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Poetic Edda

132. I rede thee, Loddfafnir!  and hear thou my rede,— Profit thou hast if thou hearest, Great thy gain if thou learnest:Scorn or mocking  ne'er shalt thou make Of a guest or a journey-goer.
133.[1] Oft scarcely he knows  who sits in the house What kind is the man who comes;None so good is found  that faults he has not, Nor so wicked that nought he is worth.
134.[2] I rede thee, Loddfafnir!  and hear thou my rede,— Profit thou hast if thou hearest, Great thy gain if thou learnest:Scorn not ever  the gray-haired singer, Oft do the old speak good;(Oft from shrivelled skin  come skillful counsels, Though it hang with the hides, And flap with the pelts, And is blown with the bellies.)
  1. ↑ Many editors reject the last two lines of this stanza as spurious, putting the first two lines at the end of the preceding stanza. Others, attaching lines 3 and 4 to stanza 132, insert as the first two lines of stanza 133 two lines from a late paper manuscript, running:
    "Evil and good  do men's sons ever
    Mingled bear in their breasts."
  2. ↑ Presumably the last four lines have been added to this stanza, for the parallelism in the last three makes it probable that they belong together. The wrinkled skin of the old man is

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