Since 1842 The Seafarer has appeared in well over 60 new presentations, prose and verse, partial or complete, in at least eight languages: English, Estonian, German, Italian, Korean, Scottish, Spanish, and Swedish. It is currently unfashionable still, fashions come and go. This is a natural and common objective for many translators, but one whose hubris and impossibility of achievement has often been derided. It is an attempt to recreate the poem the original author might have written had he been alive today. My priority has been to construct a version with the same or almost the same impact on a modern reader or listener as could be imagined for an audience of its own place and time - in this case the England of over a thousand years ago - and to achieve this aim with the minimum distortion or recasting of poetic form and content. The second issue will normally arise directly from the first, but, in the case of The Seafarer, has perhaps not previously been investigated so deeply. Two separate but intimately related issues are addressed in this commentary: the transference of a poem from one language to another and the interpretation of its intrinsic nature and significance.
Vivere non est necesse, navigare necesse est - it is not necessary to live, it is necessary to sail. Translation of anfloga: J.B.Bessinger, A Short Dictionary of Anglo-Saxon Poetry, 1960, p 3
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