Beowulf Strength and Skill Quotes Page 4

Page (4 of 4) Quotes: 1 2 3 4

How we cite the quotes:
Citations follow this format: (Line). We used Seamus Heaney's Beowulf: A New Verse Translation, published in 2000 by Farrar, Straus, and Giroux.

Quote #10

Inspired again
by the thought of glory, the war-king threw
his whole strength behind a sword-stroke
and connected with the skull. And Naegling snapped.
Beowulf's ancient iron-grey sword
let him down in the fight. It was never his fortune
to be helped in combat by the cutting edge
of weapons made in iron. When he wielded a sword,
no matter how blooded and hard-edged the blade
his hand was too strong, the stroke he dealt
(I have heard) would ruin it. (2677-2687)

Throughout Beowulf, swords snap, melt, and otherwise fail their owners. During Beowulf's final battle with the dragon, the narrator explains that our hero is just too strong for the blades of the swords forged by men. It's just one more hint that Beowulf's strength is more than human, mythic in its proportions.

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