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3 - Drawbacks of Old Age

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 January 2023

Thijs Porck
Affiliation:
Universiteit Leiden
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Summary

One might be eaten by a wolf, die of hunger, perish of thirst, be killed by the hand of an aggressive drunk or fall, featherless, from a tree. The first fifty or so lines of the Exeter Book poem The Fortunes of Men consist of a depressing list of the various ways in which a young person might die. From line 58 onwards, the poem takes a more joyous turn:

Sum sceal on geoguþe mid godes meahtum

his earfoðsiþ ealne forspildan,

ond on yldo eft eadig weorþan,

wunian wyndagum ond welan þicgan,

maþmas ond meoduful mægburge on.

These lines have been translated by Shippey as follows:

Another, through the power of God, will in his youth obliterate all his harsh experience, and then be fortunate in old age, living happy days and enjoying prosperity, riches and the mead-cup in the home of his family.

Translated thus, it seems as if the Anglo-Saxon poet posits youth, filled with dangers, against old age, a time characterised by joy and prosperity. S. A. J. Bradley, however, rendered “on yldo eft” in a different way: ‘in his maturity’, apparently translating “yldo” not as ‘old age’ but with the more general sense ‘age, stage of life’ and “eft” as ‘afterwards’, hence ‘in the stage of life afterwards, the next stage’, that is: maturity or adulthood, the stage of life after youth. This alternative translation, which has also been suggested by Sánchez-Martí, is preferable for two reasons. Firstly, the remainder of The Fortunes of Men is a list of occupations a man might fulfil as an adult and does not seem to be concerned with life as an old man. Secondly and more importantly in the context of this chapter, there is little to no other literary evidence that Anglo-Saxons expected to celebrate “wyndagum” [days of joy] in their old age. Rather, old age was associated primarily with physical, social and emotional drawbacks that rendered joy impossible.

These downsides of growing old are the central topic of this chapter, which reviews their representation in poems and homilies that circulated in early medieval England. The frequency and potency with which these drawbacks occur in the literary record illustrate that the claim that the Anglo-Saxon period was somehow a ‘golden age for the elderly’ is one-sided at best.

Type
Chapter
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Old Age in Early Medieval England
A Cultural History
, pp. 76 - 109
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
Print publication year: 2019

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  • Drawbacks of Old Age
  • Thijs Porck, Universiteit Leiden
  • Book: Old Age in Early Medieval England
  • Online publication: 17 January 2023
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781787444690.004
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  • Drawbacks of Old Age
  • Thijs Porck, Universiteit Leiden
  • Book: Old Age in Early Medieval England
  • Online publication: 17 January 2023
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781787444690.004
Available formats
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To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Drawbacks of Old Age
  • Thijs Porck, Universiteit Leiden
  • Book: Old Age in Early Medieval England
  • Online publication: 17 January 2023
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781787444690.004
Available formats
×