Völuspá 65

This verse does not appear in Codex Regius and therefore is omitted by many translators. Those who include it often include comments to justify it, many of which I have included below.

Hauksbok 57

Þa kemr hinⁿ riki
at regin domi 
oflugr ofan 
sa er ollv ræðr. 

Normalized

Þá kømr inn ríki 
at regindómi 
öflugr ofan, 
sá er öllu ræðr. 

 In paper manuscripts, the following lines appear along with the above. In the last line below, the first word varies, depending on the manuscript.

semr hann dóma

ok sakar leggr,

vesköp/veskaup/verlaup/verkkaup setr

1823 Sharon Turner, in his The History of the Anglo-Saxons, as The Prophecy of Vola.

Omitted

1852, author unknown, after the French of  F.G. Bergmann (1838), as Visions of Vala

Then there came from on high to preside at the judgments of the Great Powers

The powerful sovereign who governs the universe:

He tempers decrees, he calms dissensions,

And gives sacred laws inviolable for ever.

1866 Benjamin Thorpe in his Edda Sæmundar Hinns Frôða as The Vala´s Prophecy

Then comes the mighty one
to the great judgment,
the powerful from above,
who rules o’er all.
He shall dooms pronounce,
and strifes allay,
holy peace establish,
which shall ever be.

1883 Gudbrand Vigfusson in his Corpus Poeticum Boreale as The Sibyl’s Prophecy

Omitted

1905 Ananda K. Coomaraswarmy in "Völuspa."

Omitted

1908 Olive Bray in her Edda Saemundar as Völuspá: The Soothsaying of the Vala

Comes from on high to the great Assembly

The Mighty Ruler who orders all.

1923 Henry Bellows in his The Poetic Edda as Voluspo 

There comes on high,                all power to hold,
A mighty lord,                all lands he rules.
……..

……..

This stanza is not found in the Regius at all. Hauksbok indicates no lacuna, but in paper manuscripts has written beneath it:

Rule he orders,        and rights he fixes

Laws he ordains,        that ever shall live.

1962 Lee M. Hollander in his The Poetic Edda as The Prophecy of the Seeress: Völuspá

Adown cometh to the doom of the world

The great godhead* which governs all.

* The unknown (Christian?) god. This stanza with its Christian tinge occurs in the Hauksbók, but not in Codex Regius and is therefore rejected by some editors. The paper manuscripts have the following lines:

He settles strife, sits in judgment,

And lays down laws which shall last alway.

1965 Jacqueline Simpson in her The Northmen Talk as “The Prophecy of the Wise Woman”

Then there will come the Powerful One,*

The Mighty from above,

To sit in judgment-seats of the gods;

All the power shall he have.

*The allusion may possibly be to Christ; some critics think this stanza an interpolation.

1969 Patricia Terry in her Poems of the Elder Edda as Völuspá

The mighty one comes down on the day of doom,

That powerful lord who rules over all.

1969 W. H. Auden & P. B Taylor in The Elder Edda as The Song of the Sybil

Omitted

1989 Patricia Terry in her Poems of the Elder Edda (revised) as Völuspá

Snorri refers to [Gimlé] as a pagan heaven; more recent commentators see here, and elsewhere in the poem, a Christian meaning. The defective stanza which follows the present stanza 49 in one manuscript, and which [Paul] Schach includes. A literal translation carries so many inevitable, but perhaps inappropriate, connections with Christian terminology that I prefer to place it here. It seems to me in any case hard to fit into the chronology and what seems to me the spirit of the poem, at least without the lost passages which must have accompanied it.

The mighty one comes down on the day of doom

that powerful lord who rules over all.

1996 Carolyne Larrington in her The Poetic Edda as The Seeress’s Prophecy 

Then the powerful, mighty one, he who rules over everything,

Will come from above, to the judgment seats of the gods.

1997 Ursula Dronke in her The Poetic Edda, Volume II as Voluspa

In H a four-line stanza has been inserted …to provide an explicit reference to judgment:

Then comes the Sovereign

To divine judgment/Empire,

Full of power, from above—

He who governs all things.

It is possible that regindómi has no reference to Judgment, but means only ‘divine authority, jurisdiction’, on the analogy of konungdómr. Regindómr is recorded nowhere else, but the analogy of til reginþinga, ‘to the supreme assemblies’, in Helgakviða Hundingsbana I 51 supports a concrete interpretation for –domr as ‘court of judgment’: the judicial place to which the All Powerful ‘comes’ (kemr at). I do not think the suggestion is well founded that hinn riki is Heimdallr, and that therefore the stanza is part of the original text of Völuspá.

I reject the stanza basically on the grounds that it is saying in overt Christian terms what the power has already expressed in 61, 62. [Klaus] Von See offers even stronger arguments … [Gro] Steinland’s spirited attempt to retain 62 H as a pre-Christian part of Völuspá is not supported by extant pre-Christian evidence.

2001 Bernard Scudder as “The Prophecy”

Then the wielder

Of godly power

Descends in might,

Ruler of all things.