Page:The Elder Edda and the Younger Edda - tr. Thorpe - 1907.djvu/279

 venge, if ye had the courage of my brothers, or the fierce spirit of the Hunnish kings."

4. Then said Hamdir, the great of heart: "Little didst thou care Hogni's deed to praise, when Sigurd he from sleep awaked. Thy blue-white bed-clothes were red with thy husband's gore, with death-blood covered.

5. "For thy brothers thou didst o'er-hasty vengeance take, dire and bitter, when thou thy sons didst murder. We young ones could on Jormunrek, acting all together, have avenged our sister.

6. "Bring forth the arms of the Hunnish kings: thou hast us stimulated to a sword-mote."

7. Laughing Gudrun to the storehouse turned, the kings' crested helms from the coffers drew, their ample corslets, and to her sons them bore. The young heroes loaded their horses' shoulders.

S. Then said Hamdir, the great of heart: "So will no more come his mother to see, the warrior felled in the Gothic land, so that thou the funeral-beer after us all may drink, after Svanhild and thy sons."

9. Weeping Gudrun, Giuki's daughter, sorrowing went, to sit in the fore-court, and to recount, with tearworn cheeks, sad of soul, her calamities, in many ways.

10. "Three fires I have known, three hearths I have known, of three consorts I have been borne to the house. Sigurd alone to me was better than all, of whom my brothers were the murderers.

11. "Of my painful wounds I might not complain;

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