THE SHEPHERD:
Whence and what are you? doomed to die?
Or, dead, revisit you the sky?
For ride by night or ride by day,
You ne'er shall come to Gymer's may.
SKIRNER:
I grieve not, I, a better part
Fits him who boasts a ready heart:
At hour of birth our lives were shaped;
The doom of fate can ne'er be 'scaped.
But Gerd inside hears the stranger, and thus speaks to her maid-servant:
What sounds unknown my ears invade,
Frightening this mansion's peaceful shade;
The earth's foundation rocks withal,
And trembling shakes all Gymer's hall.
THE MAID-SERVANT:
Dismounted stands warrior sheen;
His courser crops the herbage green.
GERD:
Haste! bid him to my bower with speed,
To quaff unmixed the pleasant mead;
And good betide us; for I fear
My brother's murderer is near.
Skirner having entered, Gerd thus addresses him:
What are you, elf or asas' son?
Or from the wiser vanas sprung?
Alone to visit our abode,
O'er bickering flames, why have you rode?
SKIRNER:
Nor elf am I, nor asas' son;
Nor from the wiser vanas sprung:
Yet o'er the bickering flames I rode
Alone to visit your abode.
