Basically by definition, an exile doesn't have a home, which kind of sucks when it's snowing. The winter weather is a particular problem for someone who's in exile. What the translator gives here as "mad and desolate as winter" is actually the Old English word wintercearig, or winter-sorrowful.This figurative way of talking about burial personifies the forces of nature, making the soil seem like a threatening enemy. Instead of just saying that his lord has been died and been buried, the earth-stepper says that the earth covered his lord in darkness.(Think of titles like Lord Loxley from the Robin Hood stories, though "The Wanderer" is way older than the Robin Hood legends.) A lord was an absolute necessity for an Anglo-Saxon warrior, the source of protection and wealth, and the mead-hall where the warrior found shelter. Back in the day, a "lord" was a wealthy landowner who ruled an area.His lord has apparently died, and he's now in search of another one. Now, we get more specifics of the earth-stepper's situation.Since long ago earth covered my lord in darkness, and I, wretched, thence, mad and desolate as winter, over the wave's binding sought, hall-dreary, a giver of treasure, The speaker also reiterates his unhappy situation – the fact that he's far away from home and without his relatives.He's aware that, so far, he hasn't done a good job of containing his sad thoughts. After speaking what's generally known as truth – the necessity of keeping your thoughts hidden – the earth-stepper now seems to be telling himself to follow this advice.Thanks to the previous lines, we now know that the image of binding the heart or mind refers to keeping your thoughts to yourself.He's got to follow his own advice and fasten his heart "with fetters" (that's like tying up his heart with chains or rope). Here the speaker basically says that he's got to put his money where his mouth is.So must I my heart – often wretched with cares, deprived of homeland, far from kin – fasten with fetters,
0 kommentar(er)
