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.