Hávamál
Brand from brand
A fire is kindled from one brand to another and a spark from a spark; so a man opens up through speaking with another man, and closes in on himself through silence.
Reference: stanza 57 (Bray’s numbering) (The Elder or Poetic Edda, Commonly Known as Sæmund’s Edda, part I: The Mythological Poems)
The text, stanza 57
57.
Brand kindles from brand until it be burned,
spark is kindled from spark,
man unfolds him by speech with man,
but grows over secret through silence.
- Olive Bray (editor and translator), The Elder or Poetic Edda, Commonly Known as Sæmund’s Edda, part I: The Mythological Poems (opens in a new tab) (1908), stanza 57 (Bray’s numbering) Rights: Public domain. Published in 1908, so in the public domain in the United States. Text as edited online by D. L. Ashliman, Folklore and Mythology Electronic Texts, University of Pittsburgh.
In plain English
One brand kindles from another until it is burned, and spark is kindled from spark. A man opens out by speaking with another man, but becomes too closed through silence.
- Olive Bray (editor and translator), The Elder or Poetic Edda, Commonly Known as Sæmund’s Edda, part I: The Mythological Poems (opens in a new tab) (1908), stanza 57 (Bray’s numbering) Rights: Public domain. Published in 1908, so in the public domain in the United States. Text as edited online by D. L. Ashliman, Folklore and Mythology Electronic Texts, University of Pittsburgh.
Modern interpretation
Read today, the stanza is about conversation as the way people light each other up, and how silence can shut a person in. That is a modern reading.
Questions to sit with
- Who do you talk to freely? Where has silence shut you in?