User:Mårtensås/Hildebrandslied/trans
Derived from my full edition and translation.
1 I heard it said, that two contenders alone did meet: Hildbrand and Hathbrand, under two hosts.[1] Son and father ordered their armour, readied their war-cloth, girded their swords on, the heroes over the mail, when to that battle they rode.
7 Hildbrand spoke—he was the hoarier man, more learned in life—he began to ask, with few words, who his father might be, of men in the troop, [...] “or of which lineage thou be; if thou me one say, I the others will know; child, in the kingdom, known to me are all great men.”
14 Hathbrand spoke, Hildbrand’s son: “It told me our people, the old and learned, those who earlier lived, that Hildbrand was called my father — I am called Hathbrand. Long ago he hurried east — he fled Edwaker’s hate — thither with Thedrich, and his great many thanes. He left in the land a little one to stay, a bride in the bower, a bairn ungrown, without inheritance; he rode east thither, as Thedrich was in great need of my father; — that was so friendless a man. He was to Edwaker exceptionally hostile, the dearest of thanes under Thedrich. He was ever at the front of the troop, ever did the fight gladden him, known was he among keen men; I ween not that he have life.”
30 “I call on Ermin-god as witness, above in heaven, that thou never with such a close man once more lead dispute.” Unwound he then from his arm some twisted bighs,[2] made from imperial coin, which the king once gave him, the lord of the Huns—“This I now give thee as pledge.”
36 Hathbrand spoke, Hildbrand’s son: “With spear shall one earn gifts, point against point! Thou art, old Hun, exceptionally clever; thou lurest me with thy words, wilt thou at me thy spear hurl! Thou art thus old, though thou ever deceit didst work. — It told me seafarers, heading west o’er the Wendle-sea,[3] that war took that man: — dead is Hildbrand, Harbrand’s son!”
45 Hildbrand spoke, Harbrand’s son: “I see well on thy equipment, that thou hast a good lord at home, that thou still in this reign didst not become an exile.”
51 “Well now, wielding God! woeful Weird[4] comes to pass. I wallowed for summers and winters sixty out of the land, where one ever set me in the troop of shooters; thus one at no fortress my bane did inflict. Now shall my own child hew at me with sword; beat down with his blade, or I his bane become. Yet canst thou now easily—if thy zeal avail thee—from such a hoary man win the equipment; bear away the booty, if thou thereto have any right.”
58 “He be now the weakest of the eastern peoples, who refuse thee the fight, when thou so greatly cravest to struggle together; — try he who might, which of us today of these garments may boast, or both of these byrnies wield!”
63 Then let they first their ash-spears glide, in harsh torrents, that in the shields they stuck. Then charged they into each other—the war-boards [SHIELDS] resounded—struck they bitterly the white shields, until for them their lindens [SHIELDS] became little, worn down by the weapons, [...].
- ^ i.e. each man was a champion of his respective army.
- ^ Armlets used as currency during the Migration Period; ON baugr, OE béag. — The giving of rings and armlets in exchange for loyalty was common across all of Germanic Europe, as seen in the many ruler-kennings of the type “breaker of rings” (like béaga brytta “the breaker of bighs” Beowulf ll. 35, 352, 1487.) This is also connected with the oath-ring, and the famous ring-swords. TODO? reference some literature on this.
- ^ The Mediterranean, referring to the Vandals in North Africa.
- ^ The personification of fate, in this case most likely just a noun. OE Wyrd (Beowulf 455: Gǽð á Wyrd swá hío scel “Ever goes Weird as she must”), ON Urðr ‘one of the norns’.