Page:The Nibelungenlied - tr. Shumway - 1909.pdf/50

xl larged upon the story, until it overshadows the first part in length and importance and gives the name to the whole poem. The main difference between the two versions is that in the older Norse tradition it is Attila who invites the Nibelungs to his court and attacks them in order to gain possession of the treasure, while Gudrun (Kriemhild) first tries to reconcile the warring parties, and, not succeeding in this, snatches up a sword and fights on the side of her brothers and later kills her husband as an act of revenge. In the Thidreksaga and the Nibelungenlied, however, she is the instigator of the fight and the cause of her brothers’ death, and finally suffers death herself at the hands of Master Hildebrand, who is furious that such noble heroes should fall at a woman’s hand. The second part of the poem is grewsome reading at best, with its weltering corpses and torrents of blood. The horror is relieved only by the grim humor of Hagen and by the charming scene at Rüdeger's court, where the young prince Giselher is betrothed to Rüdeger's daughter. Rüdeger is without doubt the most tragic figure of this part. He is bound on the one hand by his oath of allegiance to Kriemhild and on the other by ties of friendship to the Burgundians. His agony of mind at the dilemma in which Kriemhild’s command to attack the Burgundians places him is pitiful. Divided between love and duty, the conviction that he must fulfill his vow, cost what it may, gradually forces itself upon him and he rushes to his death in combat with his dearest friends.

Towering above all others in its gloomy grandeur stands the figure of Hagen, the real hero of the second