Hávamál
What does not die
Cattle die, kinsmen die and so does everyone; the poem says that a good name does not.
Reference: stanzas 75–76 (Bray’s numbering) (The Elder or Poetic Edda, Commonly Known as Sæmund’s Edda, part I: The Mythological Poems); stanzas 76-77 (Bellows numbering) (The Poetic Edda); Notes to the Hovamol (The Poetic Edda)
The text, stanzas 75–76
75.
Cattle die and kinsmen die,
thyself too soon must die,
but one thing never, I ween, will die, --
fair fame of one who has earned.
76.
Cattle die and kinsmen die,
thyself too soon must die,
but one thing never, I ween, will die, --
the doom on each one dead.
- 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 75–76 (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
Livestock die. Kinsmen die. You yourself will die. But there is one thing, the speaker says, that never dies: the good name earned by the person who has died.
- Henry Adams Bellows (translator), The Poetic Edda (1936), stanzas 76-77 (Bellows numbering)
Context
These lines are in the guest’s section of the poem. A very similar saying appears in Hákonarmál, a poem by the skald Eyvindr skáldaspillir, which is one reason some scholars date the saying to the 10th century. The Hávamál itself survives only in a 13th-century manuscript.
- Wikipedia contributors, Hávamál (opens in a new tab)
In the manuscripts and scholarship
These two stanzas share the same first half, “cattle die, kinsmen die, and so one dies oneself”, and differ only in their endings. The line is old: it also appears in Eyvindr skáldaspillir’s Hákonarmál, a tenth-century poem on the death of King Hákon the Good, which is one reason the saying is dated at least that far back.
The Codex Regius also has these stanzas out of the order printed in editions. Bellows reports that in the manuscript his stanzas run 77, 78, 76, 80, 79, 81, so the two “cattle die” stanzas come before the stanza on Fitjung’s sons. Bellows numbers the pair 77 and 78.
- Henry Adams Bellows (translator), The Poetic Edda (1936), Notes to the Hovamol
- Wikipedia, Hávamál (opens in a new tab)
Modern interpretation
Today the saying is often read as a thought about legacy: what you leave behind in other people’s memory. That is a modern reading.
Questions to sit with
- If the only thing that outlasted you were how people remember your conduct, what would you want that to say? What would you change this month?