What error hath made thee to hurt the Danes and thy lord, and hurled thee into such foul crime as this?
Whence entered thy heart the treason framed with such careful guile?
"Why do I linger?
Now we have swallowed our last morsel.

Our king perishes, and utter doom overtakes our hapless city.

Our last dawn has risen, unless perchance there be one here so soft that he fears to offer himself to the blows, or so unwarlike that he dares not avenge his lord, and disowns all honours worthy of his valour.
"Thou, Ruta, rise and put forth thy snow-white head, come forth from thy hiding into the battle.

The carnage that is being done without calls thee.

By now the council-chamber is shaken with warfare, and the gates creak with the dreadful fray.