Introductory Note
Project Gutenberg EPUB3 edition
Bellows, Henry Adams
And while the Hunnish | hero lives,
Nor higher kinship | the world doth hold.
19. “If sons we five | shall soon beget,
Great, methinks, | our race shall grow; [427]
Well I see | whence lead the ways;
Too bitter far | is Brynhild’s hate.”
Gunnar spake:
20. “Gotthorm to wrath | we needs must rouse,
Our younger brother, | in rashness blind;
He entered not | in the oaths we swore,
The oaths we swore | and all our vows.”
21. It was easy to rouse | the reckless one.
. . . . . . . . | . . . . . . . .
The sword in the heart | of Sigurth stood.
22. In vengeance the hero | rose in the hall,
And hurled his sword | at the slayer bold; [428]
At Gotthorm flew | the glittering steel
Of Gram full hard | from the hand of the king.
23. The foeman cleft | asunder fell,
Forward hands | and head did sink,
And legs and feet | did backward fall.
24. Guthrun soft | in her bed had slept,
Safe from care | at Sigurth’s side;
She woke to find | her joy had fled,
In the blood of the friend | of Freyr she lay.
25. So hard she smote | her hands together
That the hero rose up, | iron-hearted:
“Weep not, Guthrun, | grievous tears,
Bride so young, | for thy brothers live.
26. “Too young, methinks, | is my son as yet,
He cannot flee | from the home of his foes; [429]
Fearful and deadly | the plan they found,
The counsel new | that now they have heeded.
27. “No son will ride, | though seven thou hast,
To the Thing as the son | of their sister rides;
Well I see | who the ill has worked,
On Brynhild alone | lies the blame for all.
28. “Above all men | the maiden loved me,
Yet false to Gunnar | I ne’er was found;
I kept the oaths | and the kinship I swore;