Page:The Nibelungenlied - tr. Shumway - 1909.pdf/182

124 other tale: that Gunther’s land should still have peace and that Liudeger had sent them to the king. How loth Siegfried now rode home again, or ever he had avenged his kinsmen’s wrongs! Gunther’s men could hardly turn him back. He rode then to the king; the host gan thank him. “Now God requite you of your will, friend Siegfried, that ye do so willingly what I bid you. For this I’ll ever serve you, as I rightly should. I trust you more than all my friends. Now that we be rid of this foray, I am minded to ride a-hunting for bears and boars to the Vosges forest, as I have done oft-time.“ That Hagen, the faithless knight, had counseled. “Let it be told to all my guests, that we ride betimes. Those that would hunt with me must make them ready. If any choose to stay at home to court the ladies, that liketh me as well.”

Then spake Sir Siegfried in lordly wise: “And ye would a-hunting, I’d fain go with you. Pray lend me a huntsman and some brach, and I will ride to the pines.”

“Will ye have but one?” spake the king anon. “I’ll lend you, an’ ye will, four men to whom both wood and paths be known where the game is wont to go, and who will not let you miss the camp.”

Then rode the full lusty warrior to his wife, whilst Hagen quickly told the king how he thought to trap the doughty knight. A man should never use such faithlessness.