Page:The lay of the Nibelungs; (IA nibelungslay00hortrich).pdf/268

190

“Ere any word of mine had his noble life betray’d:

Then little cause for weeping should I, poor wife, have had.

No more can I have kindness for those who this have done.”

Then Giselher besought her, the brave and comely one.

“To greet the king I’m willing,” she did at last declare:

With his best friends before her one saw him soon appear.

But Hagen durst at no time within her presence go

His guiltiness well knew he; ’twas he who wrought her woe.

Since she her hate to Gunther was willing to forswear,

’Twould better have beseem’d him to kiss her then and there.

Were’t not that by his counsel her sorrows had been made,

He might have met Kriemhilda with boldness undismay’d.

Ne’er was a reconcilement, when friend by friend was met,

More tearfully accomplish’d: her sorrow rankled yet.

Save only one amongst them, she pardon’d every one:

He ne’er were slain, if Hagen the murder had not done.

Not very long thereafter they brought it so about

That unto dame Kriemhilda the mighty hoard came out

Of Niblung-land, and safely was to the Rhine conveyed.

It was her wedding dowry, and rightly hers was made.

’Twas Gernot who went for it, and with him Giselher

And eighty-hundred liegemen, who had commands from her

To go and fetch the treasure from where it lay unseen,

Since Alberich its keeper, with trusty friends, had been.