Doesn't Trust Women

84 The words of a girl no one should trust,
nor what a woman says;
for on a whirling wheel their hearts were made,*
deceit lodged in their breasts.

85 A breaking bow, a burning flame,
a gaping wolf, a cawing crow,
a grunting pig, a rootless tree,
a rising wave, a boiling kettle,

86 a flying dart, a falling wave,
ice of one night, a coiled serpent,
the bed-talk of a woman, or a broken sword,
the playing of a bear, or a king’s child,

87 a sick calf, an independent-minded slave,
a seer who prophesies good, a newly killed dead man

88 an early-sown field let no man trust,
nor too soon in a son;
the weather rules the field and brains the son,
both of them are risky.

89 A brother’s killer, if met on the road,
a house half-burned, a too swift horse—
the mount is useless if a leg breaks—
let no man be so trusting as to trust all these.

90 Such is the love of women, of those with false minds;
it’s like driving a horse without spiked shoes over slippery ice,
a frisky two-year-old, badly broken in,
or like steering, in a stiff wind, a rudderless boat
or trying to catch when you’re lame a reindeer on a thawing hillside.


- Poetic Edda, Havamal

(Note: The speaker here is Odin, established earlier in the poem.)