Rereading The Wife’s Lament with Dido of Carthage: The Husband and the Herheard
Abstract
:1. Introduction
2. Speaking Big Words: Toward an Exploration of Problematic Oath-Taking
Beorn sceal gebidan, þonne he beot spriceð,oþþæt collenferð cunne gearwehwider hreþra gehygd hweorfan wille. (The Wanderer, lines 70–72)A man (beorn) must wait, when [i.e., after] he speaks an oath,until, keen-spirited, he understands clearlywhither the thought of his breast will turn.
- Treow sceal on eorle. (Cotton Maxims, line 32b)Good faith must be in a man.
- Til biþ se þe his treowe gehealdaþ. (The Wanderer, line 112a)27Good is he who holds to his troth (ambivalent: he who is faithful to his vow or he who holds to his religious faith).
- Ec veit ein at aldrei deyr/dómr um dauđan hvern. (The Old Icelandic Hávamál, stanza 77: 3–4).
Ure æghwylc sceal ende gebidanworolde lifes; wyrce se þe motedomes ær deaþe; þæt biđ drihtgum[an]unlifgendum æfter selest. (Beowulf lines 1386–9)Each of us can expect an endof life in the world; let him achieve who candom before death; that for the noblemanno longer living is afterwards best.
Oft ic sceolde āna ūhtna gehwylcemīne ceare cwīþan. Nis nū cwicra nānþe ic him mōdsefan mīnne durresweotule āsecgan. Ic tō sōþe wātþæt biþ in eorle indryhten þēawþæt hē his ferðlocan fæste binde,healde his hordcofan, hycge swā hē wille. (The Wanderer, lines 8–14)Often I must, alone, every morningspeak my sorrow. There is none now aliveto whom what’s on my mind I dareopenly say. I know as a truismthat it is in a man a noble customthat he bind fast his spirit-locker,hold [shut] his hord-coffer, think whatever he will.
Til biþ se þe his trēowe gehealdeþ; ne sceal nǣfre his torn tō rycenebeorn of his brēostum ācȳþan, nemþe hē ǣr þā bōte cunneeorl mid elne gefremman. (The Wanderer, lines 112–114a)Good is he who holds to his troth [pledge]; his grief he must never too quickly,a warrior (beorn), from his breast make known, unless he first knows the remedy,the nobleman, how to achieve it with vigor.40
Ymb his forđgesceaft, nefne he fæhþe wite,wærwyrde sceal wisfæst hælebreostum hycgan, nales breahtme hlud. (Lines 55–57)
And that cup of memory must all drink who were at the feast […].And then were borne to the Jomsburgers the biggest horns of the mightiest drink that was there […].But thereafter drank Earl Sigvaldi the memory of his father, swearing oath therewith that before three winters were worn away he would come into Norway and slay Earl Hakon or else drive him from the land.Then swore Thorkel the High, the brother of Sigvaldi, that he would follow his brother to Norway, nor ever flee from battle leaving Sigvaldi fighting.Then swore Bui the Thick that he would fare to Norway with them, and in no battle flee before Earl Hakon.Then swore Sigurd his brother that he would fare to Norway, and not flee while the more part of the Jomsburgers fought.Then swore Vagn Akison that he would fare with them to Norway, and not come back till he had slain Thorkel Leira, and lain a-bed by his daughter Ingibiorg without the leave of her kin.Many other lords also swore oath on sundry matters. So that day men drank the heirship-feast.But the morrow’s morn, when men were no more drunken, the Jomsburgers thought they had spoken big words enough; so they met together and took counsel how they should bring this journey about, and the end of it was that they determined to set about it as speedily as may be. So they arrayed their ships and their company; and wide about the land went the fame of this.
The nature of the heroic oath in Beowulf, confusing as it may be to the modern scholarly reader, posed no serious problem for the protagonists of the poem. Even the jealous Unferth, who insultingly questions Beowulf’s adequacy to deal with the monster Grendel (lines 499–528), never openly doubts the intrinsic value of the latter’s oath to rid the world of the evil doer. The only problem is the fulfillment; if Beowulf either kills Grendel, and later his mother, or bravely dies in the attempt, he will have fulfilled his oath to the letter and won eternal renown among both the Danes (lines 660b–61) and the Geats (lines 1484–86).
3. The Caverns under an Oak Tree as a Retreat
remains something of an enigma. The speaker’s feelings, not the events of her life, nor even in any exact sense her physical surroundings, are the focus, and this makes the poem both highly evocative and at the same time tantalizingly laconic and elliptical. Probably the poet intended to mystify; the woman’s circumstances are disturbing largely because they are strange and undefined.
I writhe with longing in this ancient hole […]While at dawn alone, I crawl miserably downUnder the oak growing out of my cave.
Ne dorste þa dædrof hælefor frean egesan on þam fæstenneIeng eardigean, ac him Loth gewatof byrig gangan and his bearn somedwælstowe fyrr wic sceawian,ođþæt hie be hliđe heare duneeorđscræf fundon. Þær se eadega Lothwærfæst wunode, waldende leof,dægrimes worn and his dohtor twa. (Genesis, lines 2591–99; Krapp 1931, p. 77)The valiant hero dared not then/for fear of the lord, in that stronghold/dwell longer, but he, Lot, departed/to walk away from that city [Sodom], and his children with him,/far from that death-place, to seek a dwelling,/until by the slope of a high hill/they found an earth-cave. There the fortunate Lot/dwelt faithfully, the beloved ruler/for many a day with his two daughters (translated by the author).
Potentially problematic to conceptualizations of such a space as either a barrow or a souterrain is the phrase bitre burgtunas in line 31. The compound burgtunas, which literally means something like ‘fortification towns’, is unique in Old English poetry, and it is difficult to reconcile the woman’s apparent underground solitude with the presence of such a grand space, with the designation bitre (“bitter”) only adding to the quandary. Leslie offers “protecting hedge” as a gloss and suggests it is “possibly an ancient earthwork” (56). Leslie further argues that bitre is used here in the sense of ‘sharp’; thus describing “briars which have grown over the protecting walls of the cave or mound, although the abstract meaning ‘bitter’ may be intended as well” (56). Even more specifically, Klinck posits that “the bitter enclosures overgrown with briars” may be the remains of an abandoned settlement.
What Beowulf sees there is the opening to an earthen hall or chamber (eorđreced 2719a; cf. eorđsele anne ‘a singular earthen hall’ 2410; cf. also eorđse(le) 2232a, eorđsele 2515a, eorđscræf 3046a, eorđweall 3090a). The chamber is roofed by stones supported by upright pillars (the vaulting is stapulum fæste ‘firm on its pillars’ 2718b). The ceiling (inwithrof ‘inimical roof’ 3123b) is high enough that a person may walk about inside unimpeded (2752–2755, 3123–3125; cf. 2244–2246a, 2268b–2270a), while the room is capacious enough to contain a large treasure hoard plus a fifty-foot-long dragon (coiled up, one assumes). Eight men can occupy the chamber concurrently (3120–3124a)
4. Dido’s Fury and the Wife in Her Cave
5. Current Archaeology of Rock-Cut Buildings
A Contribution by Edmund R. Simons, MSt, IHBC, FRGS, FSA
- Anchor Church (Derbyshire),
- Dale Abbey Hermitage (Derbyshire),
- Lenton Hermitage (Nottinghamshire),
- Bridgnorth Hermitage (Shropshire),
- Redstone Hermitage (Worcestershire),
- Blackstone Hermitage (Worcestershire),
- Southstone Hermitage (Worcestershire),
- Crachcliffe Hermitage (Derbyshire),
- Guy’s Cliffe (Warwickshire).
6. Conclusions (by the Author)
Funding
Institutional Review Board Statement
Informed Consent Statement
Data Availability Statement
Acknowledgments
Conflicts of Interest
1 | The Wife’s Lament is one of nine so-called elegies in the Exeter Book as edited by Anne L. Klinck (Klinck 1992), with The Wife’s Lament on pp. 93–94. The entire Exeter Book is edited by George Philip Krapp and Elliott van Kirk Dobbie (The Exeter Book 1936) with The Wife’s Lament on pp. 210–11, and by Bernard James Muir (Muir 2000) with the poem’s text in vol. 1, pp. 328–29 and commentary in vol. 2, pp. 664–67. R. L. Leslie edits the poem with useful commentary (Leslie 1961, introduction pp. 3–12, text pp. 47–48, notes pp. 53–58). R.D. Fulk added The Wife’s Lament to his updated edition of John C. Pope’s Seven Old English Poems making it Eight Old English Poems (Pope and Fulk 2000), with text on pp. 39–40 and discussion on pp. 120–28. Peter S. Baker includes the poem in his Introduction to Old English (Peter S. Baker 2012, pp. 207–10). The main editions I use in this essay are those by Leslie and Klinck, though I make reference to the others listed here. (Other introductory textbooks that include editions of the poem are not listed.) |
2 | Her gender is revealed by the feminine adjectives geomorre in line 1 and minre sylfre in line 2. Because the poet uses terminology associated with the comitatus (warband), some early commentators decided that the speaker was meant to be a man, one going so far as to delete the first two lines containing the “misleadingly” gendered adjectives: see Bambas (1963). |
3 | The following scholars have argued that because the Wife occupies an earthen dwelling (see part three of this essay), she must be dead and a revenant or speaking from the grave: Lench (1970); Tripp (1972); Johnson (1983); Semple (1998), and most recently Deskis (2020), although Deskis makes it clear that the imagery “does not require us to read the speaker in this way”, but it “allows us to do so” (p. 385, her emphasis). Leanne MacDonald (2015) claims that The Wife’s Lament is a poem about a zombie”. The idea that the Wife’s location is a grave is further promoted by a misunderstanding of the word “under” in the phrase under actreo at lines 28 and 36. “Under” in this sense is a British usage, as in the place name Boughton-under-Blean mentioned by Chaucer in line 3 of “The Prologue of the Canon’s Yeoman’s Tale” in The Canterbury Tales (Chaucer 1986). This village is lower on the hillside than the Blean Forest, just as the Wife’s cave is situated lower on the hillside than the oak tree. For a firm rejection of the dead-Wife reading, see Berit Ǻström (1999). In a different approach, A.N. Doane argues that the Wife is a disaffected pagan goddess (Doane 1966), an idea revived by Banishalmah and Mizher (2020), basing their argument on the poem in Richard Hamer’s translation (Hamer 1970). |
4 | Complex scenarios that include two or more men have been proposed for the poem. In agreement with recent editors, I regard the terms freond and hlaford as designating a single man beloved by the speaker. I will refer to him as her “husband”, though whether they are married or not is irrelevant to my argument. |
5 | Niles does not insist on his own preferred view: “The speaker of the poem thus emerges, in the end, as a figure to whom individual readers can have very different responses, all of them legitimate, depending on their personal world view and values” (Niles 2006, pp. 205–6; see also 202, “door open”). |
6 | While Niles prefers the possibility that the Wife curses her husband (“I am felicitous in the ‘curse’ reading” (Niles 2006, p. 208)), he does not insist on his own preferred view: “The speaker of the poem thus emerges, in the end, as a figure to whom individual readers can have very different responses, all of them legitimate, depending on their personal world view and values” (Niles 2006, pp. 205–6; see also 202, “door open”). |
7 | Klinck examines and evaluates the use of the word “elegies” (Klinck 1992, pp. 223–51). |
8 | See Aeneid 4: 393–96. I am using the edition by Clyde Pharr (Pharr 1964), but the numbers of the books and their lineation are standard. Niles has argued for Ovid’s Heroides as an influence on the poem (Niles 2019, p. 170). It should be noted, however, that the Aeneid was a much-quoted text in early medieval England, as Michael Lapidge documents in The Anglo-Saxon Library (Lapidge 2005, especially pp. 188–90); compare Lapidge’s far scanter statistics concerning Ovid (Lapidge 2005, pp. 183, 323). |
9 | This essay in homage to J.D. Niles imitates the structure of his essay to which it replies, including his sidebar essay. While the sidebar essay within each longer essay can stand alone, each functions as an important part of the argument as a whole. |
10 | The most spectacular rock-cut architecture is in India and Cappadocia, but extensive buildings cut into rock exist in Malta, Slovenia, and elsewhere. Less known to those outside Australia is the currently inhabited rock-cut town of Coober Pedy in South Australia, and no doubt many other such dwellings exist throughout the world. These go unremarked for several reasons: a small cave shelter is literally less easy to spot than an equivalent small building on the open ground; the use of such buildings can slide easily between functions (dwelling place, storage, wine cave, etc.), and as living spaces cave-dwellings are readily associated with the poor and dispossessed, outlaws, and the supernatural. From the archaeological point of view, caves showing prehistoric occupation or ritual (such as art) are traditionally of major interest, medieval ones less so. |
11 | In a study of the noun hearg (herg, herh in the Northumbrian dialect), the archaeologist Sarah Semple says, “The OE term hearg is interpreted variously as ‘pagan temple’, ‘hilltop sanctuary’ and even ‘idol’. It is a rare survival in the English place-name record. When it can be identified, the place name is commonly considered to refer to a location of pre-Christian religious activity, specifically a pagan Anglo-Saxon temple” (Semple 2007, p. 364). The pagan Danes in Beowulf worship æt hærgtrafum (line 175), glossed “heathen temple” in Klaeber’s Beowulf (Fulk et al. 2008, p. 391; but see the note on p. 128). |
12 | This is not a new idea; Christian W. M. Grein proposed it over a century ago (Grein 1865, p. 422) and Wentersdorf (1981) has constructed a long and well-supported argument for this reading. |
13 | Niles later modified that interpretation: “Since the phrase eard niman is used elsewhere in Old English to mean ‘to take up one’s abode’, there is reason to take the phrase in that same sense here. The Wife’s abode is then best viewed as a pagan herh, whatever difficulties may be involved in reconstructing the other details of her story” (Niles 2019, p. 237). As will be seen below, however, he retains the hostile husband view. |
14 | Baker says, “Editors do not agree on the interpretation of this line. Herheard is often glossed ‘dwelling in the woods’, but a herh (the more standard spelling is hearh or hearg) is a pagan shrine or sanctuary. […] This edition retains the manuscript reading herheard in its obvious sense; the verse should be translated ‘take up residence in a pagan shrine’” (Peter S. Baker 2012, p. 208, n. 7). |
15 | Note, however, that the word heard (hard) can have positive meanings such as “firm”, “staunch”, or “resolute”. |
16 | For support in this reading, Klinck (1992, p. 181) refers to Nora Kershaw (1922, no page numbers cited) and W. S. MacKie (1925, pp. 91–93). |
17 | Leslie argues that the adverb her can alliterate, giving an example, in order to justify his emendation of heard to eard (Leslie 1961, p. 54), but the fact remains that his change weakens the alliteration. |
18 | Fulk points out that the initial h of heard is necessary for the alliteration; then he emends that word: “The reading selected for this text is based on a different assumption, that heard is a corruption of heord, more commonly spelled heorod, the chiefly Mercian equivalent of West Saxon hired ‘household’” (Pope and Fulk 2000, p. 125). Fulk’s editing of the poem conforms in principle to that of John C. Pope for the original seven poems of the book, by normalizing the text in order to allow students ease of access. Therefore his version of The Wife’s Lament will vary from editions following the original Exeter Book text more closely. Fulk explains his method on pages xi–xii. |
19 | For the alternation of g/h as in hearg and herh, see Campbell (1983, p. 446). Hilda Ellis Davidson proposed that herh-os on the right side of the Franks Casket means “pagan deity” (Davidson 1969, pp. 216–26). See also Sarah Semple’s archaeological study of the word hearg in place names (Semple 2007). |
20 | Later Niles changes his mind about this word, now accepting that herheard refers to a pagan sanctuary (Niles 2019, pp. 236–37), and this leads him to some interesting speculations that will be examined in part three of this essay. But he does not change his mind about the “hard-” hearted husband. |
21 | Inhabited caves and dugouts are often reused and enhanced from earlier natural cave or rock-cut structures. Such domiciles are the focus of part three of this essay. |
22 | An alternative suggestion in the same vein is that the husband has been outlawed by his own people for a violent act, perhaps like that committed by Beowulf’s father when he took refuge with Hrothgar (Beowulf, lines 459–72; see Hamer’s introduction to his translation, Hamer 1970, p. 71). Such outlawry was typically of a temporary duration, which could explain the verb abidan (await) in the final line of The Wife’s Lament. The Wife may be hoping for her husband to return after accomplishing either his mission or his outlawry—if he survives. |
23 | As Klinck says, the phrase þissum londstede at line 16b refers to “a place that may or may not be the husband’s own territory but is clearly alien to his wife” (Klinck 1992, p. 181). Her location in a friendless land not her own and the hostility toward her from her husband’s people suggests the Wife’s possible role as a “peaceweaver”. (For an excellent history and analysis of this term, see Peter S. Baker (2013, pp. 103–26)). As she grew up the young woman would have been trained in diplomacy and hall ceremonies with a view to being married into a neighboring kin-group, thus becoming a sort of hostage in an attempt to keep peace. For an argument about misuse of the practice, see Alaric Hall (2006, pp. 81–87). The standard exogamous marriage frequently did not end well, as Beowulf himself points out at lines 2039–41. Though the violent outcomes when peace-weaving fails are the ones we hear about (as in the stories of Freawaru and Hildeburh in Beowulf), sometimes the woman does succeed in accomplishing her task, as Wealhtheow does when she eases tensions in Heorot. For one recent argument among several disputing the old idea that Hrothulf will murder his cousin when the old king Hrothgar dies, see Osborn (2019). |
24 | “Oft” is an interesting word here. Has the poet personally observed or experienced such repeated “seizures”? Grief spasms may be a symptom of ASAD (Adult Separation Anxiety Disorder), a mental disorder only recently recognized by the DSM-5 (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, DSM-5 2013). In some cases ASAD represents a persistence or recurrence of the childhood-onset type. If the Wife was married exogamously in her early teens, as was often the case, her current symptoms may represent a recurrence of anxiety about that earlier separation from family and friends. In any case, she is “disabled” by her violently emotional response to her mandated lonely situation. |
25 | One may be seized “by” a sudden panic attack, but we would not be likely to say, in the active voice, “panic gripped me”. Thus the Wife speaking with today’s usage would have to express herself more fully: “Very often here feelings about my lord’s departure fiercely overwhelmed me”. Such differences from ours in early English ideas about mental states are examined by, among others, Malcolm R. Godden (1985), distinguishing between the classical concept of a unified inner self and the vernacular idea of a mind separable from the inner self; Britt Mize (2008), on the mind as enclosure and container; and Leslie Lockett (2011), building on these discussions combined with ideas from modern psychiatry, such as Hinton and Hinton (2002), “Panic Disorder, Somatization, and the New Cross-Cultural Psychiatry”. None of these scholars discusses the distress appearing as an outside agency (somatization) in some Old English poems, though Lockett touches on the concept of somatization itself (pp. 172–77). The Wife’s panic attacks lead to her reflective contrast between her lonely situation “here” and the happier one of the couple living above ground. Throughout the poem it is the situation resulting from her husband’s leaving that causes her anxiety (panic attacks) and makes her increasingly furious. |
26 | As has long been noted, the implicit chronology of The Wife’s Lament is not matched by the order in which actions are mentioned in the poem. |
27 | The word “curse”, like “oath”, is a multivalent term. Note that this mini-essay and its title allude to John D. Niles’ mini-essay and its title, “Toward an Anthropological Theory of Cursing” in Old English Enigmatic Poems and the Play of the Text (Niles 2006, p. 187). |
28 | I believe that this sentence is intentionally ambiguous as the Wanderer (now a wise man) moves toward the ambiguous fastness at the poem’s conclusion. The meaning of fastness includes both the fortress ruled by the [L]ord he has longed for and a secure situation of “stability”, thereby combining the secular and spiritual longing into a single image of the Great Hall of God (Martin Luther’s “Mighty Fortress of our Lord”). This doubling of secular and religious meanings builds up toward the end of The Wanderer, adding spiritual depth to the poem. There is nothing like it in The Wife’s Lament with its focus on passionate love-longing. |
29 | The explanation in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Braun 2017) begins: “An indexical is, roughly speaking, a linguistic expression whose reference can shift from context to context. For example, the indexical ‘you’ may refer to one person in one context and to another person in another context. Other paradigmatic examples of words that function as indexicals are I, here, today, yesterday, he, she, and that. Two speakers who utter a single sentence that contains an indexical may be saying different things”. |
30 | The suggested scenario where the husband in The Wife’s Lament is constrained by an oath taken in the past adds temporal interest to the poem as it places the speaking Wife conceptually between the two “times” of her husband’s oath: his “then” in making it, her “now” in lamenting the result for her (her loneliness), and his “later” (but soon, presumably) enactment of it, what he has gone over the seas to do. |
31 | |
32 | Technically, a promissory oath is sworn publicly to an authority whereas a vow may be a personal promise made in private, although the “marriage vow”, sworn to one’s partner, is made publicly. It is doubtful that poets writing in Old English made such careful distinctions in their use of the related words ađ (oath), beot (pledge), and treow (troth or vow). In the poetry all three terms appear to refer to a witnessed and irrevocable personal guarantee, so the oath-taker should consider carefully where it might lead before speaking such a promise in public (as in beot spriceð, in the passage quoted below). |
33 | Reference to lof as a worthy aim for a warrior is a structurally interesting element in Beowulf, coming at the beginning of the poem (lof-dædum, line 24), the middle (lof, line 1536), and the very end (lof-georn, line 3182). |
34 | See Magennis (1996, p. 119). |
35 | For an early argument that “the situation of the poem is that the wife of a lord has been made a prisoner in an oak grove at the instigation of her husband” because he has become hostile toward her, see Greenfield (1989b, p. 149). |
36 | This “noble custom” is specific to the warband. R.D. Fulk says of the word indryhten, “This adjective is probably formed from in-dryhtu, the prefix indicating a quality inherent in a noble dryht” (Pope and Fulk 2000, p. 193); in his glossary under dryhten he defines dryht as “army or host” (Pope and Fulk 2000, p. 176). |
37 | In a thoughtful discussion in Heroic Identity in Beowulf Scott Gwara (2008, pp. 173–77), questions the standard view that Hengest broke the oath that was meant to quell violence at Finnsburh. He makes a clever argument that is well worth consideration. |
38 | R. D. Fulk explains the element collen- as the “pp [past participle] of a lost verb *cwellan, swell, spring up, grow big” (Pope and Fulk 2000, p. 173). |
39 | Andy Orchard traces a series of other words in The Wanderer that have both secular and Christian meanings (Orchard 2002, pp. 1–26). He finds that the ambiguity creates a structural development from the passive wanderer (eardstapa) waiting for ar (help, favor, grace, mercy, etc.) to the contemplator actively seeking it at line 115 (here translated “grace”). Orchard does not comment on the irony of these two stances as they proceed “from the selfish and worldly preoccupation with a lost past life to a selfless and unworldly concern for a timeless and future afterlife” (p. 12). But he does caution the reader that the ambiguities in the opening lines are not completely, as Greenfield argues, “artfully resolved at the poem’s close” (p. 8, quoting Greenfield 1989a, p. 134). Even the phrase “Father in heaven” (fæder on heofonum, line 115), Orchard says, is “far from unambiguous”, and he then lists a series of “key words and phrases” in the final lines that have both secular and Christian meanings, sometimes having secular meanings earlier within the poem itself: beorn, eorl, mid elne, treowe, ar, even frofre (Orchard 2002, pp. 6–7). The one word this fine close reader omits from this list is bot at line 113. In note 18 he translates this word “remedy”, without comment. |
40 | The meanings of torn at line 112 and bote at line 113 are significant here. In their glossaries under torn, Leslie has “grief;” Bliss and Dunning have “resentment”, then “anger on p. 59; Klinck has “remedy, amelioration”. In their glossaries under bot, Leslie has “remedy”; Bliss and Dunning have “remedy”: Klinck has “remedy, amelioration”. For an acceptable meaning I would translate lines 112b–113: “[a warrior] must never too quickly reveal his anger from his breast unless he first knows the remedy” (i.e., how to ameliorate the situation, how to swing it his way, probably through violence). In this sentence the poet is not telling this (imagined) warrior to “stand down” or to “make peace”, but to work out how to get payback most effectively and at least cost. |
41 | This is primarily Bjork’s interpretation in “Sundor æt Rune”, with which others concur. It should be noted that the Old English word bot meaning “remedy” occurs mainly in a medical sense, but so does our modern word “remedy” that is similarly used in other contexts. |
42 | Stanley claims that this half-line is “a difficult intrusion”, and he then offers some suggestions made by others: “Gollancz (The Exeter Book 1895, p. 303) has ‘unless he experience adversity’, which uses adversity in a sense of ‘opposition’. My ‘contrariety’ is nearer to the ‘enmity’ of fæhþe witan, but no ‘feud’ is mentioned, and, if interpreted literally, ‘feud, enmity’ would divert from the paternal teaching. Shippey’s ‘unless he knows he has an enemy’ (Shippey 1976, p. 51) and DOE’s ‘unless he perceives enmity’ (s.v. fǣhþ, sense 1. ‘feud, state of feuding, enmity, hostility; hostile act’) would be diversions from the teaching of the poem” (Stanley 2018, p. 286). |
43 | Leonard Neidorf translates this precept: “A wise man seldom enjoys himself without worrying; just as a fool rarely mixes enjoyment with concern about his future, unless he knows he has an enemy [nefne he fæhþe wite]. A sensible man must be careful with his words, and think things over in his heart, not be loud and noisy” (Neidorf 2021, p. 45). “Such advice is inherently aristocratic”, says Neidorf, and arguing for a secular environment for the poem, he suggests that the speaker is imagined “as neither a monk nor a personified abstraction”, as others have maintained, “but as an elderly Anglo-Saxon aristocrat endeavoring to persuade his ambitious son that piety is compatible with prosperity” (Neidorf 2021, p. 34 (abstract)). Whatever way one translates this precept, the sequence of ideas may refer to a cautionary formula to be heeded by a warrior when there is fæhþe in the air. Following that significant word, the wisfæst hæle of “Precepts” (line 57b) may remind one of the man snottor on mode (“wise in his heart”) who sits apart in secret thought in line 111 of The Wanderer, or of the silent, pondering husband in The Wife’s Lament. |
44 | |
45 | |
46 | The alternative proposal mentioned above, that the husband has already performed the mordor and is exiled “over the waters” because of that deed, does not fit the context so well as the idea that he is oath-bound to take action abroad from his homeland. |
47 | |
48 | The Wife may not have had a servant as devoted as those who looked after Guthlac, especially the monk Beccel who came to live with him during his last days (Colgrave [1956] 2007, pp. 152–61), but she makes no mention of any deprivation except the comfort of her husband and friends. |
49 | Niles amplifies his idea of a pre-Christian setting in God’s Exiles (Niles 2019, pp. 236–37). |
50 | For reuse of structures in the early English landscape, see, among others, Williams (1997, pp. 1–32); Semple (2013, passim); and Hartmann (2019, pp. 230–64). In “Barrow Agency: Reading Landscape in Felix’s Vita Guthlaci”, Jan-Peer Hartmann (2022) argues that the Vita Guthlaci illustrates how literature may transform perceptions of the landscape through the audience’s expectation of genre. Felix initially describes Guthlac and his Fenland (a real person in a real location) partly on the basis of hagiographies believed to be known to the saint and the Vita’s audience, but he brings in new elements as the text progresses. The Guthlac who results is no triumphant colonizer of a primeval wilderness; instead, he both influences and is shaped by the landscape in a symbiotic process of becoming. As an assemblage of variously interacting natural and cultural forces, Guthlac’s Fenland is a physical and mental construct, as is the Wife’s herheard according to this essay’s argument, and this location also participates in the “process of becoming” that shapes the Wife in the poem. |
51 | Unlike the dwelling called a souterrain, dug down into the ground as the name implies and known mainly in Celtic areas of Britain (not in the poet’s early medieval England), the rock-cut cave houses clustered in the Midlands are carved horizontally into the vertical face of a cliff. The fact that Battles and Garner do not consider this type of building along with the others that they examine demonstrates how new the cliff-face rock-cut building is to the typology of earthen dwellings. Moreover, attention is only now being directed to dating these buildings, so even if these two scholars had known about them, it is unlikely they would have considered them within an early medieval context. |
52 | Edward B. Irving, Jr., imagining the little fox with her kits as representing a woman in a cave, claims that the riddle is “about people driven to act like animals” and “dragging their children, hands clapped over screaming mouths, out of the way of some marauder” (Irving 1994, p. 204). I consider the subject of this riddle to be a realistically imagined animal whose actions under duress bear analogy with human ones, in particular those attacked by Vikings in the ninth-century. Hardly the panic-stricken mother that Irving imagines, the vixen first delays, then effects the “remedy” (bot) with a counter-attack. Harried by the enemy she describes as an unwanted “guest” in line 10 and identifies as a wælhwelp (a terrier who “goes to ground” after prey) in line 23, she takes the precaution of digging an exit route from her burrow to lead her kits to safety, and only then does she return to set viciously upon her attacker. |
53 | For dates see Colgrave’s introduction to Felix’s Life of Saint Guthlac (Colgrave [1956] 2007). |
54 | On the basis of the poet’s extensive description, Niles is able to identify with some certainty the way we are meant to understand the nature of the fire coming out of that human-built “cave” (see Niles 2012, pp. 25–36). Niles’ description of what Beowulf sees as he looks into the dragon’s abode is a model of the information that can be retrieved from a poem about an imagined place, a site based on, he says, “a megalithic chambered tomb (or long barrow) of the kind built in many parts of Europe during what we now know as the Neolithic era, with this building activity culminating around the years 2300–2200 BC” (27). |
55 | Aeneas objects strongly to Dido’s interpretation of their night together in the cave (Aeneid 4: 338–39), and he points out that it is not his choice to go to Italy (Aeneid 4: 361). He never stops loving her deeply (see Aeneid 4: 393–95). |
56 | According to a Historic Environment Records (HER) database reported by the City Archaeologist Scott Lomax at Nottingham City (Lomax 2021). |
57 | For presentation here, the print has been cropped in order to emphasize the cave entrance at the end of the winding road. The inscription along the top reads, in its entirety, “View of Blackston Cave, River Severn & Ld. Herberts house near Bewdley, Sep. 23.” (Stukeley and Kirkall 1721). |
58 | According to the Worcestershire Wildlife Trust, the rock has become unstable, making the cave no longer safe to view; therefore access to Blackstone Farm Fields is now forbidden. (See The Devil’s Spittleful and Blackstone Farm Fields n.d.). Most visitors to the area will therefore be unaware of the existence of this cave house. |
59 | The project is generously sponsored by Professor Richard Skinner of Houston, Texas, USA. |
60 | See in particular Stukeley and Kirkall (1721). Although primarily interested in prehistory, Stukeley visited many varied sites and drew three important medieval rock-cut buildings. Other antiquarian or archaeological interest has been sparse and concentrated on individual sites rather than looking at the rich corpus of surviving buildings as a whole. |
61 | Some of these sites have long-established histories and are widely accepted as medieval. Oddly, though, almost identical sites, with telling place names and even similarly datable diagnostic features, have in the past, due to unfamiliarity with similar structures, been thought to be of the eighteenth century or later. |
62 | For example, Thomas Habington (c1560–1647) described Redstone Rock (Habington 1899, pp. 17–18, n. 2; Jones 2019, pp. 204–5); John Leland (c1503–1552) described Guy’s Cliffe (Leland 1907, pp. 45–46; Jones 2019, p. 204); Bridgnorth Hermitage, which retains a debased Romanesque chancel arch, received a royal land grant in the tenth century (Bradley 1920, p. 205) and was surveyed by John Leland in the sixteenth century (Eyton 1857, pp. 352–54); Crachcliffe Hermitage is home to a later medieval crucifix carved into a simple rock shelter; a fourteenth-century liturgical plate found at Southstone Rock is now lost but was sketched in the eighteenth century (Noake 1851, p. 174); The fifteenth-century Chronicle of Dale Abbey, which contains fragments of a thirteenth-century version, details the origin and construction of that site’s hermitage (Ward 1891, pp. 14–18); Anchor Church is first mentioned in c1270 (Cameron [1959] 1993). |
63 | These sites are of such potential archaeological sensitivity and fragility that I am not naming them at this time. After full analysis and the implementation of mitigation measures they will be named in future work. The evidence for prehistoric construction is compelling and has been shared with selected notable scholars of that era. The evidence includes structures cut with stone tools and antler picks as well as finds and features of a particularly early date. |
64 | Conventional cave sites have been the focus of investigation for several centuries, and there is a wealth of high-quality speleological work from throughout the UK. For example, Kent’s Cave in Devon contains animal bones, flint tools, and a radiocarbon-dated Neanderthal human jawbone that dates to around 40,000 years ago, making it one of the oldest known modern humans in Europe (Schulting et al. 2015). The teeth and bones of 21 individuals discovered in Aveline’s Hole in Somerset are believed to be between 10,200 and 10,400 years old, making it the earliest scientifically dated cemetery in Britain and one of Europe’s largest early Mesolithic burial sites (Schulung and Wysock 2002, p. 255). In another example, Creswell Crags, a limestone ravine on the boundary of Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire, has Ice Age rock art (Pettitt et al. 2007) and an extensive collection of post-medieval apotropaic symbols believed to ward off evil and misfortune (Paul Baker 2019). |
65 | For the English Saints Hardulph, Guy of Warwick, Athelardson, Saint Wulsi of Evesham, and Saint Constantine of Stratclyde see Clay (1914, pp. 47, 49, 53, 54, 73). For Saints Ninian of Whithorn, Columba, Ciaran, Molaise, Samson of Dol, Cuthbert, Guthlac, and Illtud see Ahronson (2018, p. 98). For Irish Saints Patrick, Fiacc, Colman, Brendan, and Moling see Dowd (2018, p. 118). For Irish Saints Finbar, Kevin, and Mocuda see Dowd (2018, p. 119) and for Irish Saints Leo, Scáithin, and Colmán see Dowd (2018, p. 120). |
66 | Many examples show signs of having been enlarged, or having structures built within them. Excavated examples such as St Ninian’s Cave (Whithorn) included free-standing carved crosses as well as incised wall crosses, domestic material and walls. Other far less well known examples such as Saint Bertram’s Cave (Staffordshire) have been excavated numerous times and have sealed datable deposits which are broadly contemporary with the life of the saint. |
67 | The differences between the Roman and native churches have long been the subject of debate and investigation. What is becoming more apparent however is continuity of both populations and practice, particularly in Mercia where the vast majority of rock-cut sites may be found. Christian sub-kingdoms such as Pengwern and the Hwicce are absorbed into an expanding Mercia, retaining churches and administrative units with almost no evidence of a pagan period (apart from a few furnished burials). There is strong evidence that practices such as eremitism in these areas continued and were absorbed during the changes led by Augustine and others in the early seventh century. By later in the seventh century Chad, Cuthbert and other noted figures are regularly retreating to hermitages. See Higham (2008) for discussions of the evidence for the survival of Christianity in what later became the western part of Mercia. |
68 | See Cartwright (2002, pp. 6–7); Pryce (1994, pp. 23–24); and Archaeologia Cambrensis (1847, p. 138). The narrow rock shelter reached by stone steps and commonly known as Gwely Melangell (bed of Melangell) is not mentioned until the late eighteenth century (Pennant 1810, p. 361). The cave is partly collapsed, but it is similar to “beds” of saints in Wales and Ireland (e.g., Gwely Gywddfarch in Powys and Saint Kevin’s Bed, Glendalough, Ireland) which may have acted as places of retreat and penance and have been remembered in place names. G.G. Evans suggests that the story of Melangell is “a fine example of imaginative folklore” (Evans 1984, p. 16), but this does not explain the similarity of the site to other examples, or the presence of such an artificial shelter in a hill with no other activity apart from quarrying. |
69 | From their earliest appearance, manifestations of anchoresis are broad and complex. After c1200 the identification of these sites becomes refined into association with hermits, anchorites proper, solitaries, etc. In this paper the terms are used interchangeably. |
70 | See in particular Blair (2006, pp. 216–21). |
71 | With a few exceptions such as the glacio-fluvial caves of Creswell Crags and a number of natural overhangs and shallow caves elsewhere, the natural caves are created by water action. |
72 | John Leland visited the site between 1536 and 1542 and left a description of the hermitage along with the first description suggesting its early medieval English origin. While David Horowitz has expressed doubts about the particular royal inhabitant (Horowitz 2009), the Alfredian date together with the fabric and archaeology of the site support the traditional interpretation more generally. |
73 | These include the main terrace at Bridgnorth, with large chambers alongside a partly rock-cut chapel, at least part of the two massive hall-like suites of rock-cut rooms above the River Severn at Redstone Rock (Worcestershire), and Anchor Church with its oratory and three roomed cave house. |
74 | Examples of these include Redstone Rock in Worcestershire and Saint Catherine’s Hill, Guildford. I am indebted to Archaeology South East for providing pictures of this recently discovered site. |
75 | Dating is a problem, but targeted excavation and techniques such as OSL dating can reveal something of the sequence of events. OSL, dating by “optically stimulated luminescence”, measures the time between the deposit of luminescent material such as quartz until it is covered from light by further sediment. Detailed explanations of this technique are available online. |
76 | Importantly, the sandstone at this particular site contains calcites which may be datable. Unlike most sites, there is also the potential of sealed deposits beneath rammed earth and stone paved floors. The description of the language of the inscription in the cave as “Mercian semi-runic” has met with considerable scepticism. |
77 | Hermitages constructed in the traditional early medieval English design might include several structures, “Among Godrick of Throckenholt’s many buildings were an animal corral, an oratory, a residence, and a ‘consulting chamber’ for guests” (Simons 2021, “Anchor”, p. 358; citing Licence 2011, p. 99). |
78 | Niles suggests that monks may have compiled and possibly authored poems of the Exeter Book; see his discussion in God’s Exiles (Niles 2019, pp. 5–7, 21, 33–39). If this were the case, it does not necessarily follow that those poems were composed at Exeter or that the book was copied there. Moreover, even if the poet of The Wife’s Lament had direct personal knowledge of some rock-cut dwellings in the Midlands (a possibility suggested but not argued here), that would not mean that the poet was a native Mercian. |
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Osborn, M. Rereading The Wife’s Lament with Dido of Carthage: The Husband and the Herheard. Humanities 2022, 11, 69. https://doi.org/10.3390/h11030069
Osborn M. Rereading The Wife’s Lament with Dido of Carthage: The Husband and the Herheard. Humanities. 2022; 11(3):69. https://doi.org/10.3390/h11030069
Chicago/Turabian StyleOsborn, Marijane. 2022. "Rereading The Wife’s Lament with Dido of Carthage: The Husband and the Herheard" Humanities 11, no. 3: 69. https://doi.org/10.3390/h11030069
APA StyleOsborn, M. (2022). Rereading The Wife’s Lament with Dido of Carthage: The Husband and the Herheard. Humanities, 11(3), 69. https://doi.org/10.3390/h11030069