Chapter 16

On the other side Adam, soon as he heardThe fatal trespass done by Eve, amaz'd,Astonied stood, and blank."Paradise Lost," ix. 888.

On the other side Adam, soon as he heardThe fatal trespass done by Eve, amaz'd,Astonied stood, and blank.

"Paradise Lost," ix. 888.

Upright men shall be astonied at this.—Job, xvii. 8.

(St. LIV.) Rudeger is an Austrian Axylus.—"Iliad," vi. 14.

ἀφνειὸς βιότοιο, φίλος δ'ἦν ἀνθρώποισιν,πάντας γὰρ φιλέεσκεν, ὁδῷ ἐπὶ οἰκία ναίων.

The German poem is here certainly not inferior to the Greek. Similes are as rare in the Nibelungenlied as they are abundant in the Iliad, but it would be difficult to find one more just and elegant than this.

(St. LVII.) Lachmann's Fifteenth Lay begins here; it concludes with St. XIV, Twenty-eighth Adventure.

TWENTY-SEVENTH ADVENTURE

(St. XXIV.) I quote some passages from Ellis's "Specimens" on the custom of the two sexes eating apart:

The king was to his palace, tho the service was ydo,Ylad with all his menye, and the queen to hers also,For hii held the old usages, that men with men wereBy hem selve, and women by hem selve also here.Robert of Gloucester.—"Specimens," vol. i. p. 100.

Robert of Gloucester.—"Specimens," vol. i. p. 100.

The above metre, though very rough and uncouth, resembles that of the Nibelungenlied. In the corresponding passage quoted by Ellis from Geoffry of Monmouth, the custom is said to have come from Troy. "Antiquam consuetudinem Trojæ servantes Britones consueverant mares cum maribus, mulieres cum mulieribus, festivos dies separatim celebrare." Ellis gives a similar account of Arthur's coronation from Robert de Brunne's translation of Wace:

Sometime was custom of Troy,When they made feast of joy,Men thogether should go to meatLadies by themself should eat.

See the noteto St. LXXXI, Tenth Adventure.

(St. XXXI.) There is a difficulty here from its being said that the young margravine was desired to go to court,i.e., to the assembly in the hall, when at St. XXIV the ladies (die schönenin the original) had already returned thither. Lachmann removes the difficulty by condemning the stanzas XXXI, XXXII, XXXIV as spurious; he thinks it impossible that anyone can collect from the third line of St. XXII that the men went into a different hall from that which they had entered at St. XIX; but it is not the third but the second line of St. XXII that describes the separation of the men and women, and that too in the following words,

"Rittere unde vrouwen die giengen anderswâ;"

now who can collect from this verse that the women went and the men stayed? If words mean anything, both went away. As to the return of the ladies at St. XXIV, that rests on a doubtful reading,die schönen, the fair ones, whereas the best manuscript, that on which Professor Lachmann's text is generally founded, readsdie künen, the bold ones, meaning the knights. I should add that the preliminary conversation from St. XXV to St. XXXI is fitter to be held in the young lady's absence.

(St. XLIV.) These foreign champions are the Burgundians themselves according to von der Hagen. This is far from satisfactory, but I can offer nothing more so. Can it be possible that there was once a version (now lost) of the story, in which the Nibelungers, properly so called, accompanied the Burgundians into Hungary? This might account not merely for these foreign champions, but for the termNibelungebeing applied to the Burgundians. But, in fact, everything relating to the Nibelungers is obscure and confused to the last degree.

(St. L.) Nudung was the son, or, according to another account, the brother of Gotelind.

(St. LXVI.) Lachmann transposes this and the two following stanzas to after St. XVI, Twenty-eighth Adventure, where they form the beginning of his Sixteenth Lay, which ends with St. XLIV, Twenty-ninth Adventure. The speech which begins at the third line of this stanza is attributed to the messenger by von der Hagen, andperhaps justly, as appears from the last verse of the next stanza, from which it would seem that the king heard the news afterward. On the other hand, Kriemhild here is addressed in the singular, while in a similar passage (St. XCI, Fourth Adventure) she is addressed by a messenger in the plural. She, however, would scarcely have uttered before Etzel the words at the close of St. LXVIII, Twenty-seventh Adventure.

TWENTY-EIGHTH ADVENTURE

(St. I.) Bern is Verona according to von der Hagen and Wackernagel and the whole body of Commentators. Von der Hagen applies to Hildebrand the words in the third line,ez was im harte liet; so does Marbach. Braunfels and Beta apply them to Dietrich. But in that case would not the author have saiddem was ez?

(St. IV.) The Amelungs, or Amelungers, were the reputed descendants of Amala, king of the Goths, the tenth ancestor of Theodoric king of Italy.

(St. V.) This famous hero, the redoubted Dietrich, is only a secondary character in the Nibelungenlied, though in old German traditions generally he bears the principal part. He was the son of a nocturnal spirit, and his fiery breath made him more than a match for Siegfried himself, as it melted the horny hide of his antagonist. He is identified, I believe, by universal consent, with Theodoric the Ostrogoth. I am afraid that it is too certain that he came to a bad end, but whether he disappeared on being summoned by a dwarf, or was carried off by the devil in the shape of a black horse, or, according to the monastic legend reported by Gibbon, was deposited by foul fiends in the volcano of Libari, is more than I can decide.

(St. XX.) Lachmann's Seventeenth Lay begins here and ends with St. XXXII, Thirtieth Adventure.

(St. XXI.) Hagan's suspicions are natural enough, for Kriemhild appears to have kissed nobody but Giselher, whereas, according to the etiquette of this poem, she should not only have kissed her other two brothers, but Hagan himself, not merely as her cousin, but as one of Gunther's principal retainers.

(St. XXVI.) This stanza is rejected by Lachmann on account of the interior rhymewæreandswærein the third and fourth lines, but surely the outbreak of Hagan in the next stanza is the beginning of a speech. It would have been more plausible, if St. VIII is to be rejected, to reject St. XXI, Thirtieth Adventure, as well, for the first line of St. XXVII would come in very well after the last of St. XXIV; but then, on the other hand, no answer would be given to Kriemhild's question, "Where have you that bestowed?"

(St. XXVII.) The two languages agree in taking the devil's name in vain by using it as a ludicrous but forcible negative. The phrase is authorized by Johnson.

(St. XXVIII.) Von der Hagen explains these two robberies by observing that Hagan had despoiled Kriemhild of her own inheritance as well as of the wondrous hoard. The poem itself, however, seems to explain the matter somewhat differently. Hagan committed the first robbery when he took the hoard (St. XXXV, Nineteenth Adventure); the second, when he seized Siegfried's other treasures (St. CXXXII, Twentieth Adventure).

(St. XXXIV.) Lachmann places this and the following stanzas after St. XIX, as part of his Sixteenth Lay.

TWENTY-NINTH ADVENTURE

(St. I.) Von der Hagen discovers here (v. 7055 of his Remarks) a trace of the tradition (which, however, is not noticed in this poem) that Hagan had lost an eye. This appears visionary to me. At St. XVII, Thirty-second Adventure, the same words are applied to Dankwart, who certainly had two eyes in his head. Twice in this poem a personal description of Hagan occurs (St. XXV, Seventh Adventure, and XVII, Twenty-eighth Adventure) and in neither case is a hint given that he was adux luscus. The author or authors of the Nibelungenlied, therefore, must have followed a different tradition.

(St. XXVIII.) It is Folker's long broadsword that the poet, with a grim kind of merriment, calls his fiddlestick. We shall soon see the minstrelκῶμον ἀναυλότατον προχορεύειν.

(St. XL.) Walter of Spain,Waltharius manu fortis, is the hero here alluded to.See noteto St. XXI; Thirty-ninth Adventure.

(St. XLVII.) This stanza, and those that follow, come, according to Lachmann's arrangement, after St. XXXIII, Twenty-eighth Adventure, and form part of his Seventeenth Lay.

(St. XLVIII.) This allusion to the future is of such a nature as to be irreconcilable with the notion of separate lays. The like may be said of many other passages.

(St. LV.)Moratormorass, as far as I can make out from a rather confused note of von der Hagen's, was a sort of caudle, flavored with mulberry or cherry juice. Ziemann's recipe is to take old and good wine, and to mix it with mulberry syrup, rose julep, cinnamon water, and anad libituminfusion of simples. All this together composes the sweet drink in question.

THIRTIETH ADVENTURE

(St. XVIII.) So in the Ballad of the Lochmaben Harper in the "Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border,"

And aye he harped, and aye he carped,Till à the nobles were fast asleep.

(St. XIX.) "As now," says von der Hagen, "at the entrance of many old buildings, particularly churches, a tower stands, containing the stairs which lead directly to the upper story."

(St. XXI.) This stanza, which is only found in the Lassberg and two other manuscripts, seems to have been inserted, like several others, in order to soften the ferocious character attributed to Kriemhild in the latter part of the poem.

THIRTY-FIRST ADVENTURE

(St. I.) The whole of this Thirty-first Adventure is supposed by Lachmann to be an addition to the foregoing. His reasons are anything but conclusive.

(St. X.) According to von der Hagen the shields were high enough for the bearer to lean upon them, and pointed below, so that they might be firmly fixed in the ground. They thus, I presume, in some degree protected the owners, even while the latter were resting.

(St. XII.) The dust was raised by the horses, as the Huns seem to have ridden from the palace.

(St. XXIII.) "The kings" here, as mostly elsewhere, are the three Burgundian brothers.

(St. LXIII.) Kriemhild here deals with Blœdel as Juno does in the Iliad with Sleep, and in the Æneid with Œolus.

(St. LXXII.) Something seems defective here, for it is not explained what bad object Kriemhild had in view in sending for her son, though it so happened that mischief came of it. Von der Hagen and Vollmer mention the account in the Vilkina Saga, according to which Kriemhild, in order to set the Huns and Burgundians by the ears, told her son to strike Hagan in the face, and Hagan returned the compliment by cutting off the lad's head and throwing it into his mother's lap, but this is incompatible with the manner in which the fighting begins in our poem, though this particular stanza seems to refer to something of that sort. The reviser of the Lassberg manuscript seems to have observed the difficulty; at least the last line of the stanza is different in that manuscript. Possibly this stanza may have crept in from a now lost recension, which more nearly resembled the Vilkina Saga. The like may be said of St. IV, Thirty-second Adventure, which contains the celebrated contradiction about the age of Dankwart.

THIRTY-SECOND ADVENTURE

(St. IV.) This stanza is completely at variance with the earlier parts of the poem, in which Dankwart is represented as Siegfried's companion in arms. It is therefore a most efficient ally of those critics who attribute the poem to two or twenty different bards, and this has perhaps rather blinded them to its defects. It is quite inconsistent with the heroic character displayed by Dankwart in this very portion of the poem, and, as an answer to Blœdel's speech, is a consummate piece of stupidity. Blœdel had not accused Dankwart of having murdered Siegfried or offended Kriemhild, but of being the brother of Hagan, who had done both. Dankwart should either have attempted to show that Hagan, not himself, was innocent, or that they were not brothers, or he should have urged the hardship of making one brother suffer for the crimes of another. Any of these answers would have been to the purpose; not so the speech which is put into his mouth here. Blœdel, with equal absurdity, after having already told him that he must die because his brother Hagan had murdered Siegfried, now replies that he must die because hiskinsmenGunther and Hagan had done the deed. It appears probable that here, as elsewhere, a passage has crept in from another version of the legend, which agreed, more nearly than our poem, with the Vilkina Saga. I quote the following passage from the summary of that work in Vollmer's Preface to the "Nibelunge Nôt." "Hogni begged Attila to give peace to young Giselher, as he was guiltless of Sigurd's death. Giselher himself said that he was then only five winters old, and slept in his mother's bed; still he did not wish to live alone after the death of his brothers." In the Vilkina Saga Hogni, who answers to the Hagan of our poem, is represented as thebrotherof the other three kings. It may appear visionary to speculate on the contents of a poem which may never have existed, but certainly in any version of the legend, which represented Hagan as thebrotherof Gunther and Giselher, Giselher might naturally have made the speech here put into the mouth of Dankwart, and have been told in reply that he must die for the crime that hisbrothersGunther and Hagan had committed. The idea of a recension more nearly allied to the Vilkina Saga than that which we possess is no notion of mine. It was started years ago by no less a person than Professor W. Grimm, though not with reference to this passage of the poem. See his "Deutsche Heldensage," p. 182.

(St. VII.) This mention of Nudung's bride, together with what follows in the next stanza, is quite unintelligible, if we suppose an independent lay to begin at St. I.

THIRTY-THIRD ADVENTURE

(St. XXII.) Lachmann seems here with reason to readVolkernforGiselheren, but have not the two stanzas, XXII and XXIII, changed places?

(St. XXX.) With this stanza (St. 1916, L.) ends Lachmann's Eighteenth Lay. I must own that it appears to me quite impossible that any writer could end a separate poem in this manner. Similar objections may be made to the conclusion of most of theseLieder.

(St. XXXI.)

with huge two-handed swayBrandish'd aloft the horrid edge came downWide wasting."Paradise Lost," b. 6.

with huge two-handed swayBrandish'd aloft the horrid edge came downWide wasting.

"Paradise Lost," b. 6.

(St. XLV.) There certainly seems some confusion here. The only people who had injured Gunther in Hungary were the Huns who had massacred the yeomen, and these were not present in the hall. If, on the other hand, he suspected that the Huns in the hall were privy to it, why allow Etzel and Kriemhild to depart without so much as an observation? Why, as Lachmann has observed, does not Dietrich think it necessary even to make a request in their behalf? It is easy to remove these objections by declaring everything spurious between St. XXX and St. XII, Thirty-fourth Adventure, but unfortunately, though St. XXIV, Twenty-eighth Adventure, which brings Etzel and Kriemhild into the hall, is not admitted into Lachmann's Lays, it is clear from stanzas XII-XIV, Thirty-third Adventure (1898-1900 L.), which form part of his Eighteenth Lay, that both Etzel and Kriemhild were present in the hall when the fighting began, and indeed Lachmann admits that the plan of his Eighteenth Lay requires that they should quit it. The composer however of the lay, who surely ought to know his own plan best, seems to have been of a different opinion, for, after having set the Huns and Burgundians by the ears in the hall, and put Dankwart and Volker to keep the door, he has left us to guess the final result of these serious preliminary arrangements. The 7,000 Huns massacred here are no doubt the same as the 7,000 who accompanied Kriemhild to church at St. XX, Thirty-first Adventure, and the same perhaps as the men of Kriemhild mentioned at St. XX, Thirtieth Adventure. These last hadattemptedmischief, and Gunther may here take the will for the deed.

(St. LVIII.) The meaning of this stanza is anything but clear. From the original, and the two readingsvonandvor, it would seem doubtful whether Hagan laments that he sat at a distance from Folker or that he took precedence of him.

THIRTY-FOURTH ADVENTURE

(St. XI.) I must confess I cannot see any inconsistency between the first line of this stanza and the third of the preceding one; but there is certainly a discrepancy between the second line, in which both Hagan and Folker are mentioned as scoffing at Etzel, and the two stanzas immediately following, which confine the invectives to Hagan.

(St. XII.) Lachmann's Nineteenth Lay begins here and ends with St. V, Thirty-sixth Adventure. Scarcely any of the whole twenty begin and end so unappropriated as this.

(St. XIX, XX, XXI.) I have arranged these stanzas as Simrock and Beta have done. Braunfels places them XX, XIX, XXI.

THIRTY-FIFTH ADVENTURE

(St. XX.) I have here, without intending it, stumbled on an interior ryhme,sounded confounded. Still I can assure Professor Lachmann that the stanza is genuine.

THIRTY-SIXTH ADVENTURE

(St. VI.) Here begins Lachmann's Twentieth Lay.

(St. IX.) Here they are described as comingûz dem hûse, which seems to contradict Kriemhild's exhortation at St. XX, not to let the Burgundians comefür den sal. Perhaps they here merely come out of the hall into a vestibule at the top of the staircase, so as to speak with Etzel and Kriemhild, but not into the open air. So at St. V, Thirty-ninth Adventure, Gunther and Hagan are said to be outside the house, but at St. XXV, same Adventure, Hagan rushes down from the staircase to attack Dietrich. From St. XXVI, Thirty-sixth Adventure, the staircase seems to have been of no great length.

THIRTY-SEVENTH ADVENTURE

(St. XVII.) Compare stanzas CXV, CXVI, Twentieth Adventure.

(St. LIX.) It is odd, that the hall, which must have been the principal eating-hall in the castle, is here called Kriemhild's. Von der Hagen thinks Kriemhild had appropriated it by having attempted to set it on fire, but arson is an odd kind of title. He supposes, too, it may be the hall mentioned at St. IV, Twenty-ninth Adventure; yet it seems strange that Etzel should have received his guests anywhere but in his own hall.

(St. XCI.) This stanza, as Professor Lachmann justly observes, cannot belong to Hagan, but is appropriate to Giselher, who is mentioned immediately after. Still there is an awkwardness here.

THIRTY-EIGHTH ADVENTURE

(St. II.) The king himself has come to the feast, has made one of the party, that is, has been slaughtered with the rest. See Lachmann's note (St. 2173 L.).

(St. XLIII.) I have with Simrock and Beta followed the reading of the Lassberg manuscript,struchenforstieben. The latter is explained by Braunfels and von der Hagen with reference to the flying out of sparks from armor, but this effect follows in the next line. To an Englishman the readingstiebenappears to bear a comical resemblance to our vulgar phrase, "dusting a man's jacket."

(St. LXXXIX.) The Amelungers' land was Bern, that is Verona, the hereditary possession of Dietrich: who was driven from it by his uncle Ermanrich, Emperor of Rome. He took refuge with Etzel, and remained in exile 30 or 32 years. For what further relates to him and the Amelungerssee the notesto Sts. IV and V, Twenty-eighth Adventure.

THIRTY-NINTH ADVENTURE

(St. V.) The phrase, outside the house,ûzen an dem hûse, appears to mean merely outside the hall. They seem to have stood in a sort of vestibule at the top of the stairs that led down into the courtyard. Compare St. IX, Thirty-sixth Adventure, and thenote.

(St. IX.) I have ventured, in conformity with the original, to talk of "joys lying slain," though certainly the phrase seems harsh in English. One manuscript readsfreundefriends, instead offreudenjoys.

(St. XXI.) Walter of Spain ran away with Hildegund from the court of Etzel, as that monarch himself informs us in an earlier part of this poem. As the young hero was passing with her through the Vosges or Wask mountains, he was attacked by Gunther with twelve knights, among whom was Hagan. The latter however, "for old acquaintance' sake," refused to fight against Walter, and persevered in his refusal, till the Spaniard had killed eleven knights, and Gunther himself was in danger. At last, after all three were wounded, they made up matters. According to the Vilkina Saga, Walter, after slaying the eleven knights, put Hagan to flight, and then, having lighted a fire, sat down with Hildegund to dine on the chine of a wild boar. As he was thus agreeably employed, Hagan fell upon him by surprise but was pelted so severely by Walter with the bones of the wild boar, that he escaped with difficulty, and, even as it was, lost an eye.—See W. Grimm's "Deutsche Heldensage," p. 91.

The Latin poem "Waltharius," which is translated from a lost German one, gives a more dignified account of the matter. There also Hagano refuses to fight at first, and says

"Eventum videam, nec consors sim spoliorum,"Dixerat, et collem petiit mox ipse propinquum,Descendensque ab equo consedit, et aspicit illo.

Eleven knights are killed, but next day, after Walter has left a stronghold, where he could be attacked by only one at a time, he is assailed on his march by Gunther and Hagan, and the fight continues till Gunther has lost a foot, Walter his right hand, and Hagan his right eye and twice three grinders. The combatants are then reconciled. For the situation of this field of battle, see "Lateinische Gedichte des 10. und 11. Jahrhunderts" by J. Grimm and Schmeller, p. 123.

(St. XLVI.) This stanza, which is in the Lassberg manuscript only, has been added apparently, like others, to soften the character of Kriemhild.

(St. LII.) Harrow and welaway. Old exclamations of distress or anger.

Harrow and welaway!After so wicked deed, why liv'st thou lenger day?"Faerie Queene," II, viii. 46.

Harrow and welaway!After so wicked deed, why liv'st thou lenger day?

"Faerie Queene," II, viii. 46.

(St. LVII.) Theedeln knehtehere, and thevil manic rîche knehtof St. XXXIV, in both passages associated with knights, were no doubt of a far superior station to that of the mereknehte, 9,000 of whom followed Gunther into Hungary. These last we may call yeomen, the other, squires. Theedeln burgære(St. XXXV, Seventeenth Adventure), seem to have been not the mere townsfolk, but the chiefs of the corporation the lord mayor, aldermen, and common council of Worms.

Transcriber's Note:Some initial characters and final punctuation were replaced.Quotation marks have been changed to allow the modern reader to follow a quotation from one stanza to the next.Inconsistent hyphenation and spellings were retained.Pg 295: (stout and ruet) changed to (stout and true)Pg 395: Greek: proselthon, internal terminal sigma retained.

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