Hávamál
What is truly your own
Fair fame and wisdom are worth most when they are held in yourself, not in another person’s keeping. Natural good sense is the best thing to carry on the road.
Reference: stanzas 8–10 (Bray’s numbering) (The Elder or Poetic Edda, Commonly Known as Sæmund’s Edda, part I: The Mythological Poems)
The text, stanzas 8–10
8.
Happy is he who wins for himself
fair fame and kindly words;
but uneasy is that which a man doth own
while it lies in another's breast.
9.
Happy is he who hath in himself
praise and wisdom in life;
for oft doth a man ill counsel get
when 'tis born in another's breast.
10.
A better burden can no man bear
on the way than his mother wit;
'tis the refuge of the poor, and richer it seems
than wealth in a world untried.
- 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 8–10 (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
Happy is the man who wins fair fame and kind words for himself. What a man owns uneasily is whatever lies in someone else’s heart.
Happy is the man who has praise and wisdom within himself while he lives, because a man often gets bad advice when it is born in someone else’s heart.
No better burden can a man carry on the road than his natural good sense (“mother wit”). It is the poor man’s refuge and seems richer than wealth in a world he has not yet tried.
- 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 8–10 (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.
How the stanzas are built
Stanzas 8 and 9 begin the same way (“Happy is he who…”) and both turn on the phrase “another’s breast”. Stanza 10 opens with the lines about the “better burden” that stanza 11 repeats, in the next passage, with a new ending.
- 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 8–10 (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
One modern reading is about not handing your sense of worth, or your judgment, to other people’s opinions. That is a modern reading; the poem’s own setting is travel, reputation and advice.
Questions to sit with
- Whose good opinion are you currently carrying as if it were your own? What would still be yours if they changed their mind?