24. A foolish man
thinks all who on him smile
to be his friends;
he feels it not,
although they speak ill of him,
when he sits among the clever.
(Source: http://heathengods.com/havamal/thorpe.htm)Laughter is sometimes far from innocent.
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Thursday, 31 January 2013
Havamal Snippets 24: Laughter is sometimes far from innocent
It's Wednesday (Woden/Odin's Day) which means that it's time for another verse from the Havamal 'Sayings of the High One - Odin'. The poem full of wisdom, both everyday and ethereal. (The poem can be found in full HERE:)
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If the unwise man is sitting among unwise men does he notice if they express malice towards him?
ReplyDeleteThat's a good point. I think the logic of the verse is contigent on a binary/either-or element:
Delete'either you are wiser than someone else, or someone else is wiser than you.';
so it follows that if you sit amongst unwise people then that automatically makes you the wise man, in which case you'd know if their laughs were malicious or not.