ove.
For this man, said they, all men's hearts did move,
Nor yet might envy cling to such an one,
So far beyond all dwellers 'neath the sun;
Great was he, yet so fair of face and limb
That all folk wondered much, beholding him,
How such a man could be; no fear he knew,
And all in manly deeds he could outdo;
Fleet-foot, a swimmer strong, an archer good,
Keen-eyed to know the dark waves' changing mood;
Sure on the crag, and with the sword so skilled,
That when he played therewith the air seemed filled
With light of gleaming blades; therewith was he
Of noble speech, though says not certainly
My tale, that aught of his he left behind
With rhyme and measure deftly intertwined.

(P. 266.)

The Old Norse touch here is in the last three lines which intimate that
the warrior was often a bard; but be it remembered that the Elizabethan
warrior could turn a sonnet, too.

We have said that the _Laxdaela Saga_ is famous for its portrayal of
character. This English version falls not at all below the original in
this quality. The lines already quoted show Gudrun and Kiartan as to
exterior. But this is a drama of flesh and blood creations, and they are
men and women that move through it, not puppets. Souls are laid bare
here, in quivering, pulsating agony. The tremendous figure of this story
is not Kiartan, nor Gudrun, nor Refna, but Bodli, and certainly English
narrative poetry has no second creation like to him. The mind reverts to
Shakespeare to find fit companionship for Bodli in poetry, and to George
Eliot and Thomas Hardy in prose. The suggestion of Shakespearean
qualities in George Eliot has been made by several great critics, among
them Edmond Scherer;[31] in Hardy and Morris, here, we find the same
soul-searching powers. These writers have created sufferers of titanic
greatness, and in the presence of their tragedies we are dumb.

An English artist has made Napoleon's voyage on H.M.S. _Bellerophon_ to
his prison-isle a picture that the memory refuses to forget. The picture
of Bodli as he sails back to Iceland, which, though his home, is to be
his prison and his death, is no less impressive:

Fair goes the ship that beareth out Christ's truth
Mingled of hope, of sorrow, and of ruth,
And on the prow Bodli the Christian stands,
Sunk deep in thought of all the many lands
The world holds, and the folk that dwell therein,
And wondering why