The Poetic Edda
Henry Adams Bellows (translator)
3,671 passages indexed from The Poetic Edda (Henry Adams Bellows (translator)) — Page 47 of 74
License: Public Domain
The Poetic Edda, passage 3100
a —as in “alone”
ā —as in “father”
e —as in “men”
ē —as a in “fate”
i —as in “is”
ī —as in “machine”
o —as in “on”
ō —as in “old”
ö —as in German “öffnen”
ȫ —as in German “schön”
ǭ —as aw in “law”
u —as ou in “would”
ū —as ou in “wound”
y —as i in “is” } Both with a slight
ȳ —as ee in “free” } sound of German ü
æ —as e in “men”
ǣ —as a in “fate”
ei —as ey in “they”
ey —as in “they”
au —as ou in “out”
ai —as i in “fine”
The Poetic Edda, passage 2354
7. “The word I have spoken; | soon shall I rue it,
His wife is Guthrun, | and Gunnar’s am I;
Ill Norns set for me | long desire.”
The Poetic Edda, passage 869
11. Two or three editors give this stanza a superscription (“The
concubine spake,” “The daughter spake”). Line 3 is commonly regarded as
spurious. The foeman of Hroth: of course this means Thor, but nothing
is known of any enemy of his by this name. Several editors have sought
to make a single word meaning “the famous enemy” out of the phrase.
Concerning Thor as the friend of man, particularly of the peasant
class, cf. introduction to Harbarthsljoth. Veur: another name, of
uncertain meaning, for Thor.
The Poetic Edda, passage 585
2. In the original lines 2 and 4 are both too long for the meter, and
thus the true form of the stanza is doubtful. For line 4 both
manuscripts have “the land of the Goths” instead of simply “the Goths.”
The word “Goths” apparently was applied indiscriminately to any
South-Germanic people, including the Burgundians as well as the actual
Goths, and thus here has no specific application; cf. Gripisspo, 35 and
note.
The Poetic Edda, passage 2595
45. With these two lines the poem abruptly ends; some editors assign
the speech to Atli (I think rightly), others to Guthrun. Ettmüller
combines the lines with stanza 38. Whether stanzas 38–45 originally
belonged to Guthrun’s lament, or were interpolated here in place of the
lost conclusion of that poem from another one dealing with Atli’s
dreams (cf. note on stanza 37), it is clear that the end has been lost.
The Poetic Edda, passage 1002
44. Beginning with this stanza, the names of the speakers are lacking
in the manuscript. The mill: i.e., at slaves’ tasks.
The Poetic Edda, passage 515
49. Mogthrasir (“Desiring Sons”): not mentioned elsewhere in the Eddic
poems, or by Snorri. The maidens: apparently Norns, like the
“giant-maids” in Voluspo, 8. These Norns, however, are kindly to men.
The Poetic Edda, passage 2897
7. It is altogether probable that a stanza has been lost between
stanzas 6 and 7, in which Gunnar is first invited, and replies
doubtfully. Made promise: many editions emend the text to read
“promised the journey.” The text of line 4 is obscure; the manuscript
reads “nitti” (“refused”), which many editors have changed to “hlitti,”
which means exactly the opposite.
The Poetic Edda, passage 1288
20. “Next was Nanna, | daughter of Nokkvi,
Thy father’s kinsman | her son became;
Old is the line, | and longer still,
And all are thy kinsmen, | Ottar, thou fool!
The Poetic Edda, passage 2915
26. Possibly a line has been lost from this stanza.
The Poetic Edda, passage 241
47. Young was I once, | and wandered alone,
And nought of the road I knew;
Rich did I feel | when a comrade I found,
For man is man’s delight.
The Poetic Edda, passage 2775
38. No gap indicated in the manuscript, but the two fragments cannot be
fitted together as one line. The shining one: Guthrun.
The Poetic Edda, passage 1784
It is frankly nothing but a piece of, in the main, very clumsy
patchwork, made up of eight distinct fragments, pieced together
awkwardly by the annotator with copious prose notes. One of these
fragments (stanzas 13–16) is specifically identified as coming from
“the old Volsung lay.” What was that poem, and how much more of the
extant Helgi-lay compilation was taken from it, and did the annotator
know more of it than he included in his patchwork? Conclusive answers
to these questions have baffled scholarship, and probably always will
do so. My own guess is that the annotator knew little or nothing more
than he wrote down; having got the first Helgi Hundingsbane lay, which
was obviously in fairly good shape, out of the way, he proceeded to
assemble all the odds and ends of verse about Helgi which he could get
hold of, putting them together on the basis of the narrative told in
the first Helgi lay and of such stories as his knowledge of prose sagas
may have yielded.
The Poetic Edda, passage 1130
24. Drink-Stuff: Gering translates the word thus; I doubt it, but can
suggest nothing better.
The Poetic Edda, passage 2581
27. Cf. note on stanza 25 as to the probable speaker.
The Poetic Edda, passage 1354
38. The names of Heimdall’s mothers may be rendered “Yelper,” “Griper,”
“Foamer,” “Sand-Strewer,” “She-Wolf,” “Sorrow-Whelmer,” “Dusk,” “Fury,”
and “Iron-Sword.”
The Poetic Edda, passage 2208
34. A bath shalt thou give them | who corpses be,
And hands and head shalt wash;
Wipe them and comb, | ere they go in the coffin,
And pray that they sleep in peace.
The Poetic Edda, passage 171
53. Hlin: apparently another name for Frigg, Othin’s wife. After losing
her son Baldr, she is fated now to see Othin slain by the wolf Fenrir.
Beli’s slayer: the god Freyr, who killed the giant Beli with his fist;
cf. Skirnismol, 16 and note. On Freyr, who belonged to the race of the
Wanes, and was the brother of Freyja, see especially Skirnismol,
passim. The joy of Frigg: Othin.
The Poetic Edda, passage 1900
47. Line 5 (or possibly line 4) may be interpolated.
The Poetic Edda, passage 651
12. “Art thou doomed to die | or already dead,
Thou horseman that ridest hither?
Barred from speech | shalt thou ever be
With Gymir’s daughter good.”
The Poetic Edda, passage 487
2. Heerfather (“Father of the Host”): Othin.
The Poetic Edda, passage 68
12. Vigg and Gandalf, | Vindalf, Thrain,
Thekk and Thorin, | Thror, Vit and Lit,
Nyr and Nyrath,— | now have I told—
Regin and Rathsvith— | the list aright.
The Poetic Edda, passage 3352
Hjor′-varth, a berserker, 225.
The Poetic Edda, passage 3241
Frek′-a-stein, a battlefield, 287, 288, 304, 307, 318, 319, 322.
The Poetic Edda, passage 207
13. Over beer the bird | of forgetfulness broods,
And steals the minds of men;
With the heron’s feathers | fettered I lay
And in Gunnloth’s house was held.
The Poetic Edda, passage 3199
Eg′-il, brother of Völund, 254–257, 265, 267.
The Poetic Edda, passage 3184
Buth′-lungs, descendants of Buthli, 498.
The Poetic Edda, passage 3502
Orv′-ar = Odd, a warrior, 225.
The Poetic Edda, passage 1205
31. Then forth she brought | the vessels full,
With silver covered, | and set before them,
Meat all browned, | and well-cooked birds;
In the pitcher was wine, | of plate were the cups,
So drank they and talked | till the day was gone.
The Poetic Edda, passage 681
41. “Tell me, Skirnir, | ere thou take off the saddle,
Or farest forward a step:
What hast thou done | in the giants’ dwelling
To make glad thee or me?”
The Poetic Edda, passage 1695
27. The ship’s-tents soon | the chieftain struck,
And waked the throng | of warriors all;
(The heroes the red | of dawn beheld;)
And on the masts | the gallant men
Made fast the sails | in Varinsfjord.
The Poetic Edda, passage 1712
44. “In Bravoll wast thou | Grani’s bride,
Golden-bitted | and ready to gallop;
I rode thee many | a mile, and down
Didst sink, thou giantess, | under the saddle.”
The Poetic Edda, passage 2610
Prose. The annotator derived all the material for this note from the
poem itself, except for the reference to Herkja as Atli’s former
concubine. Herkja: the historical Kreka and the Helche of the
Nibelungenlied, who there appears as Etzel’s (Attila’s) first wife.
Thjothrek: cf. Introductory Note.
The Poetic Edda, passage 1420
50. “Uni and Iri, | Bari and Jari,
Var and Vegdrasil,
Dori and Ori, | Delling, and there
Was Loki, the fear of the folk.”
The Poetic Edda, passage 3050
19. On their road they fared | and an ill way found,
And their sister’s son | on a tree they saw,
On the wind-cold wolf-tree | west of the hall,
And cranes’-bait crawled; | none would care to linger.
The Poetic Edda, passage 2741
1. Line 1 apparently is in Fornyrthislag. Knefröth (the name is spelt
in various ways, and its meaning is uncertain): in the Atlamol (stanza
4) there are two messengers, one named Vingi and the other unnamed; the
annotator combines the two versions in the Drap Niflunga. Benches,
etc.: the adjective rendered “round the hearth,” which etymologically
it ought to mean, is made obscure by its application to “helmets” in
stanzas 3 and 17.
The Poetic Edda, passage 2395
48. “Hither I will | that my women come
Who gold are fain | from me to get;
Necklaces fashioned | fair to each
Shall I give, and cloth, | and garments bright.”
The Poetic Edda, passage 1528
7. The manuscript marks the second, and not the first, line as the
beginning of a stanza. Some editors combine lines 2–3 with all or part
of stanza 8. No gap is indicated in the manuscript, but many editors
have assumed one, some of them accepting Bugge’s suggested “Till back
the maiden | bright should come.”
The Poetic Edda, passage 134
14. Dvalin: in Hovamol, 144, Dvalin seems to have given magic runes to
the dwarfs, probably accounting for their skill in craftsmanship, while
in Fafnismol, 13, he is mentioned as the father of some of the lesser
Norns. The story that some of the dwarfs left the rocks and mountains
to find a new home on the sands is mentioned, but unexplained, in
Snorri’s Edda; of Lofar we know only that he was descended from these
wanderers.
The Poetic Edda, passage 1689
21. “Fear him not, | though Isung he felled,
First must our courage | keen be tried,
Before unwilling | thou fare with the knave;
Weapons will clash, | if to death I come not.”
The Poetic Edda, passage 1468
In what form this story reached the North is uncertain. Sundry striking
parallels between the diction of the Völundarkvitha and that of the
Weland passage in Deor’s Lament make it distinctly probable that a
Saxon song on this subject had found its way to Scandinavia or Iceland.
But the prose introduction to the poem mentions the “old sagas” in
which Völund was celebrated, and in the Thithrekssaga we have definite
evidence of the existence of such prose narrative in the form of the
Velentssaga (Velent, Völund, Weland, and Wayland all being, of course,
identical), which gives a long story for which the Völundarkvitha can
have supplied relatively little, if any, of the material. It is
probable, then, that Weland stories were current in both prose and
verse in Scandinavia as early as the latter part of the ninth century.
The Poetic Edda, passage 873
16. The comrade of Hrungnir: Hymir, presumably simply because both are
giants; cf. Harbarthsljoth, 14 and note.
The Poetic Edda, passage 122
66. From below the dragon | dark comes forth,
Nithhogg flying | from Nithafjoll;
The bodies of men | on his wings he bears,
The serpent bright: | but now must I sink.
The Poetic Edda, passage 3349
Hjor′-dīs, mother of Sigurth, 226, 270, 277, 293, 333, 335, 336, 340,
341, 368, 374, 454.
The Poetic Edda, passage 3408
Hym′-ir, a giant, 77, 138–150, 163.
The Poetic Edda, passage 2285
12. The manuscript marks line 4 as the beginning of a new stanza, and a
few editions combine it with stanza 13.
The Poetic Edda, passage 2203
29. Then sixth I rede thee, | if men shall wrangle,
And ale-talk rise to wrath,
No words with a drunken | warrior have,
For wine steals many men’s wits.
The Poetic Edda, passage 1646
18. From this point to the end the manuscript does not indicate the
speakers. Ron: wife of the sea-god Ægir, who draws drowning men into
the sea with her net. There is no other reference to the wounding of
Hrimgerth.
The Poetic Edda, passage 325
131. I rede thee, Loddfafnir! | and hear thou my rede,—
Profit thou hast if thou hearest,
Great thy gain if thou learnest:
I bid thee be wary, | but be not fearful;
(Beware most with ale | or another’s wife,
And third beware | lest a thief outwit thee.)
The Poetic Edda, passage 2221
11. Lines 3–6 look like an accidental addition, replacing two lines now
lost. They mean, apparently, that the man who interweaves his speech
with “speech-runes” when he pleads his case at the “Thing,” or popular
tribunal, will not unduly enrage his adversary in the argument of the
case.