Chapter XIV: Canto XI: Lok’s Conversation with Sif

_An attempt to translate the 11th canto in the alliterative
metre of the Icelandic or ancient Scandinavian poetry,
something in the style of the original._

LOK.

Forgive love’s lowly
Liegeman, O Sifia!
Again thy beauty
His bosom burns.
O that my passion,
Pleading for pity,
Could chafe thy fainter
Feelings to flame!

SIF.

Through holes creep rats
Restless roving;
The thief undoeth
Dextrous the door;
Sleep is not safe from
The snares of Loki,
Who with lust leering
Lurks in my bower.

LOK.

With hooks bait-blinded
Beguiled are fishes;
In traps fallacious
Oft foxes fall;
By locks luxuriant
Of lovely females
Seduced, e’en subtle
Loki succumbs.

SIF.

Go seek thy own spouse
Soft-hearted Sigyn,
Wreathing in raven
Ringlets her hair!
Or to thy jet-black
Giantess hie thee!
She to thy wanton
Wishes will yield.

LOK.

By hunger harass’d
Haws must content us,
When no well-flavour’d
Fruit we can find.
Be not disdainful,
Delicate Disa!
Hear with complacent
Pity my prayer!

On the high seas with
Hymir, thy husband
Sits in the wherry,
Wheedling the whale:
Or, of home reckless,
Roves by the rivers,
Intent the silv’ry
Salmon to snare.

While he his own way
Wilfully wanders,
Do thou more pleasing
Pastime pursue!
Thy blooming bower is
Bestrew’d with foliage;
The hour so long’d for
Lures us to love.

SIF.

Of Mimer’s bounteous
Banquet bethink thee,
When thou to Sifia
Sigh’dst forth thy suit!
This time again fate
Frowns on thy frolic;
Vain are thy vows to
Vanquish my heart.

Get thee hence, heartless
Hater of Asar!
Thund’ring terrific,
Thor travels home:
To loftiest larch-tree
Lash’d, he’ll suspend thee
Mournful to moulder
In midnight storms.

Thus the disdainful
Disa derided
Her lustful lover’s
Languishing suit:
Turning away from
The fiend false-hearted,
Sinks the fair Sifia
Softly to sleep.

But now the fraudful
Felon’s eye fixes
From the bedside her
Hair hanging down:
From the head of Sifia
(Seizing her scissors)
Clips he its golden
Glittering grove.

Through airy regions
Rapidly rising,
Loptur licentious
Launches his flight:
Proud of his precious
Prey, he deploys it;
Like shooting star, he
Scuds through the sky.

Thus shone the recreant
Ravisher roaming,
Vaulting thro’ veering
Vapours of night:
For though in murky
Mists mourn’d the heavens,
Sifia’s locks dismal
Darkness dispell’d.

Where’er he flew, in
Flakes fell the hair down
O’er Hertha’s fertile
Flower-crown’d fields;
Stiff’ning the wheat-stalks
Wide-around waving,
Yarely with yellow
Gilding the green.

Where’er he flew, in
Flakes fell the hair down.
Gleaming on Guldbrand’s
Grain-cover’d vale:
Now on each lively
Lassie it lowers,[42]
Tinging with topaz
Tresses of jet.

Of yore in ringlets
Raven-hued rolling,
Their hair o’ershadowed
Shoulders of snow:
Now they display their
Tresses triumphant,
Golden, like Gefion’s,
Like Freya’s, fair.