The HyperTexts
Wulf and Eadwacer: Modern English Translations, Prose Paraphrase, History, Summary and Analysis
"Wulf and Eadwacer" is one of the truly great poems of English antiquity. Is
it the first great English poem, if it predates "Beowulf"? That
would be my contention. — Michael R. Burch, translator
This page contains:
• Seven translations of "Wulf and Eadwacer" by Michael R. Burch.
• A literal, word-by-word prose translation/prose paraphrase.
• Various interpretations of the famously ambiguous poem.
• The translator's notes and analysis along with the poem's historical
context.
• A discussion of the identity of the
mysterious "second wolf."
"Wulf and Eadwacer" is an anonymous Old English/Anglo-Saxon poem noted for its
rich ambiguity and in all likelihood written by a female scop, circa 960-990
AD, if not earlier.
Wulf and Eadwacer (I)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
My clan's curs pursue him like crippled game;
they'll rip him apart if he approaches their pack.
Ungelīc is ūs! (It is otherwise with us!)
Wulf's on one island; I'm on another.
His island's a fortress, fastened by fens. (fastened=secured)
Here, bloodthirsty curs howl for carnage.
They'll rip him apart if he approaches their pack.
Ungelīc is ūs! (It is otherwise with us!)
My hopes pursued Wulf like panting hounds,
but whenever it rained—how I wept!—
the boldest cur clutched me in his paws:
good feelings, to a point, but the end loathsome!
Wulf, O, my Wulf, my ache for you
has made me sick; your seldom-comings
have left me famished, deprived of real meat.
Have you heard, Eadwacer? Watchdog!
A wolf has borne our wretched whelp to the woods.
One can easily sever what never was one:
our song together.
TRANSLATOR'S NOTES: In my interpretation of "Wulf and Eadwacer" the speaker is a defiant early
feminist, the first #metoo poet of the English language. She is disgusted with her bloodthirsty tribe, who have driven her
lover Wulf away. Why? Perhaps they wanted to sacrifice him to the
"gods." Perhaps he had broken some tribal law. We simply don't know.
But whatever the reason, the speaker says
it is ungelic, or "otherwise" with her. She is not like her
ferocious, bloodthirsty people. They are alien to her. Rather, she dreams of
her lover Wulf and follows him in her hopeful, loving thoughts. But even as
she dreams of Wulf, she is being raped by another man, Eadwacer.
It is not
clear who Eadwacer is. He may be a priest (Heaven-Watcher), a guardian
(Property-Watcher), a family member appointed to "protect" her "purity" (a
Watchdog), or perhaps her husband against her will. The speaker defiantly sneers
at and insults Eadwacer.
He is unable to please her. He is deficient in "meat" compared to Wulf. Wulf
has a bigger sex organ and knows how to use it. The speaker mocks her would-be "lover"
and "protector." Eadwacer has made her pregnant, but she abhors him.
Something terrible has happened to their whelp, or child. Their "song
together" will be easily severed, because they were never really one. She
waits for Wulf to put an end to Eadwacer, so they can be reunited. When she
speaks of Wulf, it is with real love and longing. In my interpretation this
is not so much the first English poem about a love triangle, as it is the
first English poem about a love/sex triangle.
But please keep in mind that I cannot claim this is the "correct"
interpretation of the poem. No one can claim to know exactly what the original poet
intended. However, I think my interpretation makes sense. It's the story of many
women who have been separated from the men they love by war, religion and/or
chauvinism. There are other interpretations in which the woman is not
being raped, but simply prefers Wulf to the man who is embracing her. These
alternate interpretations will be discussed later on this page.
Also, please note that I call my translations "loose translations" and
"interpretations" because they are not literal word-for-word
translations. I begin with my
personal interpretation of a poem and translate accordingly. To critics who
object to variations from the original texts, my response is that there are
often substantial disagreements among even the most accomplished translators.
Variations begin with the readings because different
people get different things from different poems. And a strict word-for-word
translation will seldom, if ever, result in poetry. In my opinion translation is
much closer to an art than a perfect science and I side with Rabindranath
Tagore, who said he needed some leeway in order to produce poetry in another
language when he translated his own poems into English.—MRB
Background
"Wulf and Eadwacer" has been classified as an elegy, a lament, a lover's lament, an early ballad or villanelle,
a riddle, a charm, and as a
frauenlieder or "woman's song." An
ancient Anglo-Saxon work written in the West Saxon dialect, the poem dates back to a time when the English language still resembled German (the Angles, from whom
England derives its name, were a Germanic tribe, as were the Saxons and Jutes). Around 75% of the poem's words have Germanic origins. Old English poetry is
also called Anglo-Saxon poetry because it has linguistic
roots that go back to the Angles and Saxons. And yet, while the poem was
composed in Old English, it still "feels" quite modern. How is that
so? For one thing, it's a dramatic monologue―quite
possibly the first dramatic monologue in the English language, centuries before the works of poets and playwrights like Geoffrey Chaucer, Christopher Marlowe, William Shakespeare,
John Milton, Alfred Tennyson and Robert Browning. It's also one of the
first English poems with a refrain, along with "Deor's Lament." Furthermore, the speaker
of "Wulf and Eadwacer"
is a woman, at a time when we don't find other Englishwomen writing poetry or speaking so bitterly and defiantly (the "Wife's Lament" is the other dazzling exception to this general rule).
Thus "Wulf and Eadwacer" may be the first feminist text in the English language.
Is the speaker female? I think so. Henk Aertsen has argued that the feminine
endings of reotugu and seoce are female. But grammar
aside, it seems obvious that a woman is speaking. And technically the poem looks like free verse―nearly a thousand years before Walt Whitman
and five hundred years before the King James Bible―because it "breaks the rules" of the poetry of its day.
In my opinion, "Wulf and Eadwacer" is a groundbreaking poem because it has a
female perspective, a feminist attitude, and a free verse approach
in which traditional rules of versification are bent or broken. What
matters, as with the great Romantic and Modernist poets to come many centuries later, is
that the speaker gets her point across. And she does, in spades.
Other Anglo-Saxon/Old English poems:
The Ruin,
Wulf and Eadwacer,
The Wife's Lament,
Deor's Lament,
Caedmon's Hymn,
Bede's Death Song,
The Seafarer,
The Rhyming Poem,
Anglo-Saxon Riddles and Kennings
Wulf and Eadwacer (II)
loose translation/interpretation by
Michael R. Burch
To my people he's prey, a pariah.
They'll rip him apart if he approaches their pack.
Ungelīc is ūs! (We are unalike, otherwise, different,
alien to each other)
Wulf fled to a faraway island:
his fen-fastened fortress.
Here, slaughter-cruel curs howl for blood.
They'll rip him apart if he approaches their pack.
Ungelīc is ūs!
My heart hounded Wulf in his wanderings
but whenever it rained—how I
wept!—
the boldest cur clutched me in his paws:
good feelings for him, but for me loathsome!
Wulf, my Wulf! These violent love-longings
left me useless; your seldom-comings
deprived me of real meat!
Have you heard, Heaven-Watcher?
A wolf has borne our wretched whelp to the woods!
One can easily sever what never was one:
our song together.
Translator's Notes and Analysis
by
Michael R. Burch
"Wulf and Eadwacer" is one of the truly great "elder" poems of the English language:
a bittersweet saga of love, separation, rape and betrayal. Or is it? As we shall
see, opinions vary and can vary widely. This ancient poem―over
1,000 years old!―has been characterized as an elegy, a wild lament, a lover's lament, a
passion play, a riddle, a charm, and as an early
ballad with a refrain. However, most scholars choose to place it,
along with
The Wife's Lament, within
the genre of the frauenlied or frauenlieder, a woman's song. It may be the first
extant poem authored by a woman in the then-fledgling English
language, although the poet's name and sex remain unknown. Still, it seems likely the
poet was a woman because the poem is written from a female perspective and we don't usually think of ancient scops pretending
to be women. "Wulf and Eadwacer" is one of the first English poems to employ a refrain, a
hallmark of the ballads and villanelles to come. The poem appeared in the Exeter Book,
between "Deor's Lament" and the riddles,
meaning that it was written no later than around 990 AD. But the poem
itself is probably older, perhaps much older. I hope readers
enjoy my translations of this powerful, haunting poem that speaks to us from the
dawn of time and English poetry. The remainder of these notes may be of
interest to readers who would like to know more about the poem, its
history, and why I made the choices I made.
Is "Wulf and Eadwacer" the first free verse poem in the English
language? I think it deserves nomination and consideration for at least
three reasons. First, its refrain was an innovation (although there is a dispute
over whether a refrain was actually intended). Second, the refrain
broke the rules of traditional Anglo-Saxon poetry by containing only five
syllables, rather than the normal eight. Third, there are other
irregularities of form and metrics. In the original text the poem begins
with a two-line stanza followed by the refrain.
Next, there is a four-line stanza followed by the refrain. Then there are
four longer lines not followed by a refrain. Following are the three
shorter, terser, emotion-charged lines that begin with the exclamation "Wulf, mīn Wulf!"
("Wolf, my Wolf!"). Again there is no refrain, which has been
abandoned, and the first half-line has only three syllables, where Old
English prosody required at least four syllables per half-line. The four
closing lines either (1) alternate between longer and shorter lines as they
appear in the original text, or (2) revert back to the traditional form and
are thus longer than the lines that immediately precede them (in the latter
case whoever hand-wrote the poem made a grouping error and there should be
only three lines). Does the author of "Wulf and Eadwacer" qualify
as a free verse poet? Yes, I think so because the poet―no
slave to convention―"mixed things up" by
innovating and either ignoring or relaxing the traditional rules.
The poetic devices used are in what John Balaban called the
"pre-continental, Anglo-Saxon style." These poetic devices include accentual
meter, alliteration, assonance, and what Balaban terms "ablaut, slant rhyme"
on the order of ring-rang-rung. Later poets who employed slant rhyme or
"para-rhyme" effectively include Henry Vaughan, Emily Dickinson, Gerard
Manley Hopkins, W. B. Yeats, Wilfred Owen, Theodore Roethke and Sylvia
Plath. But there would be a long time gap from the Anglo-Saxon scops to the
poets just mentioned.
"Wulf and Eadwacer" may also be notable for being one of the few pieces of
early English writing that contains sexual intrigue not "adulterated" later
by Christian monks, if you'll pardon the pun. But how can we know whether
monks engaged in hack work on this particular poem? I find it a bit
suspicious that the refrain does not appear where one would expect to find
it: after the third stanza, which seems to describe a rape. Did a
"sanitizer" delete something more shocking, and the missing refrain along
with it? It seems possible to me. In any case, I added the third refrain
line, which did not appear in the original text, to one of my translations.
I have seen modern copyists and editors make all sorts of mistakes, and I'm
sure ancient scribes made mistakes as well, even when they weren't
deliberately censoring writers. If you prefer to stick as closely as
possible to the original poem, just skip over the third refrain when you
encounter it below. However, that line certainly seems to apply to the
rapist, if he was a rapist.
"Wulf and Eadwacer" may also be considered the first English feminist text, as the
speaker seems to be challenging and mocking the man who has been embracing her
and presumably having sex with her against her will.
The poem's closing metaphor of a loveless relationship
being like a song in which two voices never harmonized remains one of the
strongest in the English language, or any language. The poem is also notable for
its rich ambiguity, which leaves much open to the reader's
interpretation. For instance, the "wolf" that has borne the whelp
to the woods could be Wulf, the heartsick
female speaker, Eadwacer, Eadwacer's jealous wife, some other member(s) of the clan,
or even a canine wolf. We really don't know and can only make educated
guesses or embrace the poem's ambiguity. We
also do not know what
happened to the child in the woods, but have the impression of a dark
catastrophe: perhaps human sacrifice (an idea I explore in the word
"bloodgift" in some of my translations).
In some translations I chose not to translate "Ungelīc is ūs" because I
couldn't find a comparable line in modern English that conveyed the
alienness and power I perceived (or perhaps imagined) in the original
Anglo-Saxon phrase. I believe it probably means something like "we are
unalike," but no one really knows, not even the most expert linguists, as far
as I can tell. I have even heard it postulated that "un" is an intensifier,
causing the phrase to mean something like "We are so alike!" Considering when and how the phrase is used in the poem, I
believe it could mean something like "we are alien to each
other," or "we are like two different species," but that is speculation on
my part. However, that's the feeling I get when I read the poem: the female
speaker seems to view her clan as being like a
pack of snarling, bloodthirsty dogs on the trail of prey ... and the prey is
her beloved Wulf. Even worse, it seems that when she thinks about Wulf and
begins to weep, one the clan's warriors takes advantage
of the situation and rapes or has sex with her. The most likely culprit is Eadwacer, but it
could be someone else. The name Eadwacer
has been interpreted as "Heaven-watcher" and "property watcher." So it's
possible that Eadwacer is either a warrior, a priest, or a warrior-priest who has been
appointed as a guardian (or husband or owner) of the female speaker.
In any case, what an earthy, dirty, brutally honest poem written from a
female perspective about what sounds like war or a feud of some sort, a
family being split apart, and perhaps rape, sex slavery and child abduction
and/or infanticide. Much remains in doubt, however. In fact, not everyone
agrees that the speaker is female or that the poem is about a love triangle.
Some critics have expressed complete bewilderment:
"Of this, I can make no sense." — Benjamin Thorpe, 1842
“This poem is one of the absolute stumble stones of students trying to come
to grips with Anglo-Saxon poetry. There is hardly a line, which does not
confound readers, whether well versed in Anglo-Saxon or not. Words,
composition, structure represent a near unsolvable puzzle.” — Linda Brady
Brady nonetheless goes on to propose a solution to what happened to the
“whelp.” In her article “An Analogue to Wulf and Eadwacer in the
Life of St Bertellin of Stafford,” Brady picks up Kemp Malone's 1962
proposition that Wulf and Eadwacer is based on a tale "familiar to
the poet's audience, but unknown to us." Brady argues that the female
speaker is trapped in tragic circumstances and her child is killed by
wolves. Such a tale exists in Vita Bertellini, printed in 1516 by
Wynkyn de Worde in the Nova Legenda Anglie, but with possibly much
older origins. One “iconographic representation” of the Anglo-Saxon saint
greatly predates the book, going back to c. 1100. Brady argues that the
parallels between Wulf and Eadwacer and Vita Bertellini are
significant enough to suggest an ancient narrative known outside the poem.
Another theory is that Wulf abducted the whelp, perhaps thinking it was was
his, or if not, perhaps seeking revenge on the whelp’s father. But is it
possible the mother abducted the baby: is the wolf a she-wolf? Or if there
was rape, did the rapist’s wife get rid of the child? If the baby is not
Wulf’s, it is not clear that Eadwacer is the father. He might have been
someone watching over the woman and baby for someone else. For my translations, I have chosen the interpretation that the
female speaker loves Wulf, is being raped by Eadwacer, and that he has
fathered a child on her. But I have left the identity of the wolfish
abductor a mystery. The abductor could be Wulf or one of his kinsmen, the
mother or one her kinsmen, Eadwacer or his wife or someone else of their
tribe, or some sort of animal or supernatural agent such as a werewolf.
Who is the mysterious Wulf? It has been suggested that he was a Viking
marauder. Viking raiding parties were known to sail up estuaries and set up
camps on islands. But at best that's just an educated guess. Whoever
Wulf is, he seems to be some sort of outcast, perhaps a renegade or outlaw.
Who is the poem's "second wolf"? I believe the correct answer is that no one
really knows. We can only speculate. One possibility is that the second wolf
is Wulf himself. Perhaps he returned to abduct the child and/or to kill it as a
form of revenge for the rape of his wife or lover. Another possibility is
that Eadwacer is the second wolf. If Wulf was nominated to be a sacrifice to
the gods, but escaped, perhaps Eadwacer fathered the child on purpose, to
replace the lost sacrifice. Or perhaps he was married and his wife refused
to raise another woman's child in their house, so he acted according to her
wishes. Or perhaps Eadwacer's wife was the second wolf, and she got rid of
the child herself. Or perhaps the mother became the second wolf,
getting rid of a child fathered by her rapist. Or perhaps some other member
of the tribe was the second wolf, perhaps believing it was the will of the
gods for the child to replace its father as a sacrifice. Or perhaps the
second wolf was a real wolf! If asked to
offer my own opinion, I would first speculate that Eadwacer was probably not
the second wolf, because the mother asks if he has heard the news. I would
eliminate "the other woman" because no such woman is mentioned. Then,
because it seems the intention of the act was to sever the relationship, I
am inclined to suspect either Wulf or the mother. My guess―and
it is only a guess and could certainly be wrong―is that the mother is the
most likely second wolf because Wulf has been driven away to another island.
If I'm correct, I would like to believe the mother took the baby to someone
else, via a meeting in the woods, because she didn't want to raise the child
herself, and because she wanted to show Eadwacer the consequences of raping
her and fathering children on her. He would never see his children by
her. But it's possible that a mother could
have chosen to dispose of her own child. In any case, there is obviously
considerable uncertainty and speculation involved. I can only say that the
poem seems to possibly be about human sacrifice. I cannot
be sure that my interpretation of the final stanza―that the intention of the
abduction was to sever the song―is correct. But it seems to me that the
mother may be saying something like―excuse my French―"Did you hear, you
fucking bloodthirsty priest? A she-wolf carried off our wretched whelp to
the woods, to do what you intended to do to Wulf. Do you see how easily I
can sever what never was one: our 'song' together?" Did the mother sacrifice
Eadwacer's child in the woods, to his savage gods?
A very different interpretation of the poem is that Wulf and the female
speaker were parties to a peace-pledge, in which two tribes exchanged
members as hostages. This was a common practice in England and Europe at the time.
A term applied twice to women in Anglo-Saxon verse (and once to an angel) is
freoðu-webbe (peace-weaver). Noblewomen would enter diplomatic
marriages arranged to secure peace between hostile nations or tribes. In this scenario, Wulf is being held on one island to secure
peace between warring tribes, while his lover has either married or is being
held hostage by another man on the second island. Or perhaps the speaker could be a
person of some importance to the other tribe who has been given to Eadwacer
as a hostage. Perhaps as part of such a peace agreement her son would be
returned to her original tribe. Perhaps Wulf or some other human wolf has
taken the boy to raise him on the other island. But what will happen if the
peace is broken? The hostages might be executed. So we could be seeing three
people in very dangerous circumstances, ripped apart from each other and
with their lives in peril. And in this case there could be two meanings for
the word lāc (gift, offering): Wulf could have been given as a
gift for peace, but if the peace is violated, he could become an offering to
the gods.
Another interpretation of the poem, advanced by KC McGuire, is that Wulf is
a werewolf! That's a very interesting hypothesis, to say the least, and it
would explain why people are trying to kill Wulf, and why the whelp is in
danger. However, I'm not sure if tales of werewolves go back that far in
time. It has even been suggested that the speaker is a female zombie, which
I find very unlikely. She sounds like a very passionate human woman to me,
who is not happy about being separated from the man she loves and desires.
Here is a more literal translation of the poem, although "literal" does
not mean that I know what every word in the original poem meant exactly. No
modern reader does. If you'd like to see how I arrived at this version, you
can see what I did with each line in the prose translations that follow.
Wulf and Eadwacer (III)
loose translation/interpretation by
Michael R. Burch
To my people he's prey, a bloodgift.
They will offer him up, if he approaches their pack.
Ungelīc is ūs.
Wulf's on one island, I'm on another.
His island's a fortress, fastened by fens.
Here bloodthirsty men roam this island.
They will offer him up, if he approaches their pack.
Ungelīc is ūs.
My wide-ranging thoughts hounded Wulf.
Whenever it rained, while I wept,
big
battle-strong arms embraced me.
For me there was pleasure, but its end was loathsome.
Wulf, my Wulf! My desire for you
has made me sick; your seldom-comings
have troubled my mind much more than missed meat.
Did you hear, Heaven-Watcher? The whelp we
delivered
has been borne by a wolf to the woods.
One can easily sever what was never one:
our song together.
By "literal translation" I mean as literal as possible, not a word-for-word
translation. In some cases (noted at the bottom of this page), the words of
the original poem have multiple meanings, so it can require additional words
to convey as much of the meaning as possible in modern English.
In the version above, I take the approach that the female speaker says that
she is ungelic (unlike) her people because she does not believe in
sacrificing human beings to the gods. Perhaps Wulf had been designated to be
a sacrifice, but escaped to another island. And perhaps the child was chosen
to to be the next sacrifice. The lack of food was a common
reason to offer sacrifices to the gods, so perhaps the speaker's comment
about being hungry gives us an important clue. And the last two lines raise
the question: did the speaker have anything to do with the way the tables
were turned, perhaps because she didn't want to raise her rapist's baby?
"Wulf and Eadwacer" contains It contains several hapax legomenon,
words which appear only in this poem and nowhere else, meaning we have no
certain meanings for them. Such hapax legomenon include dogode
(dogged?), reotugu (wailing?) and Earne (wretched?).
Disputed words include lāc (gift?), bogum (arms? paws?
forequarters?)
Here is the original Anglo-Saxon poem, with each line followed by a
word-for-word prose translation and two Modern
English transliterations by Michael R. Burch:
Lēodum is mīnum swylce him mon lāc gife;
People/tribe is mine as-if
him one gift give;
[To] my people, he is like one given as a gift/bloodgift/sacrifice/offering/sacrificial gift/blood
offering/game/sport/bloodsport.
To my people he's a bloodgift [owed to the gods].
To my people he's prey, a sacrificial gift.
willað hý hine āþecgan gif hē on þrēat cymeð.
will they him take as food if he on
threat/force
comes.
They will take as food/devour/consume/feast on/slaughter/destroy/rape/mate with/serve/offer him if he
threatens/comes to/approaches
their force/troop/clan/pack/company. (Here, āþecgan may have
sexual undertones.)
They will offer him up [to the gods, as a meal, in return for food for the
clan to eat], if he approaches their pack.
I considered "bucks the pack" because that phrase conveys the sense of both
returning to (or otherwise meeting) the pack, and also being at odds with
it. Possible replacements for "bucks" include "meets", "rejoins,"
"approaches" and "returns to."
Ungelīc is ūs.
Otherwise is us.
We are unalike/otherwise/different. / It is otherwise with us. / It is not
like that with us.
We are so different.
Wulf is on īege, ic on ōþerre.
Wulf is on island, I on other.
Wulf is on one island, I on another.
Wulf's on one island, I'm on another.
Fæst is þæt ēglond, fenne biworpen.
Fast is that island, fen/swamp surrounded.
That island is fast/a fortress, surrounded by fens.
His island's a secure fortress, surrounded and protected by fens.
Sindon wælrēowe weras þaer on īge;
They-are slaughter-cruel men there on island;
There are slaughter-cruel/fierce/bloodthirsty men there on the island. [It is not
completely clear which island is meant, but it sounds like the speaker's
island.]
Fierce, bloodthirsty men roam this island.
NOTE: At this point, it is not clear which island is being discussed, but
wælreowe was used almost exclusively in reference to savage, cruel, evil
men. So it seems safe to assume that the speaker is among evil men, or evil
men are pursing Wulf on his island.
willað hý hine āþecgan gif hē on þrēat cymeð.
will they him devour if he on force
comes.
They will devour/slaughter/destroy/serve/offer him if he comes onto their
force/troop/clan/pack/stronghold/fortress.
They will offer him up, if he approaches their pack.
Ungelīc is ūs.
Otherwise is us.
We are unalike/otherwise/different.
We are so different.
Wulfes ic mīnes wīdlāstum wēnum dogode,
Wulf in my wide-journey hopes
dogged.
I dogged/hounded Wulf in my wide-ranging hopes/thoughts/dreams. / My
hopes/dreams/thoughts dogged Wulf in his wide-wanderings.
My hopes dogged Wulf like wide-ranging hounds. /
I waited for my Wolf with dogged longings.
þonne hit wæs rēnig weder ond ic rēotugu sæt,
when it was rainy weather and I wailing sat, /
whenever it rained and I sat weeping/wailing/sobbing/lamenting
When it was rainy weather and I sat weeping/wailing/sobbing/disconsolate,
Whenever it rained while I sobbed, disconsolate,
þonne mec se beaducāfa bōgum bilegde,
then me the battle-strong arms/forequarters/paws
enclosed, / when the battle-bold arms enclosed me/wrapped me up (Here,
bog seems to mean an animal's forelegs or paws, but it can also mean
"boughs" or "progeny")
then the battle-strong arms/paws enclosed me,
huge, battle-strong arms/paws enclosed me;
wæs mē wyn tō þon, wæs mē hwæþre ēac lāð.
was me joy to a point, was me however also pain.
/ it was my pleasure to a point, but also pain/hatred/loathing.
for me there was pleasure/joy to a point, but also pain/hatred/something loathsome.
for me there was pleasure to a point, but its end was loathsome.
Wulf, mīn Wulf! wēna mē þīne
Wulf, my Wulf! hopes me pine / my pining/longings/hopes for you
Wulf, my Wulf! My hopes/desires/longings/pinings/lust for you
Wulf, my Wulf! My desire for you
sēoce gedydon, þīne seldcymas,
sick made, thy
seldom-comings / have sickened, your seldom-comings/absences
have made me sick, your seldom-comings
has made me sick; your seldom-comings
murnende mōd, nales metelīste.
troubled mind, not meals-missed. / mourning mind,
not meals missed.
disturbed/troubled/occupied my mind, not the lack of food/meals/meat.
have troubled my mind, more than missed meat.
Possible replacements for "deprived of real meat" include "unable to eat,"
"uncaring of meat" and "but not caring about food."
Gehýrest þū, Ēadwacer? Uncerne earne hwelp
Hearest you, Eadwacer? Our
wretched whelp
Hear, Eadwacer? Our wretched/vile/filthy/unwanted whelp / Hear,
Property-Watcher/Heaven-Watcher/Wealth-Watcher/Watchdog? The whelp we earned/delivered/produced
Did you hear, Heaven-Watcher? The whelp we
delivered
bireð wulf tō wuda.
bears wolf to woods.
Wulf/a wolf now bears/has borne to the woods. / Wulf bears to the woods.
a wolf now bears to the woods.
Þæt mon ēaþe tōslīteð þætte naefre gesomnad wæs,
That one easily severs that never
united was,
One easily severs what was never united/secured/bound fast
One can easily sever what was never one:
uncer giedd geador.
our song/story/tale/poem/riddle together.
our song together.
our song together.
The poem is deliciously ambiguous; for instance:
lāc means not only "wild game" but "gift" and thus might suggest a
sacrifice, offering or bloodgift
ungelic means "otherwise" or "different" or "unalike"
fæst means "fast" in the sense of secure or protected; the island
is protected by fens and inaccessibility
āþecgan means not only "to kill" but "to feed" or "devour,"
to "accept (a guest)" and perhaps "to mate" or "copulate"
þrēat could mean "troop," "force," "threat," "crowd," "clan,"
"pack," "horde" or "hostile army"
dogode is a verb whose meaning is uncertain because it occurs
nowhere else in the OE corpus; it may be related to "dog" or
"hound" and mean something like "hounded," "dogged"
or somehow acting dog-like
beaducāfa means "warrior" and is generally taken to be the
same person as Eadwacer
bōgum bilegde means something like "wrapped in [his] arms" and
seems suggestive of sexual intercourse, especially considering the whelp
(child)
wēna mē þīne means something like "my pinings
for you" or "my expectations for/of you"
uncer giedd geador or "our giedd together" may
or may not invoke
Matthew 19:6 ("What God has joined together, let no man put asunder.")
If the poet punned on giedd (song, story, tale) and the sound-alike
word "god," suggesting that what God did not join together was doomed to
remain separated, that would be truly remarkable.
Eadwacer may mean "property watcher" or "heaven watcher," thus
suggesting a guard or priest. Perhaps the female speaker has become a sex slave
and it is Eadwacer's job to watch the "property."
It has been ventured that the poem was written by Cynwulf, but there is no
evidence of his authorship.
Translators of the poem include Michael Alexander, John Balaban, S. A. J. Bradley, Michael
R. Burch, Robert P. Creed, Arnold E. Davidson, A. Z. Foreman, Jonathan A.
Glenn, R. K. Gordon, Stanley P. Greenfield, Kevin Crossley-Holland, Dr.
Aaron K. Hostetter, W.S. Mackie, Kemp Malone, Paul Muldoon, Katie Peterson,
Burton Raffel, Ben Robson and Alfred John Wyatt.
In Anglo-Saxon England, outlaws were called "wolf's heads," so the name Wulf
suggests an outlaw, a desperado, or perhaps a pirate or early highwayman.
Wulf and Eadwacer (IV)
loose translation/interpretation by
Michael R. Burch
To my clan's curs, he's god-food, a bloodgift.
They'll rip him apart if he falls to the pack.
Ungelīc is ūs.
(We are unalike, otherwise, different, alien to each other?, a different
species?)
Wulf fled to a faraway island:
his fen-fastened fortress.
Here, bloodlustful men bark for manbones.
They'll rip him apart if he falls to the pack.
Ungelīc is ūs.
My heart followed Wulf's wide-wanderings!
But once as I wept, wracked with grief,
big battle-strong arms enclosed me.
There was pleasure at first, but the end was loathsome.
Ungelīc is ūs.
Wulf, my Wulf! These violent love-longings
have made me sick; your seldom-comings
have left me famished, deprived of real meat!
Did you hear, Heaven-Watcher? A wolf has borne our wretched whelp to the woods!
One can easily sever what never was one: our song together.
Wulf and Eadwacer (V)
loose translation/interpretation by
Michael R. Burch
To my people he's prey, a pariah.
They'll rip him apart if he approaches their pack.
It is otherwise with us.
Wulf's on one island; I'm on another.
His island's a fortress, fastened by fens.
(fastened=secured)
Here, bloodthirsty men roam this island.
They'll rip him apart if he approaches their pack.
It is otherwise with us.
My heart hounded Wulf in his wanderings.
But whenever it rained, while I wept,
the boldest cur grasped me in his paws:
good feelings for him, but for me loathsome!
Wulf, O, my Wulf, my ache for you
has made me sick; your seldom-comings
have left me famished, deprived of real meat.
Have you heard, Eadwacer? A wolf has borne
our wretched whelp to the woods!
One can easily sever what never was one:
our song together.
Wulf and Eadwacer (VI)
(Anonymous, circa 960-990 AD)
― loose translation by Michael R. Burch
My clan's curs pursue him like crippled game.
They'll rip him apart if he approaches their pack.
We are so different.
Wulf's on one island; I'm on another.
His island's a fortress, fastened by fens.
Here bloodthirsty curs howl for carnage.
They'll rip him apart if he approaches their pack.
We are so different.
My thoughts pursued Wulf like panting hounds.
But whenever it rained—how I wept!—
big, battle-strong arms grabbed and pawed me.
Good feelings, to a point, but the end loathsome.
Wulf, oh, my Wulf! My desire for you
has made me sick; your seldom-comings
have left me famished, deprived of real meat.
Do you hear, Heaven-Watcher? Watchdog!
A wolf has borne
our wretched whelp to the woods.
One can easily sever what never was one:
our song together.
Other Anglo-Saxon/Old English poems:
The Ruin,
Wulf and Eadwacer,
The Wife's Lament,
The Husband's Message,
Deor's Lament,
Caedmon's Hymn,
Bede's Death Song,
The Seafarer,
Anglo-Saxon Riddles and Kennings
Links
Please click here to see a
Timeline of English Poetry with links to major poems and events.
The following are links to other translations by Michael R. Burch:
The following are links to other translations by Michael R. Burch. "Wulf
and Eadwacer" may be the oldest extant poem in the English language written
by a female poet. "Sweet Rose of Virtue" is a modern translation of a truly
great poem by the early Scottish master William Dunbar. "How Long the Night" is
one of the very best Anglo Saxon lyric poems. "Caedmon's Hymn" may be the oldest
poem in the English language.
The following are links to other translations by Michael R. Burch:
The Seafarer
Wulf and Eadwacer
Adam Lay Ybounden
The Love Song of Shu-Sin: The Earth's Oldest Love Poem?
Sweet Rose of Virtue
How Long the Night
Caedmon's Hymn
The Rhyming Poem
Anglo-Saxon Poems
Anglo-Saxon Riddles and Kennings
Bede's Death Song
The Wife's Lament
The Husband's Message
Deor's Lament
Lament for the Makaris
Tegner's Drapa
The Best Poetry Translations of Michael R. Burch
Alexander Pushkin's tender, touching poem "I Love You" has been translated into English by Michael R. Burch.
Charles Baudelaire
Whoso List to Hunt
Ancient Greek Epigrams and Epitaphs
Meleager
Sappho
Basho
Oriental Masters/Haiku
Miklós Radnóti
Rainer Maria Rilke
Marina Tsvetaeva
Renée Vivien
Ono no Komachi
Allama Iqbal
Bertolt Brecht
Ber Horvitz
Paul Celan
Primo Levi
Ahmad Faraz
Sandor Marai
Wladyslaw Szlengel
Saul Tchernichovsky
Charles d'Orleans
Robert Burns: Original Poems and Translations
The Seventh Romantic: Robert Burns
Free Love Poems by Michael R. Burch
The HyperTexts