University of Virginia Library

Then, smiling nowise kindly, doth Gudrun her behold,
And she saith: “Thou art wrong, Queen Brynhild, to give the place to me,
For she that is wife of the greatest more than sister-kin shall be.
—Nay, if here were the sister of Sigurd ne'er before me should she go,
Though sister were she surely of the best that the earth-folk know:

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Yet I linger not, since thou biddest, for the courteous of women thou art;
And the love of the night and the morning is heavy at my heart;
For the best of the world was beside me, while thou layest with Gunnar the King.”