The Poetic Edda: Hovamol · 16 of 16 · tr. Henry Adams Bellows

Section 1p

An eighteenth I know, | that ne'er will I tell To maiden or wife of man,-- The best is what none | but one's self doth know, So comes the end of the songs,-- Save only to her | in whose arms I lie, Or who else my sister is.

[163.

Some editors have combined these two lines with stanza 164.

Others have assumed that the gap follows the first half-line, making "so that-from me" the end of the stanza.

164.

This stanza is almost certainly an interpolation, and seems to have been introduced after the list of charms and the Loddfafnismol (stanzas 111-138) were combined in a single poem, for there is no other apparent excuse for the reference to Loddfafnir at this point.

The words "if thou mightest get them" are a conjectural emendation.

165.

This stanza is almost totally obscure.

The third and fourth lines look like interpolations.]

Themes

◆Hidden Sayingssoteriology

Esoteric teachings reserved for those ready to receive them; outer meaning conceals an inner liberating truth.

The passage explicitly centers on the withholding of a specific piece of knowledge ('An eighteenth I know') from the general public, reserving it only for intimate partners.

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◆Self Knowledgesoteriology

The recognition of one's own true divine nature as the primary path to liberation; 'know thyself' as soteriology.

The text values internal possession of wisdom ('what none but one's self doth know'), peripherally aligning with the emphasis on internal knowledge found in self-knowledge traditions.

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◆Word Power Incantationpraxis

The doctrine and practice that spoken or sung word carries causal-magical force — that uttering names, formulas, songs, or incantations alters reality directly rather than merely communicating about it. Vainamoinen's runo-songs that move mountains and command iron, Norse galdr, Vedic mantra, Shinto kotodama, the magician's barbarous names in the Greek Magical Papyri, Iamblichean arcane signatures and inexplicable symbols, biblical creation-by-word. Distinct from sacred_names (the ontological power of names themselves) and prayer (address to the divine); word_power_incantation is the magical-causal efficacy of the spoken word as such.

The stanza concludes a section of 'songs' and refers to knowing an 'eighteenth' charm, implying the context of magical or efficacious speech characteristic of Hávamál.

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