HALLGERD (beyond
the door of the women’s dais)
Dead men have told me I was better than
fair,
And for my face welcomed the danger of
me:
Then am I spent?
(She enters angrily, looking backward through the doorway.)
Must I shut fast my doors
And hide myself? Must I wear up the
rags
Of mortal perished beauty and be old?
Or is there power left upon my mouth
Like colour, and lilting of ruin in my
eyes?
Am I still rare enough to be your mate?
Then why must I shame at feasts and bear
myself
In shy ungainly ways, made flushed and
conscious
By squat numb gestures of my shapeless
head—
Ay, and its wagging shadow—clouted
up,
Twice tangled with a bundle of hot hair,
Like a thick cot-quean’s in the
settling time?
There are few women in the Quarter now
Who do not wear a shapely fine-webbed
coif
Stitched by dark Irish girls in Athcliath
With golden flies and pearls and glinting
things:
Even my daughter lets her big locks show,
Show and half show, from a hood gentle
and close
That spans her little head like her husband’s
hand.
GUNNAR (entering
by the same door)
I like you when you bear your head so
high;
Lift but your heart as high, you could
get crowned
And rule a kingdom of impossible things.
You would have moon and sun to shine together,
Snowflakes to knit for apples on bare
boughs,
Yea, love to thrive upon the terms of
hate.
If I had fared abroad I should have found
In many countries many marvels for you—
Though not more comeliness in peopled
Romeborg
And not more haughtiness in Mickligarth
Nor craftiness in all the isles of the
world,
And only golden coifs in Athcliath:
Yet you were ardent that I should not
sail,
And when I could not sail you laughed
out loud
And kissed me home....
HALLGERD (who
has been biting her nails)
And then ... and doubtless ... and strangely
...
And not more thriftiness in Bergthorsknoll
Where Njal saves old soft sackcloth for
his wife.
Oh, I must sit with peasants and aged
women,
And keep my head wrapped modestly and
seemly.
(She turns to RANNVEIG.)
I must be humble—as one who lives on others.
(She snatches off her wimple, slipping
her gold circlet as she
does so, and loosens her hair.)
Unless I may be hooded delicately
And use the adornment noble women use
I’ll mock you with my flown young
widowhood,
Letting my hair go loose past either cheek
In two bright clouds and drop beyond my
bosom,
Turning the waving ends under my girdle
As young glad widows do, and as I did
Ere ever you saw me—ay, and
when you found me
And met me as a king meets a queen
In the undying light of a summer night
With burning robes and glances—stirring
the heart with scarlet.