The Wanderer

"The Wanderer"
January 8th, 2011
11 x 15 inches
Watercolors, ink, white ink

Upon an icy sea, I sail far from home;
my kinsmen slain - serf and thane -
I am a wanderer alone.

I buried long ago,
in earth, my lord and king.
Now all are gone, at once I knew,
and now alone my song I sing.
~ The Wanderer

Here is my first picture of the New Year! Happy New Year everyone! (Even if it is a rather gloomy one) This was a nice chill piece after my huge oil painting (which I shall post soon, never fear) and all of those hurried Christmas gift-pictures I was trying to do. I lingered over this one for a good long while, but I finished it today; HURRAY!

Okay, so some background: One day I was looking through my old e-mail and I came across one that a friend of mine had sent me. I had asked her for some info on the characters from Crown of the World (when I was working on that massive Crown of the World montage) and he sent me some character info and also a little piece of this poem. Well, I read it over again and I really liked it! Within the context of the book it pertained to Godfrey and since I was in the midst of my Templar-high I was like, "OH! POOR GODFREY!" (Because well, it is rather perfect for him. He is a sad, sad little Templar. ) And so I decided to draw it. I made the first sketch in the middle of November (according to my computer, I scanned in said sketch on the 15th, so I'll go by that) and ever since then it had been at the back of my mind. I started making more sophisticated sketches based off the first one, and then I went to the text to see what translation I wanted to use. I looked for the poem using several different sources.

The text is an excerpt from an Anglo-Saxon poem called The Wanderer. And I've admired the style of Golden Age artists for a long time, so just for kicks I attempted this one in the style of Edmund Dulac, a French Golden Age illustrator of books of fairy-tales. Quite clearly, if you have any acquaintance with his style (a quick google search would suffice) I have failed most miserably in an attempt to imitate it. But I like it anyhows. Maybe I just need thinner nibs.

So, right, the text. This one has the Anglo-Saxon with a (as far as I can tell) near literal translation: www.anglo-saxons.net/hwaet/?do… and this one also with the Anglo Saxon text.; this one is kind of cool in that the green lines of the text (if clicked on) are sung in a really pretty capella, so check that out: www.tloneditions.com/Ezequiel_… (I also like this translation better, it's a bit more poetic than the other one) and then I also used this one: clifftruesdell.com/wanderer/. Essentially there was no one translation I really liked; there were some cool snatches of words and phrases in each of them but (I thought) some awkward words and phrases later. So I decided to be presumptuous and I took all the different texts, picked out, mish-mashed and glomped together various lines and words from the different translations. I tweaked some things here and there as well. Man, it's hard figuring out what best conveys the mood of something. Serious props to translators. My main priority was not preserving the exact translation or keeping the rhyming meter or whatnot; I mainly wanted to try and put together the most poetic and pretty-sounding translation that I could. It was rather difficult since I don't really KNOW Anglo-Saxon, so I'm not sure if I conveyed the right mood that the author wanted to convey, but I digress. Here's what I came up with:

"So said the Wanderer, remembering woe,
Cruel slaughters and the death of dear kinsmen:
"Oft I must lament my misery alone, before the dawn.
For none are there now among the living
To whom I dare tell my heart's innermost thoughts.
For truly I know it well-befits a noble warrior
To closely guard his heart's key,
To restrain his thought-horde and resolve what he will.
The weary spirit cannot withstand Fate,
Nor may a wreaked will work new hope.
Therefore, glory-eager men must bind sorrow fast within their breasts;
And so must I, who--oft miserable,
Home-bereft and far from kinsmen--
Have had to bind in fetters my inmost thoughts.
For long it is since earth's darkness
Enfolded my lord, and I fared forth,
Poor, and winter-weary, and onward bound
O'er the wave's expanse."

Isn't it just perfect for Godfrey? I thought it was…especially if you know anything about the history of the Kingdom of Jerusalem. Sad, sad stuff.

And if you concentrate on the leaves, the movement in this will hopefully be more evident.

Ugh. And the text is crooked. Wow. Fail. That's what you get when you're working on a piece for too long and FAR too closely.

Aaaaand I think that's it! Enjoy!