The Literary Passage

86 Then a powerful demon, a prowler through the dark,

87 nursed a hard grievance. It harrowed him

88 to hear the din of the loud banquet

89 Every day in the hall, the harp being struck

90 and the clear song of a skilled poet

91 telling with mastery of man’s beginnings,

92 how the Almighty had made the earth

93 a gleaming plain girdled with waters;

94 in His splendor He set the sun and the moon

95 to be earth’s lamplight, lanterns for men,

96 and filled the broad lap of the world

97 with branches and leaves; and quickened life

98  in every other thing that moved.

99 So times were pleasant for the people there

100 until finally one, a fiend out of hell,

101 began to work his evil in the world.

102 Grendel was the name of this grim demon

103 haunting the marches, marauding round the heath

104 and the desolate fens; he had dwelt for a time

105 in misery among the banished monsters

106 Cain’s clan, whom the Creator had outlawed

107 and condemned as outcasts. For the killing of Abel

108 the Eternal Lord had exacted a price:

109 Cain got no good from committing that murder

110 because the Almighty made him anathema

111 and out of the curse of his exile there sprang

112 ogres and elves and evil phantoms

113 and the giants too who strove with God

114 time and again until He gave them their reward.