The Wife's Lament: A Song on Unreturned Love and Loss

 The Wife’s Lament 

-Joel Jacob Eldho

This Old English poem is believed to be written around 10th century AD. As the title suggests, it is about a wife expressing her sorrow and unhappiness. This piece of poetry falls under the category of wisdom poetry that imparts information regarding the condition of humans and the world. The Wife’s Lament is found in the Exeter book, one of the four Old English manuscripts. This could also be considered as an elegy since it has the elements like exile, longing, separation, passage of time etc. The author of the poem is unknown. However, there exists a debate on whether it was authored by a man or woman. If it were written by a woman, this could be seen as one of the first female authored poems. However, this could have been written by a male author who incorporated a female perspective in it. Anyways, the poem offers a psychological exploration. 

The Wife’s Lament consists of 53 lines. It could be divided into five parts for better understanding. Line 1-5 is a formal introduction to the poem. The narrator (wife) says that she wrote the poem/song about herself. The introductory stanza talks about the sufferings she has been through. The last line of the first stanza (“I suffer the torment of my exile”) talks about her exile which will be discussed in the later parts of the poems. So, the first stanza opens with a melancholic tone that further intensifies. 

 In the second stanza (6-14) she explains the reason for her sorrow. She introduces a new male character and addresses him as ‘lord’. This is actually her husband and the leader of a group of people. She says that the lord left her and his people for good and she feels betrayed. The reason for the lord leaving is not specified in the poem which makes it ambiguous. She is worried about the forthcoming consequences on the people and her. So, in order to solve this misery, she sets out on a journey alone to find the lord. This could be seen as a self-inflicted exile (“a friendless exile”). Unfortunately for her, the lord’s kinsmen (relatives) are trying to separate the wife and husband. They are trying to keep them apart. But the reason for this is also unknown. The narrator doesn’t specify this. She is impatient to meet her husband. She says, “longing seized me.”

 In the next stanza (15-26), the degree of pain increases. In the beginning of the stanza, out of nowhere, the lord invites her to live with him in an unknown place where she no friends or family. She is stressed over this but is happy to see the lord. However, as the stanza progresses a massive tragedy unfolds. She realises the deceptive nature of her husband. She finds that under the masquerade of a smiling face, her husband has been plotting murders. She also realises that he is in grief and is unfortunate. However, just like the previous stanzas, the reason for this is not specified. Earlier they thought that only death could separate them from the marriage but now everything has fallen apart. This signifies the transience of life. She now has to suffer from the hatred of the one she used to love. (“All that is changed now; it is now as if it had never been”.) 

The fourth stanza (27-41) gets darker and confusing than the previous. She is now captured by the husband’s kinsmen and held a prisoner. She is forced to live in a “forest grove, under an oak tree in an earthen cave.” The reason for this is also unknown. She is now in an extreme state of grief and says, “I ache with longing.” She compares them to lovers lying in a bed. The lovers have something that she longs for. She is jealous for the intimacy between the lovers. The lord’s betrayal has forced her to lead a new life that she never wished for. She is not going to escape the longings that have seized her life. All she can do is weep in the cave over her exile. 

 In the fifth and final stanza (42-53), the wife expresses a mixed feeling for her husband. She kind of curses the husband. She says, “May the young man be sad-minded with hard heart-thoughts, yet let him have a smiling face along with his heartache, a crowd of constant sorrows.” She actually doesn’t want him to suffer, she wants him to go through the pain that she went through. She wants him to understand that life has not been easy for her. He must look back and realise what he has lost. She ends the poem by saying, “My beloved will suffer the cares of a sorrowful mind; he will remember too often a happier home. Woe to the one who must suffer longing for a loved one.”

 Analysis 

The poem is an ambiguous roller-coaster of emotions. It goes from love to exile to deceit to suffering to hatred/cursing. It is also possible that the husband and wife still love each other, but the circumstances don’t allow it. The lord may have imprisoned her due to the pressure from his kinsmen and not due to hatred. There is also another interpretation that the lord himself sent his wife away to protect her from the malicious acts of his kinsmen. 

Some critics argue that the wife may be referring to different husbands in different stanzas because she addresses them differently like ‘lord’, ‘young man’ etc. However, the possibility of this interpretation is not very valid. 

This could also be analysed as a Christian poetry. The wife could be seen as the church (the bride of Christ) lamenting her exile from Jesus. Her sufferings could be viewed as a man’s hardship in his daily life and the eventual salvation. 

Another interpretation is that she could actually be dead and could be talking from her grave. The cave/earth hall in which she is imprisoned is similar to a grave. So, it may be a dead woman’s lament.

 Themes 

The Wife’s Lament has numerous Anglo-Saxon elements like exile, longing for love, suffering, isolation, loneliness, solitude, quest for belongingness etc. It is similar to other Old English poetries like The Seafarer and The Wanderer which also includes the elements of sea, exile, journey etc. The poem goes deep into the psyche of the wife and explores it. It could also be seen as an existential and psychological poem.

 Form and Literary Devices 

The poem consists of 53 lines and is written in alliterative meter which focuses on alliteration as a metrical structure. It also has numerous trochees (a stressed syllable followed by an unstressed syllable). The poem is also rich in imagery. It is allegorical in nature. The affinity towards nature and the employment of nature filled imageries is yet another factor. And since it is written in alliterative meter, alliterations are also rich in number.