> I really like this poem, Tim, and I thank you for bringing the website
> to my attention.  I could not find your translation there -- all I
> found was a searchable text of the Anglo-Saxon, which is also very
> good.  Do I need further instructions?

Do you mean this:

Click the link Tim gave,
Move mouse over "e-Edition of The Wanderer", click
Move mouse over "Open the e-edition", (the words will flash!), click
Move mouse over "Free Translation", click.



----- Original Message -----
From: "Jon & Anne Weidler" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Thursday, March 06, 2003 9:03 AM
Subject: metaphysics in "The Wanderer"


> Tim-
>
> I don't have my translation handy, but from what I remember of the
> Wanderer, its metaphysics are sort of dualistic: earth is a place of
> bitter breast care, transient, impermanent (tricksy, false).  The
> sufferings we endure here in this land are the consequences of constant
> mutability.  Only in heaven is that mutability overthrown.  Heaven, the
> place of no change, is the place of happiness and rest.  One might
> argue (and many have) that this worldview reflects more of the monastic
> scribes than it does the Wanderer's original poet.  Whether or not this
> matters I leave to more capable hands.
>
> Comparing the Wanderer to Buddhist metaphysics, this duality makes
> quite a difference: Buddhist cosmology dictates that not even the
> lifespan of gods is permanent, and that everything necessarily changes
> according to laws of interdependent origination (this happens, so that
> happens, neither cause nor effect distinct or ultimately separable.)
> This unity of heaven and earth, through the figure of constant,
> interlinked change, is productive of both suffering and the cessation
> of suffering.  The sharp division in the Anglo-Saxon poem, on the other
> hand, renders the changes that produce suffering as strictly sub-lunary
> phenomena, to be abandoned and escaped in heaven after death.  The poem
> sounds Christian in many ways; on the other hand, maybe the memory of a
> massacre and the painful absence of friends and caregivers prompts a
> theodicy that sounds Christian enough to be confusing to later readers.
>
> Once again, we must wonder about the monastic scribes.  As a cautionary
> note, some excellent readings of The Wanderer and The Seafarer, and
> their cousin poem The Dream of the Rood, read the action of the poem as
> figurative of monastic exile, of long vigils in the chapel, of cold
> hours spent far from the human comfort of cities.  Perhaps the monastic
> scribes and the original poets of these Anglo-Saxon poems are not so
> far removed from one another.
>
> I really like this poem, Tim, and I thank you for bringing the website
> to my attention.  I could not find your translation there -- all I
> found was a searchable text of the Anglo-Saxon, which is also very
> good.  Do I need further instructions?
>
> Sincerely,
> Jon
>
> Wel bith tham the him are seceth, / frofre to Faeder on heofonum, /
> thaer us eal seo faestnung stondeth
>
> (with apologies to the A-S consonants that the e-mail program couldn't
> recognize.)
>
> On Thursday, March 6, 2003, at 06:07  AM, Tim Romano wrote:
>
> > Yo Mo Fo
> > Take a look at my translation of the Anglo-Saxon poem known as "The
> > Wanderer" and you'll see a western mind struggling with the memory of a
> > massacre and the destruction of his paideuma. Is his resignation
> > comparable
> > to the Buddhist worldview?
> > Tim
> > www.aimsdata.com/tim
> >
> >