Page:The Nibelungenlied - tr. Shumway - 1909.pdf/319

Rh Huns brought a mickle band before the house. Well the strangers stood their ground, but what booted their doughty prowess? Dead they all must lie. Then in a few short hours there rose a fearful dole. Now ye may hear wonders of a monstrous thing. Nine thousand yeomen lay there slain and thereto twelve good knights of Dankwart’s men. One saw him stand alone still by the foe. The noise was hushed, the din had died away, when Dankwart, the hero, gazed over his shoulders. He spake: “Woe is me, for the friends whom I have lost! Now must I stand, alas, alone among my foes.”

Upon his single person the sword-strokes fell thick and fast. The wife of many a hero must later mourn for this. Higher he raised his shield, the thong he lowered; the rings of many an armor he made to drip with blood. “Woe is me of all this sorrow,” quoth Aldrian’s son. Give way now, Hunnish warriors, and let me out into the breeze, that the air may cool me, fight-weary man.”

Then men saw the warrior walk forth in full lordly wise. As the strife-weary man sprang from the house, how many added swords rang on his helmet! Those that had not seen what wonders his hand had wrought sprang towards the hero of the Burgundian land. “Now would to God,” quoth Dankwart, “that I night find a messenger who could let my brother Hagen know I stand in such a plight before these knights. He would help me hence, or lie dead at my side.”

Then spake the Hunnish champions: “Thou must be the messenger thyself, when we bear thee hence dead before thy brother. For the first time Gunther’s vassal will then become acquaint with grief. Passing great scathe hast thou done King Etzel here.”