A translation of Beowulf, lines 1880-924, presented in the poetry journal Agni as a freestanding poetic segment of 44 1/2 lines.

In source and extent, this Agni piece coincides with that published a few months earlier in the Sunday Times under the title "The Return to Geatland." At some points the Sunday Times version is closer to the eventual form the passage would take in Heaney's full 1999 translation, and at other points the Agni version is closer to the final form, so it is difficult to place them decisively in sequence; it looks as though Heaney was vacillating on some choices of word and phrasing. However, the Sunday Times version appeared first, and it contains a narrative error (saying that Beowulf departs "for" Denmark rather than "from" Denmark) that the Agni version corrects, so the working assumption in these database listings is that the Sunday Times version represents an earlier stage of Heaney's work than the Agni version.

Heaney would later make several small revisions to the Agni version as he incorporated it into his full 1999 translation.

The piece as printed in Agni begins:

                         The embrace ended
and Beowulf, glorious in his gold regalia,
stepped the green earth. Straining at anchor
and ready for boarding, his boat awaited him.
So they went on their journey, and Hrothgar's generosity
was praised repeatedly. He was a peerless king
until old age sapped his strength and did him
mortal harm, as it has done so many. (4)

And ends:

With the anchor cables, he moored their craft
right where it had beached, in case a backwash
might catch the big hull and carry it away.
Then he ordered the prince's treasure-trove
to be carried ashore. It was a short step
from there to where Hrethel's successor,
Hygelac the gold-giver, makes his home
by the sea-cliff, ensconced with his band of retainers. (5)

Not mentioned specifically in MO2, but MO2 1987(c) references Heaney's "many other fragmentary translations" in advance of his 1999 full translation.

BAM (from digital copy accessed via JSTOR).