This essay was written for a Medieval Lit course at SJSU.
The Wanderer is an Old English poem estimated to have been written around the 9th- or 10th-century C.E. by an unknown author likely of European-Norse influence. The original work is preserved in the Codex Exoniensis—also known as the Exeter Book—a manuscript of various Anglo-Saxon texts preserved from the late 10th-century, and held in the Exeter Cathedral in South West England. The poem, regarded by many as an elegy, contains 115 lines of alliterative verse, and has fascinated scholars and historians for centuries due to its powerful imagery and themes of isolation, exile, and war. Numerous modern translations of The Wanderer have been published, each one employing unique stylistic and syntactical interpretations of the poem that stress differences in both form and meaning. A perfect example of linguistic archeology, four modern translations will be examined, focusing on the first 11 lines of the poem, and defining key words and terms using Bosworth-Toller's Dictionary of Old English.
Centuries of constantly shifting language continue to change our understanding of historical texts. To be sure, many words of the Old English language have not survived. Yet while reading the original text of The Wanderer, the two opening words are quite familiar. Oft and him are roots of the modern words Often and him. Third-person male pronouns have survived from Anglo-Saxon to contemporary English, with the nominative he and the generative his remaining intact today. Note the consistent use of the opening word Often throughout the various translations, while also noticing the differences in words, imagery, and structure between poems. The first translation of the poem is from the Anglo-Saxon website, anglosaxons.net, whose modern English text is shown side-by-side with the Old English poem.
Often the solitary one / finds grace for himself
the mercury of the Lord, / Although he, sorry hearted,
must for a long time / move by hand
along the waterways / the ice-cold sea,
tread the path of exile. / Events always go as they must!
So spoke the Wanderer, / mindful of hardships,
of fierce slaughters / and the downfall of kinsmen:
Often I had alone / to speak of my trouble
each morning before dawn. / There is none now living
to whom I dare / clearly speak
of my innermost thoughts.
From this first translation one can grasp the overall tone of the poem’s opening stanza, as well as some of the thematic imagery utilized therein. The Anglo-Saxon translation uses the term “solitary one” to describe the poem’s subject, calling him “the Wanderer” later in the stanza. The use of the word “Lord,” and the line “Events always go as they must!” vary widely throughout each translation. The “ice cold sea” is also described differently from text to text. Jonathan Glenn delivers a similar rendering of the poem, with notable differences, including the image of a less secular God-figure in the poem:
Often the lone-dweller waits for favor,
mercy of the Measurer, though he unhappy
across the seaways long time must
stir with his hands the rime-cold sea,
tread exile-tracks. Fate is established!
So the earth-stepper spoke, mindful of hardships,
of fierce slaughter, the fall of kin:
Oft must I, alone, the hour before dawn
lament my care. Among the living
none now remains to whom I dare
my inmost thought clearly reveal.
Out of all the versions, Glenn’s interpretation of The Wanderer is the most accurate translation of the original text. The use of the kenning (or compound) “lone-dweller” is the most literal translation thus far: Bosworth-Toller defines the noun anhaga as “one dwelling alone; a recluse.” The line “waits for favor” is as close to the original text as possible: gebideð means “to abide, to await,” while miltse means “kindness, favor, mercy.” The secular “Lord” has been replaced with “Measurer,” changing the word to a less religious reference. The line “Fate is established!” has taken the place of “Events always go as they must!” While similar in message, Glenn’s delivery of the line is more hard hitting; the use of the word “fate” also deepens the tone of the elegiac poem. Indeed, the word wyrd translates to “fate, fortune, or chance.” The “ice-cold sea” in the previous translation is now described as the “rime-cold sea,” technically the most accurate rendering of the line: hrimcealde is an adjective literally meaning “icy cold.”
Crucially, Glenn uses the kenning “earth-stepper” instead of the “Wanderer.” “Earth-stepper” is, again, the most faithful translation: the noun eardstapa literally means “a land-stepper or wanderer.” Interestingly, the word “wanderer” is nowhere to be found in Glenn’s translation, save for the title. It’s worth noting here that in the Exeter book, the original text of the poem has no title. Virtually all English translators have agreed on the title “The Wanderer.” Jefferey Hopkin’s translation of the poem is similar to the previous two, with some alterations, including the grammatical decision to add quotations to the poem:
Often the lonely receives love,
The Creator’s help, though heavy with care
Over the sea he suffers long
Stirring his hands in the frosty swell,
The way of exile. Fate never wavers.
The wanderer spoke; he told his sorrows,
The deadly onslaughts, the death of the clan,
“At dawn alone I must
Mouth my cares; the man does not live
Whom I dare tell my depths
Straight out.
In Hopkins’s work, the term “solitary one” and “lone-dweller” from the previous versions have simply become “the lonely.” The word “wanderer” has also returned in this translation. The use of the word “Lord” and “Measurer” in the previous poems has shifted to “the Creator” in Hopkins’s translation; still more secular than “Lord,” but getting closer to biblical allusion. The sea is described as the “frosty swell;” similar to “ice cold” and “rime-cold” sea, but further from the literal translation (the Anglo-Saxon word sæ in the poem literally means “sea”). “Fate never wavers” is perhaps the weakest delivery of the line out of all the poems; the lack of an exclamation point changes the tone drastically, making the statement more apathetic, more subdued. Hopkins’s use of quotation marks changes the poem greatly, perhaps fundamentally, adding an explicit change of narrative voice and tense, and creating actual dialogue from the Wanderer himself.
To this point: as one can see from the actual manuscript in the Exeter Book, there is no punctuation in the original poem. Each verse is denoted by a small space between words known as a “caesura” (a break between words within a metrical foot). Punctuation, being a modern invention of written language, appears to be fair game for translators to take grammatical liberties at their discretion. Nowhere is this liberty taken more freely than Dr. Aaron K. Hostetter’s translation, which is one of the most recent takes on The Wanderer. Hostetter, a professor at Rutgers University Camden, begins the poem by initiating dialogue from the Wanderer immediately:
“How often the lone-dweller anticipates
some sign, this Measurer’s mercy
— must always must—
mind-caring, along the ocean’s windings,
stirring rime-chill seas, hands as oars
many long whiles, treading the tracks of exile—
the way of the world an open book always.”
So spoke the earth-stepper, a memorial of miseries
slaughter of the wrathful, crumbling of kinsmen:
“Often, every daybreak, alone I must
bewail my cares. There’s now no one living
to whom I dare mumble my mind’s understanding . . .
Hostetter’s take on the poem, while clearly the most modern, still manages to preserve many of the original elements that some of the previous translations had left out. Like Glenn, Hostetter stays true to the original text, preserving the kennings “lone-dweller,” and “earth-stepper,” as well as the depiction of “rime-chill seas.” Parts of this translation are radically different from the others—including the use of dashes and noted dialogue throughout. With this, readers can appreciate the novelty of a new and modern interpretation.
Clearly, all translations of The Wanderer contain their own stylistic and grammatical fingerprint; each one is a different rendering, a unique evaluation of its source material. For some, it may seem redundant or laborious to read multiple translations of the same poem. For others however, there is a deep excitement in the exploration of different translations; an excitement knowing that the more interpretations we study, the closer we get to the meaning of the original work.
Work Cited
“The Wanderer.” anglosaxons.net Online.
Glenn, Jonathan. “The Wanderer.” https://lightspill.com/poetry/oe/wanderer.html Online.
Hostetter, Aaron K. “The Wanderer.” oldenglishpoetry.camden.rutgers.edu Online.
Hopkins, Jeffrey. “The Wanderer.” https://www.vqronline.org/essay/wanderer Online.
Bosworth-Toller’s Anglo-Saxon Dictionary. https://bosworthtoller.com/ Online.