who had stolen the dragon's cup. He, the thirteenth man, goes to guide them.
I assume this passage is the origin of Michael Crichton's concept of "the thirteenth warrior" in the book Eaters of the Dead (later a movie called The Thirteenth Warrior). The narrator of the book explains:
I learned that these Northmen have some notion that the year does not fit with exactitude into thirteen passages of the moon, and thus the number thirteen is not stable and fixed in their minds. The thirteenth passage is called magical and foreign, and Herger says, "Thus for the thirteenth man you were chosen as foreign."I should mention that Eaters of the Dead is, in part, a retelling of Beowulf.
Beowulf sits on a sea cliff and feels that his death is close. He tells his companions how Hrethel had taken him in at the age of seven and treated him as a son. He also says that one of Hrethel's three natural sons, Herebeald, had accidentally killed another Haethcyn. Worse than the death, he says, is the fact that the king cannot, in these circumstances, receive proper repayment for the loss.
That situation is like, we are told, that of a man who sees his son sentenced to hang. His life feels empty, over. Nothing can be done. This famous passage is called "The Father's Lament."
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- BEOWULF'S REVENGE FOR HEARDRED. THE FATHER'S LAMENT.
He
remembered the price of a prince's death.
In
days to come, he became Eagdil's
friend
in misfortune. His forces went
over
the ocean to Ohtere's son,
warriors
and weapons. He was avenged.
He
killed the old king in cold onslaughts.
So
he came safely through such encounters
in
every case, Ecgtheow's son
with
daring deeds, till the day had come
that
drove Beowulf to battle the dragon.
The
Geat lord went, one out of twelve,
swollen
with rage, to see the dragon.
He
had then heard how the feud started,
the
cursed conflict. He clutched to his breast
the
costly cup come from the informant.
They
took the thrall as the thirteenth man,
the
one who started the strife and pain.
The
miserable captive was made to come
as
guide to the grave, against his will,
the
hall in the earth that he alone knew
the
buried barrow with billows near,
the
struggling sea. Inside was filled
with
worked gold and wires, watched by a beast
an
aggressive guard grasping the treasures
old
under earth. No easy bargain
for
any man entering there.
The
king sat on the cliffs, accustomed to war.
and
welcomed his hearthmates with wishes for health,
the
Geats' gold-friend, now given to sadness,
fretting
and fierce, his fate beside him,
ready
to greet the grey-haired man
to
seize his soul's wealth, sever the link
of
life and limb. No long time would
the
noble's breath be bound in his flesh.
Beowulf
said, the son of Ecgtheow,
"I
often, when young, weathered blows,
in
times of war. I remember them all.
I
was seven winters when the wealthy lord,
the
folk's lord and friend, from my father took me
to
have and to hold. Hrethel, the king
gave
feasts and gifts, regardful of kinship.
Throughout
my life there, he thought me no less,
a
man of his fortress, than his flesh and blood,
Herebald
and Haethcyn and my Hygelac.
Without warning,
the eldest of these
was
borne to his death-bed by a brother's act,
when
Haethcyn killed him with a horn-bow,
his
lord and friend felled by an arrow
that
missed its mark, and murdered his kinsman,
one
brother the other, with a bloody shaft.
No
fee made it good, a grievous wrong,
exhausting
the heart, but, hard as it is,
the
earl must die without requital.
It
is tragic for an aged man
to
suffer the sight of his son riding,
a
youth on the gallows. He gives a lament
a
sorrowful song that his son hangs there
to
comfort a raven. He cannot give
from
age or wisdom, any assistance
He
still remembers, every morning
who
had departed. He hopes for no other
and
will not wait walled up for a child
to
inherit his wealth, when the one he had
by
Death's decree was cruelly treated.
He
sees, in sadness, his son's dwelling,
the
wine-hall wasted, a wind-swept shelter,
robbed
of pleasure. The riders sleep,
heroes hidden. No harp resounds
in
happy halls, as had once been.
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