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The
Poetic Edda Online
In the translation of
Bellows
Lays of the
Heroes
Guthrunarkvitha I
The First Lay of
Guthrun
The
First Lay of Guthrun, entitled in the Codex Regius simply
Guthrunarkvitha, immediately follows the remaining fragment of
the "long" Sigurth lay in that manuscript. Unlike the poems dealing with
the earlier part of the Sigurth cycle, the so-called Reginsmol,
Fafnismol, and Sigrdrifumol, it is a clear and distinct
unit, apparently complete and with few and minor interpolations. It is
also one of the finest poems in the entire collection, with an
extraordinary emotional intensity and dramatic force. None of its
stanzas are quoted elsewhere, and it is altogether probable that the
compilers of the Volsungasaga were unfamiliar with it, for they
do not mention the sister and daughter of Gjuki who appear in this poem,
or Herborg, "queen of the Huns" (stanza 6).
The
lament of Guthrun (Kriemhild) is almost certainly among the oldest parts
of the story. The lament was one of the earliest forms of poetry to
develop among the Germanic peoples, and I suspect, though the matter is
not susceptible of proof, that the lament of Sigurth's wife had assumed
lyric form as early as the seventh century, and reached the North in
that shape rather than in prose tradition (cf. Guthrunarkvitha II,
introductory note). We find traces of it in the seventeenth Aventiure of
the Nibelungenlied, and in the poems of the Edda it
dominates every appearance of Guthrun. The two first Guthrun lays (I and
II) are both laments, one for Sigurth's death and the other including
both that and the lament over the slaying of her brothers; the lament
theme is apparent in the third Guthrun lay and in the Guthrunarhvot.
In
their present forms the second Guthrun lay is undoubtedly older than he
first; in the prose following the Brot the annotator refers to
the "old" Guthrun lay in terms which can apply only to the second one in
the collection. The shorter and "first" lay, therefore, can scarcely
have been composed much before the year 1000, and may be somewhat later.
The poet appears to have known and made use of the older lament; stanza
17, for example, is a close parallel to stanza 2 of the earlier poem;
but whatever material he used he fitted into a definite poetic scheme of
his own. And while this particular poem is, as critics have generally
agreed, one of the latest of the collection, it probably represents one
of the earliest parts of the entire Sigurth cycle to take on verse form.
Guthrunarkvitha I, so far as the narrative
underlying it is concerned, shows very little northern addition to the
basic German tradition. Brynhild appears only as Guthrun's enemy and the
cause of Sigurth's death; the three women who attempt to comfort
Guthrun, though unknown to the southern stories, seem to have been
rather distinct creations of the poet's than traditional additions to
the legend. Regarding the relations of the various elements in the
Sigurth cycle, cf. introductory note to Gripisspo.
Guthrunarkvitha I, The
First Lay of Guthrun
Guthrun sat by the dead Sigurth; she did not weep as other women, but
her heart was near to bursting with grief. The men and women came to her
to console her, but that was not easy to do. It is told of men that
Guthrun had eaten of Fafnir's heart, and that she under stood the speech
of birds. This is a poem about Guthrun.
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. 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.
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.
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."
5. Grieving could not
Guthrun weep,
Such grief she had for her husband dead,
And so grim her heart by the hero's body.
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.)
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.
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.
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."
10. Grieving could not
Guthrun weep,
Such grief she had for her husband dead,
And so grim her heart by the hero's body.
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.
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."
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.
14. Then Guthrun bent,
on her pillow bowed,
Her hair was loosened, her cheek was hot,
And the tears like raindrops downward ran.
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.
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:
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.
18. "To the leader of
men I loftier seemed
And higher than all of Herjan's maids;
s little now as the leaf I am
On the willow hanging; my hero is dead.
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.
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.
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."
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."
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."
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.)"
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 her self with a sword, as is told in the
Short Lay of Sigurth.
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