ted with the jeers of the court-folk; I am not received as
a guest should be; I am girded at with harsh gibing, and stung with
babbling taunts.

"I am a stranger, and would gladly know what news are spread abroad by
busy rumour; what is the course of events; what the order of the land;
what is doing in your country.

"Thou, Ingild, buried in sin, why dost thou tarry in the task of
avenging thy father? Wilt thou think tranquilly of the slaughter of thy
righteous sire?

"Why dost thou, sluggard, think only of feasting, and lean thy belly
back in ease, more effeminate than harlots? Is the avenging of thy
slaughtered father a little thing to thee?

"When last I left thee, Frode, I learned by my prophetic soul that thou,
mightiest of kings, wouldst surely perish by the sword of enemies.

"And while I travelled long in the land, a warning groan rose in my
soul, which augured that thereafter I was never to see thee more.

"Wo is me, that then I was far away, harrying the farthest peoples of
the earth, when the traitorous guest aimed craftily at the throat of his
king.

"Else I would either have shown myself the avenger of my lord, or
have shared his fate and fallen where he fell, and would joyfully have
followed the blessed king in one and the same death.

"I have not come to indulge in gluttonous feasting, the sin whereof I
will strive to chastise; nor will I take mine ease, nor the delights of
the fat belly.

"No famous king has ever set me before in the middle by the strangers. I
have been wont to sit in the highest seats among friends.

"I have come from Sweden, travelling over wide lands, thinking that I
should be rewarded, if only I had the joy to find the son of my beloved
Frode.

"But I sought a brave man, and I have come to a glutton, a king who is
the slave of his belly and of vice, whose liking has been turned back
towards wantonness by filthy pleasure.

"Famous is the speech men think that Halfdan spoke: he warned us it
would soon come to pass that an understanding father should beget a
witless son.

"Though the heir be deemed degenerate, I will not suffer the wealth of
mighty Frode to profit strangers or to be made public like plunder."

At these words the queen trembled, and she took from her head the ribbon
with which she happened, in woman's fashion, to be adorning her hair,
and proffered it to the enraged old man, as though she could avert his
anger with a gift. Starkad in anger flung it back