Hrothgar+(D+Block)

__ People live out everyday, thinking that the world is just a flow, but it is not true. I believe that the world is predestined, and that everything is meant to happen. We always think that the past and the future is irrelevant to our present but it is strongly relevant; past is what forms our present, and the future is what will happen due to our present. __**
 * Closing statement:

In the text below, it describes how you can not fight against age. This might seem to many people that the world is meaningless, however why do we age and die if there is no meaning in life. I believe that a tragic death is also meaningful, like as the text says below, that soon there will follow illness or the sword to lay us low. These illnesses and traps can not just exist out of nowhere. I feel that the world is not predestined, I think that everything happens for a reason, and in result there is a meaning in life.


 * __Textual support:__** “O flower of warriors, beware of that trap./Choose, dear Beowulf, the better part,/eternal rewards. Do not give way to pride./For a brief while your strength is in bloom/but it fades quickly; and soon there will follow /illness or the sword to lay you low,/or a sudden fire or surge of water/or jabbing blade or javelin from the air/or repellent age. Your piercing eye/will dim and darken; and death will arrive, /dear warrior, to sweep you away.” Lines 1758 ~ 1768 page 121 Beowulf.

From the text below, it talks about how Hrothgar had made a huge contribution to the Danes. In that remark, I believe that existence matters, if there was no Hrothgar the Danes would have not survived throughout this era. Also, throughout the whole book, it describes how many creatures are meaningful to the world. Even little forest creatures touched or hurt and altered how Grendel acted throughout the novel. As you can see every existence is meaningful in some degree, if even one character did not come into the story, the story would have been totally different.


 * __Textual Support:__** “Hrothgar met with his council for many nights and days, and they drank and talked and prayed to their curious carved-out creatures and finally came to a decision. They built roads. The kings from whom they'd taken tributes of treasure they now asked for tributes of men. Then Hrothgar and his neighbors, loaded like ants on a long march, pushed foot by foot and day by day around the marshes and over the moors and through the woods, pressing flat rocks into the soft ground and grass, and packing smaller stones around the rocks' sides...” Page 39 Paragraph 2 Grendel.

I believe that the past is relevant to the present, because as you can see below if Hrothgar or Beowulf did not know each other's ancestors they would have not had a relationship they had in the novel. If Hrothgar did not know Beowulf, they would have never beaten Grendel and would have not won the war against the creature. Also, in the result of the loss the people of the Danes would have been killed and tortured, altering the whole history of Beowulf's time. I believe that the past is one of the most important thing in formulating the present. Therefore, life is meaningful.


 * __Textual Support:__** “Hrothgar, protector of Shieldings, replied:/ “I used to know him when he was a young boy./ His father before him was called Ecgtheow./ Hrethel the Geat gave Ecgtheow, his daughter in marriage. This man is their son,/ here to follow up an old friendship. … bids me announce that he knows your ancestry.” Lines 371~391, Page 27, Beowulf.