Page:Poeticedda00belluoft.djvu/454

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

Poetic Edda

23.[1] Then Gollrond, daughter  of Gjuki, spake:"Speak not such words,  thou hated woman;Bane of the noble  thou e'er hast been,(Borne thou art  on an evil wave,Sorrow hast brought  to seven kings,)And many a woman  hast loveless made."
24.[2] Then Brynhild, daughter  of Buthli, spake:"Atli is guilty  of all the sorrow,(Son of Buthli  and brother of mine,)When we saw in the hall  of the Hunnish raceThe flame of the snake's bed  flash round the hero;(For the journey since  full sore have I paid,And ever I seek  the sight to forget.)"

  1. Editors are agreed that this stanza shows interpolations, but differ as to the lines to reject. Line 4 (literally "every wave of ill-doing drives thee") is substantially a proverb, and line 5, with its apparently meaningless reference to "seven" kings, may easily have come from some other source.
  2. The stanza is obviously in bad shape; perhaps it represents two separate stanzas, or perhaps three of the lines are later additions. Atli: Brynhild here blames her brother, following the frequent custom of transferring the responsibility for a murder (cf. Helgakvitha Hundingsbana II, 33), because he compelled her to marry Gunnar against her will, an idea which the poet seems to have gained from Sigurtharkvitha en skamma, 32-39. These stanzas represent an entirely different version of the story, wherein Atli, attacked by Gunnar and Sigurth, buys them off by giving Gunnar his sister, Brynhild, as wife. He seems to have induced the latter to marry Gunnar by falsely telling her that Gunnar was Sigurth (a rationalistic explanation of the interchange of forms described in the Volsungasaga and Gripisspo, 37-39). In the present stanza Atli is made to do this out of desire for Sigurth's treasure. Hunnish race: this may be

[418]