Hávamál
Maxims for All Men
Stanzas 80–88 of the Hávamál, in Olive Bray’s 1908 translation.
Reference: stanzas 80–88 (Bray’s numbering) (The Elder or Poetic Edda, Commonly Known as Sæmund’s Edda, part I: The Mythological Poems); Introduction (The Poetic Edda)
The text, stanzas 80–88
80.
Praise day at even, a wife when dead,
a weapon when tried, a maid when married,
ice when 'tis crossed, and ale when 'tis drunk.
81.
Hew wood in wind, sail the seas in a breeze,
woo a maid in the dark, -- for day's eyes are many, --
work a ship for its gliding, a shield for its shelter,
a sword for its striking, a maid for her kiss;
82.
Drink ale by the fire, but slide on the ice;
buy a steed when 'tis lanky, a sword when 'tis rusty;
feed thy horse neath a roof, and thy hound in the yard.
83.
The speech of a maiden should no man trust
nor the words which a woman says;
for their hearts were shaped on a whirling wheel
and falsehood fixed in their breasts.
84.
Breaking bow, or flaring flame,
ravening wolf, or croaking raven,
routing swine, or rootless tree,
waxing wave, or seething cauldron,
85.
flying arrows, or falling billow,
ice of a nighttime, coiling adder,
woman's bed-talk, or broken blade,
play of bears or a prince's child,
86.
sickly calf or self-willed thrall,
witch's flattery, new-slain foe,
brother's slayer, though seen on the highway,
half burned house, or horse too swift --
useless were it with one leg broken --
be never so trustful as these to trust.
87.
Let none put faith in the first sown fruit
nor yet in his son too soon;
whim rules the child, and weather the field,
each is open to chance.
88.
Like the love of women whose thoughts are lies
is the driving un-roughshod o'er slippery ice
of a two year old, ill-tamed and gay;
or in a wild wind steering a helmless ship,
or the lame catching reindeer in the rime-thawed fell.
- 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 80–88 (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
These stanzas move from general proverbs to counsel about women and love, and they are among the poem’s most disputed. Bellows treats his stanzas 81 to 95 as a discourse on the faithlessness of women and how to win them, and he thought it probably entered the poem before the story of Odin and Billing’s daughter that follows. Bellows numbers this stretch about one stanza later than Bray does, so this site’s 80 to 88 correspond roughly to his 81 to 89.
Bellows’s stanzas 81 to 84 are in the málaháttr metre and 85 to 88 in fornyrðislag, a change of verse form that fits the idea that the Hávamál joins originally separate pieces. Some scholars regard 81 to 102 as an ad hoc insertion into the poem. These stanzas survive only in the Codex Regius, apart from two lines of one stanza that a saga quotes. The generalisations about women reflect the outlook of whoever shaped this part of the poem and are not a claim the text proves.
- Henry Adams Bellows (translator), The Poetic Edda (1936), Introduction
- Wikipedia, Hávamál (opens in a new tab)