49.  At length after reflection, the lady linen-clad, young in years, words in answer uttered:  “I desire that none, dead to entreaty, should by force, for our sake, lose their life.

50.  Yet o’er your bones will burn fewer ornaments, Menia’s good meal,[77] when ye go hence me to seek.

51.  Gunnar! sit down, I will tell to thee, that of life now hopeless is thy bright consort.  Thy vessel will not be always afloat, though I shall have my life resigned.

52.  With Gudrun thou wilt be reconciled, sooner than thou thinkest:  that wise woman has by the king sad memorials, after her consort’s death.

53.  There is born a maid, which her mother rears; brighter far than the clear day, than the sun’s beam, will Svanhild be.

54.  Gudrun thou wilt give to an illustrious one, a warrior, the bane of many men:  not to her wish will she be married; Atli will come her to espouse, Budli’s son, my brother.

55.  Much have I in memory how I was treated, when ye me so cruelly had deceived:  robbed I was of happiness, while my life lasted.

56.  Thou wilt desire Oddrun to possess, but Atli will permit it not; in secret ye will each other meet.  She will love thee, as I had done, if us a better fate had been allotted.

57.  Thee will Atli barbarously treat; in the narrow serpent-den wilt thou be cast.

58.  It will too come to pass, not long after, that Atli will his soul resign, his prosperity, and cease to live; for Gudrun in her vengeance him in his bed will slay, through bitterness of spirit, with the sword’s sharp edge.

59.  More seemly would appear our sister Gudrun, had she in death her first consort followed, had but good counsel been to her given, or she a soul possessed resembling mine—­

60.  Faintly I now speak—­but for our sake she will not lose her life.  She will be borne on towering billows to King Jonakr’s paternal soil.  Doubts will be in the resolves of Jonakr’s sons.

61.  She will Svanhild send from the land, her daughter, and Sigurd’s.  Her will destroy Bikki’s counsel; for Jormunrek for evil lives.  Then will have passed away all Sigurd’s race, and Gudrun’s tears will be the more.

62.  One prayer I have to thee yet to make, in this world ’twill be my last request:  Let in the plain be raised a pile so spacious, that for us all like room may be, for those who shall have died with Sigurd.

63.  Bedeck the pile about with shields and hangings, a variegated corpse-cloth, and multitude of slain.  Let them burn the Hun[78] on the one side of me;

64.  Let them with the Hun burn on the other side, my household slaves, with collars splendid, two at our heads, and two hawks; then will all be equally distributed.

65.  Let also lie between us both the sword with rings adorned, the keen-edged iron, so again be placed, as when we both one couch ascended, and were then called by the name of consorts.