123. Be not the first to break with your friend. Sorrow gnaws the heart of him who has no one to advise with but himself.

130. I advise you to be circumspect, but not too much: be so, however, when you have drunk to excess, when you are near the wife of another, and when you find yourself among robbers.

131. Do not accustom yourself to mocking; neither laugh at your guest nor a stranger: they who remain at home often know not who the stranger is that cometh to their gate.

136. Laugh not at the gray-headed declaimer, nor at the aged grandsire. There often come forth from the wrinkles of the skin, words full of wisdom.

140. The fire drives away diseases; Runic characters destroy the effect of imprecations; the earth swallows up inundations; and death extinguishes hatred and quarrels.

FOOTNOTES:


[33]. Faðir and Moðir.

[34]. The Rigsmál, a poem of the Mythic-ethnologic class.

[35]. Mallet.