“Why dost thou, sluggard, think only of feasting, and lean thy belly back in ease, more effeminate than harlots?  Is the avenging of thy slaughtered father a little thing to thee?

“When last I left thee, Frode, I learned by my prophetic soul that thou, mightiest of kings, wouldst surely perish by the sword of enemies.

“And while I travelled long in the land, a warning groan rose in my soul, which augured that thereafter I was never to see thee more.

“Wo is me, that then I was far away, harrying the farthest peoples of the earth, when the traitorous guest aimed craftily at the throat of his king.

“Else I would either have shown myself the avenger of my lord, or have shared his fate and fallen where he fell, and would joyfully have followed the blessed king in one and the same death.

“I have not come to indulge in gluttonous feasting, the sin whereof I will strive to chastise; nor will I take mine ease, nor the delights of the fat belly.

“No famous king has ever set me before in the middle by the strangers.  I have been wont to sit in the highest seats among friends.

“I have come from Sweden, travelling over wide lands, thinking that I should be rewarded, if only I had the joy to find the son of my beloved Frode.

“But I sought a brave man, and I have come to a glutton, a king who is the slave of his belly and of vice, whose liking has been turned back towards wantonness by filthy pleasure.

“Famous is the speech men think that Halfdan spoke:  he warned us it would soon come to pass that an understanding father should beget a witless son.

“Though the heir be deemed degenerate, I will not suffer the wealth of mighty Frode to profit strangers or to be made public like plunder.”

At these words the queen trembled, and she took from her head the ribbon with which she happened, in woman’s fashion, to be adorning her hair, and proffered it to the enraged old man, as though she could avert his anger with a gift.  Starkad in anger flung it back most ignominiously in the face of the giver, and began again in a loud voice: 

“Take hence, I pray thee, thy woman’s gift, and set back thy headgear on thy head; no brave man assumes the chaplets that befit Love only.

“For it is amiss that the hair of men that are ready for battle should be bound back with wreathed gold; such attire is right for the throngs of the soft and effeminate.

“But take this gift to thy husband, who loves luxury, whose finger itches, while he turns over the rump and handles the flesh of the bird roasted brown.

“The flighty and skittish wife of Ingild longs to observe the fashions of the Teutons; she prepares the orgy and makes ready the artificial dainties.

“For she tickles the palate with a new-fangled feast; she pursues the zest of an unknown flavour, raging to load all the tables with dishes yet more richly than before.