The Wife's Lament

‘Present and past, but never more than now,

I’ve suffered constant grief through banishment’

‘When I set off to join (folgan) and serve my lord […] My husband’s kinsmen plotted secretly

How they might separate us from each other That we might live in wretchedness apart’

‘Then I had found A fitting man (ic me fael gemaecne monnan funde) […] Whose hiding heart (mid midendne) was contemplating crime

Though cheerful his demeanour’

‘We had vowed Full many a time that nought should come between us,

But only death’

‘it is now as though

Our loving partnership had never been (fornumen)’

‘So in this forest grove they made me dwell,

Under the oak-tree in this earthly barrow (eordscraefe)’

‘Old is the earth-cave, all I do is yearn,

The dales are dark with high hills up above, Sharp hedge (burgtunas) surrounds it overgrown with briars

‘Full often here

The absence of my lord comes (begeat) sharply to me’

‘Dear lovers in this world lie in their beds

While I alone at the crack of dawn must walk Under the oak-tree round this earthly cave’

‘A young man always should be serious And firm in character; likewise he should

Seem cheerful (blide gebaero), even though his heart is sad […] All his earthly joy Depends upon himself’

‘my dear lord, Is outcast […]

Frozen by storms beneath a stony cliff And dwelling in some desolate abode Beside the sea’