The champion for the Danes, in a dreadful fury, despairing of life, seized the hilt of the sword, swung its great blade and angrily struck so that it dug deep in the neck of the monster, breaking the bone-rings, slicing all the way through her body doomed by fate, and she fell dead on the floor. The sword sweat blood, while the warrior rejoiced.
The swirling surf had covered his death, hidden deep in murky darkness his miserable end, as hell opened to receive him.
Do not grieve, wise warrior! It is better for each man That he avenge his friend than to mourn him much. Each of us must accept the end of life here in this world – so we must work while we can to earn fame before death.
He strode quickly across the inlaid floor, snarling and fierce: his eyes gleamed in the darkness, burned with a gruesome light. Then he stopped, seeing the hall crowded with sleeping warriors ... and his heart laughed, he relished the sight, intended to tear the life from those bodies by morning.
That was a true trophy which the battle-brave Beowulf set down before them, under the hall-roof – the hand, arm, and shoulder, with Grendel’s claw, all connected together.
Thus I fled, ridiculous hairy creature torn apart by poetry – crawling, whimpering, streaming tears, across the world like a two-headed beast, like mixed-up lamb and kid at the tail of a baffled, indifferent ewe – and I gnashed my teeth and clutched the sides of my head as if to heal the split, but I couldn’t.
No, we two in dark of night shall forego the sword, if he dares to seek war without weapon, and then may wise God, the holy Lord, judge which side will succeed, which one will win glory, as to him seems right.
They have seen my strength for themselves, have watched me rise from the darkness of war, dripping with my enemies’ blood. I drove five great giants into chains, chased all of that race from the earth. I swam in the blackness of night, hunting monsters out of the ocean, and killing them one by one; death was my errand and the fate they had earned. Now Grendel and I are called together, and I’ve come.
Then Beowulf spoke – on him the armor shone, the mail-shirt linked by the skills of the smith: Hail to you, Hrothgar! I am Hygelac’s kinsman and devoted thane; already in youth I have done many glorious deeds…
As touching the ancient authors generally, as well as the poets here appearing, these extracts are solely valuable or entertaining, as affording a glancing bird's eye view of what has been promiscuously said, thought, fancied, and sung of Leviathan, by many nations and generations, including our own.
See how elastic our prejudices grow when once love comes to bend them.
All men live enveloped in whale-lines. All are born with halters round their necks; but it is only when caught in the swift, sudden turn of death, that mortals realise the silent, subtle, ever-present perils of life.