Page:The lay of the Nibelungs; (IA nibelungslay00hortrich).pdf/457

XXXVII.]

In sooth a gift so precious was worse requited ne’er;

The two fell slain together, Gernot and Rüdeger,

Like-fated in the combat,  each by the other’s stroke.

When this great loss to Hagen was known, his wrath outbroke.

Thus spake the Tronian hero: “In evil plight are we!

In these two have we suffer’d so great an injury

As ne’er can be o’ertided by peoples or by lands;

Now hold we Rüdeger’s chieftains as bail in luckless hands.”

“Woe on me for my brother, who here in death doth lie!

How cometh, every moment, some tale of misery!

And I must mourn for ever the noble Rüdeger:

The loss to me is double, and grievous ’tis to bear.”

So Giselher, beholding his lady’s father dead:—

And they who still were living a grievous reckoning paid,

Death fell upon them sorely seeking to take his own;

Of them from Bechelaren there lived ere long not one.

Now Giselher and Gunther and with them Hagen too,

Dankwart and Volker also,— all warriors good and true,—

Came forward all together, to where the twain were laid;

Then was there by the heroes great lamentation made.

“Death sorely us despoileth,” spake the lad Giselher:

“But make an end of weeping, and get we to the air

To cool our mail-clad bodies, worn as we are with strife;

Here God, I ween, will grant us but scanty spell of life.”