The Poetic Edda: A Study Guide |
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Grímnismál The Speech of the Masked One [PREVIOUS][MAIN][NEXT] [HOME] |
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English Translations | ||||||||||||
1797 Amos Simon Cottle in Icelandic Poetry “The Song of Grimnir” |
1851 C.P. in
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Fire! spare thy fury spare, Nor thus thy torrents on me bear: Thy flames fierce flashing from me turn In vain I strive —my garments burn: Tho' high in air my cloak I raise, It wastes before thy scorching blaze. |
Hot, hot, oh fire! art thou, and waxest still In fury ; though more closely round my form I wrap my fur-bound cloak, and gather in Its folds, 'tis burned to cinders by thy rage. |
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1866 Benjamin Thorpe
in Edda Sæmundar Hinns Frôða “The Lay of Grimnir” |
1883 Gudbrand Vigfusson
in Corpus Poeticum Boreale “The Sayings of the Hooded One” |
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1. Fire! thou art hot, |
1. Grimni. —HOT thou art, flame, and far too great! Fall back
from me, (Here Agnar reaches him the cup?) |
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1908 Olive Bray |
1923 Henry Bellows |
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1. Fierce art thou, fire ! and far too great ; |
1. Hot art thou, fire! too fierce by far; |
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1962 Lee M. Hollander |
1967 W. H. Auden & P. B. Taylor |
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1. Hot art thou, blaze, and too
high, withal! |
1. You are fierce, fire, too fierce for
comfort, |
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1969/ 1989 Patricia Terry in Poems of the Elder Edda “The Lay of Grimnir” |
1996 Carolyne Larrington |
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1. Fire, you're too hot, and much too fierce, |
1. ‘Hot you are, and rather too fierce; |
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2011 Andy Orchard The Elder Edda: A Book of Viking Lore 'The Lay of Grimnir" |
2011 Ursula Dronke |
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1. ‘Flames, you’re too hot, and rather too big: get away from me, fire! My wool-cloak’s singed, though I lift it aloft, my cape’s burning in front of my eyes! |
1. Hustler, you are hot |
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[HOME][GRÍMNISMÁL]
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COMMENTARY |
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In the oral context of ancient Scandinavian society, the poem
was most likely performed without the prose introduction. Some scholars
have suggested that the prose passages found in the Poetic Edda were
composed once the poems were set in writing. The first stanza thus
provides the dramatic context for what is to follow. Grímnismál begins
with a man on fire! Whom that man is, we don't yet know. Considering the
content of his speech, the fire may be symbolic as well. Spiritually,
Odin is a man on fire. Scholarly commentary on this stanza is varied, and focuses largely on its wording. |
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An Icelandic-English Dictionary by Cleasby/Vigfusson (1874): HRIP, n. a box of laths or a basket to carry peat and the like on horseback, with a drop at the bottom, Lv. 65, (mó-hrip, torf-hrip.) hrips-grind, f. the frame of a h., id. Hence the phrase, það er eins og að ausa vatni í hrip, 'it is like pouring water into a sieve,' (cp. Lat. 'Danaidum dolia implere'), of useless efforts: hurried work, e.g. hurried writing, as if dropped out of the quill. HRIPA, að, to leak much;
þá hripar
allt, or það hrip-lekr, it leaks fast: metaph. to write hurriedly, h.
bréf; það er hripað í mesta flýtri. |
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LaFarge/Tucker, Glossary to the Poetic Edda: hripuðr, ‘hastener’, fire (Grm. 1) |
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From the French of F.G. Bergmann (1871), as Dits de Grimnir: Verse 1:
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The Garments of the Gods
In the prologue to this poem, Odin and Frigg visit mortals in human guise. They each foster a human child, Agnar and Geirrod. Clearly, they appear to and are indistinguishable from other humans, when they want to be. So naturally, they would wear clothing. In Hávamál 49, Odin speaks of giving his clothes to "two tree-men in
the field" [Váðir mínur gaf ek velli at tveim trémönnum],
a statement that likely indicates that it was Odin who first clothed the
newly created human beings, Ask and Embla, which he helped make from
trees found along the shore of Midgard. The word used there are
váðir 'clothes(49/1); and ript, 'cloth',
'linen'(49/5).` |
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