I was seven winters old when my father took me to the king of the people. Hrethal gave me treasure and feasting, remembering kinship. That was a feud that couldn't be fought. That felt just as it does for an old man to await the swinging of his son on the gallows. He sings a mournful song when his son hangs a feast to ravens and, though old and wise, he cannot help.
Sorrow is in the home, the wine-hall abandoned, bereft of joy.
Not as there once was. Comes then from the bedstead a song of sorrow. The house and fields seem too large. So Beowulf spoke of his sorrow for Herebeald. He could not for that murder seek revenge, though the doer was not dear to him.