Lines 1-11
The iconic 'Hwaet!' opening, variously translated as 'Listen!', 'Lo!', 'So!' (Heaney), or 'Behold!', introduces the Spear-Danes and praises Scyld Scefing.
Read in Books4Free →Opening Invocation: Hwaet!
From Beowulf by Anonymous
The poem opens with the famous call to attention and a genealogy of the Danish kings, establishing the heroic-elegiac tone.
Lines 26-52
Scyld's ship funeral, a defining image of Germanic heroic culture and a frame for the poem's preoccupation with death and legacy.
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