04                
Dugir með dvergum     The powers of the dwarves         
dvína, heimar                dwindle, the worlds        
niður að Ginnungs        down into Ginnung        
niði sökkva;                   sink chasm;        
oft Alsviður                   often Alsviðr        
ofan fellir,                      from up there falls,        
oft of föllnum                often, the very fallen        
aftur safnar.                  after gathers.        

The pseudo-sentence “the worlds down into Ginnung sink chasm” means: “the worlds sink into the chasm Ginnung.”

Alsviðr is one of the horses pulling the sun , he falls but gathers also the other fallen ones. Often, he gathers the very fallen after (him), (he fell himself at first).

In this stanza, the dwarves are clearly described as godlike creatures using their strength to keep the world together. They prevent chaos, they keep order in our universe, they are on the side of the Aesir. We understand now why the stanza before insists on their dwindling power.

Völuspa calls ginnunga the primary abyss from where the Universe sprouts off during its creation. This stanza hints at a reverse step, coming back to the original abyss called here Ginnung.
        
05                
Stendur æva                 Stand never        
strind né röðull,            land nor radiance,        
lofti með lævi                air with fraud         
linnir ei straumi;          stop not streams;        
mærum dylst                famous is hidden         
í Mímis brunni              in Mímir's well        
vissa vera;                     knowledge dwells;        
vitið enn, eða hvað?     don't you ever know, or what?        

The noun lopt or loft means loft, balcony, atmosphere, sky.

“Air with fraud stop not streams” means that “the streams of tricky atmosphere (wind) do not stop.”

“Famous is hidden in Mímir's well knowledge is hidden” means “Knowledge is hidden in famous Mímir's well.”

Mímir's well is a well open between the roots of the tree of the world. From this well flows all kind of wisdom.

Stanza 1 will speak again of 'the wind of the giantess': this idea seems very important in this poem.

The Völuspa asks also several times: “vitoð ér enn, eða hvat?” (do you wish to know more, or what?). It seems the poet wanted to copy or mock this way of speaking. The Middle Ages reader certainly knew quite well all these myths. The least one can say is that the poem is winking at its reader at this point: “Remember Völuspa, folks?” This shows that the poet had a sense of humour not so unusual in skaldic poetry, as some scholars want us to believe. I'd even say that the reverse is true. Skaldic language is so often ambiguous that it is necessary to refrain seeing too many puns in it: multiple meanings are more the rule than the exception. K. I. Gade, a scholar who dared to write a paper on “Penile puns … in Skaldic poetry,” aptly concludes that “there is clearly more to be read in and between skaldic lines than can be gleaned from the standard editions and translations.”
        
06                
Dvelur í dölum   Stays in the dales         
dís forvitin,         the inquiring Dis,        
Yggdrasils frá     Yggdrasil from        
aski hnigin;         the ash-tree fell down;        
álfa ættar            elfish of race        
Íðunni hétu,        Íðunn she was named,        
Ívalds eldri          of Ívald the youngest        
yngsta barna.      of the ancient litter.        

Explanations:

The sentence “Yggdrasil from the ash-tree fell down” means “(she) fell down from Yggdrasil, the ash-tree.”

Ívald is an ancient Elf. The Elves are often called the sons of Ívald.

Comments:

My opinion is that the whole poem hinges around this stanza.
Dis can be translated by 'woman' and forvitin by 'curious' if you want to see her as a frivolous person, or as I did if you want to insist on her deep motivation: choose the poem's spirit that suits you the best. A Dis is Goddess looked upon as very similar to the Norns, and she is seeking knowledge. Old High German kept a trace of the divine nature of the Dis, as witnessed by the Merseburg charm, beginning with : “Eiris sazun idisi, sazun hera duoder” (Once the Idisi [Disir] sat, sat here and there).
She was living 'up there' in Yggdrasil and she fell down to stay in the valley. It is thus reasonable to suppose that she was living in Ásgarðr with the Aesir. She is from the Elf race, and the youngest of her generation, which is nevertheless ancient. We can also guess that she fell down because of her inquiring mind, but nothing more is said later on this topic.

All this prevents us from hypothesizing that she is one of the three Norns: they are of the Giant race, not the Elf's, and they do not live in Ásgarðr. Her name was Íðunn, at least as long as she was living with the Gods. Íðunn is Bragi's wife, the poet God, and she is in charge of keeping the apples that prevent the Gods from aging. Some commentators confuse this with the famous myth where Íðunn is abducted by a Giant and her apples stolen. The following will clearly show that this myth is not the same as the myth in this poem. It is quite possible, however, that it is another version of Íðunn's departure. Instead of being a naïve girl who lets herself be carried away by sweet words before being abducted, we see here a woman carried away by her will to increase her knowledge. She takes no magical apples with her, only her need to reach enlightment, another kind of power. Her withdrawal also forbears the disappearance of the Gods, not in the comical way found in the classical version of Íðunn's myth, where the Gods are ridiculed and Íðunn is a silly girl, in this case it is a tragic withdrawal.

Íðunn's name is quite significant here, since it will vary along the poem, depending of her role. Classically, it is understood as Íð-unn : for-ever-young. Íð means work, activity, achievement. Moreover, translating unn by 'young' amounts to understand it as being ungr = young, while we have two straightforward Old Norse candidates, namely unna meaning 'to love, to like', and unnr meaning 'sword', or one of Óðinn's names (he is then called 'the beloved one'). Finally, unnr or uðr mean 'wave' – the only meaning given by Kock and Meissner. We have another hint on how to understand unn since a poet, Þjóðólfr ór Hvini, cut it in two in his pieces Haustlöng :

þá vas Ið með jötnum / unnr [or, depending on the poem editors: uðr] nýkomin sunnan; (then Ið-unnr coming from the South arrived at giants' place).

Thus, Íðunn can mean the achievement of the wave. Without a clear genitive we cannot be sure, but its meaning could rather be the wave of the achievement, an excellent name for the woman whose destiny (as this poem claims) is to participate in the final fall of the Aesir. At any rate, would it mean the achievement or the work of the sword, of the wave, or of love, or, inversely, the sword, the wave, or the love of achievement or of the work, all are sensical, but none evoke youth control, obviously pushed forward to fit in the youth apples myth.

07                
Eirði illa                    Hardly could she stand it        
ofankomu,                the one coming from above,        
hárbaðms undir       of the high tree        
haldin meiði;            held under the tree;        
kunni síst                  Did not enjoy at all        
að kundar Nörva,    At Nörvi's daughters         
vön að værri             missing a better         
vistum heima.          lodging at home.        

The high tree is the world's tree. Mimir's well flows at its base. Íðunn is 'held under the tree of the high tree' since both baðmr and meiðr mean 'tree'. The proper meaning of verb halda is 'to hold in the hand'.

Nörvi is Night's father.

This stanza seems to be unimportant. In fact, it shows Íðunn, at first, longs her former world and regrets to have fallen into a world of eternal night. This implies however that her future involvement in this world is worth much discomfort.

08                
Sjá sigtívar            The victorious Gods saw         
syrgja Naumu       The grief of Nauma         
viggjar að véum;   In the holy places of the horse;        
vargsbelg seldu,    A wolf's fur to her given,        
Lét í færast,           She wrapped her up in it,        
lyndi breytti,         Changed her mood,        
Lék að lævísi,        Took pleasure in the disaster,        
litum skipti.           Changed her shape.        

This poem shows that the Gods will be defeated, 'victorious' might be then ironical or a complete stereotype that lost its meaning (of which I doubt!). Íðunn's name changes after her fall, and she becomes Nauma. Her name changes, and her personality as well. The 'holy places of the horse' are the temple of the horse, of the wild animal, as wild is a real horse, not the tamed beauty we did of this animal.

The word varg means 'wolf, ill-doer, banished person'. As Íðunn is banished from the Gods' dwelling, she becomes an ill-doing witch. One word is enough to tell us this story.

Nauma is possibly a giantess' name, or the one of a river or of an island, meaning thin, skinny. This noun is also etymologically linked to the one of the rune Nauð, need. Could it be that the poem says also that the beautiful chubby Goddess became a skinny image of necessity?

She practices the art of shape-changing, seemingly forbidden in Ásgarðr. She actually becomes a new being by this 'disastrous' practice, she becomes a witch, a völva as were called these women who were able to perform the best shamanic achievements. Since shamanism is systematically mocked or insulted in the sagas and the runic inscriptions, we understand why it is called disastrous here. The Völuspa is a völva, called by Óðinn as an adviser, here the völva is a former female elf, becoming a new völva. The Völuspa accepted – though unwillingly – to answer Óðinn's questions, but Nauma is free and the Aesir will not be able to force her to answering their questions.

Not only does she leave beautiful Ásgarðr and finds herself well of it, but she flatly refuses to answer Allfather's questions! That is an obvious scandal, at least within the normal framework of skaldic poetry. If it is agreed upon the scandal, then the poem becomes very obscure. On the contrary, if you accept Íðunn-Nauma attitude as normal, the rest of the poem will become quite clear. This is why I dare hypothesizing that this poem was written by a female scholar, out of exasperation for the underlying acceptance in skaldic texts of superior 'male' values such as physical strength, heat in combat, spreading gold, etc. The sagas give us examples of such learned women, of course called witches, who might have been quite able to write such a poem, and there even exist a few acknowledged skaldic female poets.

What makes the poem 'not understandable', in my opinion, is simply that the poet fakes following the normal skaldic values, but she scorns and mocks them by undercurrent.

09                  
Valdi Viðrir          Viðrir chose        
vörð Bifrastar      Bifröst's ward        
Gjallar sunnu       to ask the door-opening         
gátt að frétta,       of the sound-giving sun,        
heims hvívetna    of the world everything         
hvert er vissi;      who her knew;         
Bragi og Loftur    Bragi and Loftr        
báru kviðu.           bore sentence.         

Viðrir is one of many Óðinn's names, meaning 'the one who dominates the weather'.
Bifröst is the bridge linking Ásgarðr and other worlds, his ward is Heimdal who is thus chosen by Óðinn to go down and ask questions to this new völva. Note that the noun vörð actually means 'the woman' and it is understood here as being vörðr, meaning 'the gardian'. This semblance of a misspelling might be a copy mistake or a joke of the poet who calls Heimdal a woman as if by mistake.

'The door-opening' is a classical way to speak of a woman.

Bragi is the God of poetry and Íðunn's husband, he might have better chances to obtain an answer from Íðunn-Nauma. Loftr (= the one who leaves in a loft, the airy one) is a classical way to name Loki. Loki is a kind of constant character when a God or Gods undergo a dangerous travel, he is almost expected here. That Bragi and Loki 'bear sentence' to Heimdal's mission means that they will stand witness for this mission.

Gjöll can be three things : the name of an underground river, the name of the stone upon which Loki will be bound, and a simple word meaning 'noise' (which s the only meaning given by Kock & Meissner in their dictionary of the skaldic meanings). Since Heimdall will sound the beginning of Ragnarök with a horn named Gjallarhorn, the form of gjöll here evokes an obvious pun between gjallarhorni (= of the gjallarhorn) and gjallarsunnu (= of the gjallarsun). My understanding here is that the woman, Nauma, is a part of the preparation to the Ragnarök, she is a 'door-opening' to the sun that will raise by the noise made by the Gjallarhorn. Obviously, this interpretation gives an unusual importance to Íðunn-Nauma in the process of the Ragnarök. That Gjöll might be an underground, dark river does not contradict this interpretation since the Völuspa says that svort verða sólscin of sumor eptir “of dark color happen the sunshine of the summers after,” thus the Gjallarsunna can very well be dark.

Anyhow, the reader must understand that this stanza is particularly full of double meanings, and try to imagine them all together in order to get the feeling the poet wanted to convey.