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该译本为古英语文学专家陈才宇根据当代《贝奥武甫》研究专家约翰•波特的修订版翻译而成，并参考“企鹅丛书”中的现代英语本和“诺顿文学选集”中的散文译文两种版本，很大程度上还原了史诗每行两顿的齐整韵律。
史诗《贝奥武甫》早在第六七世纪就以口头形式流传于日耳曼民族聚居的北欧沿海。全诗共3182行，是英国古代一首长叙事诗，约占现存盎格鲁—撒克逊诗歌总量的十分之一。
丹麦国王赫罗斯加兴建了一座宏伟的宴乐厅，遭到魔怪格兰道尔的袭击。那魔怪为所欲为，连续为害达十二年之久。消息传到高特人耳里。高特武士贝奥武甫率十四勇士前往救援。经过激烈的搏斗，力大无穷的贝奥武甫扯断了魔怪的一只胳膊。垂死的魔怪逃回自己的洞穴。第二天晚上又有一个魔怪前来骚扰宴乐厅，此魔乃格兰道尔之母，是为他的儿子报仇来的。贝奥武甫与她在水潭下的洞穴中展开殊死搏斗，最后用魔剑将她杀死。
贝奥武甫凯旋回国。不久，国王海格拉克父子先后死于非命，贝奥武甫继承王位。他成功地统治高特国达五十年之久。就在壮士暮年，国内出了一条毒龙。该毒龙因自己守护的财宝被盗，开始向高特人进行报复。它口吐烈焰，毁灭一切。为了拯救自己的国家和人民，贝奥武甫毅然进入龙窟。在一位名叫威格拉夫的年轻武士的援助下，毒龙被除，但老英雄也因受伤过重而献出了生命。
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Composed some time between the middle of the seventh and the end of the tenth century of the first millennium, the Anglo-Saxon poem Beowulf is one of the important Northern epics and a classic of European literature. In his new translation, Seamus Heaney has produced a work which is both true, line by line, to the original poem, and an expression, in its language and music, of something fundamental to his own creative gift.
The translation of Beowulf by J.R.R. Tolkien was an early work, very distinctive in its mode, completed in 1926: he returned to it later to make hasty corrections, but seems never to have considered its publication. This edition is twofold, for there exists an illuminating commentary on the text of the poem by the translator himself, in the written form of a series of lectures given at Oxford in the 1930s.