Page:The Nibelungenlied - tr. Shumway - 1909.pdf/156



Now Gunther’s wife thought alway: “How haughtily doth Lady Kriemhild bear her! Is not her husband Siegfried our liegeman? Long time now hath he done us little service.” This she bare within her heart, but held her peace. It irked her sore that they did make themselves such strangers and that men from Siegfried’s land so seldom served her. Fain would she have known from whence this came. She asked the king if it might hap that she should see Kriemhild again. Secretly she spake what she had in mind. The speech like the king but moderately well. “How might we bring them,” quoth he, “hither to our land? That were impossible, they live too far away; I dare not ask them this.”

To this Brunhild replied in full crafty wise: “However high and mighty a king’s vassal be, yet should he not leave undone whatsoever his lord command him.”

King Gunther smiled when she spake thus. However oft he saw Siegfried, yet did he not count it to him as service.

She spake: “Dear lord, for my sake help me to have Siegfried and thy sister come to this land, that we may see them here. Naught liefer might ever hap to me in truth. Whenso I think on thy sister’s courtesie and her well-bred mind, how it delighteth me! How we sate