Stanza 75

Original Old Norse:	Auden & Taylor:	Bellows:	Bray:
Veita hinn er vættki veit margr verðr af aurum api maðr er auðigr annarr óauðigr skylit þann vítka vár	The half wit does not know that gold Makes apes of many men: One is rich, one is poor There is no blame in that.	A man knows not, | if nothing he knows, That gold oft apes begets; One man is wealthy | and one is poor, Yet scorn for him none should know. 75. The word "gold" in line 2 is more or less conjectural, the manuscript being obscure. The reading in line 4 is also doubtful.	Cattle die and kinsmen die, thyself too soon must die, but one thing never, I ween, will die, -- fair fame of one who has earned.
Chisholm:	Hollander:	Terry:	Thorpe:
He who knows nothing does not know that many men become apes. One man is rich and another poor. There is no blame in that	He who knoweth nothing knoweth not, either, how wealth may warp a man's wit; one hath wealth when wanteth another, Though he bear no blame himself.	He who knows nothing doesn't know this: money makes monkeys of men; one man is wealthy, another is in want -- has that one no cause for complaint?	He (only) knows not who knows nothing, that many a one apes another. One man is rich, another poor: let him not be thought blameworthy.
The first thing that strikes me about this passage is the term “ape” or “monkey”. To my knowledge, the vikings didn't have either of these! Regardless, the stanza itself is very true. Great wealth often does make fools of men. This is a fair warning, and the comment that This stanza is a little tricky both in punctuating and interpreting. ‘Aurum’ is an emendation (the manuscript has been corrupted over time), but the idea of wealth seems to fit. The stanza presents wealth rather ambivalently: people become foolish through wealth perhaps because they forget to be on their guard against the myriad dangers of life; possibly also because they stop relying on the qualities that survival requires. But there’s a matter of luck, too. Wealth doesn’t always come to the one who deserves it. If you are not rich, the poem suggests, your enemy is not those who are wealthy but the luck that has deserted you. This has as much to do with a belief in fate (wyrd) as in luck (hamingja). Fate goes ever as it must and your luck can literally run out.