Unferth and Beowulf

At the beginning of this excerpt Unferth has a discussion about how Beowulf is not the best hero out there. By trying to prove this point he brings up the swimming match against Breca, in which he lost. By bringing up this swimming match Breca was trying to ruin Beowulf's reputation of being the best out there. Unferth thought that by bringing up this he could both hurt Beowulf's reputation and make himself look better. Unferth is doing this due to jealously because around his area he is known as one of the greats and by Beowulf stepping in he feels threatened and the only way to cope with this is by trying to hurt Beowulf's reputation. After Unferth says all of these accusations he responds in a heroic manner by not wanting to kick Unferth ass for saying all those things, but by explaining that Breca simply just swam straight to shore while he took detours to fight sea monsters to help keep the seas safe. He states that this is the only reason Breca won because all he cared about was winning and not helping keep the seas safe. By Beowulf doing this it helps show and prove how much of a heroic person he really is.