Fitt XXXIX — The Dead Foes — Wiglaf's Bitter Taunts

The dragon lies stretched nearby — the round-twisted monster can no longer guard the ring-hoards; war-swords leavings of hammers have seized it, and it bleeds into the earth. Beowulf lies dead. Wiglaf sits exhausted not far from the shoulder of the man he served. He is a foot-going fighter, having given everything he had.

The ten men who ran into the thicket return. They come bearing shields and armor — the same weapons Beowulf gave them. They look at Wiglaf. Wiglaf looks at them. The poet calls them 'the hated ones' in the moment before the speech, marking the judgment that is about to be delivered.

Wiglaf speaks. He says whoever will speak truth can say that the liegelord who gave those men their jewels and ornament-armor had wasted his war-gear on them. He describes the mead-bench pledges they made, the boasts they offered across the ale-cups, and the exact gap between what was promised there and what they did here. He tells them that Beowulf's death-wounds were not God's will to avenge with weapons — it was just an old man killed by a dragon — but that the shame of this flight will cling to the Wægmunding name and to theirs forever. He does not raise his voice. The cold precision is what makes it devastating.