Hávamál
Wits for the road
A traveller needs his wits more than the man at home does. The advice is to stay quiet, watch and listen when entering a strange place.
Reference: stanzas 5–7 (Bray’s numbering) (The Elder or Poetic Edda, Commonly Known as Sæmund’s Edda, part I: The Mythological Poems)
The text, stanzas 5–7
5.
He hath need of his wits who wanders wide,
aught simple will serve at home;
but a gazing-stock is the fool who sits
mid the wise, and nothing knows.
6.
Let no man glory in the greatness of his mind,
but rather keep watch o'er his wits.
Cautious and silent let him enter a dwelling;
to the heedful comes seldom harm,
for none can find a more faithful friend
than the wealth of mother wit.
7.
Let the wary stranger who seeks refreshment
keep silent with sharpened hearing;
with his ears let him listen, and look with his eyes;
thus each wise man spies out the way.
- 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 5–7 (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
Whoever travels far needs his wits; at home anything simple will do. A fool who sits among the wise and knows nothing is stared at.
No one should boast about how clever he is, but should keep watch over his wits. Let him enter a dwelling cautious and silent: the careful are seldom harmed, and nothing makes a more faithful friend than plenty of natural good sense (“mother wit”).
A wary stranger who has come for refreshment keeps silent and listens closely. He listens with his ears and looks with his eyes, and that is how a wise man finds his way.
- 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 5–7 (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
Bellows judged that the last two lines of stanza 6 look like a later addition to the stanza. Editors of the Hávamál have often suspected this kind of growth in the Gestaþáttr: short sayings that were expanded or glossed while they were passed on by mouth and before they were written down in the Codex Regius in the 1270s. Stanzas 5 and 7 carry no such editorial notes in his edition.
- Henry Adams Bellows (translator), The Poetic Edda (1936)
- Wikipedia, Hávamál (opens in a new tab)
Modern interpretation
This is often taken as advice for any unfamiliar place, such as a new workplace, a new family or a new country: watch and listen before you speak. That is a modern reading; in the poem it is practical advice to a traveller.
Questions to sit with
- Think of the last room you entered as a stranger. What did you learn by listening that you would have missed by talking?
- Where are you still sure of your own cleverness? What would keeping watch over your wits look like there?