Page:The Elder Edda and the Younger Edda - tr. Thorpe - 1907.djvu/269

 55. Take ye Hogni, and with a knife hack him: cut out his heart: this ye shall do. Gunnar the fierce of soul to a gallows fasten; do the work thoroughly, lure up the serpents.

Hogni.

56. Do as thou listest, glad I will await it; stout I shall prove myself: I have ere now things much harder proved. Ye had a hindrance while unscathed we were: now are we so wounded that our fate thou mayest command.

57. Beiti spake,—he was Atli's steward—Take we Hialli, but Hogni let us save. Let us do half the work; he is death-worthy. As long as he lives a slug he will ever be.

58. Terrified was the kettle-watcher, the place no longer held him: he could be a whiner, he clomb into every nook: their conflict was his bane, as he the penalty must pay; and the day sad, when he must from the swine die, from all good things, which he had enjoyed.

59. Budli's cook they took, and the knife brought towards him. Howled the wretched thrall, ere the point he felt; declared that he had time the gardens to manure, the vilest offices to do, if from death he might escape. Joyful indeed was Hialli, could he but save his life.

60. Hogni all this observed—few so act, as for a slave to intercede, that he may escape—"Less, 'tis, I say, for me to play this game myself. Why shall we here desire to listen to that screaming?"

61. Hands on the good prince they laid. Then was no option for the bold warriors, the sentence longer to 241