Desdichado ... initial chapter concept

a work I am considering working into a modern translation

Ivanhoe has long been one of my favourite stories. With that in mind I‘m considering doing a rewrite in modern language and style. I worked out these first couple chapters a few years ago and stumbled back upon it. Whaddayathink? -Basil

Thus communed these; while to their lowly dome,

The full-fed swine return’d with evening home;

Compell’d, reluctant, to the several sties,

With din obstreperous, and ungrateful cries.

-Pope’s Odyssey

Gurth reached up and scratched at the back of his neck, where the sweat pooled beneath the silver ringlet that named him for all to see.

“Gurth, the son of Beowulf, thrall to Cedric of Rotherwood”.

Gurth, born slave of Cedric.

The chain had been on his neck since the earliest of his memories. Such was his life, to be owned by another man. Morosely watching the pigs under his charge, dozens of swine that fed on whatever they found in the field, he stretched up from the bench he shared with his one true friend in the world. Wamba. The Jester. The Fool. The bench on…