Tuesday, September 14, 2010

Anglo-Saxon Bonds: (Journal 9)

     In Anglo-Saxon society, the most important bond between a lord and his retainers was loyalty. This is most obviously shown by Comitatus, the willingness of a thane to devote his life to the protection of his lord, so long as he is paid generously and well kept for. These thanes are willing to die for their chieftain out of loyalty for him and their kingdom. “Treat all the world as the world, deserves, with love or with hate but never with harm, though an enemy seek to scorch him in hell, or set the flames of a funeral pyre under his lord” (l 111-115). This quote explains that, although the world should not be treated with harm, one’s lord will always be in danger from his enemies, and thus needs constant and undying protection from his thanes and followers. In “The Wife’s Lament,” the wife weeps, “I set off to join and serve my lord, a friendless exile in my sorry plight” (l 9-10). When she leaves to join her lord, she gives up everything to end a dispute between clans, thus marrying the lord, her husband. This, although not Comitatus, shows her devotion to her clan and her willingness to give up her life for the greater good.

     It goes without saying that if one of those retainers is exiled from the kingdom, that the tragedy of separation will eat away at their being, as shown in “The Seafarer” and “The Wife’s Lament.” Burton Raffel’s “The Seafarer” describes “how the sea took me, swept me back and forth in sorrow and fear and pain, showed me suffering in a hundred ships, in a thousand ports, and in me” (l 1-4). In this quote, the old sailor, exiled for an unknown reason, voices his distress at being kept at sea and away from his lord whom he was loyal. “Full often here the absence of my lord comes sharply to me” (l 33-34). In “The Wife’s Lament,” after being separated and banished from her husband and lord, the wife of the poem relays her grief and loss. She is unlike herself without the presence of her lord to guide her and protect her. Being exiled from a lord or chieftain, while an obvious punishment for some misdoing, is a painful and humiliating chastisement.

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