Such great good fortune stung Feng with jealousy, so that he resolved treacherously to waylay his brother, thus showing that goodness is not safe even from those of a man’s own house.  And behold, when a chance came to murder him, his bloody hand sated the deadly passion of his soul.  Then he took the wife of the brother he had butchered, capping unnatural murder with incest.  For whoso yields to one iniquity, speedily falls an easier victim to the next, the first being an incentive to the second.  Also, the man veiled the monstrosity of his deed with such hardihood of cunning, that he made up a mock pretence of goodwill to excuse his crime, and glossed over fratricide with a show of righteousness.  Gerutha, said he, though so gentle that she would do no man the slightest hurt, had been visited with her husband’s extremest hate; and it was all to save her that he had slain his brother; for he thought it shameful that a lady so meek and unrancorous should suffer the heavy disdain of her husband.  Nor did his smooth words fail in their intent; for at courts, where fools are sometimes favoured and backbiters preferred, a lie lacks not credit.  Nor did Feng keep from shameful embraces the hands that had slain a brother; pursuing with equal guilt both of his wicked and impious deeds.

Amleth beheld all this, but feared lest too shrewd a behaviour might make his uncle suspect him.  So he chose to feign dulness, and pretend an utter lack of wits.  This cunning course not only concealed his intelligence but ensured his safety.  Every day he remained in his mother’s house utterly listless and unclean, flinging himself on the ground and bespattering his person with foul and filthy dirt.  His discoloured face and visage smutched with slime denoted foolish and grotesque madness.  All he said was of a piece with these follies; all he did savoured of utter lethargy.  In a word, you would not have thought him a man at all, but some absurd abortion due to a mad fit of destiny.  He used at times to sit over the fire, and, raking up the embers with his hands, to fashion wooden crooks, and harden them in the fire, shaping at their lips certain barbs, to make them hold more tightly to their fastenings.  When asked what he was about, he said that he was preparing sharp javelins to avenge his father.  This answer was not a little scoffed at, all men deriding his idle and ridiculous pursuit; but the thing helped his purpose afterwards.  Now it was his craft in this matter that first awakened in the deeper observers a suspicion of his cunning.  For his skill in a trifling art betokened the hidden talent of the craftsman; nor could they believe the spirit dull where the hand had acquired so cunning a workmanship.  Lastly, he always watched with the most punctual care over his pile of stakes that he had pointed in the fire.  Some people, therefore, declared that his mind was quick enough, and fancied that he only played the simpleton in order to hide his understanding,