Page:Gummere (1909) The Oldest English Epic.djvu/144

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128
THE OLDEST ENGLISH EPIC

rides[1] on the gallows. A rime he makes,
sorrow-song for his son there hanging
as rapture of ravens; no rescue now
can come from the old, disabled man!
2450Still is he minded, as morning breaks,
of the heir gone elsewhere;[2] another he hopes not
he will bide to see his burg within
as ward for his wealth, now the one has found
doom of death that the deed incurred.
2455Forlorn he looks on the lodge of his son,
wine-hall waste and wind-swept chambers
reft of revel. The rider sleepeth,
the hero, far-hidden;[3] no harp resounds,
in the courts no wassail, as once was heard.

XXXV

2460“Then he goes to his chamber, a grief-song chants
alone for his lost. Too large all seems,
homestead and house. So the helmet-of-Weders
hid in his heart for Herebeald
waves of woe. No way could he take

2465to avenge on the slayer slaughter so foul;
  1. The regular metaphor in this case. The traditional phrase held for a long while. Wright and Halliwell, Reliquiae Antiquae, II, 119, print from a Harleian Ms. these verses where Christ calls on man to consider the sacrifice on the cross:—

    Restles I ride,—
    Lok upon me, put fro [thee] pride!
    Mi palefrey is of tre. . . .”

    that is, “my horse is made of wood.” Vigfusson, in one of the Grimm centenary papers, says that gallows were horse-shaped. [“Traces of Old Law in the Eddic Lays.”]

  2. Usual euphemism for death.
  3. Sc. in the grave.