At length he found it expedient to introduce wine, as an agreeable
improvement, or a necessary ingredient, to his new way of living; and
having once tasted it, he was tempted, by little and little, to give a
loose to the excesses of intoxication. His general simplicity of life
was changed; he perfumed his apartments by burning the wood of the most
aromatick fir, and commanded his helmet to be ornamented with beautiful
rows of the teeth of the raindeer. Indolence and effeminacy stole upon
him by pleasing and imperceptible gradations, relaxed the sinews of his
resolution, and extinguished his thirst of military glory.
While Hacho was thus immersed in pleasure and in repose, it was reported
to him, one morning, that the preceding night, a disastrous omen had
been discovered, and that bats and hideous birds had drunk up the oil
which nourished the perpetual lamp in the temple of Odin. About the same
time, a messenger arrived to tell him, that the king of Norway had
invaded his kingdom with a formidable army. Hacho, terrified as he was
with the omen of the night, and enervated with indulgence, roused
himself from his voluptuous lethargy, and, recollecting some faint and
few sparks of veteran valour, marched forward to meet him.
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