Ride singing forth!

When one cleans house after a semester, one can find the most fascinating things.

Take for example, this proverb of Alfred that I found while looking for a copy of the Old English Visio Pauli. It's the 14th proverb, according to what I have scrawled in the front of a notebook -- I have no idea if I transcribed it correctly (my terrible handwriting repeatedly amazes me), but it's

þus queþ Alured:

If þu hauest seorewe
ne seye hit nohht þan arewe
seye hit þine sadelbowe
and ryd þe singinde forþ…

I have the distinct feeling this is early Middle English (I'll double check it next time I'm in the EETS sections of the library), and thus I'm rather ill-equipped to translate -- if anyone out there sees mistakes let me know! But based on other translations of this proverb that I've read, I'd have to guess at it being something close to this:

If you have a sorrow,
say it not to the arrow
say it to your saddlebow
and ride singing forth.

I particularly love the last line -- in the old form it retains a meter that's just beautiful. And it's such a perfect expression of the ethos pervading so much of Old English poetry (I nearly said heroic poetry, but I don't think that's really an adequate category, somehow).

In its vaguely elegiac quality that seems eclipsed by a refusal to remain in a static mourning, it reminds me of Theoden's death in Lord of the Rings (I was heartbroken they cut it out, as it's one of my favorite lines in the book): "A grim morn, a glad day, and a golden sunset."

Something of an echo, perhaps, though it's not necessarily surface-level resemblance -- ride singing forth.