Sound advice in a silent post

Okay, change of language, but not quite a sea change:  I’m reading some Old Norse poetry today.  And the “… in a silent post” in today’s title means:  Since I don’t speak Old Norse, I can’t tell which (if any) of the videos I found are any good, so there aren’t any YouTube links in this post.

            The following are excerpts from Hávamál, which is part of the Elder (verse) Edda.  Here is the first (of 164) stanzas:

Gáttir allar,

áðr gangi fram,

um skoðask skyli,

um skyggnast skyli,

því at óvíst er at vita,

hvar óvinir

sitja á fleti fyrir.

here are stanzas 42 and 43:

Vin sínum

skal maðr vinr vera

ok gjalda gjöf við gjöf;

hlátr við hlátri

skyli hölðar taka

en lausung við lygi.

Vin sínum

skal maðr vinr vera,

þeim ok þess vin;

en óvinar síns

skyli engi maðr

vinar vinr vera.

and here are stanzas 76 and 77:

Deyr fé,

deyja frændr,

deyr sjalfr it sama,

en orðstírr

deyr aldregi,

hveim er sér góðan getr.

Deyr fé,

deyja frændr,

deyr sjalfr it sama,

ek veit einn,

at aldrei deyr:

dómr um dauðan hvern.

            So why am I reading this, even though I don’t speak Old Norse?  The same reason I’m blogging, even though I can’t write:  It’s homework.  Stanzas 1, 43, and 77 are homework for Thursday in my German class, and I’m doing stanzas 42 and 76 extra (and hoping to get extra credit). 

            Google Translate doesn’t do Old Norse, and a funny thing happened when I tried to translate the first stanza pretending it was Norwegian (go ahead and try it yourself, I won’t spoil your fun), but luckily I found an English translation, done jointly by W.H. Auden (one of my favorite English-language poets J) and someone called P.B. Taylor.  According to them, Hávamál means The Sayings of Hár; they translate the first stanza as:

The man who stands at a strange threshold,

Should be cautious before he cross it,

Glance this way and that:

Who knows beforehand what foes may sit

Awaiting him in the hall?

stanzas 42 and 43 as:

A man should be loyal through life to friends,

And return gift for gift,

Laugh when they laugh,

but with lies repay

A false foe who lies.

A man should be loyal through life to friends,

To them and to friends of theirs,

But never shall a man make offer

Of friendship to his foes.

and stanzas 76 and 77 as:

Cattle die, kindred die,

Every man is mortal:

But the good name never dies

Of one who has done well

Cattle die, kindred die,

Every man is mortal:

But I know one thing that never dies,

The glory of the great dead

—all of which is, of course, great advice. 

            Jim said (not this summer, but) last summer at the Workshop that Old English poetry had four-stress lines with alliteration.  The Elder Edda is, of course, not Old English but Old Norse, and—even though I don’t speak the language—I suspect these lines are shorter that four stresses, but it looks as though it, too, has alliteration.  And anaphora, which is even preserved by Auden and Taylor’s translation. 

            That’s all I’ve got for today.  If I don’t finish my German homework tonight, I’ll post some Old High German poetry tomorrow.

            If I do finish my German homework tonight, I’ll post some of Auden’s original work tomorrow  J