the sea.  The remaining crowd of the wrecked either sank in the waters, or got with trouble to the land.  The king was stripped of his dripping attire and swathed round with dry garments, and the water poured in floods from his chest as he kept belching it; his voice also seemed to fail under the exhaustion of continual pantings.  At last heat was restored to his limbs, which were numbed with cold, and his breathing became quicker.  He had not fully got back his strength, and could sit but not rise.  Gradually his native force returned.  But when he was asked at last whether he sued for life and grace, he put his hand to his eyes, and strove to lift up their downcast gaze.  But as, little by little, power came back to his body, and as his voice became more assured, he said: 

“By this light, which I am loth to look on, by this heaven which I behold and drink in with little joy, I beseech and conjure you not to persuade me to use either any more.  I wished to die; ye have saved me in vain.  I was not allowed to perish in the waters; at least I will die by the sword.  I was unconquered before; thine, Erik, was the first wit to which I yielded:  I was all the more unhappy, because I had never been beaten by men of note, and now I let a low-born man defeat me.  This is great cause for a king to be ashamed.  This is a good and sufficient reason for a general to die; it is right that he should care for nothing so much as glory.  If he want that, then take it that he lacks all else.  For nothing about a king is more on men’s lips than his repute.  I was credited with the height of understanding and eloquence.  But I have been stripped of both the things wherein I was thought to excel, and am all the more miserable because I, the conqueror of kings, am seen conquered by a peasant.  Why grant life to him whom thou hast robbed of honour?  I have lost sister, realm, treasure, household gear, and, what is greater than them all, renown:  I am luckless in all chances, and in all thy good fortune is confessed.  Why am I to be kept to live on for all this ignominy?  What freedom can be so happy for me that it can wipe out all the shame of captivity?  What will all the following time bring for me?  It can beget nothing but long remorse in my mind, and will savour only of past woes.  What will prolonging of life avail, if it only brings back the memory of sorrow?  To the stricken nought is pleasanter than death, and that decease is happy which comes at a man’s wish, for it cuts not short any sweetness of his days, but annihilates his disgust at all things.  Life in prosperity, but death in adversity, is best to seek.  No hope of better things tempts me to long for life.  What hap can quite repair my shattered fortunes?  And by now, had ye not rescued me in my peril, I should have forgotten even these.  What though thou shouldst give me back my realm, restore my sister, and renew my treasure?  Thou canst never repair my renown.  Nothing that is patched up can have the lustre of the unimpaired, and rumour