"Pride (of all others the most dang'rous fault) proceeds from want of sense, or want of thought" (Wentworth Dillon (Earl of Roscomon), Essay on Translated Verse (l. 161)). Everyone wants to find a purpose or meaning for their life and to live on after they have died. That is why statues are erected and memorials held to honor those who successfully changed the world enough to deserve them. The desire for pride cuts through all times, languages, and media. Beowulf is a story of battles fought and glory won through the death of others, but it is not a sword, a powerful hand, or a breath of fire that is the true force destroying everything in its wake. Pride is the greatest enemy that the characters face and it causes nothing but death for them all.
Hrothgar, the son of Healfdene, comes across as the wisest character in the epic, but it is actually the greedy quest for pride that he and his thanes embark upon that creates the twelve winters of misery under Grendel's attacks. In the earlier years of his rule, Hrothgar wants to make a name for himself and capture or seize as much territory as possible to expand his kingdom. Unfortunately, "an evil spirit who dwelt in the darkness / endured it ill that he heard each day / the din of revelry ring through the hall" (l. 57-59). Grendel's territory is invaded and he responds by ravaging and destroying all the thanes in Hrothgar's mead halls. It is Hrothgar's pride that stops him from retreating and relinquishing the land he captured, even while Grendel "[Slays] thirty spearmen asleep in the hall" (8.82). The thanes in the mead halls will not retreat either, not because that feel that they could stand and fight successfully against Grendel, but largely because they believe" "Death is better for every earl / Than life besmirched with the brand of shame!" (l. 1760-1761). The men are actually more worried about their reputation, their pride, than their own lives and it is that belief that forces them to stay in the halls and be slaughtered by Grendel.
