A poem of 26 lines meditating on the sword Beowulf uses to kill Grendel's mother. One of several poems Borges wrote around this time engaging with Old English literature and Anglo-Saxon history: within the 1964 (first) version of the grouping El otro, el mismo, it is joined by "Un Sajón (A.D. 449)" (167), "Al iniciar el estudio de la gramática Anglosajona" (216-17), "Composición escrita en un ejemplar de la gesta de Beowulf" (243, orig. pub. 1961), "A un poéta Sajón" (246-47, addressing the Brunanburh poet), "Hengest cyning" (248-49), and "A una espada en York" (266); the 1967 version of El otro, el mismo would add a second poem entitled "A un poéta Sajón" (addressing the Wanderer poet). An English translation of "Fragmento" by Norman Thomas di Giovanni was published in 1972 in a collection which includes translations of nearly all poems listed here; see Borges, "Fragment."

The poem begins:

Una espada,
Una espada de hierro forjada en el frío del alba,
Una espada con runas
Que nadie podrá desoír ni descifrar del todo,
una espada del Báltico que será cantada en Nortumbria, (244; sentence continues)

And ends:

Una espada para la mano
Que ganará un reino y perderá un reino,
Una espada para la mano
Que derribará la selva de lanzas.
Una espada para la mano de Beowulf. (245)

Not in Fry, MO1, GR, or MO2. (This poem is possibly the intended target of the tentative entry MO2 1965(b).)

BAM.