Guthrunarkvitha I: The First Lay of Guthrun

Henry Adams Bellows's notes to his translation (1923; Project Gutenberg #73533).

1. Stanza 1 Then did Guthrun | think to die, When she by Sigurth | sorrowing sat; Tears she had not, | nor wrung her hands, Nor ever wailed, | as other women.
2. Stanza 1 Fafnir’s heart: this bit of information is here quite without point, and it is nowhere else stated that Guthrun understood the speech of birds. In the Volsungasaga it is stated that Sigurth gave Guthrun some of Fafnir’s heart to eat, “and thereafter she was much grimmer than before, and wiser.”
3. Stanza 1 This stanza seems to be based on Guthrunarkvitha II, 11–12.
4. Stanza 2 To her the warriors | wise there came, Longing her heavy | woe to lighten; Grieving could not | Guthrun weep, So sad her heart, | it seemed, would break.
5. Stanza 3 Then the wives | of the warriors came, Gold-adorned, | and Guthrun sought; Each one then | of her own grief spoke, The bitterest pain | she had ever borne.
6. Stanza 3 I prefer to believe that here and in stanza 10 the poet knew exactly what he was doing, and that both stanzas are correct.
7. Stanza 4 Then spake Gjaflaug, | Gjuki’s sister: “Most joyless of all | on earth am I; Husbands five | were from me taken, (Two daughters then, | and sisters three,) Brothers eight, | yet I have lived.”
8. Stanza 4 Gjaflaug: nothing further is known of this aunt of Guthrun, or of the many relatives whom she has lost. Very likely she is an invention of the poet’s, for it seems improbable that otherwise all further trace of her should have been lost. Line 4 has been marked by many editors as spurious.
9. Stanza 5 Grieving could not | Guthrun weep, Such grief she had | for her husband dead, And so grim her heart | by the hero’s body.
10. Stanza 5 Some editors assume the loss of a line, after either line 1 or line
11. Stanza 6 Then Herborg spake, | the queen of the Huns: “I have a greater | grief to tell; My seven sons | in the southern land, And my husband, fell | in fight all eight. (Father and mother | and brothers four Amid the waves | the wind once smote, And the seas crashed through | the sides of the ship.)
12. Stanza 6 Herborg: neither she nor her sorrows are elsewhere mentioned, nor is it clear what a “queen of the Huns” is doing in Gunnar’s home, but the word “Hun” has little definiteness of meaning in the poems, and is frequently applied to Sigurth himself (cf. note on stanza 24). Herborg appears from stanza 11 to have been the foster-mother of Gollrond, Guthrun’s sister. Lines 5–7 may be interpolations, or may form a separate stanza.
13. Stanza 7 “The bodies all | with my own hands then I decked for the grave, | and the dead I buried; A half-year brought me | this to bear; And no one came | to comfort me.
14. Stanza 7 Lines 1 and 2 stand in reversed order in the manuscript; I have followed Gering’s conjectural transposition.
15. Stanza 8 “Then bound I was, | and taken in war, A sorrow yet | in the same half-year; They bade me deck | and bind the shoes Of the wife of the monarch | every morn.
16. Stanza 9 “In jealous rage | her wrath she spake, And beat me oft | with heavy blows; Never a better | lord I knew, And never a woman | worse I found.”
17. Stanza 9 Herborg implies that the queen’s jealousy was not altogether misplaced.
18. Stanza 10 Grieving could not | Guthrun weep, Such grief she had | for her husband dead, And so grim her heart | by the hero’s body.
19. Stanza 10 Cf. stanza 5 and note. The manuscript abbreviates to first letters.
20. Stanza 11 Then spake Gollrond, | Gjuki’s daughter: “Thy wisdom finds not, | my foster-mother, The way to comfort | the wife so young.” She bade them uncover | the warrior’s corpse.
21. Stanza 11 Gollrond: not elsewhere mentioned. Line 4 looks like an interpolation replacing a line previously lost.
22. Stanza 12 The shroud she lifted | from Sigurth, laying His well-loved head | on the knees of his wife: “Look on thy loved one, | and lay thy lips To his as if yet | the hero lived.”
23. Stanza 12 The manuscript indicates line 3 as the beginning of a stanza, and some editors have attempted to follow this arrangement.
24. Stanza 13 Once alone | did Guthrun look; His hair all clotted | with blood beheld, The blinded eyes | that once shone bright, The hero’s breast | that the blade had pierced.
25. Stanza 14 Then Guthrun bent, | on her pillow bowed, Her hair was loosened, | her cheek was hot, And the tears like raindrops | downward ran.
26. Stanza 14 Many editors assume the loss of a line from this stanza.
27. Stanza 15 Then Guthrun, daughter | of Gjuki, wept, And through her tresses | flowed the tears; And from the court | came the cry of geese, The birds so fair | of the hero’s bride.
28. Stanza 15 The word here translated “tresses” is sheer guesswork. The detail of the geese is taken from Sigurtharkvitha en skamma, 29, line 3 here being identical with line 4 of that stanza.
29. Stanza 16 Then Gollrond spake, | the daughter of Gjuki: “Never a greater | love I knew Than yours among | all men on earth; Nowhere wast happy, | at home or abroad, Sister mine, | with Sigurth away.” Guthrun spake:
30. Stanza 16 Line 1, abbreviated in the manuscript, very likely should be simply “Gollrond spake.”
31. Stanza 17 “So was my Sigurth | o’er Gjuki’s sons As the spear-leek grown | above the grass, Or the jewel bright | borne on the band, The precious stone | that princes wear.
32. Stanza 17 Cf. Guthrunarkvitha II, 2. The manuscript does not name the speaker, and some editions have a first line, “Then Guthrun spake, | the daughter of Gjuki.”
33. Stanza 18 “To the leader of men | I loftier seemed And higher than all | of Herjan’s maids; As little now | as the leaf I am On the willow hanging; | my hero is dead.
34. Stanza 18 Herjan: Othin; his maids are the Valkyries; cf. Voluspo, 31, where the same phrase is used.
35. Stanza 19 “In his seat, in his bed, | I see no more My heart’s true friend; | the fault is theirs, The sons of Gjuki, | for all my grief, That so their sister | sorely weeps.
36. Stanza 20 “So shall your land | its people lose As ye have kept | your oaths of yore; Gunnar, no joy | the gold shall give thee, (The rings shall soon | thy slayers be,) Who swarest oaths | with Sigurth once.
37. Stanza 20 Line 4 looks like an interpolation (cf. Fafnismol, 9, line 4), but some editors instead have queried line 5. How Guthrun’s curse is fulfilled is told in the subsequent poems. That desire for Sigurth’s treasure (the gold cursed by Andvari and Loki) was one of the motives for his murder is indicated in Sigurtharkvitha en skamma (stanza 16), and was clearly a part of the German tradition, as it appears in the Nibelungenlied.
38. Stanza 21 “In the court was greater | gladness then The day my Sigurth | Grani saddled, And went forth Brynhild’s | hand to win, That woman ill, | in an evil hour.”
39. Stanza 21 Cf. Gripisspo, 35 and note.
40. Stanza 22 Then Brynhild spake, | the daughter of Buthli: “May the witch now husband | and children want Who, Guthrun, loosed | thy tears at last, And with magic today | hath made thee speak.”
41. Stanza 22 Line 1 is abbreviated in the manuscript.
42. Stanza 23 Then Gollrond, daughter | of Gjuki, spake: “Speak not such words, | thou hated woman; Bane of the noble | thou e’er hast been, (Borne thou art | on an evil wave, Sorrow hast brought | to seven kings,) And many a woman | hast loveless made.”
43. Stanza 23 Editors are agreed that this stanza shows interpolations, but differ as to the lines to reject. Line 4 (literally “every wave of ill-doing drives thee”) is substantially a proverb, and line 5, with its apparently meaningless reference to “seven” kings, may easily have come from some other source.
44. Stanza 24 Then Brynhild, daughter | of Buthli, spake: “Atli is guilty | of all the sorrow, (Son of Buthli | and brother of mine,) When we saw in the hall | of the Hunnish race The flame of the snake’s bed | flash round the hero; (For the journey since | full sore have I paid, And ever I seek | the sight to forget.)”
45. Stanza 24 The stanza is obviously in bad shape; perhaps it represents two separate stanzas, or perhaps three of the lines are later additions. Atli: Brynhild here blames her brother, following the frequent custom of transferring the responsibility for a murder (cf. Helgakvitha Hundingsbana II, 33), because he compelled her to marry Gunnar against her will, an idea which the poet seems to have gained from Sigurtharkvitha en skamma, 32–39. These stanzas represent an entirely different version of the story, wherein Atli, attacked by Gunnar and Sigurth, buys them off by giving Gunnar his sister, Brynhild, as wife. He seems to have induced the latter to marry Gunnar by falsely telling her that Gunnar was Sigurth (a rationalistic explanation of the interchange of forms described in the Volsungasaga and Gripisspo, 37–39). In the present stanza Atli is made to do this out of desire for Sigurth’s treasure. Hunnish race: this may be merely an error (neither Gunnar nor Sigurth could properly have been connected in any way with Atli and his Huns), based on Sigurtharkvitha en skamma, wherein Sigurth appears more than once as the “Hunnish king.” The North was very much in the dark as to the differences between Germans, Burgundians, Franks, Goths, and Huns, and used the words without much discrimination. On the other hand, it may refer to Sigurth’s appearance when, adorned with gold, he came with Gunnar to besiege Atli, in the alternative version of the story just cited (cf. Sigurtharkvitha en skamma, 36). Flame of the snake’s bed: gold, so called because serpents and dragons were the traditional guardians of treasure, on which they lay. Prose. The manuscript has “Gunnar” in place of “Guthrun,” but this is an obvious mistake; the entire prose passage is based on Guthrunarkvitha II, 14. The Volsungasaga likewise merely paraphrases Guthrunarkvitha II, and nothing further is known of Thora or her father, Hokon, though many inconclusive attempts have been made to identify the latter. Brynhild: the story of her death is told in great detail in the latter part of Sigurtharkvitha en skamma.
46. Stanza 25 By the pillars she stood, | and gathered her strength, From the eyes of Brynhild, | Buthli’s daughter, Fire there burned, | and venom she breathed, When the wounds she saw | on Sigurth then. Guthrun went thence away to a forest in the waste, and journeyed all the way to Denmark, and was there seven half-years with Thora, daughter of Hokon. Brynhild would not live after Sigurth. She had eight of her thralls slain and five serving-women. Then she killed herself with a sword, as is told in the Short Lay of Sigurth. NOTES Prose. The prose follows the concluding prose of the Brot without indication of a break, the heading standing immediately before stanza