with her hands._)

HALLGERD (_laughing as she leans forward and holds her breasts in
her hands_)
O clear sweet laughter of my heart, flow out!
It is so mighty and beautiful and blithe
To watch a man dying--to hover and watch.

RANNVEIG
Cease: are you not immortal in shame already?

HALLGERD
Heroes, what deeds ye compass, what great deeds---
One man has held ye from an open door:
Heroes, heroes, are ye undefeated?

GIZUR (_an old white-bearded man, to the other riders_)
We have laid low to earth a mighty chief:
We have laboured harder than on greater deeds,
And maybe won remembrance by the deeds
Of Gunnar when no deed of ours should live;
For this defence of his shall outlast kingdoms
And gather him fame till there are no more men.

MORD
Come down and splinter those old birds his gods
That perch upon the carven high-seat pillars,
Wreck every place his shadow fell upon,
Rive out his gear, drive off his forfeit beasts.

SECOND MAN
It shall not be.

MANY MEN
Never.

GIZUR
We'll never do it:
Let no man lift a blade or finger a clout--
Is not this Gunnar, Gunnar, whom we have slain?
Home, home, before the dawn shows all our deed.

(_The riders go down quickly over the wall-top, and disappear._)

HALLGERD
Now I shall close his nostrils and his eyes,
And thereby take his blood-feud into my hands.

RANNVEIG
If you do stir I'll choke you with your hair.
I will not let your murderous mind be near him
When he no more can choose and does not know.

HALLGERD
His wife I was, and yet he never judged me:
He did not set your motherhood between us.
Let me alone--I stand here for my sons.

RANNVEIG
The wolf, the carrion bird, and the fair woman
Hurry upon a corpse, as if they think
That all is left for them the grey gods need not.

(_She twines her hands in_ HALLGERD'S _hair and draws her down to
the floor._)

Oh, I will comb your hair with bones and thumbs,
Array these locks in my right widow's way,
And deck you like the bed-mate of the dead.
Lie down upon the earth as Gunnar lies,
Or I can never match him in your looks
And whiten you and make y