Page:The Nibelungenlied - tr. Shumway - 1909.pdf/144

86 which now ye hope. Forsooth this may not hap, for I will still remain a maid, until I hear the tale; now mark ye that.”

Then Gunther grew wroth; he struggled for her love and rumpled all her clothes. The high-born maid then seized her girdle, the which was a stout band she wore around her waist, and with it she wrought the king great wrong enow. She bound him hand and foot and bare him to a nail and hung him on the wall. She forbade him love, sith he disturbed her sleep. Of a truth he came full nigh to death through her great strength.

Then he who had weened to be the master, began to plead. “Now loose my bands, most noble queen. I no longer trow to conquer you, fair lady, and full seldom will I lie so near your side.”

She reeked not how he felt, for she lay full soft. There he had to hang all night till break of day, until the bright morn shone through the casements. Had he ever had great strength, it was little seen upon him now.

“Now tell me, Sir Gunther, would that irk you aught,” the fair maid spake, “and your servants found you bound by a woman’s hand?”

Then spake the noble knight: “That would serve you ill; nor would it gain me honor,” spake the doughty man. “By your courtesie, pray let me lie now by your side. Sith that my love mislike you so, I will not touch your garment with my hands.”

Then she loosed him soon and let him rise. To the bed again, to the lady he went and laid him down so far away, that thereafter he full seldom touched her comely weeds. Nor would she have allowed it.

Then their servants came and brought them new