The Complete Old English Poems by Craig Williamson

Author:Craig Williamson [Williamson, Craig]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Poetry
ISBN: 9780812248470
Google: wVLiDQAAQBAJ
Goodreads: 32672775
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
Published: 2017-02-03T05:00:00+00:00

THE WIFE’S LAMENT

The Wife’s Lament has been read as a riddle, an allegory of the Church’s longing for Christ, a retainer’s lament for his lost lord, a speaking sword, and even the cry of a lost soul speaking out from beyond the grave. Scholars today mostly agree that it is a poem of love and lament, spoken by a woman who has lost her husband, who is also her lord. Like other Old English elegies, this poem begins as a heartfelt cry, moves through a struggle for consolation, and ends as a generalized piece of gnomic wisdom. The speaker recalls that her husband has left her for unknown reasons. Some plotting involving kinsmen has taken place, and he has fled. She has discovered that he was feuding with unknown people or possibly against her and plotting murder. She desperately remembers their love, but this memory increases her sense of loss and pain. In the end she tries to generalize her suffering to include all people, especially her husband. The speaker, however, doesn’t know why her husband has left, and because of this uncertainty, she doesn’t know whether to pity him or to curse him. The generalizations at the end of the poem allow her to do both. If he is faultless and suffering, he joins her in grief and deserves pity and consolation. If he has been plotting against her or has simply left her out of lack of love, he deserves the curse she is uttering under her breath.

The Wife’s Lament

I tell this story from my grasp of sorrow—

I tear this song from a clutch of grief.

My stretch of misery from birth to bed rest

Has been unending, no more than now.

My mind wanders—my heart hurts. 5

My husband, my lord, left hearth and home,

Crossing the sea-road, the clash of waves.

My heart heaved each dawn, not knowing

Where in the world my lord had gone.

I followed, wandering a wretched road, 10

Seeking some service, knowing my need

For a sheltering home. I fled from woe.

His cruel kinsmen began to plot,

Scheming in secret to split us apart.

They forced us to live like exiles 15

Wretched, distant lives. Now I lie with longing.

My lord commanded me to live here

Where I have few friends, little love,

And no sense of home. Now my heart mourns.

I had found the best man for me, 20

My husband and companion, hiding his mind,

Closing his heart, bound in torment,

Brooding on murder beneath a gentle bearing.

How often we promised each other at night

That nothing would part us except death. 25

But fate is twisted—everything’s turned.

Our love is undone, our closeness uncoupled.

The web of our wedding is unwoven.

Something now seems as if it never was—

Our friendship together. Far and near, 30

I must suffer the feud of my dear lord’s brooding.

I was forced to live in a cold earth-cave,

Under an oak tree in an unhappy wood.

My earth-house is old. I lie with longing.

Here are steep hills and gloomy valleys, 35

Dark hideouts under twisted briars,

Bitter homes without joy. My lord’s leaving

Seizes my mind, harrows my heart.

Somewhere friends share a lover’s bed,

Couples clinging to their closeness at

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