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Hovamol
112.[1] I rede thee, Loddfafnir! and hear thou my rede,— Profit thou hast if thou hearest, Great thy gain if thou learnest:Rise not at night, save if news thou seekest, Or fain to the outhouse wouldst fare.
113. I rede thee, Loddfafnir! and hear thou my rede,— Profit thou hast if thou hearest, Great thy gain if thou learnest:Beware of sleep on a witch's bosom, Nor let her limbs ensnare thee.
114. Such is her might that thou hast no mind For the council or meeting of men;Meat thou hatest, joy thou hast not, And sadly to slumber thou farest.
115. I rede thee, Loddfafnir! and hear thou my rede,— Profit thou hast if thou hearest, Great thy gain if thou learnest:
- ↑ Lines 1-3 are the formula, repeated (abbreviated in the manuscript) in most of the stanzas, with which Othin prefaces his counsels to Loddfafnir, and throughout this section, except in stanzas 111 and 138, Loddfafnir represents himself as simply quoting Othin's words. The material is closely analogous to that contained in the first eighty stanzas of the poem. In some cases (e.g., stanzas 117, 119, 121, 126 and 130) the formula precedes a full four-line stanza instead of two (or three) lines.
crept in later. The phrase translated "the speech of Hor" is "Hova mol," later used as the title for the entire poem.
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