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Guthrunarhvot

1.[1] A word-strife I learned,  most woeful of all,A speech from the fullness  of sorrow spoken,When fierce of heart  her sons to the fightDid Guthrun whet  with words full grim.
2.[2] "Why sit ye idle,  why sleep out your lives,Why grieve ye not  in gladness to speak?Since Jormunrek  your sister youngBeneath the hoofs  of horses hath trodden,(White and black  on the battle-way,Gray, road-wonted,  the steeds of the Goths.)
3.[3] "Not like are ye  to Gunnar of yore,Nor have ye hearts  such as Hogni's was;Vengeance for her  ye soon would haveIf brave ye were  as my brothers of old,Or hard your hearts  as the Hunnish kings'."
4.[4] Then Hamther spake,  the high of heart:"Little the deed  of Hogni didst love,
  1. ↑ The poet's introduction of himself in this stanza is a fairly certain indication of the relative lateness of the poem.
  2. ↑ Idle: a guess; a word is obviously missing in the original. The manuscript marks line 5 as beginning a new stanza, and lines 5-6 may well have been inserted from another part of the "old" Hamthesmol (cf. Hamthesmol, 3).
  3. ↑ Gunnar and Hogni: cf. Drap Niflunga. Line 5 may be interpolated. Hunnish: here used, as often, merely as a generic term for all South Germanic peoples; the reference is to the Burgundian Gunnar and Hogni.
  4. ↑ Hamther: some editions spell the name "Hamthir." Sigurth, etc.: cf. Sigurtharkvitha en skamma, 21-24, and Brot, concluding prose. This stanza has been subjected to many conjectural re-

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