Grendel's Approach (from Beowulf, lines 702b-738)

Modern English prose translation:

                  Came on dark night

the shadow-walker striding.  The bowmen slept,

who were to hold the gabled hall,

all but one.  It was l known to men

that the demonic foe might not, if the Lord dis not wish it,

bring them under the shadows; 

but he wakeful, wrathful in indignation,

awaited enraged the outcome of battle.

Then came off the moor under misty hills                      710              

Grendel going, he bore God’s anger;

the evil ravager intended to ensnare some

of mankind in that high hall.

He waded under the clouds until he knew

clearly the gold hall of men,  

shining in gold.  That was not the first time

that he had sought Hrothgar’s house;

never he in the days of his life before or since

did he harder luck or hall-thanes find.

Came then to the hall the warrior striding,                      720

deprived of joys.  The door, firm with forged bands, 

immediately sprang open as he touched it with his hands;

then hostile minded he ripped open, since he was enraged,

the mouth of the hall.  Quickly thereafter

the fiend trod the patterned floor,

went angrily; there stood out from his eyes,

most like fire, an eerie light.

He saw in the hall many a warrior,

a sleeping band of kinsmen all together, 

a company of young warriors.  Then his spirit laughed;      730

the dire adversary believed that, before dawn came,

he would separate life from the body

of each of them, for he was in expectation

of a plentiful feast.  It was no longer his fate

that he might consume of mankind anymore

after that night.  The mighty kinsman of Hygelac

watched how the criminal assailant 

under sudden attack would act.