Focus on Words

A lot of popular sayings that we use in our speech come from the Bible.
Read a few of them and explain what they mean.
1. You cannot serve God and mammon.
2. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.
3. Sow the wind and reap the whirlwind.
4. Spare the rod and spoil the child.
5. Wash the hands
MYTHS AND LEGENDS
What We Need Is A Hero
epic a lengthy narrative poem about heroic deeds and events significant to a nation.
Scientists argue that classical epics were mainly in oral poetic form.
Read the text and answer the questions.
1. What is an epic poem?
2. What are they about?
3 What famous epic poems do you know?
4. What Armenian epic poem do you know?
Background
Beowulf is a narrative heroic epic of unknown author,
dating from between the 8 th and the early 11th centuries, set
in Denmark and Sweden. Many of its characters belong to
the Germanic tradition preserved through the oral traditions
of the minstrels. It is the greatest poem in Old English, the
story of loyalty, battle and glory.
Context
King Hrothgar, builds the Danes a great hall called
Heorot. However, the noise disturbs and enrages the
monstrous Grendel, who attacks the mead hall and kills
nearly all of the people there; Heorot is invaded by Grendel,
a half-human monster who is hated by God. The Danes are
helpless against these attacks until the hero Beowulf arrives
to aid them. by ship, and Beowulf battles the monster, and
mortally wounds Grendel by breaking his arm off. Grendel
crawls back to his cave and later dies in his mother’s arms.
Grendel’s mother then comes to revenge for her son.
Beowulf and Hrothgar chase her to a lake, where Beowulf
fights Grendel’s mother in her hall at the bottom of the lake.
Beowulf almost loses, but with the aid of God he eventually
wins the battle. He is lavishly rewarded and returns to his
own land.
Beowulf’s burial mound
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