The wary guest keeps watchful silence; he listens with his ears
    and peers about with his eyes; thus does every wise man look about
    him.

One would think that men must have had very strong nerves to take comfort under such circumstances, but the poet tells us that the man who can enjoy nothing must be both a coward and a fool.  Although a man was to keep watch to protect his life, that was not a reason why he should be afraid of losing it.  There were but three things of which a man should be particularly afraid.  The first was drink—­because drink often caused a man to lose control of his temper; the second was another man’s wife—­repeatedly the reader is warned never to make love to another man’s wife; and the third was thieves—­men who would pretend friendship for the purpose of killing and stealing, The man who could keep constant watch over himself and his surroundings was, of course, likely to have the longest life.

Now in all countries there is a great deal of ethical teaching, and always has been, on the subject of speech.  The “Havamal” is full of teaching on this subject—­the necessity of silence, the danger and the folly of reckless talk.  You all know the Japanese proverb that “the mouth is the front gate of all misfortune.”  The Norse poet puts the same truth into a grimmer shape:  “The tongue works death to the head.”  Here are a number of sayings on this subject: 

    He that is never silent talks much folly; a glib tongue, unless it
    be bridled, will often talk a man into trouble.

    Do not speak three angry words with a worse man; for often the
    better man falls by the worse man’s sword.

    Smile thou in the face of the man thou trusteth not, and speak
    against thy mind.

This is of course a teaching of cunning; but it is the teaching, however immoral, that rules in English society to-day.  In the old Norse, however, there were many reasons for avoiding a quarrel whenever possible—­reasons which must have existed also in feudal Japan.  A man might not care about losing his own life; but he had to be careful not to stir up a feud that might go on for a hundred years.  Although there was a great deal of killing, killing always remained a serious matter, because for every killing there had to be a vengeance.  It is true that the law exonerated the man who killed another, if he paid a certain blood-price; murder was not legally considered an unpardonable crime.  But the family of the dead man would very seldom be satisfied with a payment; they would want blood for blood.  Accordingly men had to be very cautious about quarreling, however brave they might personally be.