Beowulf Read Online Free PDF

roof can be heard.
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    Unferth bursts in. He respectfully touches Hrothgar’s shoulder. Hrothgar opens his eyes.
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    Unferth talks quietly, not wanting to wake Wealthow.
    UNFERTH
    (whispering)
    My lord?
    HROTHGAR
    (waking)
    Hnh? What?
    UNFERTH
    My lord. It has happened again.
    HROTHGAR
    Grendel’s work?
    Unferth nods.
    HROTHGAR
    How many men this time?
    By this time Wealthow has woken. She sits up and looks at them. The furs have slipped off, revealing her breasts. Unferth tries hard not to stare at her. Hrothgar, naked, clambers up from the floor.
    UNFERTH
    I could not tell. They were not whole. Five. Ten.
    HROTHGAR
    (to Wealthow -- boisterously)
    Keep the bed warm for me, eh?
    WEALTHOW
    (drily)
    Why?
    We realize that all is not well for our King and Queen in the bed department. Hrothgar ignores this insult to his masculinity, and pulls a fur robe over his nakedness.
    25 EXT. HEROT - VILLAGE - DAY
    25
    It’s still raining, and we can see Hrothgar’s bare legs and feet beneath his fur robe, as he walks with Unferth across the open space between his sleeping quarters and the hall.
    HROTHGAR
    How many does this make it?
    UNFERTH
    This is the second attack this moon. The tenth in half a year. He’s coming more frequently.
    Unferth, walking behind the king, goes into Herot.
    26 INT. HEROT - MEAD HALL - DAY
    26
    The carnage left by Grendel is terrible -- body parts, bodies, and, above all, blood everywhere -- on the floor and the walls.
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    Hrothgar is standing in a puddle of blood, in his bare feet, and he says, almost sadly:
    HROTHGAR
    When I was young I killed a dragon, in the Northern Moors. But I’m too old for dragon-slaying now. We need a hero, a Siegfried, to rid us of this curse upon our hall.
    UNFERTH
    I will not face Grendel again.
    Esher, Hrothgar’s counsellor, arrives, and stares at the devastation with them.
    UNFERTH
    I say we trap the beast. Brute strength fails against such a brute. Let us use cunning.
    HROTHGAR
    These creatures know cunning, Unferth. They are cunning.
    ESHER
    Our people wait for deliverance, my King. Some of them pray to the Christ Jesus to lift this affliction. Others sacrifice goats or sheep to Odin, or Heimdall.
    HROTHGAR
    (takes a deep breath)
    This place reeks of death.
    (he turns and leaves, the others follow him.)
    The gods will do nothing for us that we will not do for ourselves. No, we need a hero.
    Hrothgar, Esher, and Unferth walk down the
    27 HALLWAY
    27
    Hrothgar leaves bloody, sticky, red footprints behind him, from his bare feet.
    28 EXT. HEROT - DAY
    28
    Hrothgar et al walk out into the village, it has begun to rain harder.
    HROTHGAR
    Men! Build another pyre! There’s dry wood behind the stables. Then clean out the hall. Burn the dead, wash out the blood. Put down new straw and reeds on the floor.
    He begins to walk through the rain, ignoring it completely. Unferth and Esher walk with him.
    HROTHGAR
    (to Unferth and Esher)
    The scops are singing the shame of Herot as far south as the middle sea, as far north as the ice-lands. Our cows no longer calf, our fields lie fallow, the very fish flee from our nets, knowing that we are cursed. I have let it be known that I will give half the gold in my kingdom to any man who can rid us of Grendel. That should bring us a hero.
    UNFERTH
    I wish you had had a son, my lord.
    ESHER
    The country folk hereabouts have a very amusing saying about that. “You wish into one hand, and shit into the other, see which fills up first.”
    HROTHGAR
    There is nothing wrong with hope, Esher. It is all that keeps us from being animals. A hero will come, because a hero must come. We will trust to the sea, my friends. It will bring our release.
    CUT TO:
    29 EXT. THE STORMY SEA - DAY
    29
    Great gray sheets of rain sweep a stormy Northern sea. The clouds which bear the rain are so full of water they’ve swollen to a blackness deep as pitch.
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    The sun itself has vanished beyond the dark torrent. It seems it