Time and Again When the Goblets Passed and Seasoned Fighters Got Flushed With Beer

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Beowulf Violence

Violence

Lines 1-300
: Suddenly then
the God-cursed creature was creating havoc:
greedy and grim, he grabbed thirty men
from their resting places and rushed to his lair,
flushed upwardly and inflamed from the raid,
blundering back with the butchered corpses. (120-125)

Grendel isn't simply a trigger-happy murderer. He'due south also a "greedy" killer, someone who takes the lives of xxx men at one stroke even though he can't pay reparations for their deaths and in that location seems little reason for him to lash out in this fashion. Even though the world of the Spear-Danes and Atmospheric condition-Geats is a cruel medieval battlefield, Grendel'south violence stands out because information technology merely doesn't brand sense according to their customs.

Lines 301-606
: "If Grendel wins, it will be a gruesome day;
he will glut himself on the Geats in the state of war-hall,
swoop without fearfulness on that flower of manhood
as on others before. So my face won't be there
to be covered in decease: he volition carry me away
as he goes to basis, gorged and bloodied;
he will run gloating with my raw corpse
and feed on it solitary, in a cruel frenzy,
fouling his moor-nest." (442-450)

Beowulf imagines, not just the possibility of his death and defeat, but the exact details of his gruesome demise, what his corpse will look like, and what will happen to his body after he is dead. Why? Probably because, as a medieval warrior, he's seen a lot of men killed and been effectually a lot of corpses. Information technology was a brutal life back and then.

Time and again, when the goblets passed
and seasoned fighters got flushed with beer
they would pledge themselves to protect Heorot
and await for Grendel with whetted swords.
But when dawn broke and solar day crept in
over each empty, claret-spattered demote,
the flooring of the mead-hall where they had feasted
would exist slick with slaughter. (480-487)

In the world of the Spear-Danes, violence alternates with drunken revels and feasting.

Lines 607-914
: Then his rage boiled over, he ripped open
the mouth of the building, maddening for blood,
pacing the length of the patterned floor
with his loathsome tread, while a baleful calorie-free,
flame more light, flared from his eyes.
He saw many men in the mansion, sleeping,
a ranked company of kinsmen and warriors
quartered together. And his glee was demonic,
picturing the mayhem: before forenoon
he would rip life from limb and devour them,
feed on their flesh. (723-733)

Grendel actually takes pleasure in the details of his murderous assaults on the Danes, suggesting that he values battle for its own sake, rather than for the glory or the gold that he can get as a result of taking part in information technology. By contrast, heroes like Beowulf fight for accolade and for rewards, non for the thrill of killing.

Nor did the creature keep him waiting
just struck suddenly and started in;
he grabbed and mauled a homo on his bench,
bit into his bone-lappings, bolted down his blood
and gorged on him in lumps, leaving the torso
utterly lifeless, eaten up
hand and foot. (738-744)

Grendel is, literally, a cannibal. (That is, if we assume that he'south a man-like animate being, not just a supernatural fantasy fauna.) His murders are continued with consuming his victims, turning their flesh into his own – a disturbing thought for heathen warriors who would prefer being buried at sea or burned on funeral pyres.

Lines 915-1231
: So Hildeburh ordered her ain
son'south body exist burnt with Hnaef's,
the flesh on his bones to sputter and bonfire
beside his uncle'south. The adult female wailed
and sang keens, the warrior went up.
Carcass flame swirled and fumed,
they stood circular the burial mound and howled
every bit heads melted, crusted gashes
spattered and ran bloody matter.
The glutton element flamed and consumed
the dead of both sides. (1115-1125)

Violence is continued with more aspects of life in medieval Scandinavia than boxing solitary. Even funerals are gory and gruesome, as a human's loved ones watch his trunk burning and decomposing before their eyes.

Lines 1232-1496
: He went in front with a few men,
proficient judges of the lie of the country,
and suddenly discovered the dismal wood,
mountain trees growing out at an angle
above grayness stones: the bloodshot water
surged underneath. It was a sore blow
to all of the Danes, friends of the Shieldings,
a injure to each and every one
of that noble company when they came upon
Aeschere'southward caput at the foot of the cliff. (1412-1421)

Information technology'southward good enough for the most spooky horror movie: y'all're tracking the monster, you meet a bloody lake around the corner of the cliff, and and then your friend's severed head staring upwardly at you lot. It certainly gives usa the shivers.

Lines 1497-1812
: And so the Shieldings' hero, hard-pressed and enraged,
took a firm concord of the hilt and swung
the blade in an arc, a resolute blow
that chip deep into her neck-bone
and severed information technology entirely, toppling the doomed
house of her flesh; she fell to the floor.
The sword dripped blood, the swordsman was elated. (1563-1569)

Sometimes Beowulf does seem to accept a bloodthirsty pleasure in his acts of violence, as in this scene, where he decapitates Grendel'south female parent. The parallel structure of the final line of this passage – "The sword dripped blood, the swordsman was elated" – implies a direct crusade-and-effect relationship between the 2, even though the poet doesn't explicitly say that one acquired the other.

Lines 2397-2711
: When a chance came, he caught the hero
in a rush of flame and clamped sharp fangs
into his neck. Beowulf's body
ran wet with his life-blood: it came welling out. (2690-2693)

The poet doesn't spare united states a final scene of violence: Beowulf'south death, seemingly from a severed artery in his neck. Even our hero becomes no more than a corpse past the end of the epic. Now that'due south depressing.

So the rex of the Geats
raised his manus and struck hard
at the enamelled scales, but scarcely cut through:
the blade flashed and slashed nonetheless the blow
was far less powerful than the hard-pressed king
had need of at that moment. The mound-keeper
went into a spasm and spouted deadly flames:
when he felt the stroke, battle-burn down
billowed and spewed. (2575-2583)

Even the dragon's death-agonies are depicted in gruesome detail, equally information technology thrashes and spasms in response to Beowulf's attacks. We call up that every bit a film, if information technology were made exactly the mode it's written, Beowulf would definitely get rated R for "intense scenes of fantasy violence."

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Source: https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/beowulf/quotes/violence