Stanza 49

Original Old Norse:

Váðir mínar

gaf ek velli at

tveim trémönnum

rekkar þat þóttusk

er þeir ript höfðu

neiss er nøkkviðr halr

Auden & Taylor:

Two wooden stakes stood on the plain,

on them I hung my clothes:

Draped in linen, they looked well born,

But, naked, I was a nobody

Bellows:

My garments once | in a field I gave

To a pair of carven poles;

Heroes they seemed | when clothes they had,

But the naked man is nought.

Bray:

My garments once I gave in the field

to two land-marks made as men; 

heroes they seemed when once they were clothed; 

'tis the naked who suffer shame!

Chisholm:

I gave my clothes to two tree-men

in the field.

Men they seemed with clothes.

Shameful the naked hero.

Hollander:

In the fields as i fared, (for fun) I hung

my weeds on two wooden men;

they werre reckoned folks when the rags they wore:

naked, a man is naught.

Terry:

When I saw two scarecrows in a field

I covered them with my clothes;

they looked like warriors when they were dressed --

who hails a naked hero?

Thorpe:

My garments in a field 

I gave away

to two wooden men:

heroes they seemed to be,

when they got cloaks:

exposed to insult is a naked man.

On one level this is a discussion of scarecrows. Not just actual scarecrows in fields but the scarecrow function itself - Give someone the cloak of the frithgard (modern terms give them a temporary deputy's badge) and they will be fierce enough to do their job. From the directly physical of a scarecrow in the field to the metaphorical effect that uniforms or costumes have.

This is also about the us-vs-them mental set-up of wearing a uniform. "The blue religion" among the police is a popular topic in detective novels. The camaraderie among soldiers wearing the same uniform is very real. Heck, there's even camaraderie among uniformed folks wearing different uniforms. Ranging from the Army-Navy football game to seeing soldiers on the other side of a conflict differently yet somehow better than the local civilians at times.

On another level this is about levels and types of anonymity and what that does to boldness. UseNet, e-mail and web boards are a perfect example of this. Let someone hide behind a cool sounding alias and all too often they become braggerts and bullshitters. They have their cloak of anonymity so they are bold. Such folks see posting their real name as a grave breech of ettiquette. It's a bizarre feature to me as someone who's used his real name on-line since forever.

On the other hand often folks don't understand the rules of privacy either. A person-to-person e-mail message is every bit as private as if you'd printed it on paper and used a first class stamp. A post on UseNet or some web board is more public than you could acheive by taping a printout to the door of city hall. But mailing lists, those are in between without clear rules to the same degree. How cloaked and how exposed is a mailing list hosted by Google or whoever? I've never been sure of that.