Swimming with Seals by Victoria Whitworth

Author:Victoria Whitworth [Whitworth, Victoria]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781784978365
Publisher: Head of Zeus

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Victoria Whitworth’s next novel is coming in 2018

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Appendix

Glossary

Acknowledgements

A Note About the Cover Painting

About Victoria Whitworth

Also by Victoria Whitworth

An Invitation from the Publisher

APPENDIX

The Wanderer: MY TRANSLATION

The lonely man often abides God’s mercy, even though, careworn, he has to stir the freezing sea with his hands, walk the paths of exile. Fate is fully determined! So said the wanderer, mindful of hardship, battle, the fall of kin.

Often, every dawn, I have to voice my cares alone. No one now lives to whom I dare clearly open my heart. I truly know it’s a noble habit in a man that he keep his thoughts fast bound, hold his secrets, no matter what he thinks.

The weary spirit can’t withstand fate, nor can the tired soul seek help. People eager for renown often bind sad thoughts in their breasts; so I, wretched with care, deprived of my native land, far from my kin, have often fettered my spirit since long ago I buried my gold-friend in an earth grave, and I went hence in wintry mood over the surface of the waves; sad for the lack of a hall, I sought a treasure-giver – somewhere, far or near, where I might find the man to comfort me in mead-hall, friendless as I am, to bring me joy.

The man who’s been through it knows how hard a companion sorrow is to him who has few dear friends: lonely paths, not twisted gold; a cold heart, not the joys of earth. He remembers men in the hall, treasure-giving; how in his youth his gold-friend weaned him on to feasting. All joy passes: he knows that, the man who has to forgo the beloved wisdom of his lord, his friend. When sorrow and sleep join forces to bind the wretched wanderer it seems to him that he hugs and kisses his lord, and rests his hands and head on his knee, just as he used to in the old days when he enjoyed favour.

Then the friendless man wakes again and sees before him the fallow waves, the bathing seabirds with their outspread feathers, the driving frost and snow mixed with hail. Then his heart’s wounds are heavier, yearning for the beloved.

Sorrow is renewed.

Memory of kinsmen passes through him; he greets them joyfully, eagerly scans the men. Always they swim away. The floating spirits do not bring the familiar songs.

Care is renewed, over and over, for the man who must send his weary spirit over the bound waves.

I don’t understand why my soul doesn’t darken when I think through the life of man, how the proud warriors so suddenly departed the hall, just as this world of ours each and every day rots and withers. No one wins this wisdom before he has achieved his share of winters in the world.

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