Part 30

"Peace!" cried the noble Dietrich, "such knights doth it misbeseem With words to rail on each other, as when old shrews scold and scream Hildebrand, I forbid it: speak thou here no more. A homeless knight, with sorrow enow mine heart is sore! {P. 321} Answer me, Hero Hagen," said Dietrich yet again; "What spake ye knights together, ye battle-eager twain, When a little agone in mine harness ye saw me hard at hand? Thou saidst that alone in battle against me thou wouldst stand." "Ay, no man shall gainsay it!" cried Hagen the void of fear: "I will prove it by mighty handstrokes upon thy body here, If so be that the Sword of the Niblungs unshivered fail not me. I am wroth that thou darest require us to yield us captive to thee!"

Forthright, when Dietrich heard it, the mind of Hagen the grim, That battle-eager champion caught his shield unto him. How swiftly adown that stairway to meet him Hagen sprang! Loudly on Dietrich's armour the sword of the Niblungs rang. Full well in that hour knew Dietrich that his lion-hearted foe Was passing grim of spirit: from many a deadly blow With cunning of fence did he ward him, that noble Lord of Bern. He proved what a knight was Hagen, to his mortal foe how stern. He had need to beware of Balmung, stark sword renowned afar; And but now and again smote Dietrich, with cunningest craft of war, Till at last in a grapple of giants he wore down Hagen the strong, And a grievous wound he dealt him, a gash both deep and long.

Then bethought him Dietrich the noble: "Long travail hath sapped thy might: Small honour should it bring me, if the death-stroke now I should smite. Nay, rather will I make trial if yet I may constrain Even thee to become my captive." With peril he did it and pain. Mighty of thews was Dietrich: his shield from his arm he slipped; He sprang upon Hagen of Troneg, and with sinewy hands he gripped. And so at the last overmastered was the warrior aweless-bold; And Gunther the noble beheld it exceeding sorrowful-souled.

Then Dietrich bound Sir Hagen, and he led that battle-thrall Unto where was the high-born Kriemhild; and the bravest knight of all {P. 322} That ever with sword were girded, to her hands he rendered up. She had drunken the dregs of affliction; at last joy brimmed her cup. How glad was the wife of Etzel! Low to the thane did she bow: "Blessèd in soul and in body evermore be thou! For all my sore tribulation now hast thou recompensed me. Except death's coming prevent me, I will ever be bounden to thee!" Made answer Dietrich the noble: "Let him live, and in no wise slay, O noble Daughter of Princes! It may come to pass one day That his good deeds may requite thee for the wrongs thou hast had at his hands. Visit it not upon him that in bonds in thy presence he stands." Then to a dungeon-chamber she bade lead Hagen away Where no man's eye beheld him, and there close-barred he lay.

Then Gunther the noble uplifted his voice, and aloud he cried: "The Hero of Bern hath wronged me!--from my vengeance where doth he hide?" Hasted to meet him Dietrich the Lord of Bern forthright; But Gunther's battle-prowess was worthy of such a knight: Not for his coming he tarried, but adown the stairway sprang. Clashed their meeting war-glaives with a passing-deadly clang. How proved soever was Dietrich in prowess of olden fame, Such madness of battle-fury now upon Gunther came, Unto such fell hate of his foeman was he stung by grief and pain, That men yet count it a marvel that Dietrich escaped unslain. So stalwart were these, so thrilled them the battle-spirit's power, That loud from their thunderous smiting re-echoed palace and tower. Hewing the hard steel helmets did the great swords whirl and swing. Ha, with right royal courage did he bear him, Gunther the King! But at last by the might of Dietrich he too was overborne: Men saw his blood fast flowing through the mail-rings shattered and shorn By the all-resistless keenness of the blade that Dietrich bare. Well had he warded him, Gunther, how weary he was soe'er!

{P. 323}

Then by the hand of Dietrich were the limbs of Gunther bound-- Though never should king with dishonour of bonds be compassed round; Yet he weened, if he left unshackled Gunther and Hagen the knight, They would verily slay all Hunfolk on whomsoe'er they should light. The Prince of Bern, Lord Dietrich, hath grasped him by the hand: In bonds to the hall hath he haled him where waiting doth Kriemhild stand. At sight of his affliction light grew the load on her heart; And she cried: "O King Burgundian, welcome to me thou art!" "For thy greeting," he said, "might I thank thee, O noble sister mine, If aught of lovingkindness lurked in that welcome of thine. But I know, O Queen, thine hatred and thy wrath-enkindled mood, And how little to me and to Hagen thy greeting bodeth of good."

But the Prince of Bern, the Hero, spake: "O noble Queen, Never such peerless heroes made captive hath any seen, As thou, O Daughter of Princes, from mine hand now dost take. Deal gently with these, the homeless, for my lovingkindness' sake." She answered: "That will I gladly." So turned with weeping eyes Dietrich away from the heroes, famed lords of high emprize. But thereafter was ghastly vengeance taken by Etzel's wife: By her from the chosen heroes ruthlessly reft was the life. She gave command, and to dungeons apart those twain they bore; And these two friends were beholden of each other never more, Until she bare unto Hagen the head of her brother slain. Grim was the vengeance that Kriemhild wreaked upon these twain!

Then went the Queen unto Hagen, and she looked on him, and she spake-- And all the hoarded hatred of years in her voice outbrake:-- "If thou restore me the treasure that thy robber hand hath ta'en, Peradventure thou mayest living see Burgundy-land again." Made answer the grim knight Hagen: "The word is wasted in air, O noble Daughter of Princes. A certain oath I sware To reveal the Hoard unto no man:--so long as liveth but one Of the Princes Three, my masters, it is rendered up unto none."

{P. 324}

"Of the oath will I make swift ending!" that high-born woman said. To her brother she sent her servants, and she bade them smite him dead. And they hewed his head from his body: she held it on high by the hair In sight of the Hero of Troneg. With grief beyond compare And with indignation of spirit he saw the head of his lord. Grimly he turned on Kriemhild, and spake his latest word: "Thou hast indeed made ending according to thy will. Even as I had foreseen it, so now doth fate fulfil. Dead now is the noble Gunther, the King of Burgundy, Young Giselher, Lord Gernot--yea, dead be the Princes Three. Now, now of the Hoard none knoweth save God and I alone-- Never, thou Child of the Devil, unto thee shall its place be known!"

She answered: "An evil requital hast thou rendered into mine hand! This hold I at least in possession, Siegfried's battle-brand. He bare it, mine own, my belovèd, when I saw him for that last time, Ere thou, to my grief everlasting, wroughtest that foul crime!" She flashed it out of the scabbard--her hand he could not stay-- For now from the knight she purposed to rend the life away: On high in her hands she swung it, from his body his head did she smite; And King Etzel saw, and he deemed it an evil and bitter sight. "Woe's me!" cried the King in anguish; "how is he stricken down,-- Stricken by hands of a woman!--the hero of chiefest renown That ever in battle's forefront fighting his buckler bore! Were he never so much my foeman, mine heart is for him full sore!"

Then Master Hildebrand shouted: "This thing shall profit her not That she dared to slay him! What cometh to me I care no jot!-- Yea, though he brought me also into mortal peril and pain, I will take in any wise vengeance for valiant Hagen slain!" In wrathful indignation on Kriemhild Hildebrand leapt, And the head of that Daughter of Princes from her shoulders his brand hath swept. {P. 325} With horror she saw him before her like the Spirit of Vengeance rise. What availed her shriek of anguish as the death-flame flashed in her eyes?

Dead all round were they lying, the men foredoomed death's prey: Hewn in twain in the midmost of all a dead Queen lay! Dietrich and King Etzel into sudden weeping broke, And a bitter voice of wailing went up from all the folk. There was the might and the glory of heroes in death laid low; And the people had for their portion lamentation and mourning and woe. This was the dolorous ending of a great king's festival! So ever is sorrow begotten of joy at the end of all.

What things befell thereafter in the land no minstrel hath sung[13], Save that ever the voice of weeping from Christian and Heathen rung, Weeping of knights and ladies, and of many a maiden fair: Whelmed in abysses of sorrow for the loved and the lost they were. (C) Ah no, no more can I tell you of a people's misery. There are the mighty fallen--in silence let them lie. I can bring not from years forgotten that nation's after-fate. The Lay is ended--the Story of the Niblungs' Bitter Strait.

[The End]

FOOTNOTES

[1] The interest may be more than national, as in _Paradise Lost_.

[2] The _Epic of Hades_ falls short of the requirements of this definition in (b) and (d); Bulwer Lytton's _King Arthur_ in (c); such poems as Arnold's _Sohrab and Rustum_ in (a) and (d); Tennyson's _Idylls of the King_ was felt by its author to fall so far short of answering to condition (d), that he would not claim for it the title _Epic of Arthur_.

[3] For the origin of the conception of such a hero there are two theories. One is that of the nature-myth, according to which the hero is the personification of some natural force or phenomenon, as Achilles has been said to personify the Sun in his course. According to this, Sigurd represents the Day, or the Light, or the Spring. The other is that of an actual tribal chief, whose exploits are glorified and exaggerated in the folksongs of after days. According to this, the genesis of an epic poem proceeds somewhat thus:--(1) a warrior vaunts his own and his ancestors' exploits as a preliminary to fight, as Glaucus does in _Il._ vi, and as savage chiefs have done in all ages and countries; (2) his followers sing the prowess of the chief and his ancestors; (3) the specially gifted bard chants them at a feast like the Highland sennachie, or before a battle, like Taillefer.

[4] _The Story of the Volsungs_, Camelot Series, Walter Scott, 1s.

[5] The differences in the names in the two stories are mainly due to the fact that in the Volsunga-saga they assume a Norse form, in the _Nibelungenlied_ a German one. Thus, _Sigurd_ becomes _Siegfried_; _Gunnar_ becomes _Gunther_; _Hogni_, Gunnar's brother, becomes _Hagen_, Gunther's uncle; _Gudrun_, as a character, becomes _Kriemhild_, whose name, however, is taken from _Grimhild_, a very different personage from the kindly and pious mother of Kriemhild. The Hun-king, _Atli_, becomes _Etzel_; _Andvari_, the dwarf who was robbed of the Hoard, appears as _Alberich_.

[6] An example of such is the _Gehörnte Siegfried_ (Horn-skinned Siegfried), which did this in detail, and (in Carlyle's words) "under a rude prose dress, is to this day a real child's book and people's book among the Germans."

[7] Siegfried's reason, which critics and translators, from Carlyle downward, have left unexplained, seems to be this:--Siegfried was already known to Brunhild, and was the mightiest man she knew. Hence, if she saw him acting as a mere vassal to Gunther, she would infer that the latter was yet mightier, an impression to be confirmed by his apparent victory in the test; and so her reluctance to abide by the result, which, had she resisted, would have proved insuperable, would be more likely to be overcome.

[8] One rider dashing at full speed past another, would snatch his cloak from his shoulders: the latter then gave chase to recover his property. Opportunity for display of fine horsemanship, and much amusement to the spectators, were thus afforded.

[9] The scene which follows will be more intelligible if we understand that it took place in the Reception-hall or Presence-hall, through which Brunhild passes with her train while the king is waiting there for his sister.

[10] For the six lines which follow, Simrock's reading is adopted.

[11] For this and the next line Simrock's text is followed.

[12] Because Hildebrand had been Dietrich's foster-father.

[13] Simrock's arrangement is adopted in the last two strophes.

[End of Footnotes]

TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES

Alterations to the text:

A few puctuation corrections.

Change two instances (p. 83 & 155) of _Dankrat_ to _Dankart_.

[P. 240] Change "Alone across the _baily_..." to _bailey_.

Note: the inconsistent spelling of Albrich/Alberich has been left as-is.

[End of Book]

End of Project Gutenberg's The Lay of the Nibelung Men, by Anonymous