his reproach
served like a flint wherewith to strike a blazing flame of valour in the
soul that had been chill and slack. For the king had at first heard
the song inattentively; but, stirred by the earnest admonition of
his guardian, he conceived in his heart a tardy fire of revenge; and,
forgetting the reveller, he changed into the foeman. At last he leapt up
from where he lay, and poured the whole flood of his anger on those at
table with him; insomuch that he unsheathed his sword upon the sons of
Swerting with bloody ruthlessness, and aimed with drawn blade at the
throats of those whose gullets he had pampered with the pleasures of the
table. These men he forthwith slew; and by so doing he drowned the
holy rites of the table in blood. He sundered the feeble bond of their
league, and exchanged a shameful revel for enormous cruelty; the host
became the foe, and that vilest slave of excess the bloodthirsty agent
of revenge. For the vigorous pleading of his counsellor bred a breath of
courage in his soft and unmanly youth; it drew out his valour from its
lurking-place, and renewed it, and so fashioned it that the authors of a
most grievous murder were punished even as they deserved. For the young
man's valour had been not quenched, but only in exile, and the aid of
an old man had drawn it out into the light; and it accomplished a deed
which was all the greater for its tardiness; for it was somewhat nobler
to steep the cups in blood than in wine. What a spirit, then, must we
think that old man had, who by his eloquent adjuration expelled from
that king's mind its infinite sin, and who, bursting the bonds of
iniquity, implanted a most effectual seed of virtue. Starkad aided the
king with equal achievements; and not only showed the most complete
courage in his own person, but summoned back that which had been rooted
out of the heart of another. When the deed was done, he thus begun:

"King Ingild, farewell; thy heart, full of valour, hath now shown a deed
of daring. The spirit that reigns in thy body is revealed by its fair
beginning; nor did there lack deep counsel in thy heart, though thou
wert silent till this hour; for thou dost redress by thy bravery what
delay had lost, and redeemest the sloth of thy spirit by mighty valour.
Come now, let us rout the rest, and let none escape the peril which
all alike deserve. Let the crime come home to the culprit; let the sin
return and crush its contriver.

"Let the servants take