Hávamál
Wise in measure
Minds are small as the grains of sand if the sea is small, and nobody is wise in every way. Be wise, but not too wise.
Reference: stanzas 53–56 (Bray’s numbering) (The Elder or Poetic Edda, Commonly Known as Sæmund’s Edda, part I: The Mythological Poems); Notes to the Hovamol (The Poetic Edda)
The text, stanzas 53–56
53.
Little the sand if little the seas,
little are minds of men,
for ne'er in the world were all equally wise,
'tis shared by the fools and the sage.
54.
Wise in measure let each man be;
but let him not wax too wise;
for never the happiest of men is he
who knows much of many things.
55.
Wise in measure should each man be;
but let him not wax too wise;
seldom a heart will sing with joy
if the owner be all too wise.
56.
Wise in measure should each man be,
but ne'er let him wax too wise:
who looks not forward to learn his fate
unburdened heart will bear.
- 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 53–56 (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 sand is little if the sea is little, and so are men’s minds; not everyone in the world has ever been equally wise, and wisdom and foolishness are found in everyone.
Each man should be wise in measure, but not too wise. The man who knows much about many things is never the happiest. A heart seldom sings with joy if its owner is all too wise. And the man who does not look ahead to learn his fate will carry a lighter heart.
- 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 53–56 (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 54, 55 and 56 sing the same opening, “Wise in measure should each man be, but let him not wax too wise”, with small changes of wording, and each ends differently: 54 on the happiest man, 55 on the singing heart, and 56 on knowing one’s fate.
- 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 53–56 (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 four stanzas sit in the first and oldest-looking part of the poem, the collection of counsels that Bellows counts as stanzas 1 to 80 and that scholars also call the Gestaþáttr, the “guest section”. Like the whole Hávamál, they survive only in the Codex Regius (c. 1270). In that manuscript the second and third of the “measure of wisdom” stanzas are not written out in full: the opening pair of lines is given once and then abbreviated, so the repeated refrain is a scribe’s shorthand for the reader to expand.
The three versions share a first half and differ in their endings, which suggests sayings gathered one beside a close variant of it. Bellows argues the poem grew by accumulation and that its date cannot be settled; parts may be very old and others later.
- Henry Adams Bellows (translator), The Poetic Edda (1936), Notes to the Hovamol
- Wikipedia, Hávamál (opens in a new tab)
Modern interpretation
Today this is often read as a warning against overthinking, or against knowing more about the future than helps you. That is a modern reading.
Questions to sit with
- What do you want to know about the future that you might be better off not knowing?