Exeter Book Riddle 5

Exeter Book Riddle 5 (according to the numbering of the Anglo-Saxon Poetic Records) is one of the Old English riddles found in the later tenth-century Exeter Book. Its usual solution is 'shield', but other solutions, such as 'chopping board', are also possible.

Text

As edited by Richard Marsden and rendered in a poetic translation by David Curzon, the poem reads:

Ic eom ānhaga       īserne wund, bille gebennad,       beadoweorca sæd, ecgum wērig.       Oft ic wīg sēo, frēcne feohtan,       frōfre ne wēne, þæt mē gēoc cyme       gūðgewinnes, ǣr ic mid ældum       eal forwurðe, ac mec hnossiað       homera lāfe, heardecg heoroscearp,       hondweorc smiþa, bītað in burgum.       Ic ābīdan sceal lāþran gemōtes.       Nǣfre lǣcecynn on folcstede       findan meahte, þāra þe mid wyrtum       wunde gehǣlde, ac mē ecga dolg       ēacen weorðað þurh dēaðslege       dagum ond nihtum.[1]

I am a monad       gashed by iron, savaged by the sword,       worn by battles, drained by blades.       I often watch war, fierce fighting.       I trust in no comfort, no solace to come       from the trouble of conflict, until my murder       among men, but on me beat       hard hammers, smiths' handiwork,       deep bites in my battlements.       I wait for further hateful conclaves.       In no abode can I discover       the clan of doctors who might heal       my hurts with herbs, but sword wounds       widen in me through deadly blows       day and night.[2]

A more literal, prose translation by S. A. J. Bradley runs

I am on my own, wounded by weapon of iron, scarred by sword, wearied from the actions of the fray, exhausted from the edges of the blade. Often I see battle and fight the foe. The consolation that relief from the toil of war shall come to me before I am completely done for amongst men, I do not expect; instead, the products of hammers, the hard-edged blade, bloodily sharp, the handiwork of the smiths, buffet and bite me within the strongholds. I must continue to await encounters yet more hostile. Never have I been able to find in town the kind of physician that has healed with herbs my wounds; instead, the sword-gashes upon me grow bigger through mortal blows by day and by night.^[3]

Editions and translations

• Matthias Ammon, translation and commentary for Riddle 5, The Riddle Ages: Old English Riddles, Translations and Commentaries, ed. by Megan Cavell, with Matthias Ammon, Neville Mogford and Victoria Symons (Birmingham: University of Birmingham, 2020 [first publ. 2013])
• Foys, Martin et al. (eds.) Old English Poetry in Facsimile Project, (Madison, WI: Center for the History of Print and Digital Culture, 2019-). Online edition annotated and linked to digital facsimile, with a modern translation.

Recordings

• Michael D. C. Drout, 'Riddle 5', performed from the Anglo-Saxon Poetic Records edition (19 October 2007).