University of Virginia Library

Then amid the gathered Goth-folk 'gan Siggeir the King to call:
“Who lit the fire I burn in, and what shall buy me peace?
Will ye take my heaped up treasure, or ten years of my fields' increase,
Or half of my father's kingdom? O toilers at the oar,
O wasters of the sea-plain, now labour ye no more!
But take the gifts I bid you, and lie upon the gold,
And clothe your limbs in purple and the silken women hold!”