Beowulf

XXII

After these words the Weder-Geat lord

boldly hastened, biding never

answer at all: the ocean floods

closed o'er the hero. Long while of the day

fled ere he felt the floor of the sea.

Soon found the fiend who the flood-domain

sword-hungry held these hundred winters,

greedy and grim, that some guest from above,

some man, was raiding her monster-realm.

She grasped out for him with grisly claws,

and the warrior seized; yet scathed she not

his body hale; the breastplate hindered,

as she strove to shatter the sark of war,

the linked harness, with loathsome hand.

Then bore this brine-wolf, when bottom she touched,

the lord of rings to the lair she haunted

whiles vainly he strove, though his valor held,

weapon to wield against wondrous monsters

that sore beset him; sea-beasts man