Beowulf · J. Lesslie (John Lesslie) Hall translation

Note 3
XXXV. REMINISCENCES (continued).—BEOWULF’S LAST BATTLE.

The translation of this passage is based on ‘unsláw’ (2565), accepted by H.-So., in lieu of the long-standing ‘ungléaw.’ The former is taken as an adj. limiting ‘sweord’; the latter as an adj. c. ‘gúð-cyning’: The good war-king, rash with edges, brandished his sword, his old relic. The latter gives a more rhetorical Anglo-Saxon (poetical) sentence.

ITS PLACE IN THE BOOK

The ancient heirloom, of edges unblunted,3

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