Step 4 of 9 · Hospitality and the Stranger
Guests at the table
Why this step
Stanzas 30 to 33 are about what happens once the guests are inside. Do not make a laughing-stock of another guest. Many seem wise while they sit dry-skinned, before they are put to the test. Friends often fall out at table, and a hungry man makes poor company. The entry reads the passage as showing how easily a shared meal turns unkind.
The text, stanzas 30–33
30.
Let no man be held as a laughing-stock,
though he come as guest for a meal:
wise enough seem many while they sit dry-skinned
and are not put to proof.
31.
A guest thinks him witty who mocks at a guest
and runs from his wrath away;
but none can be sure who jests at a meal
that he makes not fun among foes.
32.
Oft, though their hearts lean towards one another,
friends are divided at table;
ever the source of strife 'twill be,
that guest will anger guest.
33.
A man should take always his meals betimes
unless he visit a friend,
or he sits and mopes, and half famished seems,
and can ask or answer nought.
- 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 30–33 (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.
From the Lorebook
Do not make a laughing-stock of another guest; at a meal you cannot tell who will take a joke. Friends fall out at table, and a hungry man makes poor company.