English 220, Section 007 — Mid-Term Test Beowulf, lines 749-774, translated by Seamus Heaney

 

The captain of evil discovered himself

in a handgrip harder than anything

he had ever encountered in any man

on the face of the earth. Every bone in his body

quailed and recoiled, but he could not escape.

He was desperate to flee to his den and hide

with the devil's litter, for in all his days

he had never been clamped or cornered like this.

Then Hygelac's trusty retainer recalled

his bedtime speech, sprang to his feet

and got a firm hold. Fingers were bursting,

the monster back-tracking, the man overpowering.

The dread of the land was desperate to escape,

to take a roundabout road and flee

to his lair in the fens. The latching power

in his fingers weakened; it was the worst trip

the terror-monger had taken to Heorot.

And now the timbers trembled and sang,

a hall-session that harrowed every Dane

inside the stockade: stumbling in fury,

the two contenders crashed through the building.

The hall clattered and hammered, but somehow

survived the onslaught and kept standing:

it was handsomely structured, a sturdy frame

braced with the best of blacksmith's work

inside and out.