Anglo Saxon Poetry
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Most of the Old English poetry that has survived is contained in only four manuscripts. The richest and most diverse
of these is the Exeter book which includes a group of short philosophical poems, differing in style and outlook but similar in tone, which have come to be known as 'elegies.
The label 'elegy' is potentially misleading: in Greek and Latin literature the term refers to a particular metrical form, and
since the sixteenth century the word has been
used in English literature to describe a lament or poem of mourning. Tthe term 'elegy' is sometimes used more loosely
to describe any serious meditative poem, and it is this sense that these Old English poems should be considered 'elegies'.
The poems share certain themes and concerns – the passage of time and the transience of earthly things, the pain of
exile and separation, the ache of absence and longing – as well as certain images and scenes such as ruined or abandoned
buildings, desolate landscapes, storms at sea, darkness, night and the chill of winter. These themes, and the traditional
language in which they are presented, are found in other Old English poems—certain passages of Beowulf may be called
'elegiac', if not outright 'elegy'.
Most of the Old English elegies are monologues spoken by an unidentified character whose situation is unclear but who
seems to be cut off from human society and the comforts
of home and friendship. But even though they share the poetic language of exile and longing, each poem has its own
shape and purpose, and each makes its own statement about the problems and possibilities of earthly life. The Wanderer
laments the passing of a whole way of life, the heroic world of the warrior's hall; The Wife's Lament is a poem of intense
personal longing for an absent husband or lover. The Seafarer is explicitly and even aggressively homiletic and Christian; The Ruin is more detached and dispassionate about the scene it describes and its moral judgments, if anything, are
implicit and indirect.
INSTRUCTIONS: Read the following poems and complete the series of questions presented (do not print the actual
poems - they are quite long)
The Seafarer
This tale is true, and mine. It tells
How the sea took me, swept me back
And forth in sorrow and fear and pain
Showed me suffering in a hundred ships,
In a thousand ports, and in me. It tells
Of smashing surf when I sweated in the cold
Of an anxious watch, perched in the bow
As it dashed under cliffs. My feet were cast
In icy bands, bound with frost,
With frozen chains, and hardship groaned
Around my heart. Hunger tore
At my sea-weary soul. No man sheltered
On the quiet fairness of earth can feel
How wretched I was, drifting through winter
On an ice-cold sea, whirled in sorrow,
Alone in a world blown clear of love,
Hung with icicles. The hailstorms flew.
The only sound was the roaring sea,
The freezing waves. The song of the swan
Might serve for pleasure, the cry of the sea-fowl,
The death-noise of birds instead of laughter,
The mewing of gulls instead of mead.
Storms beat on the rocky cliffs and were echoed
By icy-feathered terns and the eagle's screams;
No kinsman could offer comfort there,
To a soul left drowning in desolation.
And who could believe, knowing but
The passion of cities, swelled proud with wine
And no taste of misfortune, how often, how
wearily,
I put myself back on the paths of the sea.
Night would blacken; it would snow from the
north;
Frost bound the earth and hail would fall,
The coldest seeds. And how my heart
Would begin to beat, knowing once more
The salt waves tossing and the towering sea!
The time for journeys would come and my soul
Called me eagerly out, sent me over
The horizon, seeking foreigners' homes.
But there isn't a man on earth so proud,
So born to greatness, so bold with his youth,
Grown so grave, or so graced by God,
That he feels no fear as the sails unfurl,
Wondering what Fate has willed and will do.
10
20
30
40
No harps ring in his heart, no rewards,
No passion for women, no worldly pleasures,
45
Nothing, only the ocean's heave;
But longing wraps itself around him.
Orchards blossom, the towns bloom,
Fields grow lovely as the world springs fresh,
And all these admonish that willing mind
50
Leaping to journeys, always set
In thoughts traveling on a quickening tide.
So summer's sentinel, the cuckoo, sings
In his murmuring voice, and our hearts mourn
As he urges. Who could understand,
55
In ignorant ease, what we others suffer
As the paths of exile stretch endlessly on?
And yet my heart wanders away,
My soul roams with the sea, the whales'
Home, wandering to the widest corners
60
Of the world, returning ravenous with desire,
Flying solitary, screaming, exciting me
To the open ocean, breaking oaths
On the curve of a wave.
Thus the joys of God
65
Are fervent with life, where life itself
Fades quickly into the earth. The wealth
Of the world neither reaches to Heaven nor
remains.
No man has ever faced the dawn
Certain which of Fate's three threats
70
Would fall: illness, or age, or an enemy's
Sword, snatching the life from his soul.
The praise the living pour on the dead
Flowers from reputation: plant
An earthly life of profit reaped
75
Even from hatred and rancor, of bravery
Flung in the devil's face, and death
Can only bring you earthly praise
And a song to celebrate a place
With the angels, life eternally blessed
80
In the hosts of Heaven.
The days are gone
When the kingdoms of earth flourished in glory;
Now there are no rulers, no emperors,
No givers of gold, as once there were,
85
When wonderful things were worked among them
And they lived in lordly magnificence.
Those powers have vanished, those pleasures are
dead.
The weakest survives and the world continues,
Kept spinning by toil. All glory is tarnished.
90
The world's honor ages and shrinks,
Bent like the men who mold it. Their faces
Blanch as time advances, their beards
Wither and they mourn the memory of friends.
The sons of princes, sown in the dust.
95
The soul stripped of its flesh knows nothing
Of sweetness or sour, feels no pain,
Bends neither its hand nor its brain. A brother
Opens his palms and pours down gold
On his kinsman's grave, strewing his coffin
100
With treasures intended for Heaven, but nothing
Golden shakes the wrath of God
For a soul overflowing with sin, and nothing
Hidden on earth rises to Heaven.
We all fear God. He turns the earth,
He set it swinging firmly in space,
Gave life to the world and light to the sky.
Death leaps at the fools who forget their God.
He who lives humbly has angels from Heaven
To carry him courage and strength and belief.
A man must conquer pride, not kill it,
Be firm with his fellows, chaste for himself,
Treat all the world as the world deserves,
With love or with hate but never with harm,
Though an enemy seek to scorch him in hell,
Or set the flames of a funeral pyre
Under his lord. Fate is stronger
And God mightier than any man's mind.
Our thoughts should turn to where our home is,
Consider the ways of coming there,
Then strive for sure permission for us
To rise to that eternal joy,
That life born in the love of God
And the hope of Heaven. Praise the Holy
Grace of Him who honored us,
Eternal, unchanging creator of earth. Amen.
THE SEAFARER Questions
1. Explain why you agree or disagree with this
statement: “Fate is stronger than any man’s will.”
2. In what way/s is the Seafarer in exile?
3. How do his ideas of heaven compare with his
earthly exile?
4. Choose five images that contribute to the tone or
mood of isolation in the poem?
5. Pick the point in the poem which seems to find the
poet the most hopeful. Write that line here.
6. Pick the point in the poem that seems to find the
poet feeling the most helpless. Write that line here.
7. What are the three listed ways by which this poet
expects death?
8. How come a person dislike something, as much as
the seafarer dislikes the sea, yet keeps going back
to it?
9. Do you feel sorry for the poet? Have you ever felt
similar feelings?
The Wanderer
Oft to the Wanderer, weary of exile,
Cometh God’s pity, compassionate love,
Though woefully toiling on wintry seas
With churning oar in the icy wave
Homeless and helpless he fled from Fate. 5
Thus saith the Wanderer mindful of misery,
Grievous disasters, and death of kin:
“Oft when the day brok, oft at the dawning,
Lonely and wretched I walied my woe.
No man is living, no comrade left,
10
To whom I dare fully unlock my heart.
I have learned truly the mark of a man
Is keeping his counsel and locking his lips,
Let him think what he will! For, woe of heart
Withstandeth not Fate; a failing spirit
15
Earneth no help. Men eager for honor
Bury their sorrow deep in the breast.
So have I also, often in wretchedness
Fettered my feelings, far from my kin,
Homeless and hapless, since days of old,
20
When the dark earth covered my dear lord’s face
And I sailed away with sorrowful heart,
Over wintry seas, seeking a gold-lord,
If far or near lived one to befriend me
With gift in the mead-hall and comfort for grief. 25
Who bears it, knows what a bitter companion,
Shoulder to shoulder, sorrow can be,
When friends are no more. His fortune is exile,
Not gifts of fine gold; a heart that is frozen,
Earth’s winsomeness dead. And he dreams of the hallmen, 30
The dealing of treasure, the days of his youth,
When his lord bade welcome to wassail and feast.
But gone is that gladness, and never again
Shall come the loved counsel of comrade and king.
Even in slumber his sorrow assaileth,
35
And, dreaming he claspeth his dear lord again,
Head on knee, hand on knee, loyally laying,
Pledging his liege as in days long past.
Then from his slumber he starts lonely-hearted,
Beholding gray stretches of tossing sea,
40
Sea-birds bathing, with wings outspread,
While hailstorms darken, and driving snow.
Bitterer then is the bane of his wretchedness,
The longing for loved ones: his grief is renewed.
The forms of his kinsmen take shape in the silence; 45
In rapture he greets them; in gladness he scans
Old comrades remembered. But they melt into air
With no word of greeting to gladden his heart.
Then again surges his sorrow upon him;
And grimly he spurs his weary soul
50
Once more to the toil of the tossing sea.
No wonder therefore, in all the world,
If a shadow darkens upon my spirit
When I reflect on the fates of men-How one by one proud warriors vanish
55
From the halls that knew them, and day by day
All this earth ages and droops unto death
No man may know wisdom till many a winter
Had been his portion. A wise man is patient,
Not swift to anger, nor hasty of speech,
60
Neither too weak, nor too reckless, in war,
Neither fearful nor fain, nor too wishful of wealth,
Nor too eager in vow-- ere he know the event.
A wise man will ponder how dread is that doom
When all the world’s wealth shall be scattered and waste
65
As now, over all, through the regions of earth,
Walls stand rime-covered and swept by the winds.
The battlements crumble, the wine-halls decay;
Joyless and silent the heroes are sleeping
Where the proud host fell by the wall they defended.
70
Some battle launched on their long, last journet;
One a bird bore o’er the billowing sea
One the gray wolf slew; one a grieving oerl
Sadly gave to the grave’s embrace.
The Wardenof men hath wasted this world
75
And these giant-built structures stand empty of life.
He who shall muse on these mouldering ruins,
And deeply ponder this darkling life,
Must brood on old legends of battle and bloodshed,
And heavy the mood that troubles his heart:
80
Where now is the warrior? Where is the war horse?
Bestowal of treasure, and sharing of feast?
Alas! the bright ale-cup, the byrny-clad warrior,
The prince in his splendor those days are long sped
In the night of the past, as if they never had been!
85
And now remains only, for warriors’ memorial,
A wall wondrous high with serpent shapes carved.
Storms of ash-spears have smitten the eorls,
Carnage of weapon, and conquering Fate.
Storms now batter these ramparts of stone;
90
Blowing snow and the blast of winter
Enfold the earth; night-shadows fall
Darkly lowering, from the north driving
Raging hail in wrath upon men.
Wretchedness fills the realm of earth,
95
And Fate’s decrees transform the world.
Here wealth is fleeting, friends are fleeting,
Man is fleeting, maid is fleeting,
All the foundation of earth shall fail!”
Thus spake the sage in solitude pondering.
100
Good man is he who guardeth his faith.
He must never too quickly unburden his breast
Of its sorrow, but eagerly strive for redress;
And happy the man who seeketh for mercy
From his heavenly Father, our Fortress and Strength. 105
NOTES:
Several lines have been lost; and the translation tries to make
sense of a few surviving words
Wyrd is the Old English word for Fate, a powerful but not
quite personified force. It is related to the verb weorthan,
meaning roughly ‘to occur’. Its meanings range from a neutral
‘event’ to a prescribed ‘destiny’ to a personified ‘Fate’; it is
useful to think of wyrd as ‘what happens’, usually in a negative
sense. In a poem so preoccupied with puzzling over the nature
and meaning of wyrd, it seemed appropriate to leave the word
untranslated.
2 The Exeter Book manuscript in which the poem survives
does not have quotation marks, or clear indications of where
one speech begins and ends in this poem; we are not sure
whether lines 1-5 are spoken by the same character that speaks
the following lines, or whether they are the narrator’s opinion
on the general situation of the Wanderer.
THE WANDERER
Motif of ubi sunt (“where are they?”)
1. How does the editor describe the general mood
or tone of “The Wanderer”? Does he see this as
typical or atypical of Anglo-Saxon poetry? 2. Elegies are lyrical poems about death, and normally
are not considered to have plots. Can this poem be
read as having signs of internal conflict, rather than
an external one? Discuss your thoughts?
3. The term translated as “fate” at the end of the first
paragraph is the Anglo-Saxon word wyrd. How
does knowing the original meaning of this word
alter our understanding of the opening lines?
4. In the fourth paragraph, several kennings appear.
What do you suppose the kenning “gold-friend”
means? What about the compound “winter-sad”?
5. Who (or what personified abstraction) is his cruel
companion?
6. What does the wanderer dream of when he falls
asleep? What does he discover when he awakens?
7. What does the setting appear to be? (I.e., where
is the Wanderer if he has to stir with his arms
“the frost-cold sea” and he awakens to see “yellow
waves” where “the sea-birds bathe”?)
8. What are the traits of the “wise man” in AngloSaxon thinking, as indicated by this poem?
9. Many critics read the last lines as a bit of Christian
propaganda. Where does the poet suggest the
Wanderer can find comfort and stability
The Wife's Lament
I sing this song about myself, full sad,
My own distress, and tell what hardships I
Have had to suffer since I first grew up,
Present and past, but never more than now;
I ever suffered grief through banishment.
For since my lord departed from this people
Over the sea, each dawn have I had care
Wondering where my lord may be on land.
When I set off to join and serve my lord,
A friendless exile in my sorry plight,
My husband’s kinsmen plotted secretly
How they might separate us from each other
That we might live in wretchedness apart
Most widely in the world: and my heart longed.
In the first place my lord had ordered me
To take up my abode here, though I had
Among these people few dear loyal friends;
Therefore my heart is sad. Then had I found
A fitting man, but one ill-starred, distressed,
Whose hiding heart was contemplating crime,
Though cheerful his demeanour. We had vowed
Full many a time that nought should come between us
But death alone, and nothing else at all.
All that has changed, and it is now as though
Our marriage and our love had never been,
And far or near forever I must suffer
The feud of my beloved husband dear.
So in this forest grove they made me dwell,
Under the oak-tree, in this earthy barrow.
Old is this earth-cave, all I do is yearn.
The dales are dark with high hills up above,
Sharp hedge surrounds it, overgrown with briars,
And joyless is the place. Full often here
The absence of my lord comes sharply to me.
Dear lovers in this world lie in their beds,
While I alone at crack of dawn must walk
Under the oak-tree round this earthy cave,
Where I must stay the length of summer days,
Where I may weep my banishment and all
My many hardships, for I never can
Contrive to set at rest my careworn heart,
Nor all the longing that this life has brought me.
A young man always must be serious,
And tough his character; likewise he should
Seem cheerful, even though his heart is sad
With multitude of cares. All earthly joy
Must come from his own self. Since my dear lord
Is outcast, far off in a distant land,
Frozen by storms beneath a stormy cliff
And dwelling in some desolate abode
Beside the sea, my weary-hearted lord
Must suffer pitiless anxiety.
And all too often he will call to mind
A happier dwelling. Grief must always be
For him who yearning longs for his beloved.
THE WIFE’S LAMENT
What does exile mean to an Anglo-Saxon woman?
1. Why do you think Anglo-Saxon scholars think
the speaker of this poem is female? Could it be
a male?
2. What does the speaker say her subject-matter
will be in this poem?
3. What happened to the wife’s lord that has left
her alone?
4. How did the man’s kinfolk behave when the
wife went to seek shelter with them?
5. Where did the wife’s lord command her to
live?
6. The wife “weeps her exile” when she sees what
lying together?
7. Why do you suppose the wife says a young
person must have a “glad countenance” even
though that person experiences heart-ache?
The Ruin
Wondrous is this foundation – the fates have broken
and shattered this city; the work of giants crumbles.
The roofs are ruined, the towers toppled,
frost in the mortar has broken the gate,
torn and worn and shorn by the storm, 5
eaten through with age. The earth’s grasp
holds the builders, rotten, forgotten,
the hard grip of the ground, until a hundred
generations of men are gone. This wall, rust-stained
and covered with moss, has seen one kingdom after another,
10
stood in the storm, steep and tall, then tumbled.
The foundation remains, felled by the weather,
it fell…..
grimly ground up ….
……cleverly created….
15
…… a crust of mud surrounded …
….. put together a swift
and subtle system of rings; one of great wisdom
wondrously bound the braces together with wires.
Bright were the buildings, with many bath-houses, 20
high noble gables and a great noise of armies,
many a meadhall filled with men’s joys,
until mighty fate made an end to all that.
The slain fell on all sides, plague-days came,
and death destroyed all the brave swordsmen; 25
the seats of their idols became empty wasteland,
the city crumbled, its re-builders collapsed
beside their shrines. So now these courts are empty,
and the rich vaults of the vermilion roofs
shed their tiles. The ruins toppled to the ground, 30
broken into rubble, where once many a man
glad-minded, gold-bright, bedecked in splendor,
proud, full of wine, shone in his war-gear,
gazed on treasure, on silver, on sparkling gems,
on wealth, on possessions, on the precious stone, 35
on this bright capital of a broad kingdom.
Stone buildings stood, the wide-flowing stream
threw off its heat; a wall held it all
in its bright bosom where the baths were,
hot in its core, a great convenience. 40
They let them gush forth …..
the hot streams over the great stones,
under…
until the circular pool …. hot…
…..where the baths were. 45
Then….
….. that is a noble thing,
how …. the city ….
THE RUIN
1. How is the elegiac poem of “The Ruin” a ruin in
itself ?
2. This is one of the most moving and powerful poems in Old English. How does it provide a vision
of life as both infinitely precious and inevitably
transitory?
3. How can a poem so old still strike a responsive
chord in the minds of many readers today?
4. Although we know that words are missing, how
does the ending still resonate the tone and mood
of the author?
5. How does it affect your reading and understanding of the poem to know that this is about a once
glorious city of Roman Britain, which fell after the
Romans left?