[All]: Lat. parallel: (Dist. IV, 37) Tempora longa tibi noli promittere vitae: / quocumque ingrederis, sequitur mors corporis umbra ‘Do not promise yourself a long stretch of life; wherever you go death, the shadow of the body, follows’. The advice to be wary of sudden death is also given in Hsv 38. Cf. also Hávm 16 (NK, 19): Ósniallr maðr | hyggz muno ey lifa, | ef hann við víg varaz ‘The foolish man thinks he will live for ever, if he keeps away from fighting’ (Larrington 1996, 16). The same idea is expressed in Has 43.
References
- Bibliography
- NK = Neckel, Gustav and Hans Kuhn (1899), eds. 1983. Edda: Die Lieder des Codex Regius nebst verwandten Denkmälern. 2 vols. I: Text. 5th edn. Heidelberg: Winter.
- Larrington, Carolyne, trans. 1996. The Poetic Edda. The World’s Classics. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press.
- Internal references
- Tarrin Wills and Stefanie Gropper (eds) 2007, ‘Anonymous Poems, Hugsvinnsmál 38’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry on Christian Subjects. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 7. Turnhout: Brepols, pp. 383-4.
- Not published: do not cite ()
- Katrina Attwood (ed.) 2007, ‘Gamli kanóki, Harmsól 43’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry on Christian Subjects. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 7. Turnhout: Brepols, pp. 111-12.