The Seafarer (poem)

"The Seafarer" is an anonymous Old English elegiac poem on the cares of the mariner's life. It dates from the 8th or 9th century.

Quotes
The translations used here are by Michael Alexander, and are taken from his The Earliest English Poems (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1975).


 * Þæt se beorn ne wat, sefteadig secg,     hwæt þa sume dreogað þe þa wræclastas      widost lecgað.
 * Blithe heart cannot know, Through its happiness, what hardships they suffer Who drive the foam-furrow furthest from land.
 * Line 55


 * Simle þreora sum     þinga gehwylce ær his tiddege      to tweon weorþeð: adl oþþe yldo      oþþe ecghete fægum fromweardum      feorh oðþringeð.
 * Three things all ways threaten a man's peace And one before the end shall overthrow his mind; Either illness or age or the edge of vengeance Shall draw out the breath from the doom-shadowed.
 * Line 68


 * Nearon nu cyningas     ne caseras ne goldgiefan      swylce iu wæron, þonne hi mæst mid him      mærþa gefremedon ond on dryhtlicestum      dome lifdon.
 * Kings are not now, kaisers are not, There are no gold-givers like the gone masters Who between them framed the first deeds in the world, In their lives lordly, in the lays renowned.
 * Line 82