Elegies-8

The elegies “The Seafarer” and “The Wife’s Lament” both share personal experiences and different attitudes towards it. In “The Seafarer,” the author loves the sea and believes it’s his fate to pioneer and travel upon it. “My soul roams with the sea,” he says. The poem is about “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.” He speaks a lot about the hardships faced on the sea. Also how God brought him through the dangerous adventure of traveling by sea. In my opinion it seems like he’s calling on others to except their fate and believe in God and praise him. Those who don’t are foolish and “death leaps” their way. In “The Wife’s Lament,” the mood is definitely somber. It opens with “I sing this song about myself, full sad, my own distress, and tell what hardships I have had to suffer since I first grew up.” This clearly defines the somber mood the wife has felt for a long time. She’s tried everything to be happy but has end up being a failure. Some of the similarities in the two are that both call upon God’s faith. The man in the first passage thanks God for guiding his fate and watching over him. The second passage wants God to guide her to a happy life. She begins to set off in search of her Lord but a friendless exile keeps them apart. The mood is definitely different between the two. “The Seafarer’s” mood is more along the lines of recounting all one has been through and enjoying it because it’s ones passion. “The Wife’s Lament’s” mood is centered around hardship and sorrow and looking for the Lord to try to find happiness again.