Book is vi + 65 pp. Heaney is one of 39 contributors to this collection in honor of fellow poet Ted Hughes; no editor for the collection is credited. "Sea Interlude, with Hero" is a translation of Beowulf, lines 194-285, presented as a freestanding poetic segment of 90 lines (so 2 lines shorter than in the original Old English). Heaney would later make considerable revisions to this version's first 34 lines to republish them as "A Sea-Crossing" (1998) and to the 56-line remainder as he incorporated it into his full 1999 translation.

The translation begins:

When he heard of Grendel, Hygelac's fighter
was at home among his own people, the Geats.
There was no one else like him alive.
In his day, he was simply the strongest man
and the biggest presence. He ordered a boat
to be fitted out. He announced his plan:
to sail the swan's road and find the war-king,
the famous prince who needed defenders. (56)

And ends:

                         ["]I know enough
to advise Hrothgar and be of assistance.
I can offer this good veteran relief
from the onslaught, if ever any relief
is to be allowed him. I can ease his mind
of its overwhelming cares. Otherwise
he is doomed to suffer for as long as his hall
keeps standing, the highest hall and the best." (58)

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

BAM.