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THE POETIC EDDA Translated by HENRY ADAMS BELLOWS

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THE POETIC EDDA Translated by HENRY ADAMS BELLOWS The Poetic Edda Index THE POETIC EDDA translated by HENRY ADAMS BELLOWS [1936] This text is in the public domain because it was not renewed in a timely fashion as requrired at the time by copyright law. (U.S. Copyright Office online records) Start Reading List of Files Many of the texts at sacred-texts are of interest only to the specialist, somewhat like small art movies. By contrast The Poetic Eddas, the oral literature of Iceland which were finally written down from 1000-1300 A.D, are like big summer movies, full of gore, sex, revenge and apocalyptic violence. This translation of the Poetic Eddas is highly readable. They are also a primary source for our knowledge of ancient Norse paganism. The poems are great tragic literature, with vivid descriptions of the emotional states of the protagonists, Gods and heroes alike. Women play a prominent role in the Eddic age, and many of them are delineated as skilled warriors. The impact of these sagas from a sparsely inhabited rocky island in the middle of the Atlantic on world culture is wide-ranging. Wagners' operas are largely based on incidents from the Edda, via the Niebelungenlied. J.R.R. Tolkien also plundered the Eddas for atmosphere, plot material and the names of many characters in the Hobbit, and the Lord of the Rings. -- jbh Title Page Contents General Introduction Voluspo Hovamol Vafthruthnismol Grimnismol Skirnismol Harbarthsljoth Hymiskvitha Lokasenna Thrymskvitha Alvissmol Baldrs Draumar Rigsthula Hyndluljoth file:///C|/WINDOWS/Desktop/sacred-texts/neu/poe/index.htm (1 of 2) [4/8/2002 10:06:26 PM] The Poetic Edda Index Svipdagsmol Völundarkvitha Helgakvitha Hjorvarthssonar Helgakvitha Hundingsbana I Helgakvitha Hundingsbana II Fra Dautha Sinfjotla Gripisspo Reginsmol Fafnismol Sigrdrifumol Brot Af Sigurtharkvithu Guthrunarkvitha I Sigurtharkvitha En Skamma Helreith Brynhildar Drap Niflunga Guthrunarkvitha II, En Forna Guthrunarkvitha III Oddrunargratr Atlakvitha En Grönlenzka Atlamol En Grönlenzku Guthrunarhvot Hamthesmol Pronouncing Index Of Proper Names file:///C|/WINDOWS/Desktop/sacred-texts/neu/poe/index.htm (2 of 2) [4/8/2002 10:06:26 PM] Title Page Index Next THE POETIC EDDA TRANSLATED FROM THE ICELANDIC WITH AN INTRODUCTION AND NOTES BY HENRY ADAMS BELLOWS TWO VOLUMES IN ONE 1936 PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS: PRINCETON AMERICAN SCANDINAVIAN FOUNDATION NEW YORK {scanned at sacred-texts.com, April-July 2001} {Note: I have indicated the 'caesura' (the break in the middle of the line) throughout this text by the vertical bar character '|'--jbh} Next: Contents file:///C|/WINDOWS/Desktop/sacred-texts/neu/poe/poe00.htm [4/8/2002 10:06:31 PM] Contents Index Previous Next CONTENTS[*] General Introduction xi Lays of the Gods Voluspo 1 Hovamol 28 Vafthruthnismol 68 Grimnismol 84 Skirnismol 107 Harbarthsljoth 121 Hymiskvitha 138 Lokasenna 151 Thrymskvitha 174 Alvissmol 183 Baldrs Draumar 195 Rigsthula 201 Hyndluljoth 217 Svipdagsmol 234 Lays of the Heroes Völundarkvitha 252 Helgakvitha Hjorvarthssonar 269 Helgakvitha Hundingsbana I 290 file:///C|/WINDOWS/Desktop/sacred-texts/neu/poe/poe01.htm (1 of 3) [4/8/2002 10:06:34 PM] Contents Helgakvitha Hundingsbana II 309 Fra Dautha Sinfjotla 332 Gripisspo 337 Reginsmol 356 [* For the phonetic spellings of the proper names see the Pronouncing Index.] CONTENTS--Continued Fafnismol 370 Sigrdrifumol 386 Brot af Sigurtharkvithu 402 Guthrunarkvitha I 411 Sigurtharkvitha en Skamma 420 Helreith Brynhildar 442 Drap Niflunga 447 Guthrunarkvitha II, en Forna 450 Guthrunarkvitha III 465 Oddrunargratr 469 Atlakvitha en Grönlenzka 480 Atlamol en Grönlenzku 499 Guthrunarhvot 536 Hamthesmol 545 file:///C|/WINDOWS/Desktop/sacred-texts/neu/poe/poe01.htm (2 of 3) [4/8/2002 10:06:34 PM] Contents ACKNOWLEDGEMENT The General Introduction mentions many of the scholars to whose work this translation owes a special debt. Particular reference, however, should here be made to the late William Henry Schofield, Professor of Comparative Literature in Harvard University and President of The American-Scandinavian Foundation, under whose guidance this translation was begun; to Henry Goddard Leach, for many years Secretary of The American-Scandinavian Foundation, and to William Witherle Lawrence, Professor of English in Columbia University and Chairman of the Foundation's Committee on Publications, for their assistance with the manuscript and the proofs; and to Hanna Astrup Larsen, the Foundation's literary secretary, for her efficient management of the complex details of publication. {p. xi} Next: General Introduction file:///C|/WINDOWS/Desktop/sacred-texts/neu/poe/poe01.htm (3 of 3) [4/8/2002 10:06:34 PM] General Introduction Index Previous Next GENERAL INTRODUCTION THERE is scarcely any literary work of great importance which has been less readily available for the general reader, or even for the serious student of literature, than the Poetic Edda. Translations have been far from numerous, and only in Germany has the complete work of translation been done in the full light of recent scholarship. In English the only versions were long the conspicuously inadequate one made by Thorpe, and published about half a century ago, and the unsatisfactory prose translations in Vigfusson and Powell's Corpus Poeticum Boreale, reprinted in the Norrœna collection. An excellent translation of the poems dealing with the gods, in verse and with critical and explanatory notes, made by Olive Bray, was, however, published by the Viking Club of London in 1908. In French there exist only partial translations, chief among them being those made by Bergmann many years ago. Among the seven or eight German versions, those by the Brothers Grimm and by Karl Simrock, which had considerable historical importance because of their influence on nineteenth century German literature and art, and particularly on the work of Richard Wagner, have been largely superseded by Hugo Gering's admirable translation, published in 1892, and by the recent two volume rendering by Genzmer, with excellent notes by Andreas Heusler, 194-1920. There are competent translations in both Norwegian and Swedish. The lack of any complete and adequately annotated English rendering in metrical form, based on a critical text, and profiting by the cumulative labors of such scholars as Mogk, Vigfusson, {p. xii} Finnur Jonsson, Grundtvig, Bugge, Gislason, Hildebrand, Lüning, Sweet, Niedner, Ettmüller, Müllenhoff, Edzardi, B. M. Olsen, Sievers, Sijmons, Detter, Heinzel, Falk, Neckel, Heusler, and Gering, has kept this extraordinary work practically out of the reach of those who have had neither time nor inclination to master the intricacies of the original Old Norse. On the importance of the material contained in the Poetic Edda it is here needless to dwell at any length. We have inherited the Germanic traditions in our very speech, and the Poetic Edda is the original storehouse of Germanic mythology. It is, indeed, in many ways the greatest literary monument preserved to us out of the antiquity of the kindred races which we call Germanic. Moreover, it has a literary value altogether apart from its historical significance. The mythological poems include, in the Voluspo, one of the vastest conceptions of the creation and ultimate destruction of the world ever crystallized in literary form; in parts of the Hovamol, a collection of wise counsels that can bear comparison with most of the Biblical Book of Proverbs; in the Lokasenna, a comedy none the less full of vivid characterization because its humor is often broad; and in the Thrymskvitha, one of the finest ballads in the world. The hero poems give us, in its oldest and most vivid extant form, the story of Sigurth, Brynhild, and Atli, the Norse parallel to the German Nibelungenlied. The Poetic Edda is not only of great interest to the student of antiquity; it is a collection including some of the most remark able poems which have been preserved to us from the period before the pen and the printing-press. replaced the poet-singer and oral tradition. It is above all else the desire {p. xiii} file:///C|/WINDOWS/Desktop/sacred-texts/neu/poe/poe02.htm (1 of 9) [4/8/2002 10:06:37 PM] General Introduction to make better known the dramatic force, the vivid and often tremendous imagery, and the superb conceptions embodied in these poems which has called forth the present translation. WHAT IS THE POETIC EDDA? Even if the poems of the so-called Edda were not so significant and intrinsically so valuable, the long series of scholarly struggles which have been going on over them for the better part of three centuries would in itself give them a peculiar interest. Their history is strangely mysterious. We do not know who composed them, or when or where they were composed; we are by no means sure who collected them or when he did so; finally, we are not absolutely certain as to what an "Edda" is, and the best guess at the meaning of the word renders its application to this collection of poems more or less misleading. A brief review of the chief facts in the history of the Poetic Edda will explain why this uncertainty has persisted. Preserved in various manuscripts of the thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries is a prose work consisting of a very extensive collection of mythological stories, an explanation of the important figures and tropes of Norse poetic diction,--the poetry of the Icelandic and Norwegian skalds was appallingly complex in this respect,--and a treatise on metrics. This work, clearly a handbook for poets, was commonly known as the "Edda" of Snorri Sturluson, for at the head of the copy of it in the Uppsalabok, a manuscript written presumably some fifty or sixty years after Snorri's death, which was in 1241, we find: "This book is called Edda, which Snorri Sturluson composed." This work, well known as the Prose Edda, Snorri's Edda or the {p. xiv} Younger Edda, has recently been made available to readers of English in the admirable translation by Arthur G.
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