Exeter Riddle 23
MEGANCAVELL
Date: Thu 15 May 2014Matching Commentaries: Commentary for Exeter Riddle 23
Agof is min noma eft onhwyrfed;
ic eom wrætlic wiht on gewin sceapen.
Þonne ic onbuge, ond me of bosme fareð
ætren onga, ic beom eallgearo
5 þæt ic me þæt feorhbealo feor aswape.
Siþþan me se waldend, se me þæt wite gescop,
leoþo forlæteð, ic beo lengre þonne ær,
oþþæt ic spæte, spilde geblonden,
ealfelo attor þæt ic ær geap.
10 Ne togongeð þæs gumena hwylcum,
ænigum eaþe þæt ic þær ymb sprice,
gif hine hrineð þæt me of hrife fleogeð,
þæt þone mandrinc mægne geceapaþ,
fullwered fæste feore sine.
15 Nelle ic unbunden ænigum hyran
nymþe searosæled. Saga hwæt ic hatte.
Wob is my name turned back;
I am a wondrous being, shaped for battle.
When I bend, and from my bosom travels
a poisonous dart, I am very ready
5 so that I sweep that deadly evil far away from me.
When my ruler, he who designed that distress,
looses my limbs, I am longer than before,
until I spit, debased by destruction,
the terrible poison that I took in before.
10 What I speak about here does not
easily pass away from anyone,
if that which flies from my belly strikes him,
so that he buys that evil drink with his strength,
[pays] full compensation with his very life.
15 Unbound, I will not obey anyone
unless skillfully tied. Say what I am called.
Notes:
This riddle appears on folio 106v of The Exeter Book.
The above Old English text is based on this edition: Elliott van Kirk Dobbie and George Philip Krapp, eds, The Exeter Book, Anglo-Saxon Poetic Records 3 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1936), page 192.
Note that this edition numbers the text Riddle 21: Craig Williamson, ed., The Old English Riddles of the Exeter Book (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1977), page 81.
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