The Wife's Lament text

    The Wife's lament

Text:

Full of sorrow, I shall make this song

about me, my own fate. Surely I can tell 

what sufferings I endured science I came of age,

Both the new and old, never more than now.

I must endure without end the misery exile.

First my lord departed  from his people

Over tossing waves  I worried when day came

In what land  my liege-lord could be.

Then I set out, a Friendless exile,

to seek a place for my sore need.

My husband's kin had hatched a plot,

Conspiring seretly to separate us,

So that we widest apart in the world's realms

Lived in most misery, and I languished.

My lord commanded me to keep house here;

in this dwelling-place; I had few dear ones,

devoted friends. Therefore I feel downcast.

Then I learned my lord was like myself-

down on his luck, dreary- spirited,

Secretly minding murder in his heart.

A happy pair we had promised each other,

that death alone would ever divide us,

and nothing else. All that is changed; 

Our nearness once is now as though

it never had been. Now far or near, I must

bear the malice of the man I loved.

I was told to live in a grove of trees,

under an oak in an earthen cave.

That earth-hall is old; yearning overcomes me.

These dales are dark and the dunes high,

bitter bulwarks overgrown with briers,

a joyless place. Here my lord's departure

afflicts me cruelly. Friends here on earth,

lovers lying together, lounge in bed,

while a daybreak I abandon

this earth-pit under the oak

to sit alone the summer-long day.

There I may bewail my many woes,

suffering of exile, for I can never

obtain comfort for all my cares

nor all the longing this life brought me.

If ever anyone should feel anguish,

harsh pain at heart, she should put on 

a happy appearance while enduring

e sorrows- should she possess

all the world's bliss, or be banished far away

from her homeland. I believe my lord sits

by a stony strom- beaten cliff,

that water tossed my weary friend

sits in a desolate home. He must suffer

much in his mind, remembering too often

a happier place. Woe unto him .

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