英国文学第一学期选读.docVIP

Beowulf 选读1 740 he grabbed and mauled a man on his bench, bit into his bone-lappings, bolted down his blood and gorged on him in lumps, leaving the body utterly lifeless, eaten up hand and foot. Venturing closer, 745 his talon was raised to attack Beowulf where he lay on the bed, he was bearing in with open claw when the alert heros comeback and armlock forestalled him utterly. The captain of evil discovered himself 750 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 755 with the devils litter, for in all his days he had never been clamped or cornered like this. Then Hygelacs trusty retainer recalled his bedtime speech, sprang to his feet and got a firm hold. Fingers were bursting, 760 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 765 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. 选读2 Now, earth, hold what earls once held and heroes can no more; it was mined from you first by honorable men. My own people 2250 have been ruined in war; one by one they went down to death, looked their last on sweet life in the hall. I am left with nobody to bear a sword or to burnish plated goblets, put a sheen on the cup. The companies have departed. 2255 The hard helmet, hasped with gold, will be stripped of its hoops; and the helmet-shiner who should polish the metal of the war-mask sleeps; the coat of mail that came through all fights, through shield-collapse and cut of sword, 2260 decays with the warrior. Nor may webbed mail range far and wide on t