‘There is a way which leads to Hela’s realm, 135
Untrodden, lonely, far from light and Heaven.
Who goes that way must take no other horse
To ride, but Sleipner, Odin’s horse, alone.
Nor must he choose that common path of Gods
Which every day they come and go in Heaven, 140
O’er the bridge Bifrost, where is Heimdall’s watch,
Past Midgard Fortress, down to Earth and men;
But he must tread a dark untravell’d road
Which branches from the north of Heaven, and ride
Nine days, nine nights, towards the northern ice, 145
Through valleys deep-engulph’d, with roaring streams.
And he will reach on the tenth morn a bridge
Which spans with golden arches Giall’s stream,
Not Bifrost, but that bridge a Damsel keeps,
Who tells the passing troops of dead their way 150
To the low shore of ghosts, and Hela’s realm.
And she will bid him northward steer his course:
Then he will journey through no lighted land,
Nor see the sun arise, nor see it set;
But he must ever watch the northern Bear 155
Who from her frozen height with jealous eye
Confronts the Dog and Hunter in the south,
And is alone not dipt in Ocean’s stream.
And straight he will come down to Ocean’s strand;
Ocean, whose watery ring enfolds the world, 160
And on whose marge the ancient Giants dwell.
But he will reach its unknown northern shore,
Far, far beyond the outmost Giant’s home,
At the chink’d fields of ice, the waste of snow:
And he will fare across the dismal ice 165
Northward, until he meets a stretching wall
Barring his way, and in the wall a grate.
But then he must dismount, and on the ice
Tighten the girths of Sleipner, Odin’s horse,
And make him leap the grate, and come within. 170
And he will see stretch round him Hela’s realm,
The plains of Niflheim, where dwell the dead,
And hear the roaring of the streams of Hell.
And he will see the feeble shadowy tribes,
And Balder sitting crown’d, and Hela’s throne. 175
Then he must not regard the wailful ghosts
Who all will flit, like eddying leaves, around;
But he must straight accost their solemn Queen,
And pay her homage, and entreat with prayers,
Telling her all that grief they have in Heaven 180
For Balder, whom she holds by right below:
If haply he may melt her heart with words,
And make her yield, and give him Balder back.’
She spoke: but Hoder answer’d her and said: —
‘Mother, a dreadful way is this thou show’st. 185
No journey for a sightless God to go.’
And straight the Mother of the Gods replied: —
‘Therefore thyself thou shalt not go, my son.
But he whom first thou meetest when thou com’st
To Asgard, and declar’st this hidden way, 190
Shall go, and I will be his guide unseen.’
She spoke, and on her face let fall her veil,
And bow’d her head, and sate with folded hands.
But at the central hearth those Women old,
Who while the Mother spake had ceased their toil, 195
Began again to heap the sacred fire:
And Hoder turn’d, and left his mother’s house,
Fensaler, whose lit windows look to sea;
And came again down to the roaring waves,
And back along the beach to Asgard went, 200
Pondering on that which Frea said should be.
But Night came down, and darken’d Asgard streets.
Then from their loathed feast the Gods arose,
And lighted torches, and took up the corpse
Of Balder from the floor of Odin’s hall 205
And laid it on a bier, and bare him home
Through the fast-darkening streets to his own house
Breidablik, on whose columns Balder grav’d
The enchantments, that recall the dead to life:
For wise he was, and many curious arts, 210
Postures of runes, and healing herbs he knew;
Unhappy: but that art he did not know
To keep his own life safe, and see the sun: —
There to his hall the Gods brought Balder home,
And each bespake him as he laid him down: — 215
‘Would that ourselves, O Balder, we were borne
Home to our halls, with torchlight, by our kin,
So thou might’st live, and still delight the Gods.’
They spake: and each went home to his own house.
But there was one, the first of all the Gods 220
For speed, and Hermod was his name in Heaven;
Most fleet he was, but now he went the last,
Heavy in heart for Balder, to his house
Which he in Asgard built him, there to dwell,
Against the harbour, by the city wall: 225
Him the blind Hoder met, as he came up
From the sea cityward, and knew his step;
Nor yet could Hermod see his brother’s face,
For it grew dark; but Hoder touch’d his arm:
And as a spray of honeysuckle flowers 230
Brushes across a tired traveller’s face
Who shuffles through the deep dew-moisten’d dust,
On a May evening, in the darken’d lanes,
And starts him, that he thinks a ghost went by —
So Hoder brush’d by Hermod’s side, and said: — 235
‘Take Sleipner, Hermod, and set forth with dawn
To Hela’s kingdom, to ask Balder back;
And they shall be thy guides, who have the power.’
He spake, and brush’d soft by, and disappear’d.
And Hermod gaz’d into the night, and said: — 240
‘Who is it utters through the dark his hest
So quickly, and will wait for no reply?
The voice was like the unhappy Hoder’s voice.
Howbeit I will see, and do his hest;
For there rang note divine in that command.’ 245
So speaking, the fleet-footed Hermod came
Home, and lay down to sleep in his own house,
And all the Gods lay down in their own homes.
And Hoder too came home, distraught with grief,
Loathing to meet, at dawn, the other Gods: 250
And he went in, and shut the door, and fixt
His sword upright, and fell on it, and died.
But from the hill of Lidskialf Odin rose,
The throne, from which his eye surveys the world;
And mounted Sleipner, and in darkness rode 255
To Asgard. And the stars came out in Heaven,
High over Asgard, to light home the King.
But fiercely Odin gallop’d, mov’d in heart;
And swift to Asgard, to the gate, he came;
And terribly the hoofs of Sleipner rang 260
Along the flinty floor of Asgard streets;
And the Gods trembled on their golden beds
Hearing the wrathful Father coming home;
For dread, for like a whirlwind, Odin came:
And to Valhalla’s gate he rode, and left 265
Sleipner; and Sleipner went to his own stall:
And in Valhalla Odin laid him down.
But in Breidablik Nanna, Balder’s wife,
Came with the Goddesses who wrought her will,
And stood round Balder lying on his bier: 270
And at his head and feet she station’d Scalds
Who in their lives were famo
us for their song;
These o’er the corpse inton’d a plaintive strain,
A dirge; and Nanna and her train replied.
And far into the night they wail’d their dirge: 275
But when their souls were satisfied with wail,
They went, and laid them down, and Nanna went
Into an upper chamber, and lay down;
And Frea seal’d her tired lids with sleep.
And ‘twas when Night is bordering hard on Dawn, 280
When air is chilliest, and the stars sunk low,
Then Balder’s spirit through the gloom drew near,
In garb, in form, in feature as he was
Alive, and still the rays were round his head
Which were his glorious mark in Heaven; he stood 285
Over against the curtain of the bed,
And gaz’d on Nanna as she slept, and spake: —
‘Poor lamb, thou sleepest, and forgett’st thy woe.
Tears stand upon the lashes of thine eyes,
Tears wet the pillow by thy cheek; but thou, 290
Like a young child, hast cried thyself to sleep.
Sleep on: I watch thee, and am here to aid.
Alive I kept not far from thee, dear soul,
Neither do I neglect thee now, though dead.
For with to-morrow’s dawn the Gods prepare 295
To gather wood, and build a funeral pile
Upon my ship, and burn my corpse with fire,
That sad, sole honour of the dead; and thee
They think to burn, and all my choicest wealth,
With me, for thus ordains the common rite: 300
But it shall not be so: but mild, but swift,
But painless shall a stroke from Frea come,
To cut thy thread of life, and free thy soul,
And they shall burn thy corpse with mine, not thee.
And well I know that by no stroke of death, 305
Tardy or swift, wouldst thou be loath to die,
So it restor’d thee, Nanna, to my side,
Whom thou so well hast lov’d; but I can smooth
Thy way, and this at least my prayers avail.
Yes, and I fain would altogether ward 310
Death from thy head, and with the Gods in Heaven
Prolong thy life, though not by thee desir’d:
But Right bars this, not only thy desire.
Yet dreary, Nanna, is the life they lead
In that dim world, in Hela’s mouldering realm; 315
And doleful are the ghosts, the troops of dead,
Whom Hela with austere control presides;
For of the race of Gods is no one there
Save me alone, and Hela, solemn Queen:
And all the nobler souls of mortal men 320
On battle-field have met their death, and now
Feast in Valhalla, in my Father’s hall;
Only the inglorious sort are there below,
The old, the cowards, and the weak are there,
Men spent by sickness, or obscure decay. 325
But even there, O Nanna, we might find
Some solace in each other’s look and speech,
Wandering together through that gloomy world.
And talking of the life we led in Heaven,
While we yet liv’d, among the other Gods.’ 330
He spake, and straight his lineaments began
To fade: and Nanna in her sleep stretch’d out
Her arms towards him with a cry; but he
Mournfully shook his head, and disappear’d.
And as the woodman sees a little smoke 335
Hang in the air, afield, and disappear —
So Balder faded in the night away.
And Nanna on her bed sunk back: but then
Frea, the Mother of the Gods, with stroke
Painless and swift, set free her airy soul, 340
Which took, on Balder’s track, the way below:
And instantly the sacred Morn appear’d.
II. Journey to The Dead
FORTH from the East, up the ascent of Heaven,
Day drove his courser with the Shining Mane;
And in Valhalla, from his gable perch,
The golden-crested Cock began to crow:
Hereafter, in the blackest dead of night, 5
With shrill and dismal cries that Bird shall crow,
Warning the Gods that foes draw nigh to Heaven;
But now he crew at dawn, a cheerful note,
To wake the Gods and Heroes to their tasks.
And all the Gods, and all the Heroes, woke. 10
And from their beds the Heroes rose, and donn’d
Their arms, and led their horses from the stall,
And mounted them, and in Valhalla’s court
Were rang’d; and then the daily fray began.
And all day long they there are hack’d and hewn 15
‘Mid dust, and groans, and limbs lopp’d off, and blood;
But all at night return to Odin’s hall
Woundless and fresh: such lot is theirs in Heaven.
And the Valkyries on their steeds went forth
Toward Earth and fights of men; and at their side 20
Skulda, the youngest of the Nornies, rode:
And over Bifrost, where is Heimdall’s watch,
Past Midgard Fortress, down to Earth they came:
There through some battle-field, where men fall fast,
Their horses fetlock-deep in blood, they ride, 25
And pick the bravest warriors out for death,
Whom they bring back with them at night to Heaven,
To glad the Gods, and feast in Odin’s hall.
But the Gods went not now, as otherwhile,
Into the Tilt-Yard, where the Heroes fought, 30
To feast their eyes with looking on the fray:
Nor did they to their Judgement-Place repair
By the ash Igdrasil, in Ida’s plain,
Where they hold council, and give laws for men:
But they went, Odin first, the rest behind, 35
To the hall Gladheim, which is built of gold;
Where are in circle rang’d twelve golden chairs,
And in the midst one higher, Odin’s throne:
There all the Gods in silence sate them down;
And thus the Father of the Ages spake: — 40
Go quickly, Gods, bring wood to the seashore,
With all, which it beseems the dead to have
And make a funeral pile on Balder’s ship.
On the twelfth day the Gods shall burn his corpse.
But Hermod, thou, take Sleipner, and ride down 45
To Hela’s kingdom, to ask Balder back.’
So said he; and the Gods arose, and took
Axes and ropes, and at their head came Thor,
Shouldering his Hammer, which the Giants know:
Forth wended they, and drove their steeds before: 50
And up the dewy mountain tracks they far’d
To the dark forests, in the early dawn;
And up and down and side and slant they roam’d:
And from the glens all day an echo came
Of crashing falls; for with his hammer Thor 55
Smote ‘mid the rocks the lichen-bearded pines
And burst their roots; while to their tops the Gods
Made fast the woven ropes, and hal’d them down,
And lopp’d their boughs, and clove them on the sward,
And bound the logs behind their steeds to draw, 60
And drove them homeward; and the snorting steeds
Went straining through the crackling brushwood down,
And by the darkling forest paths the Gods
Follow’d, and on their shoulders carried boughs.
And they came out upon the plain, and pass’d 65
Asgard, and led their horses to the beach,
And loos’d them of their loads on the seashore,
> And rang’d the wood in stacks by Balder’s ship;
And every God went home to his own house.
But when the Gods were to the forest gone 70
Hermod led Sleipner from Valhalla forth
And saddled him; before that, Sleipner brook’d
No meaner hand than Odin’s on his mane,
On his broad back no lesser rider bore:
Yet docile now he stood at Hermod’s side, 75
Arching his neck, and glad to be bestrode,
Knowing the God they went to seek, how dear.
But Hermod mounted him, and sadly far’d,
In silence, up the dark untravell’d road
Which branches from the north of Heaven, and went 80
All day; and Daylight wan’d, and Night came on.
And all that night he rode, and journey’d so,
Nine days, nine nights, towards the northern ice,
Through valleys deep-engulph’d, by roaring streams:
And on the tenth morn he beheld the bridge 85
Which spans with golden arches Giall’s stream,
And on the bridge a Damsel watching arm’d,
In the strait passage, at the further end,
Where the road issues between walling rocks.
Scant space that Warder left for passers by; 90
But, as when cowherds in October drive
Their kine across a snowy mountain pass
To winter pasture on the southern side,
And on the ridge a wagon chokes the way,
Wedg’d in the snow; then painfully the hinds 95
With goad and shouting urge their cattle past,
Plunging through deep untrodden banks of snow
To right and left, and warm steam fills the air —
So on the bridge that Damsel block’d the way,
And question’d Hermod as he came, and said: — 100
‘Who art thou on thy black and fiery horse
Under whose hoofs the bridge o’er Giall’s stream
Rumbles and shakes? Tell me thy race and home.
But yestermorn five troops of dead pass’d by
Bound on their way below to Hela’s realm, 105
Nor shook the bridge so much as thou alone.
And thou hast flesh and colour on thy cheeks
Like men who live and draw the vital air;
Nor look’st thou pale and wan, like men deceas’d,
Souls bound below, my daily passers here.’ 110
And the fleet-footed Hermod answer’d her: —
‘O Damsel, Hermod am I call’d, the son
Delphi Complete Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold Page 22
