the very Essence of God, as variously imitable or participable

The chief exploit of the hero, Beowulf the Great, is the destruction of the two monsters Grendel and his mother; both like most of the evil beings in the old times, dwellers in the fens and the waters; and both, moreover, as some Christian bard has taken care to inform us, of Cain's kin, as were also the eotens, and the elves, and the orcs (eótenas, and ylfe, and orcneas).

We know him now: […] / Not making his high place the lawless perch / Of wing'd ambitions, nor a vantage-ground / For pleasure; […]

to ship seamen