Page:The lay of the Nibelungs; (IA nibelungslay00hortrich).pdf/63

Rh assassins sent by Chriemhild, expecting no sentinel: it is plain that the last hour draws nigh.

In the morning the Nibelungen are for the Minster to hear mass; they are putting on gay raiment; but Hagen tells them a different tale: “ye must take other garments, Recken; instead of silk shirts hauberks, for rich mantles your good shields; and, beloved masters, moreover squires and men, ye shall full earnestly go to the church, and plain to God the powerful (Got dem rîchen) of your sorrow and utmost need; and know of a surety that death for us is nigh.’” In Etzel’s Hall, where the Nibelungen appear at the royal feast in complete armour, the Strife, incited by Chriemhild, begins; the first answer to her provocation is from Hagen, who hews off the head of her own and Etzel’s son, making it bound into the mother’s bosom; “then began among the Recken a murder grim and great.” Dietrich, with a voice of preternatural power, commands pause; retires with Etzel and Chriemhild; and now the bloody work has free course. We have heard of battles, and massacres, and deadly struggles in siege and storm; but seldom has even the poet’s imagination pictured anything so fierce and terrible as this. Host after host, as they enter that huge vaulted Hall, perish in conflict with the doomed Nibelungen; and ever after the terrific uproar, ensues a still more terrific silence. All night and through morning it lasts. They throw the dead from the windows; blood runs like water; the Hall is set fire to, they quench it with blood, their own burning thirst they slake with blood. It is a tumult like the Crack of Doom, a thousand-voiced, wild-stunning hubbub; and, frightful like a Trump of Doom, the Sword-fiddlebow of Volker, who guards the door, makes music to that death-dance. Nor are traits of heroism wanting, and thrilling tones of pity and love; as in that act of Rudiger, Etzel’s and Chriemhild’s champion, who, bound by oath, “lays his soul in God’s hand,” and enters that Golgotha to die fighting against his friends; yet first changes shields with Hagen, whose own, also given him by Rudiger in a far other hour, had been shattered in the fight. “When he so lovingly bade give him the shield, there