Whoso fosters a wolf in his house is thought to feed a thief and a pest for his own hearth." Grep: "I did not, as thou thinkest, beguile the queen, but I was the guardian of her tender estate.

She increased my fortunes, and her favour first brought me gifts and strength, and wealth and counsel." Erik: "Lo, thy guilty disquiet lies heavy on thee; that man's freedom is safest whose mind remains untainted.

Whoso asks a slave to be a friend, is deceived; often the henchman hurts his master." At this Grep, shorn of his glibness of rejoinder, set spurs to his horse and rode away.

Now when he reached home, he filled the palace with uproarious and vehement clamour; and shouting that he had been worsted in words, roused all his soldiers to fight, as though he would avenge by main force his luckless warfare of tongues.

For he swore that he would lay the host of the foreigners under the claws of eagles.