Poetic Edda - Cottle Trans.
Odin's (1) strength may never fail;
Asori still in wit prevail;
Vani sons be counted wise;
Fates may weave the Destinies;
(2) Dryas calamities increase;
Woes of mortals never cease;
Peace by (3) Thursi be withstood;
Nymphs imbrue their hands in blood.
II.
Forth is issu'd the decree,
(4) Evil days shall Asi see!
Potentates 'gainst them shall league
Skill'd in every dark intrigue.
(5) Odræsis ever safe remains,
While Urda guards the sacred plains:
To investigate their doom,
In vain the sons of Asi come.
III.
Now they turn the intentful mind,
Other oracles to find;
But angry Gods their woes increase,
And bid each lucid vision cease.
(6) Thrainer's words bewilder'd seem,
Like the maniac's mid-day dream:
(6) Dainer's shrines their secrets tell,
Deep involv'd in mystic spell.
IV.
(7) Duergi sons, beneath heavens cope,
Sometimes lift their hands in hope;
Again their fruitless toil bewail;
Down sink their hands --- their spirits fail.
Those whom the mountain clifts delight,
Where swift (8) Ginnunger wheels his flight,
All pale behold the heaven above
In direful trepidation move.
(9) Alsuither leaves the track of day,
And spreads thro' ether wild dismay.
V.
Nations feel the earthquake's force:
The sun maintains no equal course:
Storms, wide wasting thro' the air,
Their rage on plains and mountains bear.
Men aghast in vain enquire,
Whence the iterated ire?
Truths oracular subside
(10) In limpid Mimer's angry tide:
When? --- or where? --- no mortal eye
Can read the coming destiny.
VI.
The Goddess from Asori sprung,
Gifted with prophetic tongue; ---
She who her behests oft made
Beneath the (11) dew-distilling shade,
Long to sojourn is decreed,
In vales that down to Hela lead.
Ivaldi sons in scorn maintain
(12) Iduna least of all her train.
VII.
There in hateful durance pent,
In vain she mourns her dire descent:
Doom'd in those shades no joys to find
Assuasive of her troubled mind.
A different fate she once had known,
When gay the star of fortune shone:
The joyless Nymph is doom'd to pine
Associate now with Norver's line.
VIII.
Warrior Gods the maiden see
Prey to deep despondency:
Around her limbs the cause to float
In wolf-like show a shaggy coat:
Her mind is fashion'd to her lot,
And ev'ry past delight forgot.
IX.
(13) Lo! from that river's fertile side,
Whose waves o'er golden shadows glide,
(14) Vidrir intent to know the fate
Suspended o'er the Asi state,
Bids (15) Bifrast's chief in compass brief,
Haste and bring the quick relief.
Brag and Lok without delay,
He takes companions of his way.
X.
The chief and his attendants near,
Where high the mystic towers appear,
Soft melodious accents pour
To the sage presiding power.
In (16) Hidskialfa's lofty dome,
(17) Odin listens as they come:
Secrecy he best approves,
And far each prying eye removes.
XI.
Heimdaller, eloquent and wise,
Thus began the mysteries: ---
Of all the sylvan Gods that rove,
The hill, the fountain, and the grove;
Of each belov'd associate here,
Beneath this dark infernal sphere;
Say, can'st thou the hour declare,
When they leave the vital air?
What accidents their life attend?
And what their mortal course shall end?
Notes:
1. "Odin's strength," --- Perhaps the meaning of this verse is, that the powers and virtues which are attributed to Odin and the rest, availed nothing in the calamity which then threatened the Asi state. [Back]
2. Dryas, a fabulous gigantic woman, by whom the Heavens are supposed to be prefigured. [Back]
3. Thursi, the Geloni. [Back]
4. "Evil days," --- The Asi were sensible that some great calamity was about to befall them; but what it was, or by what remedy it might be averted, they were entirely ignorant. It is supposed to be the death of Balder. [Back]
5. Odræsis, was the vase in which the liquor of wisdom was contained. All approach to this was prohibited by Urda, who was appointed to this station by certain superior Gods hostile to the Asi. [Back]
6. Thrainer and Dainer, two oracles. [Back]
7. Duergi, the Dwarfs who sustained the heavens. Their names were North, East, West, and South. They are represented as scarce able to sustain the weight of the falling Heavens. Atlas er ipse laborat! Vixque suis humeris candentem sustinet axem. Ovid. [Back]
8. Ginnunger, the Hawk. [Back]
9. Alsuither, one of the horses of the Sun. Utque labant curvæ justo sine pondere naves, Perque mare instabiles nimia levitate feruntur; Sic onere assueto vacuos dat in aera saltus, Succutiturque alte; similisque est currus inani. Quod simul ac sensere, ruunt, tritumque relinquunt Quadrijugi spatium: nec quo prius, ordine currunt. Ovid. [Back]
10. "In limpid, &c." --- At this fount dwelt an oracle, whom the Gods used to consult. [Back]
11. "Dew-distilling shade," --- The Ash of Yggdrasil. [Back]
12. Iduna, not the wife of Brag, but of the nation of the Asori. Some think that this is the same with Volva in the descent of Odin, in spite of a few difficulties which attend this supposition. In one Ode the prophetess is represented as wandering about clothed with the skin of a wolf, and maintaining a determinate silence; in the other, she is represented as dead and in her grave; but being raised by the power of necromancy answering every question which is proposed to her. To clear up these difficulties, some have supposed that the power of Odin was greater than that of Heimdaller, and that might be the occasion of her speaking in one instance and not in another; and with respect to the difference of her situation in the two odes; the say, that possibly some mutilations might have taken place, which would have cleared up this objection. If this and the following Ode are connected together, the death of Balder must have been the circumstance which threw the Asi into such alarm. [Back]
13. "Lo! from that river's." --- Giöll. [Back]
14. Vidrir. --- A name of Odin signifying sagacious. [Back]
15. "Bifrast's chief." --- Heimdaller. [Back]
16. Hidskialfa. --- A palace of Odin: its name signified the terror of nations, because he thence beheld every thing that was transacted in the world. [Back]
17. Odin, --- Wished to see and hear what was going on between Heimdaller and the Sorceress, and therefore sends the Monoheroes to a distance, that they might not distact his attention. [Back]
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