Wulf and Eadwacer is famously difficult to interpret. The assessment of Benjamin Thorpe, “[o]f this I can make no sense” (Thorpe in Codex exoniensis: a collection of Anglo-Saxon poetry, from a manuscript in the library of the dean and chapter of Exeter. W. Pickering, London, 1842, p. 527), has largely stood. However, since the poem is complete, legible, and the manuscript is undamaged, it must have been equally perplexing to a medieval audience—unless it was contextualised. This has led some scholars to conclude that the story of Wulf and Eadwacer must have been known and that poem’s narrator must be a mythic figure. The most common assumption is that she is to be identified with Signy whose story is strikingly similar. Even still it seems strange since none of the other elegies appear to have mythic narrators. However, I suggest that Wulf and Eadwacer, like many Old English texts including the riddles, Wonders of the East, or Daniel, adapts a Latin genre to a vernacular sensibility and that if an early English poet were to adapt the Heroides, Signy would be the obvious heroine to choose. Moreover, the differences in style between the Heroides and Wulf and Eadwacer are typical of the adaptations of classical models to old English literature.

中文翻译：

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确定 Wulf 和 Eadwacer 的叙述者？西尼、英雄和古英语文学中经典模式的改编

众所周知，Wulf 和 Eadwacer 难以解释。Benjamin Thorpe 的评价，“[o]f this I can't be sensely”（索普 in Codex exoniensis：盎格鲁-撒克逊诗歌集，来自院长图书馆和埃克塞特分会的手稿。W. Pickering，伦敦，1842 年，第 527 页），在很大程度上已经站稳脚跟。然而，由于这首诗完整、清晰，而且手稿没有损坏，它对中世纪的观众来说一定同样令人困惑——除非它被置于语境中。这导致一些学者得出结论，Wulf 和 Eadwacer 的故事一定是众所周知的，这首诗的叙述者一定是一个神话人物。最常见的假设是，她与 Signy 的身份有着惊人的相似之处。即便如此，这似乎仍然很奇怪，因为其他挽歌似乎都没有神话叙述者。然而，我建议 Wulf 和 Eadwacer，像许多古英语文本，包括谜语、东方奇观或丹尼尔，将拉丁文体改编成白话情感，如果早期的英国诗人改编英雄，西尼将是显而易见的女主角来选择。此外，Heroides 与 Wulf 和 Eadwacer 之间的风格差异是古典模型对旧英国文学的典型改编。