Page:The Nibelungenlied - tr. Shumway - 1909.pdf/199

Rh “Alas for thy wrongs, clear sister, that we may not be free from this great scathe. We must ever lament for Siegfried’s death.”

“That ye do without cause,” spake the sorrow-laden wife. “Were this loth to you, it never would have happed. I may well aver, ye thought not on me, when I thus was parted from my dear husband. Would to God,” quoth Kriemhild, “that it had happed to me.”

Firmly they made denial. Kriemhild gan speak: “Whoso declareth him guiltless, let him show that now. He must walk to the bier before all the folk; thereby one may know the truth eftsoon.”

This is a great marvel, which oft doth hap; whenever the blood-stained murderer is seen to stand by the dead, the latter’s wounds do bleed, as indeed happed here, whereby one saw the guilt was Hagen’s. The wounds bled sore, as they had done at first. Much greater grew the weeping of those who wailed afore.

Then spake King Gunther: “I’d have you know that robbers slew him; Hagen did not do the deed.”

“I know these robbers well,” quoth she. “Now may God yet let his friends avenge it. Certes, Gunther and Hagen, ’twas done by you.”

Siegfried’s knights were now bent on strife. Then Kriemhild spake again: “Now share with me this grief.”

Gernot, her brother, and young Giselher, these twain now came to where they found him dead. They mourned him truly with the others; Kriemhild’s men wept inly. Now should mass be sung, so on every side, men, wives, and children did hie them to the minster. Even those who might lightly bear his loss, wept then