auses at the sound of a voice._)

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,
Lett