Page:Poeticedda00belluoft.djvu/60

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Poetic Edda

64.[1] More fair than the sun,  a hall I see,Roofed with gold,  on Gimle it stands;There shall the righteous  rulers dwell,And happiness ever  there shall they have.
65.[2] There comes on high,  all power to hold,A mighty lord,  all lands he rules.....................................
66.[3] From below the dragon  dark comes forth,Nithhogg flying  from Nithafjoll;The bodies of men  on his wings he bears,The serpent bright:  but now must I sink.

    Othin. His brothers are Vili and Ve (cf. Lokasenna, 26, and note). Little is known of them, and nothing, beyond this reference, of their sons. Vindheim ("Home of the Wind"): heaven

  1. ↑ This stanza is quoted by Snorri. Gimle: Snorri makes this the name of the hall itself, while here it appears to refer to a mountain on which the hall stands. It is the home of the happy, as opposed to another hall, not here mentioned, for the dead. Snorri's description of this second hall is based on Voluspo, 38, which he quotes, and perhaps that stanza properly belongs after 64.
  2. ↑ This stanza is not found in Regius, and is probably spurious. No lacuna is indicated in the Hauksbok version, but late paper manuscripts add two lines, running:
    "Rule he orders,  and rights he fixes,
    Laws he ordains  that ever shall live."
    The name of this new ruler is nowhere given, and of course the suggestion of Christianity is unavoidable. It is not certain, however, that even this stanza refers to Christianity, and if it does, it may have been interpolated long after the rest of the poem was composed.
  3. ↑ This stanza, which fits so badly with the preceding ones,

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