translated by Burton Raffel TypePad（翻译的伯顿Raffel TypePad）.pdf

from Beowulf translated by Burton Raffel The selection opens during an evening of celebration at Herot, the banquet hall of the Danish king Hrothgar. Outside in the darkness, however, lurks the monster Grendel, a murderous creature who poses a great danger to the people inside the banquet hall. The Wrath of Grendel A powerful monster, living down In the darkness, growled in pain, impatient As day after day the music rang Loud in that hall, the harps rejoicing Call and the poets clear songs, sung Of the ancient beginnings of us all, recalling The Almighty making the earth, shaping These beautiful plains marked off by oceans, Then proudly setting the sun and moon To glow across the land and light it; The corners of the earth were made lovely with trees And leaves, made quick with life, with each Of the nations who now move on its face. And then As now warriors sang of their pleasure: So Hrothgars men lived happy in his hall Till the monster stirred, that demon, that fiend, Grendel, who haunted the moors, the wild Marshes, and made his home in a hell Not hell but earth. He was spawned in that slime, Conceived by a pair of those monsters born Of Cain, murderous creatures banished By God, punished forever for the crime Of Abels death. The Almighty drove Those demons out, and their exile was bitter, Shut away from men; they split Into a thousand forms of evil—spirits And fiends, goblins, monsters, giants, A brood forever opposing the Lords Will, and again and again defeated. Then, when darkness had dropped, Grendel Went up to Herot, wondering what the warriors B e o w u l f P a g e |2 Would do in that hall when their drinking was done. He found them sprawled in sleep, suspecting Nothing, their dreams undisturbed. The monsters Thoughts were as quick as his greed o