The
Seafarer
"The Seafarer" describes the sea voyages of its speaker, an old sailor. The speaker relates his love of the sea, his exile, and the fear and pain he experiences. In lines, he explains that he believes life at sea is more exciting and fulfilling than life on land. This section also concerns the transitory nature of earthly pleasures and glories, and of life itself. The last twenty-one lines concern the speaker's belief that all people should look to God for an answer to the question of life's meaning.
The Seafarer exists only in one manuscript, Exeter Cathedral Library, more commonly known as the Exeter book. The codex is in relatively good condition, in spite of the fact that it is missing a few leaves, has been used as a cutting board and a coaster, and has suffered some rather destructive burns on the last few folios. It contains very few ornamentations, and is written in a fine destructive burns on the last few folios. It contains very few ornamentations, and is written in a fine and consistent hand. In the 1933 facsimile edition, Robin Flower dates the hand between 970 and 990, and perceives the text as the work of several scribes; each claims that there is no evidence of more than one scribe, he claimsthat the tree booklets were copied over a period of several decades. He maintains that the subtle idiosyncracies in script, which caused Flower to conclude that the book was copied by multiple scribes, indicate rather the development of a particular scribe's hand. That is a parallel to the general development of ligatured forms in Anglo-Saxon script during the second half of the tenth century. For further evidence, Conner refers to the instances of the initial in the second booklet. Thus, although there are fine differences in the script, it is generally agreed that the work is the effort of a single scribe in a single scriptorium, working in the second half of the tenth century. There are few hypothesises about the location of the scriptorium in which the manuscript was copied, since little is known about the varying dialects in Southern England at the time and there is very little evidence for the manscript's early provenance. Since it seems to appear on a list of donations by Bishop Leofric to Exeter Cathedral sometime after 1050, when the Episcopal see was moved to Exeter, it is generally assumed that it was not a product of a scriptorium at Exeter Cathedral, particulary because of the supposedly meager state of the community before its promotion as see of the bishopric.
IV. ) Columbus Database Subject Matter: Homer
