Guðrún’s Healing Tears
Guðrúnarkviða in fyrsta focuses on what might seem an awkward moment in the narrative of the Völsung cycle. After the death of the supreme hero Sigurðr, one might expect that his young wife would die of grief. In the Chanson de Roland, for example, Roland’s fiancée, La bele Aude, fainted and then died at the news of the death of her intended, and Roland and Aude were not even married yet. Surely Guðrún grieved no less for Sigurðr than Aude did for Roland, so how could she have survived the news of the death of Sigurðr and her knowledge of her brothers’ involvement in the death of her husband? Yet the logic of the two-part tragedy of the Völsung cycle—of this portion of it at least—requires that Guðrún survive and marry Atli the Hun. To some degree, the poem is simply an explanation of why and how Guðrún survived the death of her first husband and came to play a role in the next act of the Völsung story. At the same time, Guðrúnarkviða in fyrsta is a humane poem about grief and the beginning of recovery, about dealing with sorrow and its consequences, and about the necessity of expressing grief, both in tears and speech in order to be able to move on in one’s life. In this chapter, I would like to explore the psychology and physiology implicit in the poem and to suggest some medieval analogues for one of the themes in Guðrúnarkviða in fyrsta, the belief that tears can heal, or at least begin the process of healing, and that the alternative, the stony silence that devastating grief can cause, is potentially life threatening.
In the opening of the poem, the poet speaks of Guðrún making ready to die—but by the end of the poem, it is Brynhildr not Guðrún who makes ready to die, while Guðrún leaves the court of her brothers and goes into the wilderness and then from the wilderness to Denmark to begin a time of grieving and healing. The poem as we have it is thus about a process of healing, of how the woman who had married the most glorious hero in the northern world could come to marry again and live out the rest of an eventful life.
The first lines of the poem set the scene for the first part of the poem, and the details we are given are all charged with meaning.
gorðisk at deyja,
er hon sat sorgfull
yfir Sigurði. (st. 1)1
[It was of old that Gudrun set out to die when she sat sorrowful, over the body of Sigurðr.]
The opening words of the poem recall the beginning stanzas of Völuspá and Hymiskviða: Ár var [it was of old]. The poem unfolds in mythic time. And the first thing that we are told is that “Guðrún / gorðisk at deyja” [Guðrún made ready to die]. She is “sitting over” the body of Sigurðr, an early example of the Germanic (and Celtic) practice of waking the dead, and she expects to die herself either as a suicide or simply from the burden of grief that she endures. Indeed, the death of Sigurðr would appear to demand such a sacrifice, and since Guðrún does not have the power to avenge him (yet), her death would seem appropriate and necessary.
Wise men, however, are concerned about Guðrún’s determination to die, and they attempt to console her—yet Guðrún might not weep.
Þeygi Guðrún
gráta mátti;
svá var hon móðug
at mög dauðan
ok harðhuguð
of hrer fylkis. (st. 5)
[Yet Guðrún might not weep, she was so troubled at the death of her husband, and grieved at the fall of the prince.]
Then two women attempt to console Guðrún by telling of their losses and their various sufferings, which include the loss of husbands, children, and other kin—and in the case of Herborg the queen of the Huns, the humiliation of enslavement and forced if apparently not wholly unpleasant concubinage. Yet Guðrún is unmoved at the account of these sufferings, and twice more the half-stanza about how Guðrún could not weep is repeated (cf. Gkv II st. 11; Am st. 39).
Three times consolation has been offered and three times it has been refused, and at this point in the trajectory of the poem, it would appear that Guðrún is resolute and unmoving in her commitment to death. But at this juncture, an otherwise unknown sister of Guðrún, Gullrönd, intervenes, reproaches the other comforters, and in a dramatic and striking gesture rips the sheet from the body of Sigurðr and invites Guðrún to kiss the lips of the corpse of her beloved. At this point, faced with the sheer materiality of the dead body of her beloved, Guðrún’s reserve breaks down, and she reddens (always a sign of strong emotion in Old Norse-Icelandic literature) and weeps as if rain were falling. She then utters one of the most beautiful laments in the corpus of early Germanic literature—five stanzas in which she celebrates the beauty and glory of her lost love and in which she curses the treachery of her brothers and the evil of that armr vaett “wretched creature” Brynhildr.
One could imagine that the poem might be complete at this point. Guðrún has been consoled or at least has been brought to the point of articulating her grief and the glorious dead hero has been celebrated, but in a totally unexpected and somewhat unrealistic way, Brynhildr herself intervenes. As the woman who was certainly the ráðbana “death-contriver” of the dead hero, Brynhildr would hardly be welcome at Sigurðr’s wake—Guðrún’s brothers are discreetly absent—so her presence is both unexpected and unexplained. And both the character and violence of her sudden intervention seem puzzling.
Þá qvað þat Brynhildr
Buðla dóttir:
“Vön sé sú vættr
vers ok barna,
er þic, Guðrún,
gráz um beiddi
ok þér í morgun
málrúnar gaf.” (st. 23)
[Then spoke Brynhild, the daughter of Buðli, “May that witch be deprived of husband and children who made you weep and gave you the mystery of speech in the morning.”]
Brynhildr hates Guðrún as her rival for the love of Sigurðr, but she does not curse Guðrún and instead curses Gullrönd, whose violent action of stripping away Sigurðr’s shroud has precipitated Guðrún’s tears and her lament. And she curses Gullrönd specifically because she was the occasion of Guðrún’s tears and of her speech. From the point of view of the modern (casual) reader, at least, one might imagine that Brynhildr would take pleasure in watching a hated rival weep. Yet her response is utterly unexpected—she is furious at Guðrún’s tears—and she curses not Guðrún but Gullrönd.
And after the exchange between Brynhildr and Gullrönd, the trajectory of the poem changes. Brynhildr, not Guðrún, prepares to die as part of Sigurðr’s obsequies. Fire flames from her eyes, and she breathes out poison as she looks on Sigurðr’s wounds—a kind of dragon-like rage that is more fully explained in the prose conclusion to the poem, which tells how Brynhildr sacrifices eight of her male and five of her female attendants before killing herself. Guðrún, however, goes to the wilderness and then to Denmark, where her life will eventually resume. In other words, the poem begins with Guðrún’s intended death but ends with Brynhildr’s death instead, and the peripeteia, the turning point, occurs at the juncture at which Gullrönd’s action impels Guðrún to weep. Weeping, the release of tears, rather than simply being an external sign of emotional grief, is efficacious in this narrative. The stanza of the poem in which Brynhildr exudes fire and poison as she looks on the body of Sigurðr is difficult on the denotative level, and the full implications of these lines are not perfectly understood.
Stóð hon und stoð,
strengði hon elvi;
brann Brynhildi
Buðla dóttur,
eldr ór augom,
eitri fnæsti,
er hon sár of leit
á Sigurði. (st. 27)
[She stood by the pillar (?), she strengthened [herself] with might. Fire burned from the eyes of Brynhildr the daughter of Buðli, she snorted poison when she looked upon the wounds of Sigurðr.]
But it is noteworthy that Brynhildr never weeps over the tragedy she has brought about, and that she goes to her death not so much because she despairs over the loss of her love Sigurðr, but as a kind of sacrifice to honor the death of the hero.
I would argue, then, that in terms of a purely formal reading of Guðrúnarkviða in fyrsta, one can make a strong case for the conception that tears and the open expression of grief are important to the healing process, and that denying the expression of grief is potentially destructive and indeed life-threatening. Similar ideas are widely expressed in contemporary (modern) popular psychology and elsewhere, and it could be argued that such ideas are virtually a human universal. But one would not want to explicate an Eddic poem on the basis of modern American popular psychology, and the balance between emotional expressivity and restraint differs so widely in different cultures that appeals to universal human ideals are suspect at best. Given this reading of the poem, then, one immediate question is what medieval parallels exist for the notion that restraining one’s grief is potentially dangerous, and I wish to cite some analogues for this motif in twelfth-century medieval romances that have not—as far as I know—been noted.
One particularly clear example occurs in the prologue to Gottfried’s Tristan—Gottfried’s account of the conception and birth of the hero Tristan. Rivalin and Blancheflor have become lovers in Cornwall, and once it is clear that Blancheflor is pregnant, they have eloped to Parmenie together. Rivalin is lord of Parmenie, but he has initiated a state of war in which he is eventually killed. When the news of his death is brought to his wife, she is devastated.
Diz ist geschehen, ez muoz nu sin:
erst tot der guote Riwalin;
dan hœret nu niht mere zuo
wan eine, daz man umbe in tuo
als mit rehte umb einen toten man . …
und sul wir sprechen vürbaz,
wiez umbe Blanschefliure kam:
do diu vil schœne vernam
diu clagebæren mære,
wie do ir herzen wære,
got herre, daz solt du bewarn,
daz wir daz iemer ervarn!
ichn han da keinen zwivel an,
gewan ie wip durch lieben man
totlichen herzesmerzen,
dern wære ouch in ir herzen
daz was totliches leides vol.
si bewarte al der werlde wol,
daz ir sin tot ze herzen gie.
ir ougen diu enwurden nie
in allem disem leide naz.
ja got herre, wie kam daz,
daz da niht wart gewienet?
da was ir herze ersteinet:
dan was niht lebenes inne
niwan diu lebende minne
und daz vil lebeliche leit,
daz lebende uf ir leben streit.
geclagetes aber ir herren iht
mit clageworten? nein si niht:
si erstummete an der stunde,
ir clage starp in ir munde;
ir zunge, ir munt, ir herze, ir sin,
diu schœne enclagete do nieme:
sin sprach do weder ach noch we;
si seic et nider unde lac
quelende unz an den vierden tac
erbermeclicher dan ie wip
si want sich unde brach ir lip
sus unde so, her unde dar
und treip daz an, biz si gebar
ein sünelin mit maneger not.
steht, daz genas und lac si tot. (ed. Ranke ll. 1703–1750)
[It has come to pass, it has to be: good Rivalin is dead. No more is required of them than to pay him the dues of a dead man, for there is nothing else to be done . …
When the lovely woman heard the grievous news, Lord God preserve us from ever knowing what she felt in her heart! I do not doubt that if any woman suffered mortal pain on account of a man who was dear to her, such pain was present in her heart. Her heart was full of mortal anguish. The signs were there in her for all to see that his death had pierced her to the heart. Yet in all this grief her eyes never once grew moist. But God Almighty, how came it that there was no weeping there? Her heart had turned to stone. There was no life in it but for the living love and very lively anguish that, living, warred against her life. Did she lament her lord at all with words of lamentation? Not she. She fell mute in that same hour, her plaint died in her mouth. Her tongue, her mouth, her heart, her mind were all spent. The fair lady had done with lamenting. She cried neither woe! nor alas! She sank to the ground and lay in agony until the fourth day, more piteously than any other woman. She twisted and turned and writhed, this way, that way, to and fro, and continued so until, with much labour, she bore a little son. But see, it lived and she lay dead.] (trans. Hatto 63)
Gottfried’s account of the death of Blancheflor parallels the emotional context of the opening stanzas of Guðrúnarkviða in fyrsta quite closely. A young wife learns of the death of her husband, and she is devastated by grief. But she does not weep or show any external sign of emotion; she simply collapses, and her heart turns to stone. In the case of poor Blancheflor, however, she has no wise counselor such as Gullrönd who can force her to weep and show emotion, so Blancheflor simply grieves until she goes into labor and gives birth to Tristan and then she dies. Blancheflor never expresses her sorrow, and in the end, her grief kills her. While in Guðrúnarkviða in fyrsta the conception that unexpressed grief can kill you is not stated directly—although it is clearly implied— Gottfried is quite direct in explaining the physiological consequences of unexpressed grief. Blancheflor’s heart was ersteinet [turned into stone]; there was nothing living within it except her lebende minne [living love], which struggled against her life. Without the release that tears can bring, her life is jeopardized and eventually ended.
It is not only women who can be destroyed by too great grief. The Old French early thirteenth-century prose romance, Lancelot du Lac, explains the premature death of Lancelot’s father, King Ban, as the result of grief at the destruction of the greatest castle of his realm, grief so great that he could not weep.
Si a pitié de ce qu’il convanra son fil issir d’enfance en povreté et an dolor, et sa fame estre en autrui dongier que el suen et an avoeries de maintes genz, et lui meïsmes covendra estre povre et veillart, et en grant souffraite user sa vie lo remanant, qui tant a esté dotez et riches et qui tant a amee bele compaignie de genz et joieuse maisniee en sa jovente. Totes ces choses recorde les rois et i met devant ses iauz, et li toiche au cuer si grant dolors que li lermes li sont estopees et li cuers serrez el vantre, et se pasme, si chiet de son palefroi a terre si durement que par un po que li cox ne li brise. Si li saut parmi la boiche et parmi lo nes li sans vermauz et parmi les oroilles amedeus. (ed. Kennedy I, 13).
[He was saddened to think that his son must grow up in poverty and sorrow, and his wife be in someone else’s power, and under the protection of many people, and he himself would be poor and old, and spend the rest of his life in great poverty, he who had been so rich and powerful, and who in his youth had so loved pleasant company and a joyful household. The king thought of all these things and pictured them in his mind, and such great sorrow pierced his heart that his tears were stopped up and his heart wrung within him, and he fainted, and fell from his palfrey to the ground, so hard that his neck was nearly broken, and the red blood spurted from his nose and mouth and from his two ears.] (trans. Corley 18–19)
The king then utters an extended prayer that focuses on his concern for his impoverished wife and son: “li cuer li est partiz dedanz lo ventre, et il jut morz a terre” (ed. Kennedy I, 14) [his heart broke in his breast and he lay dead on the ground] (trans. Corley 20).
The death of King Ban raises a variety of interesting problems, but in the context of the present argument, I am primarily interested in the physiology and psychology of his death. He is afflicted by a sudden and devastating grief, in this instance, the loss of his realm, and the grief is so great that his tears were stopped up and his heart serrez [closed up] so that in consequence he swoons and eventually dies. As in the other narratives we have looked at, it is not so much grief that kills him as the fact that his grief cannot find some appropriate outlet.
One final example of this idea—although late and perhaps not as absolutely clear as the texts I have previously cited—occurs in Chaucer’s Knight’s Tale. After the death of Arcite, Chaucer speaks of the exaggerated mourning of both Emelye, Arcite’s fiancé, and Palamon, Arcite’s rival, adversary in the tournament, and former friend. He concludes this passage with general reflections about women and their grief for their lost lovers or husbands, which is not apparently in his source.
Shrighte Emelye, and howleth Palamon,
And Theseus his suster took anon
Swownynge, and baar hire fro the corps away
What helpeth it to tarien forth the day
To tellen how she weep bothe eve and morwe?
For in swich cas wommen have swich sorwe
Whan that hir housbondes ben from hem ago,
That for the moore part they sorwen so
Or ellis fallen in swich maladye
That at the laste certeinly they dye. (ed. Benson ll., 2817–2826)
One does not normally gloss a problem in an Eddic poem by citing parallels from medieval romance texts, but these parallels are close enough so that one can argue that the conception that tears and expressive grief are an important part of the healing process—and the converse—that holding back tears is potentially dangerous was in fact current. As far as the dates of these texts are concerned, the dates of at least my first two parallels do not present an insuperable problem. Guðrúnarkviða in fyrsta is generally considered one of the later Eddic poems, and indeed parallels with later Scandinavian ballad tradition have been adduced (Mohr). To the degree that scholars have reached a consensus, the poem is thought to have been composed in the form in which we have it in the twelfth century, while Gottfried’s Tristan and the Lancelot do Lac are early thirteenth-century texts. But I am citing these works not as potential sources for the Eddic poem but as texts which illustrate that certain ideas about grief and self-expression were in fact current during this period. Neither Gottfried nor the anonymous author of the Old French romance would have had a reason to express new and original ideas in episodes of this sort; they both expect their audience to take for granted the idea that unexpressed grief is dangerous. It follows that the ideas with which I am concerned were current by the twelfth century and may have been current much earlier.
Once one turns to more broadly defined analogues for these ideas about grief and healing, an immediate one is a myth that Snorri narrates about the death of Baldr. After Baldr was slain, Hermóðr was sent to the realm of the dead to ask if Baldr could be returned to the land of the living. It was agreed that if all of the creatures in the world of the living, animate and inanimate, would weep for Baldr, then Baldr would be allowed to return. The gods, men, and the creatures of the natural world all wept for Baldr, but Loki, in the form of the giantess Þökk, refused to weep, and Baldr was condemned forever to the realm of the dead. In this myth, tears and healing are associated even if the ultimate point of the story underscores the inexorability of death (ed. Faulkes 47–48).
One of the conventions of Old Norse-Icelandic literature is a kind of stoic suppression of emotion. There are numerous instances in the sagas of warriors who face death without expressing emotion, and in this literature as a whole, emotions are often only hinted at. But a rich literary tradition allows for many viewpoints, and if stoic reticence is ordinarily characteristic of this literature, the author of Guðrúnarkviða in fyrsta was aware of the larger emotional truth that grief can only be suppressed at a high price. The poet may have learned this truth from romance narratives of the twelfth century, which underlie the “classic” romances that I have cited, or this may well have been a theme in the native Germanic poetic tradition that the Eddic poets for the most part drew on. The familiar debate between nativists and comparativists is both irresolvable and boring. But the analogues I have cited do show that the poet who composed Guðrúnarkviða in fyrsta was not the only poet of the period who was aware that tears and the poetry of lament can help those who are devastated by grief. The Eddic poems are often thought of as Germanic in the Wagnerian sense, and certainly there is much in this corpus of poetry to support this view. But these poems also sometimes embody a gentler wisdom, and Guðrúnarkviða in fyrsta, whenever it was composed, speaks of tears and poetry in deeply positive terms as a necessary part of the healing process.
1. All Eddic quotations are from Neckel & Kuhn. Norse translations are the author’s. Cf. also von See et al. 6:195–278.
Chaucer, Geoffrey. The Riverside Chaucer. Ed. Larry D. Benson. 3rd ed. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin, 1987.
Corley, Corin, trans. Lancelot of the Lake. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1989.
Kennedy, Elspeth, ed. Lancelot do Lac: The Non-Cyclic Old French Prose Romance. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1980.
Neckel, Gustav, ed. Edda: Die Lieder des Codex Regius nebst verwandten Denkmälern. 5th ed. rev. Hans Kuhn. Heidelberg: Winter, 1983.
Snorri Sturluson Edda: Prologue and Gylfaginnung. Ed. Antony Faulkes. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1982.
von Strassbourg, Gottfried. Tristan. Ed. Friedrich Ranke. Frankfurt: Wiedeman, 1968.
——. Tristan. Trans A. T. Hatto. London: Penguin, 2004.
Mohr, Wolfgang. “Entstehungsgeschichte und Heimat der jungeren Eddalieder mit südgermanischen Stoff.” Zeitschrift für deutsches Altertum 75 (1938): 217–280.
von See, K., Beatrice La Farge, Wolfgang Gerhold, Eve Picard, and Katja Schulz, eds. Kommentar zu den Liedern der Edda. 7 vols. Heidelburg: Winter, 1993–