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Poetic Edda

  Sorli spake:27.[1] "Ill didst win, brother,  when the bag thou didst open,Oft from that bag  came baleful counsel;Heart hast thou, Hamther,  if knowledge thou hadst!A man without wisdom  is lacking in much."
  Hamther spake:28.[2] "His head were now off  if Erp were living,The brother so keen  whom we killed on our road,The warrior noble,—  'twas the Norns that drove meThe hero to slay  who in fight should be holy.
29.[3] "In fashion of wolves  it befits us not Amongst ourselves to strive,
  1. ↑ In the manuscript this stanza is introduced by the same line as stanza 25: "Then did Hamther speak forth,  the haughty of heart," but the speaker in this case must be Sorli and not Hamther. Some editors, however, give lines 1-2 to Hamther and lines 3-4 to Sorli. Bag: i.e., Hamther's mouth; cf. note on stanza 11. The manuscript indicates line 3 as beginning a new stanza.
  2. ↑ Most editors regard stanzas 28-30 as a speech by Hamther, but the manuscript does not indicate the speaker, and some editors assign one or two of the stanzas to Sorli. Lines 1-2 are quoted in the Volsungasaga. The manuscript does not indicate line 1 as beginning a stanza. Erp: Hamther means that while the two brothers had succeeded only in wounding Jormunrek, Erp, if he had been with them, would have killed him. Lines 3-4 may be a later interpolation. Norns: the fates; the word used in the original means the goddess of ill fortune.
  3. ↑

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