Hávamál
Gifts, and not stinting yourself
Everyone, however generous, is glad of a gift and likes a return. The speaker warns against going without the wealth you have won, because it may end up with an enemy instead of a friend.
Reference: stanzas 39–40 (Bray’s numbering) (The Elder or Poetic Edda, Commonly Known as Sæmund’s Edda, part I: The Mythological Poems)
The text, stanzas 39–40
39.
I found none so noble or free with his food,
who was not gladdened with a gift,
nor one who gave of his gifts such store
but he loved reward, could he win it.
40.
Let no man stint him and suffer need
of the wealth he has won in life;
oft is saved for a foe what was meant for a friend,
and much goes worse than one weens.
- 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), stanzas 39–40 (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
The speaker has found no one so noble or so free with his food who was not glad of a gift, and no one who gave so much of his own that he did not like a reward, if he could win it.
No man should stint himself and go short of the wealth he has won. Often what was saved for a friend ends up with an enemy, and many things turn out worse than one expects.
- 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), stanzas 39–40 (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 the manuscripts and scholarship
The order of these two stanzas is not certain. In the Codex Regius stanza 39 follows stanza 40, and Bellows reversed them, as editors commonly do. Stanza 40 also has a damaged line: the key word of the third line is missing from the manuscript, and editors have agreed on supplying a word meaning “generous”. So part of the wording of this saying about giving rests on editorial repair rather than on the manuscript itself.
- Henry Adams Bellows (translator), The Poetic Edda (1936)
- Wikipedia, Hávamál (opens in a new tab)
Modern interpretation
Today this is often read as a point about not hoarding for “someday”, since saved things go to unexpected people. That is a modern reading.
Questions to sit with
- Is there something you have been saving for someone, or for a day that has not come? What if it ends up somewhere else?