One of three translation extracts published, together with a short essay, on pp. 6-7 of the July 26, 1998, issue of the Sunday Times (London). "The Return to Geatland" translates Beowulf, ll. 1880-924, presenting it as a segment of 44 1/2 lines.

In source and extent, the Sunday Times piece coincides with that published a few months later in the poetry journal Agni under the title "Beowulf's Departure from Denmark." 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 as he incorporated this material into his full 1999 translation.

The translated segment in the Sunday Times begins:

                         The embrace ended
And Beowulf, glorious in his gold regaila,
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. (7)

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 the prince ordered the treasure-trove
To be carried ashore. It was a short step
From there to where Hrethel's son and heir,
Hygelac the gold-giver, makes his home
By the sea-cliff, ensconced with his company of retainers. (7)

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 The Sunday Times Historical Archive, GaleCengage).