Читать книгу The Lays of Beleriand онлайн | страница 15

Then a fierce fury, like a fire blazing,was born of bitterness in his bruiséd heart;his white wrath woke at the words of scornfor the women of Hithlum washed in tears;and a heavy horn to his hand lying,495with gold adorned for good drinking,of his might unmindful thus moved in irehe seized and, swinging, swiftly flung itin the face of Orgof. ‘Thou fool’, he said,‘fill thy mouth therewith, and to me no further500thus witless prate by wine bemused’ –but his face was broken, and he fell backward,and heavy his head there hit upon the stoneof the floor rock-paved mid flagons and vesselsof the o’erturned table that tumbled on him505as clutching he fell; and carped no more,in death silent. There dumb were allat bench and board; in blank amazethey rose around him, as with ruth of hearthe gazed aghast on his grievous deed,510on his wine-stained hand, with wondering eyeshalf-comprehending. On his heel then he turnedinto the night striding, and none stayed him;but some their swords half slipped from sheaths– they were Orgof’s kin – yet for awe of Thingol515they dared not draw while the dazéd kingstonefacéd stared on his stricken thaneand no sign showed them. But the slayer wearyhis hands laved in the hidden streamthat strikes ’fore the gates, nor stayed his tears:520‘Who has cast,’ he cried, ‘a curse upon me;for all I do is ill, and an outlaw now,in bitter banishment and blood-guilty,of my fosterfather I must flee the halls,nor look on the lady beloved again’ –525yea, his heart to Hithlum had hastened him now,but that road he dared not, lest the wrath he drawof the Elves after him, and their anger alightshould speed the spears in despite of Morgotho’er the hills of Hithlum to hunt him down;530lest a doom more dire than they dreed of oldbe meted his mother and the Maid of Tears.

In the furthest folds of the Forest of Doriath,in the darkest dales on its drear borders,in haste he hid him, lest the hunt take him;535and they found not his footsteps who fared after,the thanes of Thingol; who thirty dayssought him sorrowing, and searched in vainwith no purpose of ill, but the pardon bearingof Thingol throned in the Thousand Caves.540He in council constrained the kin of Orgofto forget their grief and forgiveness show,in that wilful bitterness had barbed the wordsof Orgof the Elf; said ‘his hour had comethat his soul should seek the sad pathway545to the deep valley of the Dead Awaiting,there a thousand years thrice to ponderin the gloom of Gurthrond his grim jesting,ere he fare to Faërie to feast again.’Yet of his own treasure he oped the gates,550and gifts ungrudging of gold and gemsto the sons he gave of the slain; and his folkwell deemed the deed. But that doom of the KingTúrin knew not, and turned against himthe hands of the Elves he unhappy believed,555wandering the woodland woeful-hearted;for his fate would not that the folk of the cavesshould harbour longer Húrin’s offspring.

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