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XXIX.]

She spake: “Now tell me, Hagen, who sent to bid you here,

That riding in our country thou darest to appear?

Thou, too, who so well knowest what thou hast done to me?

Hadst thou been well adviséd thou best hadst let it be.”

“No one hath sent to fetch me,” Hagen in answer said:

“But hither to this country three warriors you bade;

My masters they are calléd, to them I service owe.

On any royal journey I scarce could fail to go.”

Said she: “Now tell me further, how was it thou didst that

For which thou hast deservéd my everlasting hate?

Thou was it who didst Siegfried, my well-loved husband, slay;

Whom I must mourn for ever until my dying day.”

He spake: “What boots that further? Of talk we have no need.

I am that selfsame Hagen who did to death Siegfried,

The mighty-handed hero. How dearly he repaid

The flouts which Dame Kriemhilda on fair Brunhilda laid!

“It is not to be doubted, O great and mighty queen,

Of all your baleful sorrows that I have guilty been.

Now be it man or woman, let them avenge who will;

Though I should then gainsay you, I’ve done you grievous ill.”

Said she: “Now hark ye, warriors, he doth not e’en deny:

That he hath work’d my sorrow! What may befall thereby

To him, ye men of Etzel, of no account I hold.”

Then look’d on one another those haughty thanes and bold.