“Unlace ye now your helmets,” spake Hagen Troneg’s lord. “I and my comrade Volker will again keep watch and ward;
And if yon vassals of Etzel once more the onset essay,
Straightway will I warn my masters with all the speed I may.”
Then loosed was the band of his helmet by many a warrior good;
And they sat them down on the corpses that lay there in their blood,
Which had come by the hands Burgundian to their death, and cumbered the floor,
The while with bitter hatred the Hunfolk scowled at the door.
Ere the evening shadows had fallen, the King by hest and prayer,
With Kriemhild the Queen, had persuaded that with hope of fortune fair
The Huns should essay the onset again: in huge array
They stood, full twenty thousand in ordered ranks for the fray.
Then a wilder battle-tempest against the King’s guests swept.
Dankwart, the brother of Hagen, the mighty warrior, leapt
From beside his lords to the foemen to meet them afront of the hall.
They deemed him verily death-doomed, yet scatheless he won through all.
Long lasted that stubborn conflict till the shadows darkened down;
And the guests still stood unflinching like heroes of renown
Against the hosts of Etzel through that long summer day.
Ha, what unnumbered heroes in death before them lay!
In the fair midsummer season was that mighty murder wrought,
When Kriemhild for her heart’s anguish revenge so dearly bought
On her own nearest kinsfolk and on many guiltless men,
By reason whereof King Etzel knew never joy again.
(C) But so grim and great a murder had she purposed not at the first:
Nay, in the strife’s beginning one thought in her breast she nursed,
{p. 286}
That Hagen alone by her vengeance to a bloody end should come:—
But therein was the Foul Fiend working to fashion for all one doom.
The day was past: the heroes were now in evil strait.
Weary and famished, it seemed them swift death were a better fate
Than long to linger in torment of hunger and thirst and pain.
Wherefore the knights high-hearted for a truce with their foes were fain.
They asked that the King might meet them before the feast-hall door.
Then the heroes with armour-soilure blackened, and red with gore,
Strode forth of the hall, and amidst them stood the Princes three:
But their haggard eyes found nowhere one glance of sympathy.
And now stand Etzel and Kriemhild that place of death before—
Theirs is the whole land, therefore waxeth their host evermore—
Then spake the King to the King’s guests: “Say, what would ye of me?
Haply for peace ye petition? Hardly this may be
After the wrongs ye have done me, and your ruthless work of death.
Ye shall not in any wise win it so long as I draw breath.
My child whom ye have murdered, and all my friends laid low—
Look ye for peace and forgiveness for these? In sooth, not so!”
“Enforced,” made answer Gunther, “were we by a grievous wrong.
Within their lodging murdered were all mine henchman-throng,
Murdered by thine own heroes!—whereby had I earned such meed?
I came to thee trustful-hearted, I held thee a friend indeed!”
Then spake of the Princes Burgundian the youngest, Giselher:
“Ye warriors of King Etzel which be yet alive, give ear.
What have ye against me, heroes? What have I done unto you,
I, who to this land journeyed with loving heart and true?”
“Thy love!” they replied: “our castles are filled by reason thereof
With mourning, and all our country! We well could have spared thy love,
Hadst thou never journeyed hither from Worms beyond the Rhine!
The whole land lieth orphaned through thee and those brethren of thine!”
{p. 287}
Then in mighty indignation Gunther the hero cried:
“Would ye suffer this deadly hatred even now to be laid aside
In peace with the homeless warriors, for us and for you it were well.
For no guilt of ours is the anger of Etzel the King so fell.”
The King to the guests gave answer: “Not yet made equal they are,
Your sufferings and Etzel’s—the bitter travail of war,
The scathe and the deadly insult that ye have loaded on me—
For these no man of you living cometh forth into liberty!”
To the King made answer Gernot the stalwart and valorous:
“At the least may God incline thee to do one grace unto us:
Slay us indeed, the homeless; but let us forth unto you
From this prison into the open: for your honour this should ye do.
Whatsoever then may betide us, be it quickly over and done.
Ye have hosts of men unwounded: if they dare one and all set on,
They shall give to the battle-weary death and a soon-won rest.
How long shall we knights linger thus grievously distressed?”
Now the warriors of King Etzel would lightly have done them the grace
That the heroes forth of the feast-hall should come to the open space.
But so soon as Kriemhild heard it, in anguish of wrath she cried
Against it; and unto the homeless was this last boon denied.
“Nay, noble knights,” she pleaded, “the thing ye incline unto
Ye never will grant, if ye hearken to faithful counsel and true,
To let these murder-lusters set foot forth of the hall!
If ye do it, many your kinsmen in the pit of death shall fall.
If only three were living, my brethren, Uta’s sons,
And to free air of heaven came forth those mighty ones,
To cool their scalding harness, ye were lost!—not lightly I warn;
For verily braver heroes on earth were never born.”
Spake Giselher the young Prince: “O fairest sister mine,
In an evil hour did I trust thee, at whose word I passed over Rhine
{p. 288}
A bidden guest to thy country—nay rather to this sore strait!
What have I done to the Hunfolk to earn me this evil fate?
Unto thee have I kept troth ever; never I wronged thee in aught.
Unto Etzel’s palace riding I came with this one thought
That to me thou wert loving-hearted, O sister cherished of me.
Now show unto us thy mercy: ah, surely so it must be!”
“I show unto you no mercy: no mercy to me was shown!
Unto me hath Hagen of Troneg foul wrong and ruthless done,
And for this is there no atonement, so long as I yet have life;
And for this must ye all pay forfeit!” So spake King Etzel’s wife.
“Yet—yet if Hagen only for hostage to me ye give,
Not utterly will I deny you, I will haply let you live,
Forasmuch as ye be my brethren; sons of my mother ye are:
So will I commune of pardon with these my men of war.”
“Now God in Heaven forbid it!” Gernot indignantly cried.
“Though yet we numbered a thousand, we would all die side by side—
We who are yet thy kinsmen!—ere one man of us all
Shall be rendered up for a hostage: that shame shall never befall.”
“So then we must needs all perish,” did the young Prince Giselher say;
“Yet none shall hinder our dying like knights in our war-array.
If any be fain to fight us, ready here we stand.
No friend I forsake, betraying the troth of my right hand!”
Then spake the valiant Dankwart; in the word was his true heart shown:
“Verily Hagen my brother standeth not here alone.
We asked of them peace: their denial thereof shall work them woe!
Yea, by my troth, to their sorrow they yet shall find it so.”
............