Beowulf Quotes

Venturing closer,
His talon was raised to attack Beowulf
where he lay on the bed; he was bearing in
with open claw when the alert hero’s
comeback and armlock forestalled him utterly.
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 coiled, 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.

– Beowulf, Seamus Heaney (trans.)