第67章

Now (said she), when looking for a wife a wise man must reckon the lustre of her birth and not of her beauty.Therefore, if he were to seek a match in a proper spirit, he should weigh the ancestry, and not be smitten by the looks; for though looks were a lure to temptation, yet their empty bedizenment had tarnished the white simplicity of many a man.Now there was a woman, as nobly born as himself, whom he could take.She herself, whose means were not poor nor her birth lowly, was worthy his embraces, since he did not surpass her in royal wealth nor outshine her in the honour of his ancestors.Indeed she was a queen, and but that her sex gainsaid it, might be deemed a king; may (and this is yet truer), whomsoever she thought worthy of her bed was at once a king, and she yielded her kingdom with herself.Thus her sceptre and her hand went together.It was no mean favour for such a woman to offer her love, who in the case of other men had always followed her refusal with the sword.Therefore she pressed him to transfer his wooing, to make over to her his marriage vows, and to learn to prefer birth to beauty.So saying, she fell upon him with a close embrace.

Amleth was overjoyed at the gracious speech of the maiden, fell to kissing back, and returned her close embrace, protesting that the maiden's wish was his own.Then a banquet was held, friends bidden, the nobles gathered, and the marriage rites performed.

When they were accomplished, he went back to Britain with his bride, a strong band of Scots being told to follow close behind, that he might have its help against the diverse treacheries in his path.As he was returning, the daughter of the King of Britain, to whom he was still married, met him.Though she complained that she was slighted by the wrong of having a paramour put over her, yet, she said, it would be unworthy for her to hate him as an adulterer more than she loved him as a husband: nor would she so far shrink from her lord as to bring herself to hide in silence the guile which she knew was intended against him.For she had a son as a pledge of their marriage, and regard for him, if nothing else, must have inclined his mother to the affection of a wife."He," she said, "may hate the supplanter of his mother, I will love her; no disaster shall put out my flame for thee; no ill-will shall quench it, or prevent me from exposing the malignant designs against thee, or from revealing the snares I have detected.Bethink thee, then, that thou must beware of thy father-in-law, for thou hast thyself reaped the harvest of thy mission, foiled the wishes of him who sent thee, and with willful trespass seized over all the fruit for thyself." By this speech she showed herself more inclined to love her husband than her father.

While she thus spoke, the King of Britain came up and embraced his son-in-law closely, but with little love, and welcomed him with a banquet, to hide his intended guile under a show of generosity.But Amleth, having learnt the deceit, dissembled his fear, took a retinue of two hundred horsemen, put on an under-shirt (of mail), and complied with the invitation, preferring the peril of falling in with the king's deceit to the shame of hanging back.So much heed for honour did he think that he must take in all things.As he rode up close, the king attacked him just under the porch of the folding doors, and would have thrust him through with his javelin, but that the hard shirt of mail threw off the blade.Amleth received a slight wound, and went to the spot where he had bidden the Scottish warriors wait on duty.

He then sent back to the king his new wife's spy, whom he had captured.This man was to bear witness that he had secretly taken from the coffer where it was kept the letter which was meant for his mistress, and thus was to make the whole blame recoil on Hermutrude, by this studied excuse absolving Amleth from the charge of treachery.The king without tarrying pursued Amleth hotly as he fled, and deprived him of most of his forces.

So Amleth, on the morrow, wishing to fight for dear life, and utterly despairing of his powers of resistance, tried to increase his apparent numbers.He put stakes under some of the dead bodies of his comrades to prop them up, set others on horseback like living men, and tied others to neighbouring stones, not taking off any of their armour, and dressing them in due order of line and wedge, just as if they were about to engage.The wing composed of the dead was as thick as the troop of the living.It was an amazing spectacle this, of dead men dragged out to battle, and corpses mustered to fight.The plan served him well, for the very figures of the dead men showed like a vast array as the sunbeams struck them.For those dead and senseless shapes restored the original number of the army so well, that the mass might have been unthinned by the slaughter of yesterday.The Britons, terrified at the spectacle, fled before fighting, conquered by the dead men whom they had overcome in life.Icannot tell whether to think more of the cunning or of the good fortune of this victory.The Danes came down on the king as he was tardily making off, and killed him.Amleth, triumphant, made a great plundering, seized the spoils of Britain, and went back with his wives to his own land.