Hávamál
Winning a maiden’s heart
The sixteenth and seventeenth songs turn a woman’s heart and mind to the speaker, even a shy one. The text does not ask what she wants.
Reference: stanzas 160–161 (Bray’s numbering) (The Elder or Poetic Edda, Commonly Known as Sæmund’s Edda, part I: The Mythological Poems)
The text, stanzas 160–161
160.
A sixteenth I know: when all sweetness and love
I would win from some artful wench,
her heart I turn, and the whole mind change
of that fair-armed lady I love.
161.
A seventeenth I know: so that e'en the shy maiden
is slow to shun my love.
- 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 160–161 (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 sixteenth song: when he wants all the sweetness and love of some artful woman, he turns her heart and changes the whole mind of the fair-armed lady he loves.
The seventeenth: so that even the shy maiden is slow to shun his love.
- 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 160–161 (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.
Where it sits
Stanza 161 has only two lines in this translation. Earlier in the poem, a maid is also “lured” in stanza 129, but there by a fair promise that must be kept.
- 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 160–161 (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
These songs describe changing another person’s mind by spell, and most readers today would not call the result love, because it overrides the woman’s choice. That is a modern reading.
Questions to sit with
- What is the difference between persuading someone and overriding them? Where have you felt that line?