第59章

Certainly it is more venturesome, and allows of a speedier award of the victory.This thought we share, in this opinion we agree of our own accord.But since the issue remains doubtful, we must pay some regard to gentle dealing, and must not give way so far to our inclinations as to leave the last offices undone.Hatred is in our hearts; yet let piety be there also, which in its due time may take the place of rigour.For the rights of nature reconcile us, though we are parted by differences of purpose;they link us together, howsoever rancour estrange our spirit.

Let us, therefore, have this pious stipulation, that the conqueror shall give funeral rites to the conquered.For all allow that these are the last duties of human kind, from which no righteous man shrinks.Let each army lay aside its sternness and perform this function in harmony.Let jealousy depart at death, let the feud be buried in the tomb.Let us not show such an example of cruelty as to persecute one another's dust, though hatred has come between us in our lives.It will be a boast for the victor if he has borne his beaten foe in a lordly funeral.

For the man who pays the rightful dues over his dead enemy wins the goodwill of the survivor; and whoso devotes gentle dealing to him who is no more, conquers the living by his kindness.Also there is another disaster, not less lamentable, which sometimes befalls the living -- the loss of some part of their body; and Ithink that succor is due to this just as much as to the worst hap that may befall.For often those who fight keep their lives safe, but suffer maiming; and this lot is commonly thought more dismal than any death; for death cuts off memory of all things, while the living cannot forget the devastation of his own body.

Therefore this mischief also must be helped somehow; so let it be agreed, that the injury of either of us by the other shall be made good with ten talents (marks) of gold.For if it be righteous to have compassion on the calamities of another, how much more is it to pity one's own? No man but obeys nature's prompting; and he who slights it is a self-murderer."After mutually pledging their faiths to these terms, they began the battle.Nor was their strangeness his meeting one another, nor the sweetness of that spring-green spot, so heeded as to prevent them from the fray.Horwendil, in his too great ardour, became keener to attack his enemy than to defend his own body;and, heedless of his shield, had grasped his sword with both hands; and his boldness did not fail.For by his rain of blows he destroyed Koller's shield and deprived him of it, and at last hewed off his foot and drove him lifeless to the ground.Then, not to fail of his compact, he buried him royally, gave him a howe of lordly make and pompous obsequies.Then he pursued and slew Koller's sister Sela, who was a skilled warrior and experienced in roving.

He had now passed three years in valiant deeds of war; and, in order to win higher rank in Rorik's favour, he assigned to him the best trophies and the pick of the plunder.His friendship with Rorik enabled him to woo and will in marriage his daughter Gerutha, who bore him a son Amleth.

Such great good fortune stung Feng with jealousy, so that he resolved treacherously to waylay his brother, thus showing that goodness is not safe even from those of a man's own house.And behold, when a chance came to murder him, his bloody hand sated the deadly passion of his soul.Then he took the wife of the brother he had butchered, capping unnatural murder with incest.

For whoso yields to one iniquity, speedily falls an easier victim to the next, the first being an incentive to the second.Also, the man veiled the monstrosity of his deed with such hardihood of cunning, that he made up a mock pretence of goodwill to excuse his crime, and glossed over fratricide with a show of righteousness.Gerutha, said he, though so gentle that she would do no man the slightest hurt, had been visited with her husband's extremest hate; and it was all to save her that he had slain his brother; for he thought it shameful that a lady so meek and unrancorous should suffer the heavy disdain of her husband.Nor did his smooth words fail in their intent; for at courts, where fools are sometimes favoured and backbiters preferred, a lie lacks not credit.Nor did Feng keep from shameful embraces the hands that had slain a brother; pursuing with equal guilt both of his wicked and impious deeds.

Amleth beheld all this, but feared lest too shrewd a behaviour might make his uncle suspect him.So he chose to feign dulness, and pretend an utter lack of wits.This cunning course not only concealed his intelligence but ensured his safety.Every day he remained in his mother's house utterly listless and unclean, flinging himself on the ground and bespattering his person with foul and filthy dirt.His discoloured face and visage smutched with slime denoted foolish and grotesque madness.All he said was of a piece with these follies; all he did savoured of utter lethargy.In a word, you would not have thought him a man at all, but some absurd abortion due to a mad fit of destiny.He used at times to sit over the fire, and, raking up the embers with his hands, to fashion wooden crooks, and harden them in the fire, shaping at their lips certain barbs, to make them hold more tightly to their fastenings.When asked what he was about, he said that he was preparing sharp javelins to avenge his father.