þonne cwið æt beore se ðe beah gesyhð,
eald æscwiga, se ðe eall geman
garcwealm gumena (him bið grim sefa)
onginneð geomormod geongum cempan
þurh hreðra gehygd higes cunnian,
wigbealu weccean, ond þæt word acwyð:
"Meaht ðu, min wine, mece gecnawan,
þone þin fæder to gefeohte bær
under heregriman, hindeman siðe,
dyre iren, þær hine Dene slogon,
weoldon wælstowe, syððan Wiðergyld læg
æfter hæleþa hryre, hwate Scyldingas?
Nu her þara banena byre nathwylces,
frætwum hremig, on flet gæð,
mordres gylpeð ond þone maðþum byreð
þone þe þu mid rihte rædan sceoldest!"

(The "old warrior"—no less a hero than Starkad himself, according to Saxo—bears a grudge on account of the slaying of Froda, and cannot endure the reconciliation that has been made. He sees the reconciled enemies still wearing the spoils of war, arm-rings, and even Froda's sword, and addresses Ingeld, Froda's son):—

Over the ale he speaks, seeing the ring,
the old warrior, that remembers all,
the spear-wrought slaying of men (his thought is grim),
with sorrow at heart begins with the young champion,
in study of mind to make trial of his valour,
to waken the havoc of war, and thus he speaks:
"Knowest thou, my lord? nay, well thou knowest the falchion
that thy father bore to the fray,
wearing his helmet of war, in that last hour,
the blade of price, where the Danes him slew,
and kept the field, when Withergyld was brought down
after the heroes' fall; yea, the Danish princes slew him!
See now, a son of one or other of the men of blood,
glorious in apparel, goes through the hall,
boasts of the stealthy slaying, and bears the goodly heirloom
that thou of right shouldst have and hold!"

(2) The Northern arrangement, with "the sense concluded in the couplet," is quite different from the Western style. There is no need to quote more than a few lines. The following passage is from the last scene of Helgi and Sigrun (C.P.B., i. p. 143; see [p. 72] above—"Yet precious are the draughts," etc.):—

Vel skolom drekka dýrar veigar
þótt misst hafim munar ok landa:
skal engi maðr angr-lióð kveða,
þótt mer á briósti benjar líti.
Nú ero brúðir byrgðar í haugi,
lofða dísir, hjá oss liðnom.

The figure of Anadiplosis (or the "Redouble," as it is called in the Arte of English Poesie) is characteristic of a certain group of Northern poems. See the note on this, with references, in C.P.B., i. p. 557. The poems in which this device appears are the poems of the heroines (Brynhild, Gudrun, Oddrun), the heroic idylls of the North. In these poems the repetition of a phrase, as in the Greek pastoral poetry and its descendants, has the effect of giving solemnity to the speech, and slowness of movement to the line.

So in the Long Lay of Brynhild (C.P.B., i. p. 296):—

svárar sifjar, svarna eiða,
eiða svarna, unnar trygðir;

and (ibid.)—