The Anglo Saxon poem:
Nyd byþ nearu on breostan;
weorþeþ hi þeah oft niþa bearnum to helpe
and to hæle gehwæþre,
gif hi his hlystaþ æror.
Trouble is distressing to the heart;
yet often it proves a source of help
and salvation to the children of men,
to he who heeds it beforehand.
With my trusty Anglo Saxon dictionary in hand, I've been delving deeper into the most literal translations possible.
With Nauthiz, something interesting came up.
The first line is straightforward:
Nyd is (byþ "be") distressing, oppressive (nearu) to the heart/bosom (breostan)
In the second line, however, which reads,
weorþeþ hi þeah oft niþa bearnum to helpe, it seems typically assumed that the word "yet" or "however" is "
weorþeþ" (weorth-eth).
Only it isn't, because "
þeah" is that word. "
Weorþeþ means something completely different: It comes to be, it shall pass, becomes, turns to, etc..
"
It shall come become, it nevertheless (is) often (that) strife bears forth help"
To work that out, here are the all of the words in that sentence:
weorþ(eþ): It will come to be, to pass, become.. tranform?
hi: he, they, it
þeah: however, nevertheless
oft: often
niþa: strife, oppression, envy, hate -close as I can tell. The exact spelling is not in my dictionary, but niđ is, and it means strife; very likely related to nyd, which is in fact the OE name for Nauthiz.
bearnum: To bear, bring forth, a source of, son, child, descendant
to: to
helple: help
I could be off the mark a bit, but it's as close as I can get for now. From an excellent online OE dictionary
1I found, there is this:
weorðan 3rd pres wíerþ past wearþ/wurdon ptp is geworden
1. absolute, (1) to come to be to be made, to arise, come, be; (2) to come to pass, to be done, to happen, to take place, befall, come, be[/size]
The next line is more troublesome for me:
"
and to hæle gehwæþre"
hæle is translated as "salvation" but also healing..I rather prefer the latter being closer, though there may be a relation to the word "holy" here too.
The trouble word for me here was "
gehwæþre".
The first two letters, ge, is an OE prefix, (often indicating a perfective form of a verb
2) the root word here being hwæþ or hwæþre. Now, a very similar word,
hwæþer,is in my book as meaning "Whether", as in "whether or not.." but that makes little sense here.
However, in the online OE dictionary
1, I found the exact word:
hwæðre means nevertheless, though the "ge" prefix is a bit odd. Thus, (ge)hwæðre is very similar to þeah in meaning. Perhaps it's OE grammar that explains the difference between the two. I also suspect that the ending "re" is a suffix as well.
The big question is, where did this "Children of men" bit come from? There's nothing remotely like that in this poem! Yet it's a common translation.
In my opinion, this line says something more along the lines of "and to provide salvation notwithstanding", which is a bit redundant, but that's how it seems to read. Perhaps it was to drive the point home.
The last line is simple enough at least:
gif hi his hlystaþ æror.
If he
hlystaþ: listens - pays attentions to, heeds
æror: beforehand
So, my personal, most strict interpretation would be thus:
Need is distressing to the heart
Certainly nonetheless often strife bears help
and healing, however
if he listens/heeds beforehand
This leads one to assume some kind of warning is present, that one can "read the signs". There is something of value here, and the situation need not be dire and the whole thing can be overcome and chalked up to a learning experience.
Well, there are certainly worse runes one could get in a reading.
1http://home.comcast.net/~modean52/oeme_dictionaries.htm2http://acunix.wheatonma.edu/mdrout/grammarbook2005/tricks.html