He was sad at heart,
unsettled yet ready, sensing his death.
His fate hovered near, unknowable but certain;
it would soon claim his coffered soul,
part life from limb. Before long
the prince's spirit would spin free from his body.
You know, I suppose I shouldn't actually include works that I read specifically for my Epics book, but I'll make an exception here. I had not read Beowulf in an age, but picked it up again because I was searching for a half-remembered passage that I wanted to include in a chapter. However, after sitting down, I ended up reading the entire epic again. In this case it was Seamus Heaney's verse translation, which wasn't obviously wasn't even in existence when I read Beowulf in college. As to be expected, the things that resonated with me now almost assuredly didn't interest me all those decades ago, and vice-versa. I'm sure the passage above speaks to the end of the year, the end of another semester, the upcoming end of my career, and my rapidly approaching sixty-sixth birthday.
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