We all like beautifying our abodes, but some people have strange taste. Most hunting lodges hoist aloft deer, boar, or antelope busts. Beowulf, though, decorates Heorot--Hrothgar's mead hall--with Grendel's arm by placing it high on the eaves for all to see.
I would like some help decorating my room. This is where you come in. You will draw a picture (using the medium of your choice--pencil, pastel, acrylic, etc.) of Grendel's arm. This is a study of art inspiring art. Hweat! Listen! You may NOT go Google Search images of Grendel's arm. You may read the following translations depicting the scene.
While the scene must focus on the arm, you can include as much of the additional scene (mead hall) as you want.
LESSLIE HALL, Ph. D. (1892)
the princes beheld there the hand that depended
'Neath the lofty hall-timbers by the might of the nobleman,
Each on before him, the enemy's fingers;
Each finger-nail strong steel most resembled,
The heathen one's hand-spur, the hero-in-battle's
Claw most uncanny; quoth they agreeing,
No sword will harm the monster.
That not any excellent edges of brave ones
Was willing to touch him, the terrible creature's
Battle-hand bloody to bear away from him.
FRANCIS B. GUMMERE (1910)
all, through the earl's great prowess,
beheld
that hand, on the high roof gazing,
foeman's fingers,—the forepart of each
of the
sturdy nails to steel was likest,
heathen's "hand-spear," hostile warrior's
claw
uncanny. 'Twas clear, they said,
that
him no blade of the brave could touch,
how
keen soever, or cut away
that
battle-hand bloody from baneful foe.
HOWELL CHICKERING, JR. (1977)
All the nobles had looked at that hand,
the gigantic fingers, high on the roof
through the young earl's strength. Each socketed nail
stood out from the front, glistened like steel,
a terrible hand-spike, heathen's armament,
a giant war-claw. All men agreed
that no hard iron, though forged as of old,
could have cut into, weakened the monster's
great battle-talon, now bloodily severed.
SEAMUS HEANEY (2000)
the hall-thanes eyed the awful proof
of the hero's prowes, the splayed hand
up under the eaves. Every nail,
claw-scale and spur, every spike
and welt on the hand of that heathen brute
was like barbed steel. Everybody said
there was no honed iron hard enough
to pierce him through, no time-proofed blade
that coulde cut his brutal, blood-caked claw.
DICK RINGLER (2007)
the thanes of Hrothgar
saw the huge trophy
on Heorot's gable,
the fiend-like talon.
The fingertips
of the heathen foe's
horrible claw
were like nails,
like enormous spikes
of iron or steel,
and everyone agreed
that no weapon
known among men,
no matter how sharp,
could have made a wound
on that hand hanging there,
with horrid gore.
THOMAS MEYER (published 2012, written 1972)
all those warriors stared upon
each finger of that rafterhung
hand, each nail on that heathen
paw a steel spur, a deadly talon.
They agreed, no man's bladeiron,
however good, could touch that fist
of awls, wreck those bloody spikes.
