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Poetic Edda

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"What help from the weakling  brown may we have?"

14.[1] So answered them  their half-brother then:
"So well may I  my kinsmen aid
As help one foot  from the other has."

15.[2] "How may a foot  its fellow aid,
Or a flesh-grown hand  another help?"

16.[3] Then Erp spake forth,  his words were few,
As haughty he sat  on his horse's back:

    In the manuscript these two lines follow stanza 16; some editors insert them in place of lines 2-3 of stanza 11. The manuscript indicates no gap. The man so wise: Erp, here represented as a son of Jonak but not of Guthrun, and hence a half-brother of Hamther and Sorli. There is nothing further to indicate whether or not he was born out of wedlock, as intimated in stanza 16. Some editors assign line 3 to Hamther, and some to Sorli.

  1. ↑ The stanza is obviously defective. Many editors add Erp's name in line 1, and insert between lines 2 and 3 a line based on stanza 15 and the Volsungasaga paraphrase: "As a flesh-grown hand  another helps." In the Volsungasaga, after Erp's death, Hamther stumbles and saves himself from falling with his hand, whereupon he says: "Erp spake truly; I had fallen had I not braced myself with my hand." Soon thereafter Sorli has a like experience, one foot slipping but the other saving him from a fall. "Then they said that they had done ill to Erp, their brother."
  2. ↑ Many editions attach these two lines to stanza 14, while a few assume the loss of two lines.
  3. ↑ In the manuscript this stanza stands between stanzas 12 and 13. Some editors make line 4 a part of Erp's speech.

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