54.  Jarls!  I exhort you the sorrow to augment of that presumptuous woman:  I would fain see it.  Strive so to do, that Gudrun may lament.  Might I but see that in her lot she joys not!

55.  Take ye Hogni, and with a knife hack him:  cut out his heart:  this ye shall do.  Gunnar the fierce of soul to a gallows fasten; do the work thoroughly, lure up the serpents.

Hogni.

56.  Do as thou listest, glad I will await it; stout I shall prove myself:  I have ere now things much harder proved.  Ye had a hindrance while unscathed we were:  now are we so wounded that our fate thou mayest command.

57.  Beiti spake,—­he was Atli’s steward—­Take we Hialli, but Hogni let us save.  Let us do half the work; he is death-worthy.  As long as he lives a slug he will ever be.

58.  Terrified was the kettle-watcher, the place no longer held him:  he could be a whiner, he clomb into every nook:  their conflict was his bane, as he the penalty must pay; and the day sad, when he must from the swine die, from all good things, which he had enjoyed.

59.  Budli’s cook they took, and the knife brought towards him.  Howled the wretched thrall, ere the point he felt; declared that he had time the gardens to manure, the vilest offices to do, if from death he might escape.  Joyful indeed was Hialli, could he but save his life.

60.  Hogni all this observed—­few so act, as for a slave to intercede, that he may escape!—­“Less ’tis, I say, for me to play this game myself.  Why shall we here desire to listen to that screaming?”

61.  Hands on the good prince they laid.  Then was no option for the bold warriors, the sentence longer to delay.  Then laughed Hogni; heard the sons of day how he could hold out:  torment he well endured!

62.  A harp Gunnar took, with his foot-branches touched it.  He could so strike it, that women wept, and the men sobbed, who best could hear it.  He the noble queen counselled:  the rafters burst asunder.

63.  There died the noble, as the dawn of day; at the last they caused their deeds to live.

64.  Atli thought himself great:  over them both he strode, to the sagacious woman told the evil, and bitterly reproached her.  “It is now morning, Gudrun! thy loved ones thou hast lost; partly thou art the cause that it has so befallen.”

Gudrun.

65.  Joyful art thou, Atli! slaughter to announce:  repentance shall await thee, when thou hast all proved.  That heritage shall be left thee—­that I can tell thee—­that ill shall never from thee go, unless I also die.

Atli.

66.  That I can prevent; another course I see, easier by half:  the good we oft reject.  With slaves I will console thee, with things most precious, with snow-white silver, as thou thyself mayest desire.

Gudrun.

67.  Of that there is no hope; I will all reject; atonement I have spurned for smaller injuries.  Hard I was ever thought, now will that be aggravated.  I every grudge concealed, while Hogni lived.