ODES, AND OTHER ANCIENT POEMS. I THOUGHT proper to fubjoin to the EDDA the following pieces, selected out of that vast multitude of verses, which we find preferved in the ancient Chronicles. These are such as appeared to me most expreffive of the genius and manners of the ancient inhabitants of the north, and most proper to confirm what I had advanced in the preceding Volume; as also to shew that the Mythology contained in the EDDA, hath been that of all the northern Poets, and the religion of many nations drest out with fictions and allegories. I shall first of all present the ODE which Regner Lodbrog composed in the torments preceding his death. This Ode was dictated by the Fanaticism of Glory, VOL. II. anı animated by that of Religion. Regner, who was a celebrated Warrior, Poet and Pirate, reigned in Denmark about the beginning of the ninth century: after a long series of maritime expeditions into the most distant countries, his fortune at length failed him in England. Taken prisoner in battle by his adversary Ella, who was king of a part of that island, he perished by the bite of ferpents, with which they had filled the dungeon he was confined in. He left behind him several fons, who revenged this horrible death, as Regner himself had foretold in the following verses. There is fome reason, however, to conjecture that this prince did not compose more than one or two ftanzas of this Poem, and that the reft were added, after his death, by the Bard, whose function it was, according to the custom of those times, to add to the funeral splendor, by finging verses to the praise of the deceased. Be that as it may, this Ode is found in feveral Icelandic Chronicles, and its verfification, language and stile, leave us no room to doubt of its antiquity. Wormius has given us the text in Runic Characters, accompanied with a Latin Verfion, and large notes in his Lituratura Runica. Vid. p. 197. It is also met with in M. Biorners's collection. Out of the twenty-nine strophes, of which it : confifts, I have only chofen the following, as being what I thought the generality of my readers would peruse with most pleafure. I have not even always translated entire stanzas, but have sometimes reduced two stanzas into one, in order to spare the Reader such passages as appeared to me uninteresting and obfcure *. * Our elegant Author having taken great liberties in his Translation of this and the following - ODES, in order to accommodate them to the taste of French Readers; it was once intended here, instead of copying the French, to have given extracts from the more literal Version of all these Poems formerly published, which hath been so often quoted in the Notes to this work: viz. The FIVE PIECES OF RUNIC POETRY, TRANSLATED FROM THE ICELANDIC LANGUAGE. 1763. 8vo. But an ingenious Friend 1 2 1 EXTRACTS FROM THE ODE OF KING REGNER LODBROG. ८८ W E- fought with swords, when, in my early youth, I went to"wards the east to prepare a bloody prey " for the ravenous wolves: 'ample food " for the yellow-footed eagle.' The whole † WE FOUGHT WITH SWORDS. The Icelandic original bíuggum or huiggum, is a word of the fame origin, as the Anglo-Saxon heawan. Germ. houwen. Low Dutch, hauwen, houwen. Engl. to hew. From the fame root comes also our Rustic word to hough. The passage therefore of the text might perhaps have been rendered more exactly: "WE STRUCK, 66 or cut, or HACKED " AND HEWED WITH "SWORDS." Wormius has rendered it as in the text, Pugnavimus enfibus. But Bartholin seems to have come nearer the exact idea in Secuimus enfibus. Our Author, M. Mallet, renders it Nous nous sommes battus à coups d' Epees. Τ. ocean |