A lovely, evocative work of literature that has become - through longevity and quality - one of the founding works of the (Old) English language. Heaney's translation is very readable, sad and restrained and rhythmic all at once. Worth the price of admission for the Grendel passages alone, the monster who, on seizing a man for dinner "bit into his bone-lappings, bolted down his blood / and gorged on him in lumps" (I first read this translation years ago and that passage has stayed with me from the time of first-reading until today).