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Poetic Edda

Love becomes loathing  if long one sits By the hearth in another's home.
36.[1] Better a house,  though a hut it be, A man is master at home;A pair of goats  and a patched-up roof Are better far than begging.
37.[2] Better a house,  though a hut it be, A man is master at home;His heart is bleeding  who needs must beg When food he fain would have.
38. Away from his arms  in the open field A man should fare not a foot;For never he knows  when the need for a spear Shall arise on the distant road.
39.[3] If wealth a man  has won for himself, Let him never suffer in need;Oft he saves for a foe  what he plans for a friend, For much goes worse than we wish.
40.[4] None so free with gifts  or food have I found That gladly he took not a gift,
  1. ↑ The manuscript has "little" in place of "a hut" in line 1, but this involves an error in the initial-rhymes, and the emendation has been generally accepted.
  2. ↑ Lines 1 and 2 are abbreviated in the manuscript, but are doubtless identical with the first two lines of stanza 36.
  3. ↑ In the manuscript this stanza follows stanza 40.
  4. ↑

[36]

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