‘O flower of warriors, beware of that trap.
Choose, dear Beowulf, the better part,
eternal rewards. Do not give way to pride.
For a brief while your strength is in bloom
but it fades quickly; and soon there will follow
illness or the sword to lay you low,
or a sudden fire or surge of water
or jabbing blade or javelin from the air
or repellent age. Your piercing eye
will dim and darken; and death will arrive,
dear warrior, to sweep you away.’
– Beowulf, Seamus Heaney (trans.)
Lines 1758-1768: The culmination of ‘Hrothgar’s sermon’, in which Hrothgar warns Beowulf of the seductive dangers of success following Beowulf’s defeat of Grendel’s mother.