Hávamál

Verses 15 – 35 of the Gnomic poem

*** 15. ***

ON Text and its word-for-word pseudo English translation

Þagalt ok hugalt Quiet and alert

skyldi þjóðans barn should a great man’s child

ok vígdjarft vera; and daring be;

glaðr ok reifr glad and happy

skyli gumna hverr, will man this [this man]

unz sinn bíðr bana. until his waits death [until he waits for his death]

Bellows’ translation

15. The son of a king | shall be silent and wise,

And bold in battle as well;

Bravely and gladly | a man shall go,

Till the day of his death is come.

Commentaries about the vocabulary

The word þjóðan is often rendered by ‘king’. I am not sure that Ódhinn’s point of view is the one of calling a king a great man.

*** 16. ***

ON Text and its word-for-word pseudo English translation

Ósnjallr maðr Non-daring (or not outstanding) human

hyggsk munu ey lifa, thinks-self (=guesses) that will ever-live

ef hann við víg varask; if he battle avoids [if he avoids battle]

en elli gefr but old age gives

hánum engi frið, (too) him no peace

þótt hánum geirar gefi. though to him spears give.

[last three lines: Old age does not leave in peace though spears leave him in peace.]

Bellows’ translation

16. The sluggard believes | he shall live forever,

If the fight he faces not;

But age shall not grant him | the gift of peace,

Though spears may spare his life.

Commentary

In a few words: fear of death is base and not rewarding.

*** 17. ***

ON Text and its word-for-word pseudo English translation

17.

Kópir afglapi He gawks the simpleton [or oaf]

er til kynnis kemr, who towards acquaintance [properly: knowledge] comes

þylsk hann um eða þrumir; he mumbles-self or mopes

allt er senn, all is at once [all at once]

ef hann sylg of getr, if he a drink gets

uppi er þá geð guma. Up is then the spirit of the man.

Bellows’ translation

17. The fool is agape | when he comes to the feast,

He stammers or else is still;

But soon if he gets | a drink is it seen

What the mind of the man is like.

Commentaries

The word afglapi does not mean ‘yokel’ or ‘bumpkin’ since it does point at all at an ‘unrefined peasant’. It means ‘not very spirited in thought and manners’.

Be aware that the verb ‘to mumble’, þylja, also means ‘to sing’ or ‘to utter a magical charm’. He, the oaf does not mumbles he ‘mumbles to himself’, þyljask, any magical meaning is non existent.

The verb þruma means ‘to mope’ but it also can mean ‘to sit down motionless’.

The last line is slightly ambiguous. The ‘word for word’ translation gives the feeling that the man’s spirit raises. This is possible but you see that Bellows translates as if the man’s spirit would become open, which is nearer to the truth. I think that ‘up’ here has the same meaning as in ‘to drink up’ that is ‘to exhaust the content of the cup’, here: “the man’s spirit is raw’. Again, Bellows translation is so good that I can only comment it. To know “what the mind of a man is like” does not mean ‘to know he is stupid’. The person who is quietly and noiselessly sitting, when he is a bit drunk, will show up as he is, that is, either a boar or a charming person.

*** 18. ***

ON Text and its word-for-word pseudo English translation

18.

Sá einn veit Who the one is mindful [or aware]

er víða ratar who far travels

ok hefr fjölð of farit, and raises [or : starts] much of ‘for travelling’

[Alone is consciuous who travels far (and handles a lot to be able to travel)]

hverju geði what state of mind

stýrir gumna hverr, leads the men such that [leads such men]

sá er vitandi er vits. who is ‘being mindful’ is [or: he who] ‘of mindfulness’.

Bellows’ translation

18. He alone is aware | who has wandered wide,

And far abroad has fared,

How great a mind | is guided by him

That wealth of wisdom has.

Commentaries 

The verb vita is twice used in this verse and its parent vit (that became our ‘wit’) once.

Vita means: to be conscious, to know, to be aware, to try, to behave. I used three times ‘mindful’ in my translation in order to stick to the text, as opposed to Bellows who uses ‘aware, wealth, wisdom’.

The word geð means: state of mind, a mood (a good or a bad one), the spirit into which something is performed.

The verb fara (to travel) has a supine in farit , a verbal form we so translate : the supine of ‘to do’ expresses ‘with the goal of doing, in order to able to do’.

About the three first lines:

Traveling does not give ‘wit’ just by itself. Awareness comes from a proper preparation of the travel before with doing it. Modern travelling is not hinted at.

About the three last lines:

Evans’ analysis of « er vitandi er vits » is perfectly to the point. There is however no need to “expel the second er” since, by reading it as a ‘he who’ instead of a ‘he is’, it becomes a doubling such as ‘who … who’ that can be left aside in a translation, even if its poetical effect should not be forgotten.

I disagree with the commentators who see little coherency between the three first and the three last lines. From the stylistic point of view, it is made whole by the one ‘vita’ of the first line and the two ‘vita’ of the last one, together with the balance of third line ‘for travelling’ with last line ‘of mindfulness’. The logical point of view is even more convincing. This verse looks like a syllogism since it says: Whoever properly travelled is wise, wisdom implies a special state of mind, ergo, whoever properly travelled learns a special state of mind. Instead of simply ‘travel broadens the mind’, Hávamál states that travels [line 2] and preparing travels [line 3] improve the mind.

Evans’ commentaries on « er vitandi er vits »

18

…

6 This line, which in CR reads sá er vitandi er vits, has caused difficulty, as is shown by the variations among translators. Since vita with gen. normally means ‘to know, know of’ (margs vitandi Vsp. 20, barna veiztu þinna Atlamál 84), Brate understood it as ‘He knows what sense is’. But in Flat. ii 76 we read má hverr mamðr [sjá], sá er vits er vitandi, at þessi augu hafi í einum hausi verit bæsi, where the phrase clearly means ‘anyone who has got any sense’. Cp. Fritzner 2, S.V. vit 5, where it is associated with such expressions as varð ek svá fegin at ek þόtumst varla vita vits síns Heilag. i. 489, þeir lágu sem daudir menn en vissu vits síns Heilag. í 527. Vitandi vits is still used in Icelandic, in the sense ‘with one's eyes open, knowing what one is about.

Some editors take the line as conditionally modifying sá einn in line 1, e.g. Heusler 2,110-1 1 : ‘nur der Vielgereiste hat die Kenntnis der mennschlichen Sinnesart, sofern er nämlich vitandi er vits’. But, as E. Noreen 2,43 remarks, this is syntactically unbelievable: if the last line is relative, it must modify the immediately preceding gumna hverr, and so Noreen explains that not even the travelled and experienced connoisseur of human nature can comprehend those who have not got sense. But this alternative is also unsatisfactory: the meaning proposed is most implausible and, as Sijmons (in SG) observes, after the absolute gumna hverr one expects no limitation. The only escape from the dilemma is to turn the line into an independent sentence by expelling the second er and then render ‘He (i.e. the much-travelled man) is a person of sense, knows what he is talking about’ (thus Lindquist 3, 64).

*** 19. ***

ON Text and its word-for-word pseudo English translation

19.

Haldi-t maðr á keri, Holds not the human ‘at’ the container [he drinker should not cling to the container]

drekki þó at hófi mjöð, he drinks though with measure the mead,

mæli þarft eða þegi, he speaks usefully or keeps silence,

ókynnis þess non-communication of yours [for your remoteness]

vár þik engi maðr he blames you non the human [no human blames you]

at þú gangir snemma at. at you go early at. [at your early departure]

acquaintance

Bellows’ translation

19. Shun not the mead, | but drink in measure;

Speak to the point or be still;

For rudeness none | shall rightly blame thee

If soon thy bed thou seekest.

Commentaries 

As shown by Evans’ commentaries below, you see how much the first two line puzzled the editors. Translating hóf by ‘at his/her own measure’ instead of ‘with moderation’ enables to avoid all the disputes evoked by Evans. Nobody should cling to the drinking horn, and each one should drink to one’s own measure: a little sip for people sensitive to alcohol, a good gulp for most of us, a great gulp for these used to drinking.

This particularly applies during a blót, (a Heathen religious ceremony) where a horn goes from hand to hand. Each one takes a sip and speaks in honouring the God he/she addresses to. Nobody should cling to the horn and speak at length during a blót. As reported by verse 145: “Betra er óbeðit en sé ofblótit” (Better is not asked (or begged) but (than) overdone blót.” Speaking at length is exactly ‘overdoing’ the blót.

As pointed by the last three lines, aloofness is better accepted as long as you are tactful enough to avoid ‘clinging’ to your chair.

Evans’ commentaries

19

1-2 The sense of these lines is much disputed. Many of the earlier editors printed haldi and rendered ‘A man may grasp the bowl, yet he should drink moderately’. But CR clearly reads haldit with the suffixed negative, and it is unsafe to emend, especially as haldi gives feeble sense to the first line. But what does haldit mean? Halda á e-u cannot mean ‘abstain from sth.’, as numerous nineteenth- century editors believed. Cl-Vig S.V. halda AV f3 groups this passage with expressions like halda á sýslu, halda á ferð sinni, halda á hinni sömu bæn, where the verb means ‘to be busy about, stick to, persist in’, and renders ‘to go on drinking, carousing’, taking ker as figurative for drykkja; so also Eiríkr Magnússon 2, Öand Wisén 109. FJ objects that this would be a strange way to utter so simple a rule, and it is doubtful if halda á could have this meaning when followed by a concrete object (cp. Fritzner 2, S.V. halda á 7). Magnús Olsen 4 compares an Icelandic pre-Reformation wedding-toast which begins Heilags anda skál skulum vér í einu af drekka, ok halda eigi lengi á and thinks the first line means ‘Don't sit for a long time with your bowl in your hand, but drain it off at a gulp’. But this leaves far too much to be read into the text. It is much more likely that the scene implied in our poem is one of sveitardrykkja, where the bowl goes round from man to man; the idea would then be ‘Don't hold on to the bowl (drinking greedily), but pass it on to the next man’. This seems plainly the most natural way of taking the line in itself, but does it give a clear contrast to the next line? (and contrast there must be, as þó shows). Not if at hófi implies ‘a moderate amount as opposed to a great deal’, but we would get reasonable sense if we can take it as suggesting ‘a moderate amount as opposed to nothing or next to nothing’. It certainly was regarded as bad conduct to drink too little; this was called drekka sleituliga or við sleitur.

3 This line is also found in Vafþr. 10.

5 vár is evidently from a verb vá ‘to blame’, only found here, though some insert it by emendation into st. 75. SG, following a suggestion of Bugge 1,45, connect with Gothic unwahs ‘blameless'; otherwise de Vries 5.

************ 20. ************

ON Text and its word-for-word pseudo English translation

20.

Gráðugr halr, The greedy [or gluttonous] man

nema geðs viti, except (if) [‘for him’] gets conscience

etr sér aldrtrega; he eats [metaphoric meaning: he consumes] self for (his) difficult time ; [also : deadly sorrow]

oft fær hlægis, often brings laughter

er með horskum kemr who with wise men comes

manni heimskum magi. To the human (dat.) foolish (dat.) the stomach (nom.).

[Often (his) stomach brings laughter to the foolish man, him who meets wise men]

Bellows’ translation

20. The greedy man, | if his mind be vague,

Will eat till sick he is;

The vulgar man, | when among the wise,

To scorn by his belly is brought.

Commentary

Bellows translation preserves the two double meanings of this verse.

One is a grammatical double meaning by which we cannot decide who is laughing, the foolish or the wise man. The wise man mocks the stomach of the foolish man. Simultaneously, the greedy person who got conscience of this greediness laughs at oneself in front of the wise ones.

The other one is of stylistic nature. The words can be taken in their plain sense, and the verse speaks of gluttonous people and their stomach is a part of their digestive tract. Alternately, the whole verse is figurative and describes any kind of greediness, for material riches or for power. Their ‘stomach’ is then the source or result of their greediness, whatever it might be. The verse then tells us that the greedy one, say the ambitious one, when s/he becomes conscious, laughs at the results of his/her ambition.

Here is a translation where the metaphorical meanings are emphasized:

The greedy man

who becomes aware

starts hard times for himself;

The root of greediness often brings laughter,

when he is among wise men,

on the foolish man.

Evans’ Commentaries

20

3 aldrtrega ‘life-sorrow’ is taken by LP, both here and in its only other occurrence (Skj. í 442), to mean ‘death’: the glutton eats himself to death. More probably it means ‘life-long misery’ (CPB 4), perhaps here specifically ‘grave illness’. Cp. NN 949, comparing OE ealdorcearu.

************ 21. ************

ON Text and its word-for-word pseudo English translation

21.

Hjarðir þat vitu Herds that know

nær þær heim skulu near their home should

ok ganga þá af grasi; and go then off their pasture

en ósviðr maðr but the non wise human

kann ævagi knows never

síns of mál maga. of his ‘of’ speech stomach [the speech of one’s stomach]

Bellows’ translation

21. The herds know well | when home they shall fare,

And then from the grass they go;

But the foolish man | his belly's measure

Shall never know aright.

Commentary

I find it particularly interesting that in Hávamál, when your stomach calls, it says: “I am too full!” instead of “I am empty!”

Again, the plain meaning of this verse is obvious: humans are less wise than animals when it comes to their belly. The metaphorical version extends this to all kinds of greediness.

Evans’ Commentaries

21

On the question of whether this strophe owes something to a Biblical or a Latin source (as argued respectively by Singer 7f. and Rolf Pipping 3) see p. 15 above. [Here, see below]

6 The máls of CR is defended by DH and by Bugge 1,394, but is plainly an error induced by the preceding síns.

Extracts of Evans’ introduction

(A discussion of Christian influence on Hávamál)

[At the end of a long argumentation, Evans concludes]… If this is accepted, the Gnomic Poem must antedate 960 (note 6).

This attribution of the poem to pagan times has led many scholars to value it highly as giving us an unadulterated view of ancient Nordic, or Germanic, life and values; as Hans Kuhn … (cp. e.g. Jón Helgason 1, 30 and Finnur Jónsson 3,230 for similar sentiments). This view of the poem as purely native and heathen has, however, been challenged sporadically, especially in recent years, by claims that some of the strophes betray Biblical or Classical influences, or can be paralleled by and therefore perhaps derive from medieval proverbs in the Continental vemaculars. Nore Hagman, for instance, brought together numerous supposed similarities with Ecclesiasticus as evidence that this Apocryphal text might have influenced Hávamál. But the examples adduced are fairly unimpressive, being only of a loose and general character, and are mostly not really saying the same thing at all: ‘Better is the life of a poor man under a shelter of logs than sumptuous fare in another man's house’ (Eccles. 29.22) is quite different from ‘a home of one's own, even a very modest one, is at any rate better than begging', which is the gist of Hávamál 36, and yet this is probably the closest of Hagman's parallels …

(note 6). A similar antedating is implied by the view (von See 1) that st. 17,20 and 25 in Egill's Sonatorrek(c . 960 ) echo Hávamál 72, 22 and 15 respectively. (Von See can presumably only mean that these particular strophes antedate c. 960 , since, as we saw, he does not believe that the Gnomic Poem ever existed as such.) Magnus Olsen, Edda- og Skaldekvad IV (Oslo 1962) 49, thought the use of orðsdir in Egill's Höfùðlausn echoed Hávamál 76.

Again, Régis Boyer detected striking resemblances with Proverbs and Ecclesiastes, al1 the more signifiant, he said, because such similarities are lacking for other books of Biblical wisdom such as Ecclesiasticus (Boyer 227 [Note YK: his PhD thesis, Lille, 1972 “Vie religieuse en Islande (1116-1264)”]; Hagman's article is absent from his otherwise comprehensive bibliography). But here too the parallels are not at all close, as when Proverbs 27.17 ‘Iron sharpeneth iron; so a man sharpeneth the countenance of his friend’ is connected with st. 57, and sometimes they are not parallels at all, as when Proverbs 25.21 ‘If thine enemy be hungry, give him bread to eat; and if he be thirsty, give him water to drink’ is associated with st. 3-4. It is true that both Proverbs and the Gnomic Poem lay stress on the connection between foolishness and loquacity; but need this be more than a coincidence? After all, the Book of Proverbs contains over eight hundred verses, practically all of them gnomic remarks based on observation and experience of life in a materially simple society; it would surely be startling if chance resemblances with Our Gnomic Poem did not occur here and there. Occasional derivation from Classical writers has also been alleged. Roland Köhne noted that in the De Amicitia Cicero speaks of a man's ‘so mingling his mind with another's as almost to make the two of them one’ (note 7) and wondered if this might be the ultimate source of st. 44 with its geði … blanda, and Rolf Pipping suggested that st. 21 could descend from Seneca, who in one of his letters draws a similar moralizing contrast between beasts, who know when they have eaten enough, and men, who do not, and in another letter actually uses the phrase ‘stomachi sui non nosse mensuram’ in censuring gluttony (though not, on this occasion, in contrast to the habits of the beasts); this answers closely to the kann ævagi síns um mál maga of our poem.

St. 21 had earlier been assigned to a Biblical origin by Samuel Singer, who referred to Isaiah 1.3 and Jeremiah 8.7, where men and beasts are compared, to the former's disadvantage, though not in any comection with over-eating. In a section on early Germanic proverbial lore in his Sprichwörter des Mittelalters, Singer adduces parallels, from the Scriptures and from medieval Latin and vernacular sources, to fifteen strophes, or portions of strophes, in Our Gnomic Poem and assumes a genetic connection (though in three of the fifteen instances he thinks Norse culture may be the donor rather than the recipient) (note 8).

(note 7). Köhne 1, 129. Cicero's remark, in De Amicia 81, runs ‘. . . quanto id magis in homine fit natura, qui et se ipse diligit et alterum anquirit, cuius animum ita cum suo misceat, ut efficiat paene unum ex duobus'.

(note 8). Some of Singer's instances are noted in the Commentary. For a recent approach doing somewhat similar lines see Köhne 2, who adduces a number of Middle High German parallels which reflect, he maintains, influence on Hávamál from medieval German proverb poetry and popular wisdom.

************** 22. **************

ON Text and its word-for-word pseudo English translation

22.

Vesall maðr The ‘deprived -of’ human [who suffers some deprivation]

ok illa skapi and badly has shaped [has made]

hlær at hvívetna; laughs at ‘something-always’ [at anything]

hittki hann veit, hits-non he knows [he does not how to ‘hit an idea’ (to understand)]

er hann vita þyrfti is he (to) know the need [he needs to know that]

at hann er-a vamma vanr. to him is-not blemish lacking . [he lacks no blemish]

Bellows’ translation

22. A paltry man | and poor of mind

At all things ever mocks;

For never he knows, | what he ought to know,

That he is not free from faults.

Commentaries about the vocabulary

Note at first that the one criticized in this verse is not non-wise or foolish as usual. He ‘lacks of something’ and he is unable to act properly.

What ‘lack-of’ is hinted at here? In the context of the other verses, I think that this verse speaks of the lack of good sense and, even more importantly, of human relationships. For instance, remember that verse 20 says that the greedy one “consumes himself in a deadly sorrow.” Greediness is certainly caused by some lack of good sense; its deeper cause is a lack of contact with the other humans.

The verb hitta means ‘to hit’ or ‘to bite’ with strong bias towards an intellectual context in which you ‘hit the books’ and you ‘bite the bullet’.

The word vamm means ‘flaw’ and ‘blemish’. The last choice seems to me a better rendering of the skald’s point of view.

Evans’ Commentaries

22

1 Vesall has been attacked on two grounds:

(1) allegedly, it fails to alliterate. This raises the question whether v can alliterate with a vowel; Gering thought it could, and adduced 17 examples from the Edda, as well as a few from scaldic verse. Some of the examples have been criticized as corrupt, but some seem sure enough, e.g. óhöpput pér vita 117 below, svaf vætr Freyja átta nótum þrymskviða 28. The view that v can alliterate with a vowel was defended by … It was attacked by Mogk … and by E. Noreen ...

(2) on grounds of sense. This is a more cogent attack, for vesall means ‘wretched, miserable’, which does not fit. … suggested emending to ósnotr (though apparently only on grounds of alliteration) … advocated ósviðr, as in the preceding and following strophes, … objecting that this failed to explain the intrusion of vesall, suggested the initial lines of st. 22 and 23 had been reversed; this would certainly give a more pointed meaning to 23. Vesall is defended by M. Olsen 7, 11, who says it can be used of someone of a low, coarse mentality. He does not however adduce any instance of this sense, though a case of vesalingr in Hávarðar saga ch. 15 (IF VI 342) comes fairly close; …

2 illa is an adv.; FJ explains the phrase as elliptical for illa skapi farinn, for which cp. Haraðr saga ok Hólmverja ch. 24: mikill maðr ok sterkr ok illa skapi farinn, ójafnaðarmaðr um alla hluti. Bugge 1, 45 compares Vatnsdoela saga ch. 29 (IF VIII 1 76): hann var fjölkunnigr mjök ok þó at öðru illa.

************** 23. **************

ON Text and its word-for-word pseudo English translation

23.

Ósviðr maðr Non-wise human

vakir um allar nætr stays awake ‘around’ the whole night [for the whole night]

ok hyggr at hvívetna; and thinks of [as in v. 22 hví-vetna] ‘something-always’ [anything]

þá er móðr thus he is moody [or tired]

er at morgni kemr, who in the morning comes

allt er víl sem var. all what is (his) misery [or wretchedness] same was.

[same meaning as in Bellows]

Bellows’ translation

23. The witless man | is awake all night,

Thinking of many things;

Care-worn he is | when the morning comes,

And his woe is just as it was.

Commentary

Honestly, I’d like myself to be wiser on this topic. Worrying a whole night without finding a solution (and, as a free surplus, having failure dreams) … this never happens to you?

************** 24. **************

ON Text and its word-for-word pseudo English translation

Ósnotr maðr A non-wise human

hyggr sér alla vera believes ‘for him/her’ all to be

viðhlæjendr vini. with-laughing as friend. avec-riant pour un ami.

[A non-wide one believes that each one (who is) with (him/her) laughing (is) a friend to him/her.]

Hittki hann fiðr, He its not he finds [as in 22 : he is unable to understand that]

þótt þeir um hann fár lesi, thought theirs of him badly they speak

ef hann með snotrum sitr. if he with wise ones he sits.

[He is unable to ‘hit’ the thought that they speak badly of him, when he sits among wise ones.]

Bellows’ translation

24. The foolish man | for friends all those

Who laugh at him will hold;

When among the wise | he marks it not

Though hatred of him they speak.

Commentary

Notice the opposition between a non wise one (ósnotr) and the wise ones (nostrum, dative plural). Not only he is mistaken about his true friends but the wise ones despise him.

Evans’ Commentaries

24

5 fár ‘mischief, malice'; lesa fár um e-n evidently means ‘speak il1 of someone, utter malicious slanders about someone’, cp. Stock. Homil. 52: þat kann enn verda, at maðr vemk á þat , at lesa of aðra ok hafa uppi löstu manna, and note umlestr ‘slander’, umlassamr ‘slanderous’, umlesandi, umlesmadr, umlestrarmaðr ‘slanderer'; it is interesting that these words are found only in religious texts. The sentiments of this and st. 25 can be paralleled in a number of Continental proverbs (though none of them restrict their application to the unwise man) …

************** 25. **************

ON Text and its word-for-word pseudo English translation

(The first half is identical to the o,ne of 24)

25.

Ósnotr maðr

hyggr sér alla vera

viðhlæjendr vini;

[A non-wise one believes that each one (who is) with (him/her) laughing (is) a friend to him/her.]

þá þat finnr ‘when’ that he finds [he finds that]

er at þingi kemr, (when) to the thing he comes [when he comes to the thing]

at hann á formælendr fáa. for him as spokesmen few. [few (people) as spokesmen (speaking) for him]

Bellows’ translation

25. The foolish man | for friends all those

Who laugh at him will hold;

But the truth when he comes | to the council he learns,

That few in his favor will speak.

25. The first two lines are abbreviated in the manuscript, but are doubtless identical with the first two lines of stanza 24.

Commentary

I find it striking that the poem cites twice in a row the non wise one who believes that whoever smiles to him is also benevolent. Stating twice the obvious, that is, that the wise one is able to spot his true friends and the non wise one is unable to do it, is quite uncanny. This repetition speaks to me of a kind of paranoid fear of treachery in the ancient Northern civilization.

Evans’ Commentaries

25

5 er at þingi kømr - most editors understand hann as the implied subject, but the verb may conceivably be impersonal, as in er at morni kømr 23 …

************** 26. **************

ON Text and its word-for-word pseudo English translation

26.

Ósnotr maðr A non-wise human

þykkisk allt vita, thinks himself all to know

ef hann á sér í vá veru; if he to self in a wretched shelter; [see comments]

[A non wise person thinks oneself to be all-knowing as soon as he owns a (any kind of) wretched shelter;]

hittki hann veit, non-hits [as in 22 and 24 = does not understand] he knows

hvat hann skal við kveða, what he shall ‘with’ say [to say ‘with’ others]

ef hans freista firar. If him (to) try [or to tempt] people [nom. plur. = subject of freista].

[he ‘knows (how) not understanding what to say’ is people try him. With a really twisted way to express that ‘he is unable to understand’]

Bellows’ translation

26. An ignorant man | thinks that all he knows,

When he sits by himself in a corner;

But never what answer | to make he knows,

When others with questions come.

Commentary

Evans comments clearly illustrate that veru (dative of vera = shelter) and vá created a large debate about them.

Evans says that vera should be also translated by ‘shelter’ in verse 10, which I refused to do, see verse 10 comments. Inversely, here in verse 26, the meaning ‘they are’ is impossible. Besides, í veru means in a shelter’, which is in perfect accordance with the context. What about vá, then? As you will see Evans and other scholars managed to invent for this case the meaning ‘nook, corner’ (that should be then a nominative, a subject to what verb? Let us note that the word vá-brestr (m. à m. woe-accident) means an ‘unexpected strange noise’ by adding together two words hinting at a mishap. After all, the poets’ job is to show genius in handling words, no? Why the poet would not then create a new word associating ‘shelter’ and ‘woe’ in order to built a wretched shelter? There is also a variation of vá as being a prefix with the same meaning as var-. In that case, the vera (shelter) is said to be a var-vera, which is it is ‘scarcely a shelter’. As a conclusion, I see no need for inventing an otherwise unknown meaning of vá.

The general meaning of this verse is again that the stupid one who is silent does not attract unwanted attention, even, and here especially, he is requested to speak.

Evans’ Commentaries

26

3 vera ‘refuge, resort’, as in 10 above. Vá may well be the common word ‘woe, calamity’ (as recently argued by von See 3, 23). But Sigsk. 29 has . . . at kváðu við kálkar í vá, where ‘woe’ is clearly impossible, and from which scholars have deduced the existence of a noun of this form meaning ‘nook, corner’, either as a mere textual corruption of vrá (Bugge 1,394, who thinks the word may have baffled the scribe after the loss of v before r in West Norse) … The rendering ‘corner’ gives better sense here than ‘woe’ and should be adopted.

************** 27. **************

ON Text and its word-for-word pseudo English translation

27.

Ósnotr maðr A non-wise human

er með aldir kemr, who with others comes

þat er bazt, at hann þegi; that is best, for him to stay silent;

[A non-wise one who goes to other people, it is better, for him, to stay silent.]

engi þat veit, none who knows [nobody knows]

at hann ekki kann, at him non can [that he can nothing]

nema hann mæli til margt; except he (that he) speaks (to) many; [except if he speaks too much]

[No one knows he is able of nothing except when he speaks too much]

veit-a maðr knows-non a human

hinn er vettki veit, he who nothing knows

þótt hann mæli til margt. In spite of that he speaks (to) many.

[He does no know he knows nothing in spite of speaking much]

Bellows’ translation

27. A witless man, | when he meets with men,

Had best in silence abide;

For no one shall find | that nothing he knows,

If his mouth is not open too much.

(But a man knows not, | if nothing he knows,

When his mouth has been open too much.)

27. The last two lines were probably added as a commentary on lines 3 and 4.

Commentary

Same idea as in 26 above. The second triplet of lines adds that he ignores he is unable of properly acting, and the last triplet that he ignores he knows nothing.

It might be a good idea that I stop commenting too much …

Evans’ Commentaries

27

maðr is a necessary insertion in 1. On the supposed Biblical origin of the exposure of folly by loquacity see p. 15. [Given here with verse 21]

de Boor 373 plausibly suggests that lines 4-6 and 7-9 are interchangeable ‘tradition-variants'.

***

************** 33. **************

ON Text and its word-for-word pseudo English translation

Árliga verðar Early of a meal

skyli maðr oft fáa, should the man often take [He should have an early meal]

nema til kynnis komi. except toward an acquaintance [or : a kinsman] he comes

Sitr ok snópir, He sits and idles dismally [‘mopes’],

lætr sem sólginn sé behaves as swallowed ‘be’ (subj.) [he behaves as if overwhelmed, ‘choked’]

ok kann fregna at fáu. and can ask of few things.

Bellows’ translation

33. Oft should one make | an early meal,
Nor fasting come to the feast;
Else he sits and chews | as if he would choke,
And little is able to ask.

Commentaries

snópir : snópa means : ‘to dismally idle’ or to mope). It does not mean ‘to chew’.

sólginn : participe past participle of svelgja, to swallow. Thus sólginn = swallowed. To speak of someone who is ‘swallowed or choked by the environment’ we usually say he/she is crushed or overwhelmed by it.

You can see, a strict word for word translation makes more sense than what is said in Evans’ long dispute. This confusion arises because of the experts’ uncontrollable need to pull the meaning of the words toward eating. If you do not insist on the old Norse people being gluttonous, then you keep the proper meaning of the words and you come to the following meaning for this verse:

A hearty meal is necessary in the morning firmly (a still valid rule today) except if you go to see a group of friends (because you will not any more be hungry and you will be unable to answer to their hospitality). Not sharing the meal you are offered excludes you from the group, you look as if crushed and do not take part to the general discussion.

Evans’ Commentaries

33

2 opt probably means ‘as a rule, regularly’ … Richert … thought he could demonstrate a sense ‘plentifully’ for this word; but, as well as being etymologically dubious, such a sense would fit poorly here, where the emphasis seems to be on eating early rather than on eating well. A. Kock implausibly postulated … a distinct word opt ‘certainly, without fail’, … separate from the homonym meaning ‘often’.

Some editors have understood 1-3 to imply ‘Eat early, unless you are going on a visit - in which case don't eat at all, but wait until you reach your host’. Since this contradicts 4-6, Bugge 1,47, followed by BMO and SG, emended nema to né án, supposed to mean ‘nor come on a visit without (having eaten)’. But, as FJ observes, this is a very strained expression. He himself reads skylit ..: ‘Don't eat early, unless you are going on a visit’. But why should one not eat early? This seems in fact to have been the regular practice. Much the best explanation is that of M. Olsen 5, who renders ‘Normally eat early, unless you are going on a visit (in which case you should eat somewhat later, so as not to arrive famished).’

4 snópa is found only once elsewhere in ON, in a verse in Gautreks saga … where the context is not decisive. It occurs in modern Icelandic in the sense ‘hang around idly, kill time’ and in Norwegian dialects, meaning ‘sit around waiting, like a beggar, or staring dully’ and ‘nose about after something’ … In the present passage it must mean something like ‘hang around hungrily, restlessly craving food'.

5 sólginn probably means ‘famished’. It was taken by Richert … as ‘with something stuck in the throat’, a sense found for svulgen in modern Swedish dialects. But this cannot be paralleled elsewhere in Scandinavian, ancient or modern, whereas a sense ‘hungry’ is found both in modern Icelandic … and apparently in a verse in Þjóðólfr's Haustlöng … while in a verse … the billow is described as brimsolginn ('hungry for the surf’ ).

************** 34. **************

ON Text and its word-for-word pseudo English translation

Afhvarf mikit bad turn [‘twisted way’] great

er til ills vinar, he who until [‘tends to be’] bad friend

þótt á brautu búi, though on a road [going through wilderness] dweller,

[A crooked way leads toward a bad friend though he leaves near a useful road]

en til góðs vinar but until [‘tends to be’] good friend

liggja gagnvegir, lies a ‘gain-way’ [a beneficial way]

þótt hann sé firr farinn. though he [might] be farther travelled.

[A beneficial way leads to a good friend though he lives farther (or: he farther moves away)]

Bellows’ translation

34. Crooked and far | is the road to a foe,
Though his house on the highway be;
But wide and straight | is the way to a friend,
Though far away he fare.

Commentary

The word braut deserves some comments. It indicates a road through rocky or wooded zones. It thus may be a crooked path. The scald clearly wanted to also hint at its usefulness to avoid hardship. This verse obviously plays with different words to speak of a way.

Evans’ Commentaries

34

6 ‘Though he is gone further off’. It may be, though, that FJ is right to suppose that we have here an instance of fara transitive with acc. object: ‘to come upon, overtake, meet’; thus, ‘though he is (to be) met with further off’ (so also Cl-Vig S.V. fara B 1 2).

************** 35. **************

ON Text and its word-for-word pseudo English translation

Ganga skal, Going away he must

skal-a gestr vera must-not the guest be

ey í einum stað; ever in a position

ljúfur verðr leiðr, loved will be loathed

ef lengi sitr if at length he sits

annars fletjum á. of the other rooms in. [in the rooms of another one.]

Bellows’ translation

35. Forth shall one go, | nor stay as a guest

In a single spot forever;

Love becomes loathing | if long one sits

By the hearth in another's home.

Commentary

The word ey is used as if it were a prefix. Its normal meaning when alone is: island. The skald might well have wished to suggest that the guest stuck in a house is as much noticeable a an island in the middle of water.

Evans’ Commentaries

35

The omission of skal in 1 is a clear instance of haplography. For the sentiment editors compare Egils saga ch. 78 ( IF II 272): þat var engi siðr, at sitja lengr en þrjár nætr at kynni.

[Notes YK. Today this sentence is found in chapter 81. “it was not the custom to stay more than three nights on a visit.” … And haplography means haplology, I however do not understand Evan’s com (-ment, here is an haplology) since skal is here. He probably means that saying skal (I must) instead of skalt (he must) is a clear haplology. Any linguist specialized in Old Norse should have understood that at once …]