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by lobster_johnson 4083 days ago
That's the Heaney translation. The original Old English starts this way:

> Hwæt! Wé Gárdena in géardagum

Hwæt has usually been translated as "listen", though it has since evolved into the modern word "what" and at least one researched thinks it is not an interjection but an intensifier [1]. In archaic English it might have been translated as "hark".

[1] http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/news/l...