Let us go hence, lest there should fall

  Something that yet should mar it all.

  GILES

  Hist — Master Mayor is drawn anigh;

  The Empress speaketh presently.

  THE MAYOR

  May it please you, your Graces, that I be forgiven,

  Over-bold, over-eager to bear forth my speech,

  In which yet there speaketh the Good Town, beseeching

  That ye tell us of your kindness if ye be contented

  With this breath of old tales, and shadowy seemings

  Of old times departed. — Overwise for our pleasure

  May the rhyme be perchance; but rightly we knew not

  How to change it and fashion it fresh into fairness.

  And once more, your Graces, we pray your forgiveness

  For the boldness Love gave us to set forth this story;

  And again, that I say, all that Pharamond sought for,

  Through sick dreams and weariness, now have ye found,

  Mid health and in wealth, and in might to uphold us;

  Midst our love who shall deem you our hope and our treasure.

  Well all is done now; so forget ye King Pharamond,

  And Azalais his love, if we set it forth foully,

  That fairly set forth were a sweet thing to think of

  In the season of summer betwixt labour and sleeping.

  THE EMPEROR

  Fair Master Mayor, and City well beloved,

  Think of us twain as folk no little moved

  By this your kindness; and believe it not

  That Pharamond the Freed shall be forgot,

  By us at least: yea, more than ye may think,

  This summer dream into our hearts shall sink.

  Lo, Pharamond longed and toiled, nor toiled in vain,

  But fame he won: he longed and toiled again,

  And Love he won: ’twas a long time ago,

  And men did swiftly what we now do slow,

  And he, a great man full of gifts and grace,

  Wrought out a twofold life in ten years’ space.

  Ah, fair sir, if for me reward come first,

  Yet will I hope that ye have seen the worst

  Of that my kingcraft, that I yet shall earn

  Some part of that which is so long to learn.

  Now of your gentleness I pray you bring

  This knife and girdle, deemed a well-wrought thing;

  And a king’s thanks, whatso they be of worth,

  To him who Pharamond this day set forth

  In worthiest wise, and made a great man live,

  Giving me greater gifts than I may give.

  THE EMPRESS

  And therewithal I pray you, Master Mayor,

  Unto the seeming Azalais to bear

  This chain, that she may wear it for my sake,

  The memory of my pleasure to awake. [Exit MAYOR.

  THE EMPEROR

  Gifts such as kings give, sweet! Fain had I been

  To see him face to face and his fair Queen,

  And thank him friendly; asking him maybe

  How the world looks to one with love left free:

  It may not be, for as thine eyes say, sweet,

  Few folk as friends shall unfreed Pharamond meet.

  So is it: we are lonelier than those twain,

  Though from their vale they ne’er depart again.

  THE EMPRESS

  Shall I lament it, love, since thou and I

  By all the seeming pride are drawn more nigh?

  Lo, love, our toil-girthed garden of desire,

  How of its changeless sweetness may we tire,

  While round about the storm is in the boughs

  And careless change amid the turmoil ploughs

  The rugged fields we needs must stumble o’er,

  Till the grain ripens that shall change no more.

  THE EMPEROR

  Yea, and an omen fair we well may deem

  This dreamy shadowing of ancient dream,

  Of what our own hearts long for on the day

  When the first furrow cleaves the fallow grey.

  THE EMPRESS

  O fair it is! let us go forth, my sweet,

  And be alone amid the babbling street;

  Yea, so alone that scarce the hush of night

  May add one joy unto our proved delight.

  GILES

  Fair lovers were they: I am fain

  To see them both ere long again;

  Yea, nigher too, if it might be.

  JOAN

  Too wide and dim, love, lies the sea,

  That we should look on face to face

  This Pharamond and Azalais.

  Those only from the dead come back

  Who left behind them what they lack.

  GILES

  Nay, I was asking nought so strange,

  Since long ago their life did change:

  The seeming King and Queen I meant.

  And e’en now ’twas my full intent

  To bid them home to us straightway,

  And crown the joyance of to-day.

  He may be glad to see my face,

  He first saw mid that waggon race

  When the last barley-sheaf came home.

  JOAN

  A great joy were it, should they come.

  They are dear lovers, sure enough.

  He deems the summer air too rough

  To touch her kissed cheek, howsoe’er

  Through winter mountains they must fare,

  He would bid spring new flowers to make

  Before her feet, that oft must ache

  With flinty driftings of the waste.

  And sure is she no more abased

  Before the face of king and lord,

  Than if the very Pharamond’s sword

  Her love amid the hosts did wield

  Above the dinted lilied shield:

  O bid them home with us, and we

  Their scholars for a while will be

  In many a lesson of sweet lore

  To learn love’s meaning more and more.

  GILES

  And yet this night of all the year

  Happier alone perchance they were,

  And better so belike would seem

  The glorious lovers of the dream:

  So let them dream on lip to lip:

  Yet will I gain his fellowship

  Ere many days be o’er my head,

  And they shall rest them in our stead;

  And there we four awhile shall dwell

  As though the world were nought but well,

  And that old time come back again

  When nought in all the earth had pain.

  The sun through lime-boughs where we dine

  Upon my father’s cup shall shine;

  The vintage of the river-bank,

  That ten years since the sunbeams drank,

  Shall fill the mazer bowl carved o’er

  With naked shepherd-folk of yore.

  Dainty should seem worse fare than ours

  As o’er the close-thronged garden flowers

  The wind comes to us, and the bees

  Complain overhead mid honey-trees.

  JOAN

  Wherewith shall we be garlanded?

  GILES

  For thee the buds of roses red.

  JOAN

  For her white roses widest blown.

  GILES

  The jasmine boughs for Pharamond’s crown.

  JOAN

  And sops-in-wine for thee, fair love.

  GILES

  Surely our feast shall deeper move

  The kind heart of the summer-tide

  Than many a day of pomp and pride;

  And as by moon and stars well lit

  Our kissing lips shall finish it,

  Full satisfied our hearts shall be

  With that well-won felicity.

  JOAN

  Ah, sweetheart, be not all so sure:

  Love, who beyond all worlds shall dure,

  Mid pleading sweetness still doth keep

  A goad to stay his own from sleep;

  And I shall long as thou shalt long

  For unknown cure of unnamed wrong

  As from our happy feast we pass

  Along the rose-strewn midnight grass —

  — Praise Love who will not be forgot!

  GILES

  Yea, praise we Love who sleepeth not!

  — Come, o’er much gold mine eyes have seen,

  And long now for the pathway green,

  And rose-hung ancient walls of grey

  Yet warm with sunshine gone away.

  JOAN

  Yea, full fain would I rest thereby,

  And watch the flickering martins fly

  About the long eave-bottles red

  And the clouds lessening overhead:

  E’en now meseems the cows are come

  Unto the grey gates of our home,

  And low to hear the milking-pail:

  The peacock spreads abroad his tail

  Against the sun, as down the lane

  The milkmaids pass the moveless wain,

  And stable door, where the roan team

  An hour agone began to dream

  Over the dusty oats. — Come, love,

  Noises of river and of grove

  And moving things in field and stall

  And night-birds’ whistle shall be all

  Of the world’s speech that we shall hear

  By then we come the garth anear:

  For then the moon that hangs aloft

  These thronged streets, lightless now and soft,

  Unnoted, yea, e’en like a shred

  Of yon wide white cloud overhead,

  Sharp in the dark star-sprinkled sky

  Low o’er the willow boughs shall lie;

  And when our chamber we shall gain

  Eastward our drowsy eyes shall strain

  If yet perchance the dawn may show.

  — O Love, go with us as we go,

  And from the might of thy fair hand

  Cast wide about the blooming land

  The seed of such-like tales as this!

  — O Day, change round about our bliss,

  Come, restful night, when day is done!

  Come, dawn, and bring a fairer one!

  THE STORY OF SIGURD THE VOLSUNG AND THE FALL OF THE NIBLUNGS

  An epic poem of over ten thousand lines, Morris’ Story of Sigurd the Volsung and the Fall of the Niblungs was first published in 1876. It tells the tragic story, drawn from the Volsunga Saga and the Elder Edda, of the Norse hero Sigmund, his son Sigurd (the equivalent of Siegfried in the Middle German Nibelungenlied, the inspiration for Wagner’s Ring of the Nibelungand) and Sigurd’s wife, Gudrun. It is the culmination of a fascination with the Volsung legend that extended back twenty years to Morris’ youth — his writing of the poem was also inspired by trips to Iceland in 1871 and 1873. It was Morris’ own favourite of his poems, and was enthusiastically praised by contemporary critics and by such figures as T. E. Lawrence and George Bernard Shaw. The epic poem has also been recognised as an influence on such fantasy writers as Andrew Lang and J. R. R. Tolkien.

  Morris began work on the poem in October 1875, completing it the following year. He took both the Volsunga Saga and the corresponding poems of the Poetic Edda/Elder Edda as his basic sources, but felt free to alter them as he thought necessary. The poem is composed in rhyming hexameter couplets, often with anapaestic movement and a feminine caesura. In keeping with the Germanic theme Morris used kennings (two-word descriptive phrases, e.g. “sword-wielder”), a good deal of alliteration and, wherever possible, words of Anglo-Saxon origin. This resulted in a difficult and archaic diction, though offering a rich and rewarding reading experience.

  Title page of the first edition

  CONTENTS

  STORY OF SIGURD: BOOK I.

  STORY OF SIGURD: BOOK II.

  STORY OF SIGURD: BOOK III.

  GLOSSARY

  The dramatic, volcanic landscape of Iceland, which helped to inspire the writing of the poem

  STORY OF SIGURD: BOOK I.

  SIGMUND.

  Of the dwelling of King Volsung, and the wedding of Signy his daughter.

  There was a dwelling of Kings ere the world was waxen old;

  Dukes were the door-wards there, and the roofs were thatched with gold:

  Earls were the wrights that wrought it, and silver nailed its doors;

  Earls’ wives were the weaving-women, queens’ daughters strewed its floors,

  And the masters of its song-craft were the mightiest men that cast

  The sails of the storm of battle adown the bickering blast.

  There dwelt men merry-hearted, and in hope exceeding great

  Met the good days and the evil as they went the way of fate:

  There the Gods were unforgotten, yea whiles they walked with men,

  Though e’en in that world’s beginning rose a murmur now and again

  Of the midward time and the fading and the last of the latter days,

  And the entering in of the terror, and the death of the People’s Praise.

  Thus was the dwelling of Volsung, the King of the Midworld’s Mark,

  As a rose in the winter season, a candle in the dark;

  And as in all other matters ’twas all earthly houses’ crown,

  And the least of its wall-hung shields was a battle-world’s renown,

  So therein withal was a marvel and a glorious thing to see,

  For amidst of its midmost hall-floor sprang up a mighty tree,

  That reared its blessings roofward, and wreathed the roof-tree dear

  With the glory of the summer and the garland of the year.

  I know not how they called it ere Volsung changed his life,

  But his dawning of fair promise, and his noontide of the strife,

  His eve of the battle-reaping and the garnering of his fame,

  Have bred us many a story and named us many a name;

  And when men tell of Volsung, they call that war-duke’s tree,

  That crowned stem, the Branstock; and so was it told unto me.

  So there was the throne of Volsung beneath its blossoming bower,

  But high o’er the roof-crest red it rose ‘twixt tower and tower,

  And therein were the wild hawks dwelling, abiding the dole of their lord;

  And they wailed high over the wine, and laughed to the waking sword.

  Still were its boughs but for them, when lo, on an even of May

  Comes a man from Siggeir the King with a word for his mouth to say:

  “All hail to thee King Volsung, from the King of the Goths I come:

  He hath heard of thy sword victorious and thine abundant home;

  He hath heard of thy sons in the battle, the fillers of Odin’s Hall;

  And a word hath the west-wind blown him, (full fruitful be its fall!)

  A word of thy daughter Signy the crown of womanhood:

  Now he deems thy friendship goodly, and thine help in the battle good,

  And for these will he give his friendship and his battle-aid again:

  But if thou wouldst grant his asking, and make his heart full fain,

  Then shalt thou give him a matter, saith he, without a price,

  — Signy the fairer than fair, Signy the wiser than wise.”

  Now the message gladdened Volsung and his sons, but no word spake

  Signy, till the king asked her what her mind might be. Then said

  Signy, “I will wed the Goth king, and yet shall I rue my lot in his

  hall.” And Volsung urged her with kind words to do nought against her

  will, but her mind was fixed, and she said she wrought but what the

  gods had fore-ordained. So the earl of Siggeir went his way with

  gifts and fair words, bidding the Goth king come ere a month was over

  to wed the white-handed Signy and bear her home.

  So on Mid-Summer Even ere the undark night began

  Siggeir the King of the Goth-folk went up from the bath of the swan

  Unto the Volsung dwelling with many an Earl about;

  There through the glimmering thicket the linked mail rang out,

  And sang as mid the woodways sings the summer-hidden ford:

  There were gold-rings God-fashioned, and many a Dwarf-wrought sword,

  And many a Queen-wrought kirtle and many a written spear;

  So came they to the acres, and drew the threshold near,

  And amidst of the garden blossoms, on the grassy, fruit-grown land,

  Was Volsung the King of the Wood-world with his sons on either hand;

  Therewith down lighted Siggeir the lord of a mighty folk,

  Yet showed he by King Volsung as the bramble by the oak,

  Nor reached his helm to the shoulder of the least of Volsung’s sons.

  And so into the hall they wended, the Kings and their mighty ones;

  And they dight the feast full glorious, and drank through the death of the

  day,

  Till the shadowless moon rose upward, till it wended white away;

  Then they went to the gold-hung beds, and at last for an hour or twain

  Were all things still and silent, save a flaw of the summer rain.

  But on the morrow noontide when the sun was high and bare,

  More glorious was the banquet, and now was Signy there,

  And she sat beside King Siggeir, a glorious bride forsooth;

  Ruddy and white was she wrought as the fair-stained sea-beast’s tooth,

  But she neither laughed nor spake, and her eyes were hard and cold,

  And with wandering side-long looks her lord would she behold.

  That saw Sigmund her brother, the eldest Volsung son,

  And oft he looked upon her, and their eyes met now and anon,

  And ruth arose in his heart, and hate of Siggeir the Goth,

  And there had he broken the wedding, but for plighted promise and troth.

  But those twain were beheld of Siggeir, and he deemed of the Volsung kin,

  That amid their might and their malice small honour should he win;

 

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