Katerina Kidalova Kidalova থেকে Cherukupally, Telangana 508258, India
** spoiler alert ** In days past, too long ago, I had read an inferior translation of Beowulf, which is tantamount to never having read it at all. Seamus Heaney's translation has revealed a tight and beautifully constructed study of a warrior king's life. As a young man, he kills the monster Grendel and his mother. When his lord Hygelac dies, Beowulf becomes king of the Geats (who inhabited Southern Sweden) and rules for fifty years. But then he comes up against fate: Do not give way to pride. For a brief while your strength is in bloom but it fades quickly; and soon there will follow illness or the sword to lay you low, or a sudden fire or surge of water or jabbing blade or javelin from the air or repellent age. Your piercing eye will dim and darken; and death will arrive, dear warrior, to sweep you away. In Beowulf's case, the last battle is against a dragon who is laying his people low, because someone had stolen a cup from his gold hoard. The Geat warrior goes by himself to face the dragon, while his much rewarded retainers run for their lives. What ensues is heroic and worthy of the hero. And he does find one person who helps him in his last battle. Beowulf's sword fails him and he is assaulted by the unnamed dragon, or "sky-plague" as a kenning describes him: Then the wound dealt by the ground-burner [another kenning] earlier began to scald and swell; Beowulf discovered deadly poison suppurating inside him, surges of nausea, and so on, in his wisdom, the prince realized his state and struggled toward a seat on the rampart. The pagan Vikings saw themselves as prisoners of an ineluctable fate. Although Beowulf refers to Christianity time and again, there are no Christians in the story, which takes place some time before Olaf I Tryggvason had the Norse converted from their Asatru ways. Thanks to Heaney's translation, I think that Beowulf could stand on its own side by side with the great Icelandic sagas that were to follow.