"O heart of a feeble trembler, no heart of Hogni the bold!
A gold dish bears thee quaking, yet indeed thou quakedst more
When the breast of the helpless dastard the burden of thee bore."
The great hall was smitten silent and its mirth to fear was turned,
For the wrath of the King was kindled, and the eyes of Atli burned,
And he cried as they trembled before him: "Let me see the heart of my foe!
Fear ye to mock King Atli till his head in the dust be alow!"
Then the sword-carles flee before him, and are angry with their dread,
For they fear the living East-King yet more than the Niblung dead:
They come to the pit and the death-house, and the whetted steel they bear;
They are pale before King Hogni; as winter-wolves they glare
Whom the ravening hunger driveth, when the chapmen journey slow,
And their horses faint in the moon-dusk, and stumble through the snow.
But Hogni laughed before them, and he saith: "Now welcome again,
Now welcome again, war-fellows! Was Atli hood-winked then?
I looked that ye should be speedy; and, forsooth, ye needs must haste,
Lest more lives than one this even for Atli's will ye waste."
About him throng the sword-men, and they shout as the war-fain cry
In the heart of the bitter battle when their hour is come to die,
And they cast themselves upon him, as on some wide-shielded man
That fierce in the storm of Odin upreareth edges wan.
With the bound man swift is the steel: sore tremble the sons of the wise,
And their hearts grow faint within them; yet no man hideth his eyes
As the edges deal with the mighty: nor dreadful is he now,
For the mock from his mouth hath faded, and the threat hath failed from his brow,
And his face is as great and Godlike as his fathers of old days,
As fair as an image fashioned in remembrance of their praise:
But fled is the spirit of Hogni, and every deed he did,
The seed of the world it lieth, in the hand of Odin hid.
On the gold is the heart of Hogni, and men bear it forth to the King,
As he sits in the hall of his triumph mid the glee and the harp-playing:
Lo, the heart of a son of Giuki! and Gunnar liveth yet,
And the white unangry Gudrun by the Eastland King is set:
Upriseth the soul of Atli, and his breast is swollen with pride,
And he laughs in the face of Gunnar and the woman set by his side:
Then he looks on his living earls, and they cast their cry to the roof,
And it clangs o'er the woeful city and wails through the night aloof;
All the world of man-folk hearkeneth, and hath little joy therein,
Though the men of the East in glory high-tide with Atli win.
But fair is the face of Gunnar as the token draweth anigh;
And he saith: "O heart of Hogni, on the gold indeed dost thou lie,
And as little as there thou quakest far less wert thou wont to quake
When thou lay'st in the breast of the mighty, and wert glad for his gladness' sake,
And wert sorry with his sorrow; O mighty heart, farewell!
Farewell for a little season, till thy latest deed I tell."
Then was Gunnar silent a little, and the shout in the hall had died,
And he spoke as a man awakening, and turned on Atli's pride.
"Thou all-rich King of the Eastlands, e'en such a man might I be
That I might utter a word, and the heart should be glad in thee,
And I should live and be sorry; for I, I only am left
To tell of the ransom of Odin, and the wealth from the toiler reft.
Lo, once it lay in the water, hid, deep adown it lay,
Till the Gods were grieved and lacking, and men saw it and the day:
Let it lie in the water once more, let the Gods be rich and in peace!
But I at least in the world from the words and the babble shall cease."
So he spake and Atli beheld him, and before his eyes he shrank:
Still deep of the cup of desire the mighty Atli drank,
And to overcome seemed little if the Gold he might not have,
And his hard heart craved for a while to hold the King for a slave,
A bondman blind and guarded in his glorious house and great:
But he thought of the overbold, and of kings who have dallied with fate,
And died bemocked and smitten; and he deemed it worser than well
While the last of the sons of Giuki hangeth back from his journey to Hell:
So he turneth away from the stranger, and beholdeth Gudrun his wife,
Not glad nor sorry by seeming, no stirrer nor stayer of strife:
Then he looked at his living earl-folk, and thought of his groves of war,
And his realm and the kindred nations, and his measureless guarded store:
And he thought: Shall Atli perish, shall his name be cast to the dead,
Though the feeble folk go wailing? Then he cried aloud and said: