第145章
Snio, wishing to avenge their death, invaded Gothland.Its king met him with his forces, and the aforesaid champions challenged him to send strong men to fight.Snio laid down as condition of the duel, that each of the two kings should either lose his own empire or gain that of the other, according to the fortune of the champions, and that the kingdom of the conquered should be staked as the prize of the victory.The result was that the King of the Goths was beaten by reason of the ill-success of his defenders, and had to quit his kingdom for the Danes.Snio, learning that this king's daughter had been taken away at the instance of her father to wed the King of the Swedes, sent a man clad in ragged attire, who used to ask alms on the public roads, to try her mind.And while he lay, as beggars do, by the threshold, he chanced to see the queen, and whined in a weak voice, "Snio loves thee." She feigned not to have heard the sound that stole on her ears, and neither looked nor stepped back, but went on to the palace, then returned straightway, and said in a low whisper, which scarcely reached his ears, "I love him who loves me"; and having said this she walked away.
The beggar rejoiced that she had returned a word of love, and, as he sat on the next day at the gate, when the queen came up, he said, briefly as ever, "Wishes should have a tryst." Again she shrewdly caught his cunning speech, and passed on, dissembling wholly.A little later she passed by her questioner, and said that she would shortly go to Bocheror; for this was the spot to which she meant to flee.And when the beggar heard this, he insisted, with his wonted shrewd questions, upon being told a fitting time for the tryst.The woman was as cunning as he, and as little clear of speech, and named as quickly as she could the beginning of the winter.
Her train, who had caught a flying word of this love-message, took her great cleverness for the raving of utter folly.And when Snio had been told all this by the beggar, he contrived to carry the queen off in a vessel; for she got away under pretence of bathing, and took her husband's treasures.After this there were constant wars between Snio and the King of Sweden, whereof the issue was doubtful and the victory changeful; the one king seeking to regain his lawful, the other to keep his unlawful love.
At this time the yield of crops was ruined by most inclement weather, and a mighty dearth of corn befell.Victuals began to be scarce, and the commons were distressed with famine, so that the king, anxiously pondering how to relieve the hardness of the times, and seeing that the thirsty spent somewhat more than the hungry, introduced thrift among the people.He abolished drinking-bouts, and decreed that no drink should be prepared from gram, thinking that the bitter famine should be got rid of by prohibiting needless drinking, and that plentiful food could be levied as a loan on thirst.
Then a certain wanton slave of his belly, lamenting the prohibition against drink, adopted a deep kind of knavery, and found a new way to indulge his desires.He broke the public law of temperance by his own excess, contriving to get at what he loved by a device both cunning and absurd.For he sipped the forbidden liquor drop by drop, and so satisfied his longing to be tipsy.When he was summoned for this by the king, he declared that there was no stricter observer of sobriety than he, inasmuch as he mortified his longing to quaff deep by this device for moderate drinking.He persisted in the fault with which he was taxed, saying that he only sucked.At last he was also menaced with threats, and forbidden not only to drink, but even to sip;yet he could not check his habits.For in order to enjoy the unlawful thing in a lawful way, and not to have his throat subject to the command of another, he sopped morsels of bread in liquor, and fed on the pieces thus soaked with drink; tasting slowly, so as to prolong the desired debauch, and attaining, though in no unlawful manner, the forbidden measure of satiety.
Thus his stubborn and frantic intemperance risked his life, all for luxury; and, undeterred even by the threats of the king, he fortified his rash appetite to despise every peril.A second time he was summoned by the king on the charge of disobeying his regulation.Yet he did not even theft cease to defend his act, but maintained that he had in no wise contravened the royal decree, and that the temperance prescribed by the ordinance had been in no way violated by that which allured him; especially as the thrift ordered in the law of plain living was so described, that it was apparently forbidden to drink liquor, but not to eat it.Then the king called heaven to witness, and swore by the general good, that if he ventured on any such thing hereafter he would punish him with death.But the man thought that death was not so bad as temperance, and that it was easier to quit life than luxury; and he again boiled the grain in water, and then fermented the liquor; whereupon, despairing of any further plea to excuse his appetite, he openly indulged in drink, and turned to his cups again unabashed.Giving up cunning for effrontery, he chose rather to await the punishment of the king than to turn sober.Therefore, when the king asked him why he had so often made free to use the forbidden thing, he said: