The description given by an Anglo-Saxon poem holds true today.

My second favorite poem in all the world is The Wanderer, an Old English work narrating the contemplations of a man deprived of his place in the world, sent forth an exile. Indeed, I wrote an entire short story based on the poem, a work I’m rather fond of. So I’m enthusiastic to look at the poem’s description of a wise man, of the virtues which it directly values as the qualifications for the ‘wise man’- the product, the poem implies, of hardship.

“A wise man must be patient,” the poem states, “neither too hot-hearted nor too hasty with words.” Clearly, prudence and deliberation are of great value to the poet, given he iterates it thrice. In the warrior-honoring culture of the Anglo-Saxons the narrator lives among, of whom he was of old a valued member, till he lost his lord and place, the tendency of men to look before they leaped must have been a constant danger. Prudence and self-restraint, therefore, would be all the more valued, all the more valuable.

Lest we think, however, that this is some injunction to perpetual peace, we have the next line: “Nor too weak in war.” Patience and self-restraint must not be an excuse or equivalent to weakness and cowardice. All men, the poet thinks, should aspire to some martial ability. In our culture, direct martial capability is less valued and necessary, at least in our current state (though it behooves a man to have some basic skill, if God’s given him a body capable of it), but the capability to alter the world is still crucial to masculinity. We live in a war with vice within and wickedness without; wisdom requires us to be more than thinkers, to be those who stride forth into the world in conquest and who stand a strong bulwark against the invader, whether violent or lulling.

The poet then turns sideways again and inwards: “nor too unwise in thoughts.” That a wise man should not be bubbling with unwise thoughts is perhaps a touch tautological, but it points to that which the putatively wise like to ignore: wisdom must be real. The man who spouts off a lot of long words can sound smart; the man with a vast depth of technical skill can prove himself intelligent. Yet if a man does not cultivate the capacity for thorough application of principle and logic and faith, he’s not wise at all, lacking the wise thoughts which are foundational (insofar as the foundation is in man (Prov. 9:10)).

The poet himself, however, speaks in context with more specificity: the wisdom he speaks of is that wisdom of experience, of hard life and loss. The entire poem is that ‘wise thought’ which the wise man must have. He has come to a hard strait, and he has taken the time to work through his understanding thereof, making it clear to himself what he ought to do, not from impulse but from long and sober consideration (and physical insobriety alone could make it less than sober).

“Neither fretting,” the poet continues, “nor fawning nor greedy for wealth.” The narrator speaks here of two sets of follies. First, we have ‘fretting.’ The man who thinks wise thoughts, who is patient, may not submit himself to worry. He must come to a decision and follow through without epistemic hysteria. Second, we have the perils of relationship, specifically of the thegn-lord relationship central to the poem. The man who flatters his lord is no wise man (and a false friend); the one who sees his lord merely as a conduit for wealth is another fool. Wealth, the poet assures us, is pleasant, but it must not be central, must be merely a component and surety of the personal relationship the man has with his lord, his leader and councillor.

Then, final in the excerpt we consider today: “Never eager for boasting before he truly understands.” In the halls the narrator walks and in his eyes, to brag is no sin, even in advance. The sin (and here he’s correct, so long as pride is held away) is to brag beyond ability, to promise what one cannot do. The wise man knows to avoid this, both in anticipation of the humiliation it will create and in respect for its inherent folly.

(And to think, the poet said most of this (I added some) in so many less lines….)

God bless.