Part 4

Without allowing myself to propose any change of text in the Völuspá strophes above quoted, and in pursuance of the principle which I have adopted in this work, not to base any conclusions on so-called text-emendations, which invariably are text-debasings, I have applied these strophes as they are found in the texts we have. Like Müllenhoff (D. Alterth., v. 121) and other scholars, I am, however, convinced that the strophe which begins sá hún þar vaða, &c., has been corrupted. Several reasons, which I shall present elsewhere in a special treatise on Völuspá, make this probable; but simply the circumstance that the strophe has ten lines is sufficient to awaken suspicions in anyone's mind who holds the view that Völuspá originally consisted of exclusively eight-lined strophes - a view which cannot seriously be doubted. As we now have the poem, it consists of forty-seven strophes of eight lines each, one of four lines, two of six lines each, five of ten lines each, four of twelve lines each, and two of fourteen lines each - in all fourteen not eight-lined strophes against forty-seven eight-lined ones; and, while all the eight-lined ones are intrinsically and logically well constructed, it may be said of the others that have more than eight lines each, partly that we can cancel the superfluous lines without injury to the sense, and partly that they look like loosely-joined conglomerations of scattered fragments of strophes and of interpolations. The most recent effort to restore perfectly the poem to its eight-lined strophes has been made by Müllenhoff (D. Alterth., v.); and although this effort may need revision in some special points, it has upon the whole given the poem a clearness, a logical sequence and symmetry, which of themselves make it evident that Müllenhoff's premises are correct.

In the treatise on Völuspá which I shall publish later, this subject will be thoroughly discussed. Here I may be permitted to say, that in my own efforts to restore Völuspá to eight-lined strophes, I came to a point where I had got the most of the materials arranged on this principle, but there remained the following fragment:

These fragments make united ten lines. The fourth line of the fragment (1) Slíður heitir sú has the appearance of being a mythographic addition by the transcriber of the poem. Several similar interpolations which contain information of mythological interest, but which neither have the slightest connection with the context, nor are of the least importance in reference to the subject treated in Völuspá, occur in our present text-editions of this poem. The dwarf-list is a colossal interpolation of this kind. If we hypothetically omit this line for the present, and also the one immediately preceding (söxum ok sverðum), then there remains as many lines as are required in a regular eight-line strophe.

It is further to be remarked that among all the eight-lined Völuspá strophes there is not one so badly constructed that a verb in the first half-strophe has a direct object in the first line of the second half-strophe, as is the case in that of the present text:

Sá hún þar vaða
þunga strauma
menn meinsvara
og morðvarga
og þanns annars glepur
eyrarúnu.

and, upon the whole, such a construction can hardly ever have occurred in a tolerably passable poem. If these eight lines actually belonged to one and the same strophe, the latter would have to be restored according to the following scheme:

(1) Sá hún þar vaða
(2) þunga strauma
(3) menn meinsvara
(4) og morðvarga;
(5) . . . . . . .
(6) . . . . . . .
(7) og þanns annars glepur
(8) eyrarúnu.

and in one of the dotted lines the verb must have been found which governed the accusative object þann. The lines which should take the place of the dots have, in their present form, the following appearance:

Á fellur austan
um eiturdala.

The verb which governed þann must then be áfellur, that is to say, the verb fellur united with the preposition á. But in that case á is not the substantive á, a river, a running water, and thus the river which falls from the east around venom dales has its source in an error.

Thus we have, under this supposition, found that there is something that fellur á, falls on, streams down upon, him who seduces the wife of another. This something must be expressed by a substantive, which is now concealed behind the adverb austan, and must have resembled it sufficiently in sound to be transformed into it.

Such a substantive, and the only one of the kind, is austur. This means something that can falla á, stream down upon; for austur is bail-water (from ausa, to bail), waste-water, water flowing out of a gutter or shoot.

A test as to whether there originally stood austur or not is to be found in the following substantive, which now has the appearance of eiturdala. For if there was written austur, then there must, in the original text, have followed a substantive (1) which explained the kind of waste-water meant, (2) which had sufficient resemblance to eitrdala to become corrupted into it.

The sea-faring Norseman distinguished between two kinds of austur: byttu-austr and dælu-austr. The bail-water in a ship could be removed either by bailing it out with scoops directly over the railing, or it could be scooped into a dæla, a shoot or trough laid over the railing. The latter was the more convenient method. The difference between these two kinds of austur became a popular phrase; compare the expression þá var byttu-austur, eigi dælu-austur. The word dæla was also used figuratively; compare láta dæluna ganga, to let the shoots (troughs) run (Grettla, 98), a proverb by which men in animated conversation are likened unto dælur, troughs, which are opened for flowing conversation.

Under such circumstances we might here expect after the word austur the word dæla, and, as venom here is in question, eitur-dæla.

Eitur-dæla satisfies both the demands above made. It explains what sort of waste-water is meant, and it resembles eitur-dala sufficiently to be corrupted into it.

Thus we get á fellur austur eitrdæla: "On (him who seduces another man's wife) falls the waste-water of the venom-troughs". Which these venom-troughs are, the strophe in its entirety ought to define. This constitutes the second test of the correctness of the reading.

It must be admitted that if á fellur austur eitrdæla is the original reading, then a corruption into á fellur austan eiturdala had almost of necessity to follow, since the preposition á was taken to be the substantive á, a river, a running stream. How near at hand such a confounding of these words lies is demonstrated by another Völuspá strophe, where the preposition á in á sér hún ausast aurgum fossi was long interpreted as the substantive á.

We shall now see whether the expression á fellur austr eitrdæla makes sense, when it is introduced in lieu of the dotted lines above:

Sá hún þar vaða
þunga strauma
menn meinsvara
og morðvarga;
(en) á fellur austur
eiturdæla
þanns annars glepur
eyrarúnu.

"There saw she heavy streams (of venom) flow upon (or through) perjurers and murderers. The waste-water of the venom-troughs (that is, the waste-water of the perjurers and murderers after the venom-streams had rushed over them) falls upon him who seduces the wife of another man."

Thus we get not only a connected idea, but a very remarkable and instructive passage.

The verb vaða is not used only about persons who wade through a water. The water itself is also able to vaða (cp. eisandi uðr veður - Rafns S. Sveinb.), to say nothing of arrows that wade í fólki (Hávamál 150), and of banners which wade in the throng of warriors. Here the venom wades through the crowds of perjurers and murderers. The verb vaða has so often been used in this sense, that it has also acquired the meaning of rushing, running, rushing through. Heavy venom-streams run through the perjurers and murderers before they fall on the adulterers. The former are the venom-troughs, which pour their waste-water upon the latter.

We now return to Saxo's description of the hall of Nastrands, to see whether the Völuspá strophe thus hypothetically restored corresponds with, or is contradicted by, it. Disagreeable as the pictures are which we meet with in this comparison, we are nevertheless compelled to take them into consideration.

Saxo says that the wall of the hall is bespattered with liquid filth (paries obductus illuvie). The Latin word, and the one used by Saxo for venom, is venenum, not illuvies, which means filth that has been poured or bespattered on something. Hence Saxo does not mean venom-streams of the kind which, according to Völuspá, are vomited by the serpents down through the roof-openings, but the reference is to something else, which still must have an upper source, since it is bespattered on the wall of the hall.

Saxo further says that the floor is bespawled with all sorts of impurity: pavimentum omni sordium genere respersum. The expression confirms the idea, that unmixed venom is not meant here, but everything else of the most disgusting kind.

Furthermore, Saxo relates that groups of damned are found there within, which groups he calls consessus. Consessus means "a sitting together," and, in a secondary sense, persons sitting together. The word "sit" may here be taken in a more or less literal sense. Consessor, "the one who sits together with," might be applied to every participator in a Roman dinner, though the Romans did not actually sit, but reclined at the table.

As stated, several such consessus, persons sitting or lying together, are found in the hall. The benches upon which they sit or lie are of iron. Every consessus has a locus in the hall; and as both these terms, consessus and locus, in Saxo united in the expression consessuum loca, together mean rows of benches in a theatre or in a public place, where the seats rise in rows one above the other, we must assume that these rows of the damned sitting or lying together are found in different elevations between the floor and ceiling. This assumption is corroborated by what Saxo tells, viz., that their loca are separated by leaden hurdles (plumbeæ crates). That they are separated by hurdles must have some practical reason, and this can be none other than that something flowing down may have an unobstructed passage from one consessus to the other. That which flows down finally reaches the floor, and is then omne sordium genus, all kinds of impurity. It must finally be added that, according to Saxo, the stench in this room of torture is well-nigh intolerable (super omnia perpetui fætoris asperitas tristes lacessebat olfactus).

Who is not able to see that Völuspá's and Saxo's descriptions of the hall in Nastrands confirm, explain, and complement each other? From Völuspá's words, we conclude that the venom-streams come from the openings in the roof, not from the walls. The wall consists, in its entirety, of the backs of serpents wattled together (sá er undinn salur orma hryggjum). The heads belonging to these serpents are above the roof, and vomit their venom down through the roof-openings - "the ljors" (féllu eiturdropar inn um ljóra). Below these, and between them and the floor, there are, as we have seen in Saxo, rows of iron seats, the one row below the other, all furnished with leaden hurdles, and on the iron seats sit or lie perjurers and murderers, forced to drink the venom raining down in "heavy streams". Every such row of sinners becomes "a trough of venom" for the row immediately below it, until the disgusting liquid thus produced falls on those who have seduced the dearest and most confidential friends of others. These seducers either constitute the lowest row of the seated delinquents, or they wade on the floor in that filth and venom which there flows. Over the hall broods eternal night (it is sólu fjarri). What there is of light, illuminating the terrors, comes from fires (see below) kindled at the doors which open to the north (norður horfa dyr). The smoke from the fires comes into the hall and covers the door-posts with the "soot of ages" (postes longæva fuligine illitæ).

With this must be compared what Tacitus relates concerning the views and customs of the Germans in regard to crime and punishment. He says:

"The nature of the crime determines the punishment. Traitors and deserters they hang on trees. Cowards and those given to disgraceful debauchery they smother in filthy pools and marshes, casting a hurdle (crates) over them. The dissimilarity in these punishments indicates a belief that crime should be punished in such a way that the penalty is visible, while scandalous conduct should be punished in such a way that the debauchee is removed from the light of day" (Germania, xii.).

This passage in Germania is a commentary on Saxo's descriptions, and on the Völuspá strophe in the form resulting from my investigation. What might naturally seem probable is corroborated by Germania's words: that the same view of justice and morality, which obtained in the camp of the Germans, found its expression, but in gigantic exaggeration, in their doctrines concerning eschatological rewards and punishments. It should, perhaps, also be remarked that a similar particularism prevailed through centuries. The hurdle (crates) which Saxo mentions as being placed over the venom and filth-drinking criminals in the hall of Nastrands has its earthly counterpart in the hurdle (also called crates), which, according to the custom of the age of Tacitus, was thrown over victims smothered in the cesspools and marshes (ignavos et imbelles et corpore infames cæno ac palude injecta insuper crate mergunt). Those who were sentenced to this death were, according to Tacitus, cowards and debauchees. Among those who received a similar punishment in the Teutonic Gehenna were partly those who in a secret manner had committed murder and tried to conceal their crime (such were called morðvargar), partly debauchees who had violated the sacredness of matrimony. The descriptions in the Völuspá strophe and in Saxo show that also in the hall of the Nastrands the punishment is in accordance with the nature of the crime. All are punished terribly; but there is a distinction between those who had to drink the serpent venom unmixed and those who receive the mixed potion, and finally those who get the awful liquid over themselves and doubtless within themselves.

In closing this chapter I will quote a number of Völuspá strophes, which refer to Teutonic eschatology. In parallel columns I print the strophes as they appear in Codex Regius, and in the form they have assumed as the result of an investigation of which I shall give a full account in the future. I trust it will be found that the restoration of á fellur austan um eitrdala into á fellur austr eitrdæla, and the introducing of these words before þanns annars glepur eyrarúnu not only restores to the strophe in which these words occur a regular structure and a sense which is corroborated by Saxo's eschatological sources and by the Germania of Tacitus, but also supplies the basis and conditions on which other strophes may get a regular structure and intelligible contents.