Question

I need to paraphrase some lines from Beowulf for tomorrow. I really hope you could answer this as well as the previous message I posted to you.
Thank you in advance!!
1) The breath of the dragon billowed (how can I rephrase it? “rose and fell”, floated?) from the rock
in a hissing gust. (how can I rephrase this?)
2) Beowulf raised his towering shield overshadowed by the mound (small hill) in which the serpent used to hide.
3) After that he shook out his huge, ancestral, sharp-edged sword, which is then described as an ancient heirloom (relict?).
3) Each felt terror at the another and wished to destroy the another (?)
4) Beowulf is described as the intransigent, sorely-straitened (how can I rephrase it?) Lord of friends, the Great chieftain and the brave warrior-King.
I also need to rephrase these two lines referring to the serpent
5) The serpentine dragon quickly wound itself together (can I rephrase is with “coiled itself together?)
6) The temper of the twisted tangle-thing was fired to close now in battle. (does it mean that the serpent started to spit fire?).
7) It (the serpent) came flowing forward, flaming and coiling.(how can I rephrase this?)

Answer 1

The best way to paraphrase lines like these is to use a thesaurus, I think.

http://www.thesaurus.com

For example, go to that website and enter <b>serpentine</b> -- then read through the list of words that come up and choose one that you think fits in that sentence. For #5, I'd use one of the words in the "convolution" list -- most likely "coiling" because the reference is more about what the dragon looks like than how it's behaving.

Try the others and repost.