MB UNIUD

In the second stanza of the extract on page 57 the narrator describes  Beowulf 's voyage and his warriors from Sweden to Denmark.

In the first line the narrator explains to the reader the time and place of the voyage and in the succeeding lines the narrator makes the reader understand  the voyage was not easy but  the warriors were also sailors at that time. In Beowulf's society the most frequent activities were sailing and fighting. 

From line 20 the narrator describes what the warriors make in order to get ready for the voyage: they needed weapons, shining weapons, this means that warriors took care of their weapons. 

In line 23 the narrator underlines the strong will of the warriors to go  and help Hrothgar.

In lines  from 24 to 30,  the sailing is described; in all the lines there aren't pauses, the description of the voyage is as speedy as the voyage ; moreover the ship is described using the subject pronoun "she so that it is personified.

To create a mental picture in the reader's mind the narrator uses a simile; he compares the ship to a bird flight.

The narrator adds also pieces of information about Hrothgar's land:  "sunlit cliffs, sheer crags and looming headlands"; it was not a plane.

At last the sailors came to the end of their voyage, they moored the ship and thanked God, so the narrator wants to tell the reader that they were religious people.

In the last three lines the narrator wants to convey the noise made by metal; he uses the expressions: " clash of mail" and "thresh of gear"; moreover the words "clash" and "thresh" also creates anin assonance.