Читать книгу The Lays of Beleriand онлайн | страница 31

Thus those brave in dread down the bare hillsidetowards the camp clambered creeping wary,1115and dared that deed in days long pastwhose glory has gone through the gates of earth,and songs have sung unceasing ringingwherever the Elves in ancient placeshad light or laughter in the later world.1120With breath bated on the brink of the dalethey stood and stared through stealthy shadows,till they saw where the circle of sleepless eyeswas broken; with hearts beating dullythey passed the places where pierced and bleeding1125the wolves weltered by wingéd deathunseen smitten; as smoke noiselessthey slipped silent through the slumbering throngsas shadowy wraiths shifting vaguelyfrom gloom to gloom, till the Gods brought them1130and the craft and cunning of the keen huntsmanto Túrin the tall where he tumbled laywith face downward in the filthy mire,and his feet were fettered, and fast in bondsanguish enchained his arms behind him.1135There he slept or swooned, as sunk in oblivionby drugs of darkness deadly blended;he heard not their whispers; no hope stirred himnor the deep despair of his dreams fathomed;to awake his wit no words availed.1140No blade would bite on the bonds he wore,though Flinding felt for the forgéd knifeof dwarfen steel, his dagger prizéd,that at waist he wore awake or sleeping,whose edge would eat through iron noiseless1145as a clod of clay is cleft by the share.It was wrought by wrights in the realms of the East,in black Belegost, by the bearded Dwarvesof troth unmindful; it betrayed him nowfrom its sheath slipping as o’er shaggy slades1150and roughhewn rocks their road they wended.

‘We must bear him back as best we may,’said Beleg, bending his broad shoulders.Then the head he lifted of Húrin’s offspring,and Flinding go-Fuilin the feet claspéd;1155and doughty that deed, for in days long gonethough Men were of mould less mighty buildedere the earth’s goodness from the Elves they drew,though the Elfin kindreds ere old was the sunwere of might unminished, nor the moon haunted1160faintly fading as formed of shadowsin places unpeopled, yet peers they were notin bone and flesh and body’s fashioning,and Túrin was tallest of the ten racesthat in Hithlum’s hills their homes builded.1165Like a log they lifted his limbs mighty,and straining staggered with stealth and fear,with bodies bending and bones aching,from the cruel dreaming of the camp of dread,where spearmen drowsed sprawling drunken1170by their moon-blades keen with murder whettedmid their shaven shafts in sheaves piléd.