Compare And Contrast Sacrifice And Ben Jonson

Iris Morales
Mrs. Page
ENGL 2322.701
20, October 2014
Sacrifice, Grief and Hope Every single human being through the course of their life will go through times in which they will be faced with difficulties in that their faith and actions are to be tested. Most importantly when human beings are attacked with struggles in their lifetime many things tend to happen after that. For example, one can go from positive to negative, or vice versa; also one can live and make mistakes or learn to live from their mistakes. Pieces of poetry in which what was mentioned previously have similar instances are “The Wanderer” who’s author is anonymous but was probably composed in the Anglo-Saxon time period, and Ben Jonson’s, “On My First Son” which takes place around the 1600s. Both pieces of poetry deal with the passing of human life, which in other words means that we must all die eventually at some point in time, and they do that in elegies. In the first piece of poetry it starts out with the narrator:
“Often the wanderer pleads pity And mercy from the Lord; but for a long time, Sad in mind, he must dip his oars into icy waters, the lanes of the sea; He must follow the paths of exile: fate is inflexible” (The
Wanderer 1-5). to any reader who reads the poem they will think that it is a Christian based poem, however; when reading it more in depth the reader may realize that it leans more towards a pagan view, such as: “In sadness I sought far and wide For a treasure-giver, for a man Who would welcome me into his mead-hall Give me a good cheer (for I boasted no friends), Entertain me with delights” (Wanderer 25-9). The wanderer here is seeking for things of materialistic value that he once had with his treasure-giver in other instances calls him his Lord. His treasure-giver as well as his fellow comrades had died in battle and he was one that survived and is now exiled and on a journey to seek for what he once had or for a new beginning, but he mostly reflects on what had occurred to him. “Time and again at the day’s dawning I must mourn all my afflictions alone” (The Wanderer 8-9), he is suffering greatly inside however, remaining hopeful for what is to come. Throughout his journey, he makes several reflections on why things happened the way they did. He claims that the event in which killed his Lord and his soldiers was the huge hold they all had to the materialistic items and possessions on this Earth. “Nothing is ever easy in the kingdom of earth, The world beneath the heavens is in the hands of fate. Here possessions are fleeting, here friends are fleeting, Here man is fleeting, here kinsman is fleeting, The whole world becomes a wilderness” (The Wanderer 106-10). After the wanderers epiphany he starts relying more on faith to take over his new start, by this time he has achieved a great amount of wisdom. Lastly the poem in the end terminates with a traditional Christian idea on how to carry oneself in a more hopeful way of life, (after having a life changing situation) by establishing a strong relationship with God. “So spoke the wise man in his heart as he sat apart in thought. Brave is the man who holds to his beliefs; nor shall he ever Show the sorrow in his heart before he knows how he Can hope to heal it. It is best for a man to seek
Mercy and comfort from the Father in heaven, the safe home that awaits us all” (The Wanderer 111-15). The wanderer took the reader to a journey in which he had undergone a situation of grief after losing the people he cared about, but he had gained wisdom and has learned to put his allegiance to the creator of Man Kind. The second piece of poetry isn’t a journey like the wanderer it’s an elegy from a father to his beloved seven year old son who had died from a plague in 1603.
This particular poem is shorter, yet it is rich in emotion and deep feelings of grief from the father to his son. As the poem begins the reader can make note on how much Benjamin (the son) means to his father, “Farewell, thou child of my right hand, and joy; my sin was too much hope of thee, loved boy” (On My First Son 1-2) The dramatic situation here is that Benjamin was his father’s right hand the favorite child to be more precise. His son meant everything to him and if Benjamin would’ve still been alive it seems like he would be the next one to have taken charge in the family, and make his father
proud.
The father had said his sin was having too much hope for his son, unfortunately, his son was taken by the plague and all his hopes had vanished. “Seven years thou wert lent to me, and I thee pay.” (On My First Son 3) The grief that the father is going through is most definitely unexplainable, because not one person can relate to the loss of a child, yet he realizes that it is best to let go. He realizes that his beloved son is not going to go through the troubles of the world anymore, and that he shall be in everlasting peace. “Will man lament the state he should envy? To have so soon ‘scaped world’s and flesh’s rage, And, if no other misery, yet age? Rest in soft peace, […] For whose sake, henceforth, all his vows be such, As what he loves may never like too much.” (On My First Son 6-12) He ends the last line by simply stating that he won’t ever love anything as much as his son, and concludes it by not drowning and letting his sorrows takeover his heart. He looks forward to life, but knowing that his son is in heaven resting in peace. To conclude, both poems have had events in which changed the life of the characters and transformed them in a different way. Both men had undergone sacrifice, grief and hope, and they also had dwelled in sorrow, but look onto God for guidance and to carry on with life in a whole new way.