woe is me

• woe is I (hypercorrect)

Here, the oblique pronoun me denotes not an informal copulative complement (as in this is me), but an indirect object, wherefore it literally means woe is to me, an obsolete way of saying I feel woe; compare German mir ist traurig (“I feel sad”, literally “to-me [it] is sad”). Idiomatically, it means woe is upon me. See also German weh ist mir and its descendant, Yiddish וויי איז מיר (vey iz mir), which are identical in form and meaning to the English expression.

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˌwəʊ ɪz ˈmiː/
• (US) IPA^(key): /ˌwoʊ ɪz ˈmi/

• Audio (US):

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woe is me

1. (sometimes humorous) Used to show that the speaker feels distress or misery.
   • c. 1599–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene i], page 266, column 1:

     Blasted with extasie. Oh, woe is me,
     T'haue seene what I haue seene: see what I see.

   • 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Psalms 120:5:

     Woe is me, that I soiourne in Mesech: that I dwell in the tents of Kedar.

   • 1961, Norma Lorre Goodrich, “Beowulf”, in The Medieval Myths, New York: The New American Library, page 34:

     “Ah, woe is me! Alas, for my kingdom and my kinfolk!”