Heartbreak, loneliness, and disappointed dreams

Poetry: The Wife's Lament

A new series, sharing Anglo-Saxon poetry with the hope of revealing the untold lives and tales within them: the shared experiences we have with their emotions as they journeyed through lives over a thousand years ago.

Click here to check out previous posts in this series!

I draw these words from my deep sadness,
my sorrowful lot. I can say that, 
since I grew up, I have not suffered
such hardships as now, old or new.
I am tortured by the anguish of exile.

First my lord forsook his family
for the tossing waves; I fretted at dawn
as to where in the world my lord might be.
In my sorrow I set out then,
a friendless wanderer, to search for my man.
But that man's kinsmen laid secret plans
to part us, so that we should live
most wretchedly, far from each other
in this wide world; I was seized with longings.

My lord asked me to live with him here;
I had few loved ones, loyal friends
in this country; that is reason for grief.
Then I found my own husband was ill-starred,
sad at heart, pretending, plotting
murder behind a smiling face. How often
we swore that nothing but death should ever
divide us; that is all changed now;
our friendship is as it if had never been.
Early and late, I must undergo hardship 
because of the feud of my own dearest loved one.
Men forced me to live in a forest grove,
under an oak tree in the earth-cave.
This cavern is age-old; I am choked with longings.
Gloomy are the valleys, too high the hills,
harsh strongholds overgrown with briars:
a joyless abode. The journey of my lord so often
cruelly seizes me. There are lovers on earth,
lovers alive who lie in bed,
when I pass through this earth-cave alone
and out under the oak tree at dawn;
there I must sit through the long summer's day
and there I mourn my miseries,
for many hardships; for I am never able
to quiet the cares of my sorrowful mind,
all the longings that are my life's lot.

Young men must always be serious in mind
and stout-hearted; they must hide
their heartaches, that host of constant sorrows,
behind a smiling face.

                                       Whether he is master
of his own fate or is exiled in a far-off land - 
sitting under rocky storm-cliffs, chilled
with hoar-frost, weary in mind,
surrounded by the sea in some sad place - 
my husband is caught in the clutches of anguish;
over and again he recalls a happier home.
Grief goes side by side with those
who suffer longing for a loved one.

The Wife’s Lament, tr. Kevin Crossley-Holland (1982: 56-7).

Wow. What a sensational poem covering themes of love, heartbreak, loneliness, and disappointment - emotions we might not immediately connect with Anglo-Saxon lives.

The complete meaning of this poem has been much debated, but its general story can be understood. A woman (the narrator) travels abroad to marry her lover, but his kinsmen conspire to separate them. She grieves for the life they could have had, seeing other loved-up couples living her dream, and she longs to see her husband again.

One thing that is unclear is the nature of their separation. Take the following lines of the poem, for example:

Men forced me to live in a forest-grove, 
under an oak tree in the earth-cave.

This is the translation given by Crossley-Holland (1982: 56-7). An alternative translation by Richard Hamer (2015: 71 and 73), however, is as follows:

So in this forest grove they made me dwell, 
under the oak-tree, in this earthy barrow.

This is consistent with an even more recent translation by George Young (in Alice Jeffs 2022: 24):

A man (who else) made this canopied clearing 
my haunt: an earthen hollow at the heel of an oak.

As a momentary aside to other women reading this - the sassy-ness of the bracketed phrase caught me off guard the first time I read it. What a modern sentiment capturing the narrator’s feeling that she and her female peers have been repeatedly let down by men! I happen to love men and think they’re great, having not been treated badly by them, but I know that this medieval voice captures the experience of many women today.

A barrow is a type of prehistoric and early medieval funerary monument, consisting of a large earthen mound constructed over the top of the grave or cremation deposit. They were initially symbolic of status: the earliest Anglo-Saxon kings were buried in lavish wealth under these barrows, as were powerful seventh-century women (see here for a spectacular male example and here for a very recent female find). By the later Anglo-Saxon period, however, they had become sites of suspicion and superstition, believed to be inhabited by evil spirits and used as execution cemeteries.

What is unclear, to me at least, is the nature of her entrapment within this ‘earth-cave’ or ‘barrow’. Has she been murdered and is now ‘living’ (i.e., buried) in her final resting place, grieving as she witnesses the continued lives of her lover and other lovers still walking the earth? OR is she comparing her existence while separated from her lover to the pain of death? I think the latter seems to fit better with the narrative of the poem, but others may disagree. What do you think? Comment below with your readings of the poem!

What I love most about this poem is the texture that it gives to one person who lived in the deep past (ok, a fictional character, but surely based on the real experiences of the poet or people they knew?). The narrator talks about her intense love and the pain of separation, the disappointment of her ‘life’s lot’ and her jealousy seeing ‘lovers alive who lie in bed’. She talks about the heartbreak experienced by men too: men must put on a brave face, hiding ‘their heartaches, that host of constant sorrows, behind a smiling face’. Isn’t that a relatable experience?!

There is so much more I could bring out of this poem (what does it mean, for example, that her lover was ‘plotting murder behind a smiling face’, or that their ‘friendship is as if it has never been’), but I will stop there for today. I hope you enjoyed this first post in a new series sharing Anglo-Saxon poetry, so that we hear from the men and women of the medieval past in their own words. I intend to share a post in this series each Thursday: subscribe below if you would like the next instalment straight to your email inbox, alongside the other posts at Telling Their Tales (click here to find out more).