Page:The Nibelungenlied - tr. Shumway - 1909.pdf/74

16 and that I might know it of a truth, therefore am I come. Likewise do I hear boasting of your valor, that no bolder king hath ever been seen. This the folk relate much through all these lands. Therefore will I not turn back, till it be known to me. I also am a warrior and was to wear a crown. Fain would I bring it to pass that it may be said of me: Rightly doth he rule both folk and land. Of this shall my head and honor be a pledge. Now be ye so bold, as hath been told me, I reck not be it lief or loth to any man, I will gain from you whatso ye have—land and castles shall be subject to my hand.”

The king and likewise his men had marvel at the tidings they here heard, that he was willed to take from them their land. The knights waxed wroth, as they heard this word. “How have I earned this,” spake Gunther, the knight, “that we should lose by the force of any man that which my father hath rules so long with honor? We should let it ill appear that we, too, are used in knightly ways.”

”In no wise will I desist,” spake again the valiant man. ”Unless it be that through thy strength thy land have peace, I will rule it all. And shouldst thou gain, by thy strength, my ancestral lands, they shall be subject to thy sway. Thy lands, and mine as well, shall lie alike; whether of us twain can triumph over the other, him shall both land and people serve.”

Hagen and Gernot, too, straightway gainsaid this. “We have no wish,” spake Gernot, “that we should conquer aught of lands, or that any man lie dead at hero’s hands. We have rich lands, which serve us, as is meet, nor hath any a better claim to them than we.”