Opening Day 2008 for the Timber Rattlers is April 3. That is 151 days from today. This off-season, the countdown will be based on books. Each day between now and Opening Day 2008, I will pick a random book out of my library and excerpt a passage off the page number corresponding with the number of days remaining to the first pitch of the new season. I will try not to repeat a book during the countdown.Today’s book is Beowulf, translated by Seamus Heaney. (Producers of the movie that opens this Friday, please take note. I’m not above a promotional tie-in. I’ll take payment in free tickets or a phone call from Angelina Jolie.)
The excerpt for today is from page 151. Fortunately, for me it is from the translated side, not from the original Olde English version. The excerpt is from late in the poem after Beowulf has been King of a peaceful land for a long time. But, someone has awakened an evil.
He ruled it well
for fifty winters, grew old and wise
as warden of the land.
until one began
to dominate the dark, a dragon on the prowl
from the steep vaults of a stone-roofed barrow
where he guarded a hoard; there was a hidden passage,
unknown to men, but someone managed
to enter by it and interfere
with the heathen trove. He had handled and removed
a gem-studded goblet, it gained him nothing,
though with a thief’s wiles he had outwitted
the sleeping dragon; that drove him into rage,
as the people of that country would soon discover.
No comments:
Post a Comment