Thou greatest after Tyr and Asa-Thor!”
[73] The purport of this message is explained in the twenty-first Canto. It was to obtain from the dwarfs a magic chain, wherewith to bind Fenris.
[74] This butting match between Asa-Lok and one of Thor’s goats was no doubt suggested to the poet (for there is no account of it in either Edda) by the painting or mosaic found in Herculaneum, I believe, or in Pompeii, and which has been made the subject of many a bas-relief, medallion, or cameo: viz. a satyr butting against a goat. To Œhlenschläger may well be applied the line of Haley respecting Ariosto:
“The bard of pathos now, and now of mirth!”
NOTES TO THE TWENTIETH CANTO.
Specimen of the metre.
Da Asaskokke
I taette Flokke
Fra Oesten rede,