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DISCUSSION AND ANALYSIS OF STANZA 27

Lines 1 and 2 are fairly simple. A clever or wise man (or one who thinks himself clever or wise), will be able to ask questions well...and answer questions well. Essentially a wise man should be able to hold his own in conversation. He should also know when and how to challenge another man with questions...and when challenged himself, he should be able to answer correctly and well.

Line 3 and 4 are interesting. Most of the translations seem to suggest that you can't hide information from people. Once people are talking about a topic or a deed, then there is really no stopping them from talking about it. And this seems to play off of lines 1 and 2, in that a man should be able to talk, ask questions, and answer questions well...because talking about something and answering questions about it is better than trying to hide it.

Thorpe comes up with a translation for lines 3 and 4 of this stanza that gets MORE SPECIFIC than the rest of our translators. His translation takes the whole idea of "no one can hope to conceal anything that has been heard in the hall," and turns it into "no one can hope to conceal their own ignorance once it has been revealed (heard) in the hall." He focuses in on the topic that cannot be concealed very specifically. I don't know if he does this based on something he is seeing in the Old Norse, or if he goes this direction out the context provided by the surrounding stanzas.