Now Gudrun heard of the slaying of Swanhild,
and spake to her sons, "Why sit ye here in peace amid many words, whereas
Jormunrek hath slain your sister, and trodden her under foot of horses
in shameful wise? No heart ye have in you like to Gunnar or Hogni; verily
they would have avenged their kinswoman!"
Hamdir answered, "Little didst thou praise Gunnar and
Hogni, whereas they slew Sigurd, and thou wert reddened in the blood
of him, and ill were thy brethren avenged by the slaying of thine own
sons: yet not so ill a deed were it for us to slay King Jormunrek, and
so hard thou pushest on to this that we may naught abide thy hard words."
Gudrun went about laughing now, and gave them to drink
from mighty beakers, and thereafter she got for them great byrnies and
good, and all other weed (1) of war.
Then spake Hamdir, "Lo now, this is our last parting,
for thou shalt hear tidings of us, and drink one grave-ale (2) over
us and over Swanhild."
So therewith they went their ways.
But Gudrun went unto her bower, with heart swollen with
sorrow, and spake --
"To three men was I wedded, and first to Sigurd Fafnir's-bane,
and he was bewrayed and slain, and of all griefs was that the greatest
grief. Then was I given to King Atli, and so fell was my heart toward
him that I slew in the fury of my grief his children and mine. Then
gave I myself to the sea, but the billows thereof cast me out aland,
and to this king then was I given; then gave I Swanhild away out of
the land with mighty wealth; and lo, my next greatest sorrow after Sigurd,
for under horses feet was she trodden and slain; but the grimmest and
ugliest of woes was the casting of Gunnar into the Worm-close, and the
hardest was the cutting of Hogni's heart from him.
"Ah, better would it be if Sigurd came to meet me, and
I went my ways with him, for here bideth now behind with me neither
son nor daughter to comfort me. Oh, mindest thou not, Sigurd, the words
we spoke when we went into one bed together, that thou wouldst come
and look on me; yea, even from thine abiding place among the dead?
And thus had the words of her sorrow an end.