“Let the servants take up in a car the bodies of the slain, and let the attendant quickly bear out the carcases.  Justly shall they lack the last rites; they are unworthy to be covered with a mound; let no funeral procession or pyre suffer them the holy honour of a barrow; let them be scattered to rot in the fields, to be consumed by the beaks of birds; let them taint the country all about with their deadly corruption.

“Do thou too, king, if thou hast any wit, flee thy savage bride, lest the she-wolf bring forth a litter like herself, and a beast spring from thee that shall hurt its own father.

“Tell me, Rote, continual derider of cowards, thinkest thou that we have avenged Frode enough, when we have spent seven deaths on the vengeance of one?  Lo, those are borne out dead who paid homage not to thy sway in deed, but only in show, and though obsequious they planned treachery.  But I always cherished this hope, that noble fathers have noble offspring, who will follow in their character the lot which they received by their birth.  Therefore, Ingild, better now than in time past dost thou deserve to be called lord of Leire and of Denmark.

“When, O King Hakon, I was a beardless youth, and followed thy leading and command in warfare, I hated luxury and wanton souls, and practiced only wars.  Training body and mind together, I banished every unholy thing from my soul, and shunned the pleasures of the belly, loving deeds of prowess.  For those that followed the calling of arms had rough clothing and common gear and short slumbers and scanty rest.  Toil drove ease far away, and the time ran by at scanty cost.  Not as with some men now, the light of whose reason is obscured by insatiate greed with its blind maw.  Some one of these clad in a covering of curiously wrought raiment effeminately guides the fleet-footed (steed), and unknots his dishevelled locks, and lets his hair fly abroad loosely.

“He loves to plead often in the court, and to covet a base pittance, and with this pursuit he comforts his sluggish life, doing with venal tongue the business entrusted to him.

“He outrages the laws by force, he makes armed assault upon men’s rights, he tramples on the innocent, he feeds on the wealth of others, he practices debauchery and gluttony, he vexes good fellowship with biting jeers, and goes after harlots as a hoe after the grass.

“The coward falls when battles are lulled in peace.  Though he who fears death lie in the heart of the valley, no mantlet shall shelter him.  His final fate carries off every living man; doom is not to be averted by skulking.  But I, who have shaken the whole world with my slaughters, shall I enjoy a peaceful death?  Shall I be taken up to the stars in a quiet end?  Shall I die in my bed without a wound?”

BOOK SEVEN.