Hamðismál

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Hamðismál or Hamðismál in forno ( . To "the old Hamdir Song") are the last heroic song of the Poetic Edda and count how Guðrúnarhvöt to Svanhild - or Ermanarich -Sagenkreis. The song is - alongside Ragnarsdrápa , the Völsunga saga and Skáldskaparmál - one of four Old Norse texts about the revenge of Hamdir and Sörli.

content

In terms of content, the song follows on from the Guðrúnarhvöt song. The Gothic king Jörmunrek had Swanhild, the daughter of Gudrun and Sigurd, trampled on by horses. In the song Gudrun now calls on her two sons Hamdir and Sörli to avenge the death of their half-sister. The song ends with the death of the two brothers.

Verses 1-2 (prologue)
Verse 3–5 (Rede Gudrun): She tells her sons about Swanhild and laments their fate.
Verse 6–8 (Hamdir's speech): Hamdir accuses Gudrun of tolerating the murder of her first husband Sigurd by Högni and Gunnar and of not reacting appropriately. She later tried to punish her second husband Atli by killing Erp and Eitil, but that hurt more than him. According to the Elder Atlilied, Erp and Eitil are their two sons.
Verse 9-10 (Sörlis speech): Sörli does not want to contradict Gudrun, but prophesies his and Hamdir's death, which she will also mourn.
Verse 11–12 (departure and meeting with Erp): On the way to Jörmunrek they meet Erp, which is obviously not Gudrun's son. He is Hamdir and Sörli's sundrmæðri brother, d. H. they have other mothers. Since he is referred to as an illegitimate child ( Hornung Str. 14), he probably came out of a relationship between King Jonakr and a concubine. Because of his playful and cheeky manner, you have to imagine Erp as a child.
Verse 13-16 (Debate and Death Erps): Erp offers help to the brothers who refuse them. When he then insults them ( blauðum "the stupid"), he receives a slap and they kill him with the sword.
Verse 17-18 (arrival at Jörmunrek): In front of Jörmunrek's castle you see his son hanging on the tree. According to other Edda songs, this is said to have had a relationship with Swanhild, whereupon he had both killed. Due to the volume in the hall, the Goths only notice the arrival of the brothers when the guard blows the horn.
Verse 19–21 (Jörmunrek's reaction): Jörmunrek receives the message. He does not want to put on the battle robe and continues to drink his wine. Since there are only two of them, he sees no danger in them (cf. Str. 21).
Verse 22-23 (The warning from Hróðrglöð): The counselor Hróðrglöð warns her relatives. The brothers kill numerous Goths.
Verse 24 (Hamdir's stimulating speech): Hamdir irritates Jörmunrek after his hands and feet were chopped off and thrown into the embers.
Verse 25 (The advice of the advisor): The reginkunngi (=? Jörmunrek) now calls on the Goths to throw stones at the two brothers instead of arrows or swords.
Verse 26-27 (beginning of the final dialogue between Hamdir and Sörli): The brothers were obviously fatally injured and now begin a final dialogue while they are sitting on the Gothic fallen (cf. Str. 30). Hamdir accuses Sörli of bad advice (Str. 26), Sörli of his lack of wisdom.
Verse 28-30 (The repentance of the brothers): The brothers repent of Erp's murder. Hamdir says that Disen irritated him ( hvöttumk at dísir , Str. 28). Sörli is aware of death.
Verse 31 (The Death of the Brothers): Sörli sinks down at the end of the hall, Hamdir behind the house.

The song closes with the words: Þetta eru kölluð Hamðissmál in fornu ("This was called the old Hamdismal.").

Metric

The stanzas of the Hamdismál are partly in Fornyrðislag , partly in Málaháttr . Verse 29 uses the meter Ljóðaháttr , which is rather untypical for heroic poetry. A stanza has between two and five long lines (cf. Str. 4 and 2). In three long rows of missing alliteration : segja foru ærir / Jörmunrekki (Str. 19), Þá hraut við / inn reginkunngi (Str. 25) and vígfrækni verr inn / - hvöttumk Disir at, - (Str. 28). It is possible that hr with r and hv with v .

Text history

The song belongs to the Swanhild saga, which first appeared in Jordanes in the 6th century. In his historiography Getica , the brothers Ammius and Sarus kill the Gothic king Ermanarich (Jörmunrek) after he had their sister Sunilda torn by horses. The Ermanarich legend can be traced back to the 9th century in the Bavarian, West Franconian and English regions. In Scandinavia she appears for the first time with the Hamdismál and the Ragnardrápa. The song or its oldest parts are usually on the 8th / 9th. Century, occasionally dated to the 10th century. It is therefore counted among the five "old" Eddic heroic songs. Relative dating is done via the works that influenced the Hamdismál and those that were influenced by the song. The former include Ragnarsdrápa, Sonatorrek, Atlakvida , Guðrúnarhvöt and Sigurðarkviða in skamma , while the Völsunga saga , Helgakviða Hundingsbana fyrri and Skáldskaparmál belong to the second group. Accordingly, the time of origin was between Sigurðarkviða in skamma and Helgakviða Hundingsbana fyrri . In most cases, it is assumed that the poem had its origin in a northern German version. This is supported by the two German forms of the name Erp and Jonakur, which in Old Norse should be * Jarpr or * Onar . The figures were probably not known in the north, so the German names were retained. In addition, there is also the view that the song is of direct Gothic origin and that "the original creator was a Goth of the fifth century". In the specialist literature, numerous hypotheses arose which ask the questions of where the song came from, which parts are original and how the Gothic or German preliminary stages are to be reconstructed. The basis of the distinction between older and younger stanzas, especially in older research, was the fact that half-lines with at least five syllables predominate in the song. This led to the assumption that the song was originally written in the measure of Málaháttr or "vice versa, the Fornyrðislag components are of older origin, while components in Málaháttr are based on later editing, interpolation or transmission errors".

Content-related questions and parallels to other texts

the relationship of the brothers

Since in Old Norse texts mostly no distinction is made between bodily and step relatives (note the use of the term sister son in Str. 17 for the step-nephew), Simrock assumed that perhaps only Erp “was Gudrun's biological son born with Jonakur, while his brothers who describe themselves on St. 25 as sammœdrar , born from the same mother, for example were Jonakur's children from his first marriage. ”The name hornung is intended to indicate that the two brothers do not recognize the new marriage.

However, this reading is difficult to maintain. Erp is never associated with Gudrun's family in the poem, while Hamdir and Sörli are referred to as Giuki's descendants (Str. 21) and address Gudrun as “mother” (cf. Str. 9). The fourth stanza speaks most clearly against it, in which Gudrun tells Hamdir and Sörli that they are the last of their clan.

the identity of Hróðrglöð

The identity of the woman named Hróðrglöð, who only appears in this passage, is uncertain. Perhaps hróðrglǫð "glorious" is not the name, but just a description. The identity of the person addressed, referred to as mǫgr , is also decisive here . mǫgr has the basic meaning “relative”, but can also mean “son” or just “man” in Old Norse. De Boor translates the word as "son" and interprets Hróðrglöð as the mother of Jörmunrek. It is less likely that women are equated with Gudrun, as Finn Magnusen assumes based on parallels in the saga in Saxo Grammaticus . Since Odin Jörmunrek is an advisor to Saxo and the Völsungasaga , u. a. Grimm behind inn reginkunngi (Str. 25) as well as behind Hróðrglöð the ace god. For this, however, he has to suggest a correction from hróðrglǫð to Hroptr glaðr "the merry Hroptr".

The figure Erp

The character Erp appears twice in the Hamdir song: once as the son of Atli and Gudrun, once as the illegitimate son of Jonakr. In the German heroic epic, Erp (High German Erpf ) is the son of Etzel ( Atli ) and his first wife Helche ( Herka ), who fell as a youth in the battle of ravens . His two appearances in the Hamdir song indicate two different strands of tradition that were connected with one another. On the one hand, Erp became a son of Atli and his second wife Gudrun (German: Kriemhild ) and thus most closely corresponds to the figure Ortlieb in the Nibelungenlied . This line of tradition is also known from the Older Atlas Song. In the second line of tradition, as in the older Ragnarsdrápa, he is the brother of Hamdir and Sörli. Here parallels can be seen with the battle of ravens, in which he is too young not to take part in the fight and nonetheless fights a fight out of youthful arrogance and dies in the process.

"Victory Scene"

In the final scene the brothers sit on the corpses of the fallen and argue while they continue to be shot at - without this being explicitly mentioned. This leads to an absurd situation, since this image implies “the imagination of victorious heroes at the end of the battle”. Since the motif of the victor sitting on the fallen is often found in the Germanic heroic epic, an influence of other texts is conceivable here. On the other hand, the assumption that an old layer of legends in which the brothers survived is speculative here.

Excitement scene (parallels to Ghv.)

The excitement scene in stanzas 2–10 shows strong parallels to the scene in stanzas 1–8 in Gudrunarhvöt. Most researchers rate Gudrunarhvöt as the younger of the two, u. a. because of Gudrun's life review. Nevertheless, the scene in the Gudrunarhvöt is considered to be "more conclusive", which can be explained by the fact that the Gudrunarhvöt better preserved this scene from an older, common model for both songs, or that the Gudrunarhvöt poet edited the scene. So is missing u. a. in the Hamdismál Gudrun's explicit request for revenge and in the Gudrunhvöt Gudrun expressly accuses her son of lacking courage, which in terms of content fits better with the brothers' answers.

Parallels to the older atlilied

The older Atlilied and the Hamdirlied only pass on the names of the two sons of Gudrun and Atli (cf. Akv. 37). There are also numerous other parallel formulations:

Brœðr grát þu þína / ok buri svása, / niðia náborna (Hm 10)
nema a Guðrún, / er hon æva grét / brœðr sína berharða / ok buri svása (Akv. 38)
í eld heitan (Hm 24 and Akv. 42)
ǫlreifr (only handed down in Hm1 and Akv. 42)
Parallels to Sigurðarkviða in skamma

The version of Sigurd's death seems to be closely related to Sigurðarkviða in skamma . This can be seen in parallel formulations such as flióta í dreyra (Hm 7 and Sg. 24) in relation to the murder of Sigurd. Likewise, the word bók "bed sheet" is only used in Hamdismál 7, Sigurdarkvida 24 and Gudrunarhvöt 4.

Motifs

The song contains several motifs or motif complexes that also appear in other texts:

  • a woman incites vengeance
  • Killing by horses
  • the person responsible responds to Sigurd's death with laughter
  • the third and youngest brother is despised by the others
  • an answer is only misunderstood what is only recognized late
  • Mutilation of hands and feet
  • iron weapons cannot harm the heroes
  • a duo consists of a "daredevil" and a "prudent one"
  • Disen are responsible for a disaster
  • Relatives murder takes revenge

literature

Expenses, transfers
Research literature

Web links

Wikisource: Edda  - Sources and full texts

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Wolfgang Haubrichs : “Heroic Times?” Migration of heroic names and heroic sagas between the Germanic gentes of the early Middle Ages. In: Astrid van Nahl, Lennart Elmevik, Stefan Brink (eds.): Worlds of names. Place and person names in a historical perspective. (= Supplementary volumes to the Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde, Vol. 44). Walter de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2004, ISBN 978-3-11-091147-3 , pp. 513-534. P. 520
  2. ↑ Klaus von See et al .: Commentary on the songs of the Edda 7. Heldenlieder. Heidelberg 2012. p. 822
  3. ↑ Klaus von See et al .: Commentary on the songs of the Edda 7. Heldenlieder. Heidelberg 2012. p. 856
  4. ^ Karl Simrock: The Edda. The older and younger along with the mythical tales of Skalda translated and accompanied by explanations by Karl Simrock. 6th edition. Stuttgart 1876. p. 458
  5. ↑ Gustav Neckel: Introduction. In: The Edda, translated by Karl Simrock, hrgg. by Gustav Neckel. Berlin 1927. pp. 7-162. P. 162
  6. ↑ Klaus von See et al .: Commentary on the songs of the Edda 7. Heldenlieder. Heidelberg 2012, pp. 816-826.
  7. ↑ Klaus von See et al .: Commentary on the songs of the Edda 7. Heldenlieder. Heidelberg 2012. p. 822
  8. ^ Karl Simrock: The Edda. The older and younger along with the mythical tales of Skalda translated and accompanied by explanations by Karl Simrock. 6th edition. Stuttgart 1876. p. 461
  9. ↑ Helmut de Boor: Small writings II. Germanic and German heroic saga Middle High German metrics. Berlin 1966. p. 191
  10. ↑ Finn Magnusen: Den aeldre Edda. In Samling af de Nordiske Folks the first saga and sang, ved Saemund Sigfussön kaledt hin frode. Vol. 4. Copenhagen 1823. 206f. Note 32
  11. ↑ Klaus von See et al .: Commentary on the songs of the Edda 7. Heldenlieder. Heidelberg 2012. p. 843
  12. ↑ Klaus von See et al .: Commentary on the songs of the Edda 7. Heldenlieder. Heidelberg 2012. p. 821
  13. ↑ Klaus von See et al .: Commentary on the songs of the Edda 7. Heldenlieder. Heidelberg 2012. p. 698
  14. ↑ cf. Klaus von See et al .: Commentary on the songs of the Edda 7. Heldenlieder. Heidelberg 2012. p. 698
  15. ↑ Example after Klaus von See et al .: Commentary on the songs of the Edda 7th Heldenlieder. Heidelberg 2012. p. 846
  16. ↑ cf. Klaus von See et al .: Commentary on the songs of the Edda 7. Heldenlieder. Heidelberg 2012. p. 846
  17. ↑ the following list after Klaus von See et al .: Commentary on the songs of the Edda 7th Heldenlieder. Heidelberg 2012, pp. 836f.