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Sigurtharkvitha en Skamma

6.[1] By herself at the end  of day she sat,And in open words  her heart she uttered:"I shall Sigurth have,  the hero young,E'en though within  my arms he die.
7.[2] "The word I have spoken;  soon shall I rue it,His wife is Guthrun,  and Gunnar's am I;Ill Norns set for me  long desire."
8.[3] Oft did she go  with grieving heartOn the glacier's ice  at even-tide,When Guthrun then  to her bed was gone,And the bedclothes Sigurth  about her laid.
9.[4] "(Now Gjuki's child  to her lover goes,)

    Gunnar as Sigurth, her chosen hero (cf. Guthrunarkvitha I, 24 and note). The manuscript marks line 4 as the beginning of a new stanza, and many editors combine it with stanza 6.

  1. ↑ Brynhild has now discovered the deceit that has been practised on her. That she had loved Sigurth from the outset (cf. stanza 40) fits well with the version of the story wherein Sigurth meets her before he comes to Gunnar's home (the version not used in this poem), or the one outlined in the note on stanza 5, but does not accord with the story of Sigurth's first meeting Brynhild in Gunnar's form—an added reason for believing that the poet in stanzas 5-6 had in mind the story represented by stanzas 32-39. The hero: the manuscript originally had the phrase thus, then corrected it to "though I die," and finally crossed out the correction. Many editions have "I."
  2. ↑ Perhaps a line is missing after line 3.
  3. ↑ Glacier: a bit of Icelandic (or Greenland) local color.
  4. ↑ Line 1 does not appear in the manuscript, and is based on

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