Page:The lay of the Nibelungs; (IA nibelungslay00hortrich).pdf/459

XXXVIII.]

When they beheld the margrave thus borne before them dead,

No penman could have written, nor elsewise could be said,

How manifold the mourning of women and of men,

Who one and all bore witness unto their heart-felt pain.

The sorrowing of Etzel so great was, that the noise

Was even as a lion’s,— the mighty king his voice

So lifted in his anguish: eke mourn’d his wife no less;

Good Rüdeger bewail’d they with utmost bitterness.

So great a sound of mourning on every side was heard,

From palace walls and turrets the echoes all were stirr’d.

By one of Dietrich’s liegemen of Bern ’twas heard as well;

How swiftly then he started the direful news to tell.

Unto the prince then spake he: “Hearken, my Lord Dietrich,

As long as I’ve been living, ne’er have I heard the like

Of such unearthly wailing as I have heard but now:

Some harm unto King Etzel himself hath come, I trow.

“How else would all the people be in distress so dread?

The king, or may be Kriemhild, must one of them be dead, —

Slain by those daring strangers, who bore them enmity:

And many goodly warriors are wailing bitterly.”