xxiii + 109 pp. A verse translation attempting "to adhere strictly to the rules of alliteration, to imitate … the stress patterns of Old English half-lines, and to choose Modern English words and compounds that give at least some idea of the strength and radiance of the original" (xix). Into the verse Rebsamen has "reluctantly inserted … prose explanations of obscure passages" (xx); examples of these include a prose blurb on Unferth (17) and a transition from Wealhtheow's speech to the Finnsburh episode (39). The translation is preceded by an introduction (vii-xxi) and is followed by genealogical tables, a select glossary of proper names, and a brief select bibliography.

The translation is freely creative, with minimal punctuation. It begins:

Yes! We have heard     of years long vanished
how Spear-Danes struck     sang victory songs
raised from a wasteland     walls of glory.
Then Scyld Scefing     startled his neighbors
measured meadhalls     made them his own
since down by the sea-swirl     sent from nowhere
the Danes found him     floating with gifts
a strange king-child.     Scyld grew tall then
roamed the waterways     rode through the land
till every strongman     each warleader
sailed the whalepaths     sought him with gold
there knelt to him.     That was a king! (2)

And ends:

Around the barrow-base     rode the lost ones
twelve good spearmen     circled the mound
mourned their hall-lord     hailed their good king
spoke of his courage     sang their word-songs
praised his earlship     and his proud throne-years
as good men should     when their shieldman has gone.
A good wine-lord     needs words of praise
love from his people     when he leaves this earth
when breath is borne     from his body at last.
So the Geats went grieving     gathered by the mound.
Hearth-companions     praised their lost one
named him the ablest     of all world-kings
mildest of men     and most compassionate
most lithe to his people     most loving of praise. (100)

• Hugh Magennis, Translating Beowulf: Modern Versions in English Verse (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2011), 205-6.

BAM.