Scene 1

HAMDIR and SORLI.

GUDRUN enters.

GUDRUN Why do you sit, why do you sleep away your life?

Why aren’t you unhappy when you speak of cheerful things?

Your sister—Svanhild was her name—

She whom Iormunrekk trampled with horses,

White and black, on the paved road,

With the grey horses, trained to pace slowly, of the Goths.

You are thrust back, you great kings,

The last living strand of my lineage.

I have come to stand alone like an aspen in the forest,

My kinsmen cut away as a fir’s branches,

Bereft of happiness, as a wood of its leaves

When a girl cutting branches comes on a warm day.

You haven’t become like Gunnar and his brother,

Nor any the more been brave as Hogni was—

You would have tried to avenge her,

If you had the temperaments of my brothers

Or the fierce spirits of the kings of the Huns.

HAMDIR Little did you praise the achievement of Hogni,

When they awakened Sigurd from sleep,

You sat in the bed and the killers laughed.

Your embroidered coverlets, the blue and white ones,

Woven by craftsmen, were red with your husband’s blood.

There Sigurd died, you sat over the dead man,

Gave no thought to happiness. That’s what Gunnar thought up for you.

Vengeance for your brothers was wounding and painful

To you when you murdered your sons.

Atli you intended to hurt by Erp’s death

And by the loss of Eitil, but it was even worse for you;

Every man should bring about death for others,

With a sword that bites into wounds, so that he does not hurt himself.

We could all have avenged on Iormunrekk

Our sister, all of the same mind.

Bring out the treasures of the kings of the Huns.

You have stirred us up to a meeting of swords.

GUDRUN laughs.

HAMDIR So will the spear-warrior come home to visit his mother,

Brought low in the land of the Goths,

So that you may drink the funeral ale for us all,

For Svanhild and for your sons.

SORLI I do not want to bandy words with Mother;

Each of you two thinks there’s more to be said:

What are you asking for now, Gudrun, the lack of which makes you weep?

Weep for your brothers and your dear sons,

Close-born kinsmen, brought to strife;

For us both, Gudrun, you shall weep too,

We who sit here, doomed men on our horses; far from here we’ll die.

HAMDIR and SORLI exit.

Scene 2

GUDRUN enters.

GUDRUN Three fires have I known, three hearths have I known,

To three husbands’ houses I was brought.

Sigurd alone for me was better than all others,

Whom my brothers did to death.

A heavier, more painful wound I have not seen nor felt—

Yet they intended to hurt me more

When the princes gave me to Atli.

My sharp young boys I called to secret council.

I could not get remedy for my wrongs,

Before I lopped off the heads of the Hniflungs.

I went to the sea-strand, I was enraged with the norns;

I wanted to rush from their violent storms.

Great waves lifted me, did not drown me—

So I came to the land, I had to go on living.

I entered the bed—I’d hoped for something better for myself—

For the third time of a nation’s king.

I had children, legal heirs,

Legal heirs in Ionakr’s sons.

Then still with Svanhild sat her maids,

The one of my children whom I loved best with all my heart,

Svanhild in my hall

Was like an illustrious ray of the sun.

I dressed in her in gold and splendid garments

Before I gave her to the people of the Goths.

That was the cruellest of all my injuries,

When the white-blonde hair of Svanhild

In the mud they trod under the horses’ hooves.

And the most agonizing when they killed my Sigurd,

Robbed him of victory, in our bed;

And the most terrible when the gleaming snakes

Crept towards Gunnar’s life;

And the sharpest when they cut to the heart

Of the king, unafraid, they sliced into the living man.

I remember many wrongs…

Bridle, Sigurd, the dark-colored, shining horse,

The swift-footed charger— let it gallop here.

Here there does not sit a daughter-in-law or daughter

Who might give treasure to Gudrun.

Do you recall, Sigurd, what we promised,

When we two lay in bed together,

That, brave warrior, you would visit me from hell,

And I would come to you from the world.

Nobles, build high the oak-wood pyre!

Let it be the highest under the heaven.

May fire burn up the breast so full of wrongs,

May sorrows melt, heavy above the heart.

To all warriors—may your lot be made better;

To all ladies—may your sorrows grow less,

Now this chain of griefs has been recounted.

Fin.