Grendel describes Hrothgar as a man who
is trapped - largely by his own success:
And so he waits like a man chained in a
cave, staring at the entrance or, sometime, gazing with sad,
absent-minded eyes at Wealtheow, chained beside him. (122)
One may at this point be tempted to think
of Plato's "Allegory of the Cave" from The Republic.