Of old in the days past over was Gudrun blent with the dead,As she sat in measureless sorrow o'er Sigurd's wasted bed,But no sigh came from her bosom, nor smote she hand in hand,Nor wailed with the other women, and the daughters of the land;Then the wise of the Earls beheld her, smit cold with her dread intent,And they rose one after other, and before the Queen they went;Men ancient, men mighty in battle, men sweet of speech were there,And they loved her, and entreated, and spake good words to hear:But no tears and no lamenting in Gudrun's heart would striveWith the deadly chill of sorrow that none may bear and live.Now there were the King-folk's daughters, and wives of the Earls of war,The fair, and the noble-hearted, the wise in ancient lore;And they rose one after other, and stood before the QueenTo tell of their woes past over, and the worst their eyes had seen:There was Giaflaug, Giuki's sister, she was old and stark to see,And she said:"O heavyhearted; they slew my King from me:Look up, O child of the Niblungs, and hearken mournful thingsOf the woes of living man-folk and the daughters of the Kings!Dead now is the last of my brethren; to the dead my sister went;My son and my little daughter in the earliest days were spent:On the earth am I living loveless, long past are the happy days,They lie with things departed and vain and foolish praise,And the hopes of hapless people: yet I sit with the people's lordsWhen men are hushed to hearken the least of all my words.What else is the wont of the Niblungs? why else by the Gods were they wrought,Save to wear down lamentation, and make all sorrow nought?"No word of woe gat Gudrun, nor had she will to weep,Such weight of woe was on her for the golden Sigurd's sleep:Her heart was cold and dreadful; nor good from ill she knewFor the love they had taken from her, and the day with nought to do.Then troth-plight maids forsaken, and never-wedded ones,And they that mourned dead husbands and the hope of unborn sons,These told of their bitterest trouble and the worst their eyes had seen;"Yet all we live to love thee, and the glory of the Queen.Look up, look up, O Gudrun! what rest for them that wailIf the Queens of men shall tremble, and the God-kin faint and fail?"No voice gat Gudrun's sorrow, no care she had to weep;For the deeds of the day she knew not, nor the dreams of Sigurd's sleep:Her heart was cold and dreadful; nor good from ill she knew,Because of her love departed, and the day with nought to do.Then spake a Queen of Welshland, and Herborg hight was she:"O frozen heart of sorrow, the Norns dealt worse with me:Of old, in the days departed, were my brave ones under shield,Seven sons, and the eighth, my husband, and they fell in the Southland field:Yet lived my father and mother, yet lived my brethren four,And I bided their returning by the sea-washed bitter shore:But the winds and death played with them, o'er the wide sea swept the wave,The billows beat on the bulwarks and took what the battle gave:Alone I sang above them, alone I dight their gearFor the uttermost journey of all men, in the harvest of the year:Nor wakened spring from winter ere I left those early dead;With bound hands and shameful body I went as the sea-thieves led:Now I sit by the hearth of a stranger; nor have I weal nor woe,Save the hope of the Niblung masters and the sorrow of a foe."No wailing word gat Gudrun, no thought she had to weepO'er the sundering tide of Sigurd, and the loved lord's lonely sleep:Her heart was cold and dreadful; nor good from ill she knew,Since her love was taken from her and the day of deeds to do.Then arose a maid of the Niblungs, and Gullrond was her name,And betwixt that Queen of Welshland and Gudrun's grief she came:And she said: "O foster-mother, O wise in the wisdom of old,Hast thou spoken a word to the dead, and known them hear and behold?E'en so is this word thou speakest, and the counsel of thy face."All heed gave the maids and the warriors, and hushed was the spear-thronged place,As she stretched out her hand to Sigurd, and swept the linen awayFrom the lips that had holpen the people, and the eyes that had gladdened the day;She set her hand unto Sigurd, and turned the face of the deadTo the moveless knees of Gudrun, and again she spake and said:"O Gudrun, look on thy loved-one; yea, as if he were living yetLet his face by thy face be cherished, and thy lips on his lips be set!"Then Gudrun's eyes fell on it, and she saw the bright-one's hairAll wet with the deadly dew-fall, and she saw the great eyes stareAt that cloudy roof of the Niblungs without a smile or frown;And she saw the breast of the mighty and the heart's wall rent adown:She gazed and the woe gathered on her, so exceeding far awaySeemed all she once had cherished from that which near her lay;She gazed, and it craved no pity, and therein was nothing sad,Therein was clean forgotten the hope that Sigurd had:Then she looked around and about her, as though her friend to find,And met those woeful faces but as grey reeds in the wind,And she turned to the King beneath her and raised her hands on high,And fell on the body of Sigurd with a great and bitter cry;All else in the house kept silence, and she as one aloneSpared not in that kingly dwelling to wail aloud and moan;And the sound of her lamentation the peace of the Niblungs rent,While the restless birds in the wall-nook their song to the green leaves sent;And the geese in the home-mead wandering clanged out beneath the sun;For now was the day's best hour, and its loveliest tide begun.Long Gudrun lay on Sigurd, and her tears fell fast on the floorAs the rain in midmost April when the winter-tide is o'er,Till she heard a wail anigh her and how Gullrond wept beside,Then she knew the voice of her pity, and rose upright and cried:"O ye, e'en such was my Sigurd among these Giuki's sons,As the hart with the horns day-brightened mid the forest-creeping ones;As the spear-leek fraught with wisdom mid the lowly garden grass;As the gem on the gold band's midmost when the council cometh to pass,And the King is lit with its glory, and the people wonder and praise.—O people, Ah thy craving for the least of my Sigurd's days!O wisdom of my Sigurd! how oft I sat with theeThou striver, thou deliverer, thou hope of things to be!O might of my love, my Sigurd! how oft I sat by thy side,And was praised for the loftiest woman and the best of Odin's pride!But now am I as little as the leaf on the lone tree left,When the winter wood is shaken and the sky by the North is cleft."Then her speech grew wordless wailing, and no man her meaning knew;Till she hushed her swift and turned her; for a laugh her wail pierced through,As a whistling shaft the night-wind in some foe-encompassed wood;And lo, by the nearest pillar the wife of Gunnar stood;There stood the allwise Brynhild 'gainst the golden carving pressed,As she stared at the wound of Sigurd and that rending of his breast:But she felt the place fallen silent, and the speechless anger setOn her own chill, bitter sorrow; and the eyes of the women met,And they stood in the hall together, as they stood that while ago,When they twain in Brynhild's dwelling of days to come would know:But every soul kept silence, and all hearts were chill as stoneAs Brynhild spake:"Thou woman, shall thine eyes be wet alone?Shalt thou weep and speak in thy glory, when I may weep no more,When I speak, and my speech is as silence to the man that loved me sore?"Then folk heard the woe of Gudrun, and the bitterness of hate:"Day cursed o'er every other! when they opened wide the gate,And Kings in gold arrayed them, and all men the joy might hear,As Greyfell neighed in the forecourt the world's delight to bear,And my brethren shook the world-ways as they rode to Brynhild's bower,—An ill day—an evil woman—a most untimely hour!"But she wailed: "The seat is empty, and empty is the bed,And earth is hushed henceforward of the words my speech-friend said!Lo, the deeds of the sons of Giuki, and my brethren of one womb!Lo, the deeds of the sons of Giuki for the latter days of doom!O hearken, hearken Gunnar! May the dear Gold drag thee adown,And Greyfell's ruddy Burden, and the Treasure of renown,And the rings that ye swore the oath on! yea, if all avengers die,May Earth, that ye bade remember, on the blood of Sigurd cry!Be this land as waste as the trothplight that the lips of fools have sworn!May it rain through this broken hall-roof, and snow on the hearth forlorn!And may no man draw anigh it to tell of the ruin and the wrack!Yea, may I be a mock for the idle if my feet come ever aback,If my heart think kind of the chambers, if mine eyes shall yearn to beholdThe fair-built house of my fathers, the house beloved of old!"Then she waileth out before them, and hideth her face from the day,And she casteth her down from the high-seat and fleeth fast away;And forth from the Hall of the Niblungs, and forth from the Burg is she gone,And forth from the holy dwellings, and a long way forth alone,Till she comes to the lonely wood-waste, the desert of the deerBy the feet of the lonely mountains, that no man draweth anear;But the wolves are about and around her, and death seems better than life,And folding the hands and forgetting a merrier thing than strife;And for long and long thereafter no man of Gudrun knows,Nor who are the friends of her life-days, nor whom she calleth her foes.But how great in the hall of the Niblungs is the voice of weeping and wail!Men bide on the noon's departing, men bide till the eve shall fail,Then they wend one after other to the sleep that all men win,Till few are the hall-abiders, and the moon is white therein,And no sound in the house may ye hearken save the ernes that stir o'erhead,And the far-off wail o'er Guttorm and the wakeners o'er the dead:But still by the carven pillar doth the all-wise Brynhild standA-gaze on the wound of Sigurd, nor moveth foot nor hand,Nor speaketh word to any, of them that come or goRound the evil deed of the Niblungs and the corner-stone of woe.
Of old in the days past over was Gudrun blent with the dead,As she sat in measureless sorrow o'er Sigurd's wasted bed,But no sigh came from her bosom, nor smote she hand in hand,Nor wailed with the other women, and the daughters of the land;Then the wise of the Earls beheld her, smit cold with her dread intent,And they rose one after other, and before the Queen they went;Men ancient, men mighty in battle, men sweet of speech were there,And they loved her, and entreated, and spake good words to hear:But no tears and no lamenting in Gudrun's heart would striveWith the deadly chill of sorrow that none may bear and live.
Now there were the King-folk's daughters, and wives of the Earls of war,The fair, and the noble-hearted, the wise in ancient lore;And they rose one after other, and stood before the QueenTo tell of their woes past over, and the worst their eyes had seen:There was Giaflaug, Giuki's sister, she was old and stark to see,And she said:"O heavyhearted; they slew my King from me:Look up, O child of the Niblungs, and hearken mournful thingsOf the woes of living man-folk and the daughters of the Kings!Dead now is the last of my brethren; to the dead my sister went;My son and my little daughter in the earliest days were spent:On the earth am I living loveless, long past are the happy days,They lie with things departed and vain and foolish praise,And the hopes of hapless people: yet I sit with the people's lordsWhen men are hushed to hearken the least of all my words.What else is the wont of the Niblungs? why else by the Gods were they wrought,Save to wear down lamentation, and make all sorrow nought?"
No word of woe gat Gudrun, nor had she will to weep,Such weight of woe was on her for the golden Sigurd's sleep:Her heart was cold and dreadful; nor good from ill she knewFor the love they had taken from her, and the day with nought to do.
Then troth-plight maids forsaken, and never-wedded ones,And they that mourned dead husbands and the hope of unborn sons,These told of their bitterest trouble and the worst their eyes had seen;"Yet all we live to love thee, and the glory of the Queen.Look up, look up, O Gudrun! what rest for them that wailIf the Queens of men shall tremble, and the God-kin faint and fail?"
No voice gat Gudrun's sorrow, no care she had to weep;For the deeds of the day she knew not, nor the dreams of Sigurd's sleep:Her heart was cold and dreadful; nor good from ill she knew,Because of her love departed, and the day with nought to do.
Then spake a Queen of Welshland, and Herborg hight was she:"O frozen heart of sorrow, the Norns dealt worse with me:Of old, in the days departed, were my brave ones under shield,Seven sons, and the eighth, my husband, and they fell in the Southland field:Yet lived my father and mother, yet lived my brethren four,And I bided their returning by the sea-washed bitter shore:But the winds and death played with them, o'er the wide sea swept the wave,The billows beat on the bulwarks and took what the battle gave:Alone I sang above them, alone I dight their gearFor the uttermost journey of all men, in the harvest of the year:Nor wakened spring from winter ere I left those early dead;With bound hands and shameful body I went as the sea-thieves led:Now I sit by the hearth of a stranger; nor have I weal nor woe,Save the hope of the Niblung masters and the sorrow of a foe."
No wailing word gat Gudrun, no thought she had to weepO'er the sundering tide of Sigurd, and the loved lord's lonely sleep:Her heart was cold and dreadful; nor good from ill she knew,Since her love was taken from her and the day of deeds to do.
Then arose a maid of the Niblungs, and Gullrond was her name,And betwixt that Queen of Welshland and Gudrun's grief she came:And she said: "O foster-mother, O wise in the wisdom of old,Hast thou spoken a word to the dead, and known them hear and behold?E'en so is this word thou speakest, and the counsel of thy face."
All heed gave the maids and the warriors, and hushed was the spear-thronged place,As she stretched out her hand to Sigurd, and swept the linen awayFrom the lips that had holpen the people, and the eyes that had gladdened the day;She set her hand unto Sigurd, and turned the face of the deadTo the moveless knees of Gudrun, and again she spake and said:
"O Gudrun, look on thy loved-one; yea, as if he were living yetLet his face by thy face be cherished, and thy lips on his lips be set!"
Then Gudrun's eyes fell on it, and she saw the bright-one's hairAll wet with the deadly dew-fall, and she saw the great eyes stareAt that cloudy roof of the Niblungs without a smile or frown;And she saw the breast of the mighty and the heart's wall rent adown:She gazed and the woe gathered on her, so exceeding far awaySeemed all she once had cherished from that which near her lay;She gazed, and it craved no pity, and therein was nothing sad,Therein was clean forgotten the hope that Sigurd had:Then she looked around and about her, as though her friend to find,And met those woeful faces but as grey reeds in the wind,And she turned to the King beneath her and raised her hands on high,And fell on the body of Sigurd with a great and bitter cry;All else in the house kept silence, and she as one aloneSpared not in that kingly dwelling to wail aloud and moan;And the sound of her lamentation the peace of the Niblungs rent,While the restless birds in the wall-nook their song to the green leaves sent;And the geese in the home-mead wandering clanged out beneath the sun;For now was the day's best hour, and its loveliest tide begun.
Long Gudrun lay on Sigurd, and her tears fell fast on the floorAs the rain in midmost April when the winter-tide is o'er,Till she heard a wail anigh her and how Gullrond wept beside,Then she knew the voice of her pity, and rose upright and cried:
"O ye, e'en such was my Sigurd among these Giuki's sons,As the hart with the horns day-brightened mid the forest-creeping ones;As the spear-leek fraught with wisdom mid the lowly garden grass;As the gem on the gold band's midmost when the council cometh to pass,And the King is lit with its glory, and the people wonder and praise.—O people, Ah thy craving for the least of my Sigurd's days!O wisdom of my Sigurd! how oft I sat with theeThou striver, thou deliverer, thou hope of things to be!O might of my love, my Sigurd! how oft I sat by thy side,And was praised for the loftiest woman and the best of Odin's pride!But now am I as little as the leaf on the lone tree left,When the winter wood is shaken and the sky by the North is cleft."
Then her speech grew wordless wailing, and no man her meaning knew;Till she hushed her swift and turned her; for a laugh her wail pierced through,As a whistling shaft the night-wind in some foe-encompassed wood;And lo, by the nearest pillar the wife of Gunnar stood;There stood the allwise Brynhild 'gainst the golden carving pressed,As she stared at the wound of Sigurd and that rending of his breast:But she felt the place fallen silent, and the speechless anger setOn her own chill, bitter sorrow; and the eyes of the women met,And they stood in the hall together, as they stood that while ago,When they twain in Brynhild's dwelling of days to come would know:But every soul kept silence, and all hearts were chill as stoneAs Brynhild spake:"Thou woman, shall thine eyes be wet alone?Shalt thou weep and speak in thy glory, when I may weep no more,When I speak, and my speech is as silence to the man that loved me sore?"
Then folk heard the woe of Gudrun, and the bitterness of hate:"Day cursed o'er every other! when they opened wide the gate,And Kings in gold arrayed them, and all men the joy might hear,As Greyfell neighed in the forecourt the world's delight to bear,And my brethren shook the world-ways as they rode to Brynhild's bower,—An ill day—an evil woman—a most untimely hour!"
But she wailed: "The seat is empty, and empty is the bed,And earth is hushed henceforward of the words my speech-friend said!Lo, the deeds of the sons of Giuki, and my brethren of one womb!Lo, the deeds of the sons of Giuki for the latter days of doom!O hearken, hearken Gunnar! May the dear Gold drag thee adown,And Greyfell's ruddy Burden, and the Treasure of renown,And the rings that ye swore the oath on! yea, if all avengers die,May Earth, that ye bade remember, on the blood of Sigurd cry!Be this land as waste as the trothplight that the lips of fools have sworn!May it rain through this broken hall-roof, and snow on the hearth forlorn!And may no man draw anigh it to tell of the ruin and the wrack!Yea, may I be a mock for the idle if my feet come ever aback,If my heart think kind of the chambers, if mine eyes shall yearn to beholdThe fair-built house of my fathers, the house beloved of old!"
Then she waileth out before them, and hideth her face from the day,And she casteth her down from the high-seat and fleeth fast away;And forth from the Hall of the Niblungs, and forth from the Burg is she gone,And forth from the holy dwellings, and a long way forth alone,Till she comes to the lonely wood-waste, the desert of the deerBy the feet of the lonely mountains, that no man draweth anear;But the wolves are about and around her, and death seems better than life,And folding the hands and forgetting a merrier thing than strife;And for long and long thereafter no man of Gudrun knows,Nor who are the friends of her life-days, nor whom she calleth her foes.
But how great in the hall of the Niblungs is the voice of weeping and wail!Men bide on the noon's departing, men bide till the eve shall fail,Then they wend one after other to the sleep that all men win,Till few are the hall-abiders, and the moon is white therein,And no sound in the house may ye hearken save the ernes that stir o'erhead,And the far-off wail o'er Guttorm and the wakeners o'er the dead:But still by the carven pillar doth the all-wise Brynhild standA-gaze on the wound of Sigurd, nor moveth foot nor hand,Nor speaketh word to any, of them that come or goRound the evil deed of the Niblungs and the corner-stone of woe.
Once more on the morrow-morning fair shineth the glorious sunsAnd the Niblung children labour on a deed that shall be done.For out in the people's meadows they raise a bale on high,The oak and the ash together, and thereon shall the Mighty lie;Nor gold nor steel shall be lacking, nor savour of sweet spice,Nor cloths in the Southlands woven, nor webs of untold price:The work grows, toil is as nothing; long blasts of the mighty hornFrom the topmost tower out-wailing o'er the woeful world are borne.But Brynhild lay in her chamber, and her women went and came,And they feared and trembled before her, and none spake Sigurd's name;But whiles they deemed her weeping, and whiles they deemed indeedThat she spake, if they might but hearken, but no words their ears might heed;Till at last she spake out clearly:"I know not what ye would;For ye come and go in my chamber, and ye seem of wavering moodTo thrust me on, or to stay me; to help my heart in woe,Or to bid my days of sorrow midst nameless folly go."None answered the word of Brynhild, none knew of her intent;But she spake: "Bid hither Gunnar, lest the sun sink o'er the bent,And leave the words unspoken I yet have will to speak."Then her maidens go from before her, and that lord of war they seek,And he stands by the bed of Brynhild and strives to entreat and beseech,But her eyes gaze awfully on him, and his lips may learn no speech.And she saith:"I slept in the morning, or I dreamed in the waking-hour,And my dream was of thee, O Gunnar, and the bed in thy kingly bower,And the house that I blessed in my sorrow, and cursed in my sorrow and shame,The gates of an ancient people, the towers of a mighty name:King, cold was the hall I have dwelt in, and no brand burned on the hearth;Dead-cold was thy bed, O Gunnar, and thy land was parched with dearth:But I saw a great King riding, and a master of the harp,And he rode amidst of the foemen, and the swords were bitter-sharp,But his hand in the hand-gyves smote not, and his feet in the fetters were fast,While many a word of mocking at his speechless face was cast.Then I heard a voice in the world: 'O woe for the broken troth,And the heavy Need of the Niblungs, and the Sorrow of Odin the Goth!Then I saw the halls of the strangers, and the hills, and the dark-blue sea,Nor knew of their names and their nations, for earth was afar from me,But brother rose up against brother, and blood swam over the board,And women smote and spared not, and the fire was master and lord.Then, then was the moonless mid-mirk, and I woke to the day and the deed,The deed that earth shall name not, the day of its bitterest need.Many words have I said in my life-days, and little more shall I say:Ye have heard the dream of a woman, deal with it as ye may:For meseems the world-ways sunder, and the dusk and the dark is mine,Till I come to the hall of Freyia, where the deeds of the mighty shall shine.'"So hearkened Gunnar the Niblung, that her words he understood,And he knew she was set on the death-stroke, and he deemed it nothing good:But he said: "I have hearkened, and heeded thy death and mine in thy words:I have done the deed and abide it, and my face shall laugh on the swords;But thee, woman, I bid thee abide here till thy grief of soul abate;Meseems nought lowly nor shameful shall be the Niblung fate;And here shalt thou rule and be mighty, and be queen of the measureless Gold,And abase the kings and upraise them; and anew shall thy fame be told,And as fair shall thy glory blossom as the fresh fields under the spring."Then he casteth his arms about her, and hot is the heart of the KingFor the glory of Queen Brynhild and the hope of her days of gain,And he clean forgetteth Sigurd and the foster-brother slain:But she shrank aback from before him, and cried: "Woe worth the whileFor the thoughts ye drive back on me, and the memory of your guile!The Kings of earth were gathered, the wise of men were met;On the death of a woman's pleasure their glorious hearts were set,And I was alone amidst them—Ah, hold thy peace hereof!Lest the thought of the bitterest hours this little hour should move."He rose abashed from before her, and yet he lingered there;Then she said: "O King of the Niblungs, what noise do I hearken and hear?Why ring the axes and hammers, while feet of men go past,And shields from the wall are shaken, and swords on the pavement cast,And the door of the treasure is opened; and the horn cries loud and long,And the feet of the Niblung children to the people's meadows throng?"His face was troubled before her, and again she spake and said:"Meseemeth this is the hour when men array the dead;Wilt thou tell me tidings, Gunnar, that the children of thy folkPile up the bale for Guttorm, and the hand that smote the stroke?"He said: "It is not so, Brynhild; for that Giuki's son was burnedWhen the moon of the middle heaven last night toward dawning turned."They looked on each other and spake not; but Gunnar gat him gone,And came to his brother Hogni, the wise-heart Giuki's son,And spake: "Thou art wise, O Hogni; go in to Brynhild the queen,And stay her swift departing; or the last of her days hath she seen.""It is nought, thy word," said Hogni; "wilt thou bring dead men aback,Or the souls of kings departed midst the battle and the wrack?Yet this shall be easier to thee than the turning Brynhild's heart;She came to dwell among us, but in us she had no part;Let her go her ways from the Niblungs with her hand in Sigurd's hand.Will the grass grow up henceforward where her feet have trodden the land?""O evil day," said Gunnar, "when my queen must perish and die!""Such oft betide," saith Hogni, "as the lives of men flit by;But the evil day is a day, and on each day groweth a deed,And a thing that never dieth; and the fateful tale shall speed.Lo now, let us harden our hearts and set our brows as the brass,Lest men say it, 'They loathed the evil and they brought the evil to pass.'"So they spake, and their hearts were heavy, and they longed for the morrow morn,And the morrow of tomorrow, and the new day yet to be born.But Brynhild cried to her maidens: "Now open ark and chest,And draw forth queenly raiment of the loveliest and the best,Red rings that the Dwarf-lords fashioned, fair cloths that queens have sewed,To array the bride for the mighty, and the traveller for the road."They wept as they wrought her bidding and did on her goodliest gear;But she laughed mid the dainty linen, and the gold-rings fashioned fair:She arose from the bed of the Niblungs, and her face no more was wan;As a star in the dawn-tide heavens, mid the dusky house she shone:And they that stood about her, their hearts were raised aloftAmid their fear and wonder: then she spake them kind and soft:"Now give me the sword, O maidens, wherewith I sheared the windWhen the Kings of Earth were gathered to know the Chooser's mind."All sheathed the maidens brought it, and feared the hidden blade,But the naked blue-white edges across her knees she laid,And spake: "The heaped-up riches, the gear my fathers left,All dear-bought woven wonders, all rings from battle reft,All goods of men desired, now strew them on the floor,And so share among you, maidens, the gifts of Brynhild's store."They brought them mid their weeping, but none put forth a handTo take that wealth desired, the spoils of many a land:There they stand and weep before her, and some are moved to speech,And they cast their arms about her and strive with her, and beseechThat she look on her loved-ones' sorrow and the glory of the day.It was nought; she scarce might see them, and she put their hands awayAnd she said: "Peace, ye that love me! and take the gifts and the goldIn remembrance of my fathers and the faithful deeds of old."Then she spake: "Where now is Gunnar, that I may speak with him?For new things are mine eyes beholding and the Niblung house grows dim,And new sounds gather about me, that may hinder me to speakWhen the breath is near to flitting, and the voice is waxen weak."Then upright by the bed of the Niblungs for a moment doth she stand,And the blade flasheth bright in the chamber, but no more they hinder her handThan if a God were smiting to rend the world in two:Then dulled are the glittering edges, and the bitter point cleaves throughThe breast of the all-wise Brynhild, and her feet from the pavement fail,And the sigh of her heart is hearkened mid the hush of the maidens' wail.Chill, deep is the fear upon them, but they bring her aback to the bed,And her hand is yet on the hilts, and sidelong droopeth her head.Then there cometh a cry from withoutward, and Gunnar's hurrying feetAre swift on the kingly threshold, and Brynhild's blood they meet.Low down o'er the bed he hangeth and hearkeneth for her word,And her heavy lids are opened to look on the Niblung lord,And she saith:"I pray thee a prayer, the last word in the world I speak,That ye bear me forth to Sigurd, and the hand my hand would seek;The bale for the dead is builded, it is wrought full wide on the plain,It is raised for Earth's best Helper, and thereon is room for twain:Ye have hung the shields about it, and the Southland hangings spread,There lay me adown by Sigurd and my head beside his head:But ere ye leave us sleeping, draw his Wrath from out the sheath,And lay that Light of the Branstock, and the blade that frighted deathsBetwixt my side and Sigurd's, as it lay that while agone,When once in one bed together we twain were laid alone:How then when the flames flare upward may I be left behind?How then may the road he wendeth be hard for my feet to find?How then in the gates of Valhall may the door of the gleaming ringClash to on the heel of Sigurd, as I follow on my king?"Then she raised herself on her elbow, but again her eyelids sank,And the wound by the sword-edge whispered, as her heart from the iron shrank,And she moaned: "O lives of man-folk, for unrest all overlongBy the Father were ye fashioned; and what hope amendeth a wrong?Now at last, O my belovèd, all is gone; none else is near,Through the ages of all ages, never sundered, shall we wear."Scarce more than a sigh was the word, as back on the bed she fell,Nor was there need in the chamber of the passing of Brynhild to tell;And no more their lamentation might the maidens hold aback,But the sound of their bitter mourning was as if red-handed wrackRan wild in the Burg of the Niblungs, and the fire were master of all.Then the voice of Gunnar the war-king cried out o'er the weeping hall:"Wail on, O women forsaken, for the mightiest woman born!Now the hearth is cold and joyless, and the waste bed lieth forlorn.Wail on, but amid your weeping lay hand to the glorious dead,That not alone for an hour may lie Queen Brynhild's head:For here have been heavy tidings, and the Mightiest under shieldIs laid on the bale high-builded in the Niblungs' hallowed field.Fare forth! for he abideth, and we do Allfather wrong,If the shining Valhall's pavement await their feet o'erlong."Then they took the body of Brynhild in the raiment that she wore,And out through the gate of the Niblungs the holy corpse they bore,And thence forth to the mead of the people, and the high-built shielded bale;Then afresh in the open meadows breaks forth the women's wailWhen they see the bed of Sigurd and the glittering of his gear;And fresh is the wail of the people as Brynhild draweth anear,And the tidings go before her that for twain the bale is built,That for twain is the oak-wood shielded and the pleasant odours spilt.There is peace on the bale of Sigurd, and the Gods look down from on high,And they see the lids of the Volsung close shut against the sky,As he lies with his shield beside him in the Hauberk all of gold,That has not its like in the heavens, nor has earth of its fellow told;And forth from the Helm of Aweing are the sunbeams flashing wide,And the sheathèd Wrath of Sigurd lies still by his mighty side.Then cometh an elder of days, a man of the ancient times,Who is long past sorrow and joy, and the steep of the bale he climbs;And he kneeleth down by Sigurd, and bareth the Wrath to the sunThat the beams are gathered about it, and from hilt to blood-point run,And wide o'er the plain of the Niblungs doth the Light of the Branstock glare,Till the wondering mountain-shepherds on that star of noontide stare,And fear for many an evil; but the ancient man stands stillWith the war-flame on his shoulder, nor thinks of good or of ill,Till the feet of Brynhild's bearers on the topmost bale are laid,And her bed is dight by Sigurd's; then he sinks the pale white bladeAnd lays it 'twixt the sleepers, and leaves them there alone—He, the last that shall ever behold them,—and his days are well nigh done.Then is silence over the plain; in the noon shine the torches paleAs the best of the Niblung Earl-folk bear fire to the builded bale:Then a wind in the west ariseth, and the white flames leap on highsAnd with one voice crieth the people a great and mighty cry,And men cast up hands to the Heavens, and pray without a word,As they that have seen God's visage, and the face of the Father have heard.They are gone—the lovely, the mighty, the hope of the ancient Earth:It shall labour and bear the burden as before that day of their birth:It shall groan in its blind abiding for the day that Sigurd hath sped,And the hour that Brynhild hath hastened, and the dawn that waketh the dead:It shall yearn, and be oft-times holpen, and forget their deeds no more,Till the new sun beams on Baldur, and the happy sealess shore.
Once more on the morrow-morning fair shineth the glorious sunsAnd the Niblung children labour on a deed that shall be done.For out in the people's meadows they raise a bale on high,The oak and the ash together, and thereon shall the Mighty lie;Nor gold nor steel shall be lacking, nor savour of sweet spice,Nor cloths in the Southlands woven, nor webs of untold price:The work grows, toil is as nothing; long blasts of the mighty hornFrom the topmost tower out-wailing o'er the woeful world are borne.
But Brynhild lay in her chamber, and her women went and came,And they feared and trembled before her, and none spake Sigurd's name;But whiles they deemed her weeping, and whiles they deemed indeedThat she spake, if they might but hearken, but no words their ears might heed;Till at last she spake out clearly:"I know not what ye would;For ye come and go in my chamber, and ye seem of wavering moodTo thrust me on, or to stay me; to help my heart in woe,Or to bid my days of sorrow midst nameless folly go."
None answered the word of Brynhild, none knew of her intent;But she spake: "Bid hither Gunnar, lest the sun sink o'er the bent,And leave the words unspoken I yet have will to speak."
Then her maidens go from before her, and that lord of war they seek,And he stands by the bed of Brynhild and strives to entreat and beseech,But her eyes gaze awfully on him, and his lips may learn no speech.And she saith:"I slept in the morning, or I dreamed in the waking-hour,And my dream was of thee, O Gunnar, and the bed in thy kingly bower,And the house that I blessed in my sorrow, and cursed in my sorrow and shame,The gates of an ancient people, the towers of a mighty name:King, cold was the hall I have dwelt in, and no brand burned on the hearth;Dead-cold was thy bed, O Gunnar, and thy land was parched with dearth:But I saw a great King riding, and a master of the harp,And he rode amidst of the foemen, and the swords were bitter-sharp,But his hand in the hand-gyves smote not, and his feet in the fetters were fast,While many a word of mocking at his speechless face was cast.Then I heard a voice in the world: 'O woe for the broken troth,And the heavy Need of the Niblungs, and the Sorrow of Odin the Goth!Then I saw the halls of the strangers, and the hills, and the dark-blue sea,Nor knew of their names and their nations, for earth was afar from me,But brother rose up against brother, and blood swam over the board,And women smote and spared not, and the fire was master and lord.Then, then was the moonless mid-mirk, and I woke to the day and the deed,The deed that earth shall name not, the day of its bitterest need.Many words have I said in my life-days, and little more shall I say:Ye have heard the dream of a woman, deal with it as ye may:For meseems the world-ways sunder, and the dusk and the dark is mine,Till I come to the hall of Freyia, where the deeds of the mighty shall shine.'"
So hearkened Gunnar the Niblung, that her words he understood,And he knew she was set on the death-stroke, and he deemed it nothing good:But he said: "I have hearkened, and heeded thy death and mine in thy words:I have done the deed and abide it, and my face shall laugh on the swords;But thee, woman, I bid thee abide here till thy grief of soul abate;Meseems nought lowly nor shameful shall be the Niblung fate;And here shalt thou rule and be mighty, and be queen of the measureless Gold,And abase the kings and upraise them; and anew shall thy fame be told,And as fair shall thy glory blossom as the fresh fields under the spring."
Then he casteth his arms about her, and hot is the heart of the KingFor the glory of Queen Brynhild and the hope of her days of gain,And he clean forgetteth Sigurd and the foster-brother slain:But she shrank aback from before him, and cried: "Woe worth the whileFor the thoughts ye drive back on me, and the memory of your guile!The Kings of earth were gathered, the wise of men were met;On the death of a woman's pleasure their glorious hearts were set,And I was alone amidst them—Ah, hold thy peace hereof!Lest the thought of the bitterest hours this little hour should move."
He rose abashed from before her, and yet he lingered there;Then she said: "O King of the Niblungs, what noise do I hearken and hear?Why ring the axes and hammers, while feet of men go past,And shields from the wall are shaken, and swords on the pavement cast,And the door of the treasure is opened; and the horn cries loud and long,And the feet of the Niblung children to the people's meadows throng?"
His face was troubled before her, and again she spake and said:"Meseemeth this is the hour when men array the dead;Wilt thou tell me tidings, Gunnar, that the children of thy folkPile up the bale for Guttorm, and the hand that smote the stroke?"
He said: "It is not so, Brynhild; for that Giuki's son was burnedWhen the moon of the middle heaven last night toward dawning turned."
They looked on each other and spake not; but Gunnar gat him gone,And came to his brother Hogni, the wise-heart Giuki's son,And spake: "Thou art wise, O Hogni; go in to Brynhild the queen,And stay her swift departing; or the last of her days hath she seen."
"It is nought, thy word," said Hogni; "wilt thou bring dead men aback,Or the souls of kings departed midst the battle and the wrack?Yet this shall be easier to thee than the turning Brynhild's heart;She came to dwell among us, but in us she had no part;Let her go her ways from the Niblungs with her hand in Sigurd's hand.Will the grass grow up henceforward where her feet have trodden the land?"
"O evil day," said Gunnar, "when my queen must perish and die!"
"Such oft betide," saith Hogni, "as the lives of men flit by;But the evil day is a day, and on each day groweth a deed,And a thing that never dieth; and the fateful tale shall speed.Lo now, let us harden our hearts and set our brows as the brass,Lest men say it, 'They loathed the evil and they brought the evil to pass.'"
So they spake, and their hearts were heavy, and they longed for the morrow morn,And the morrow of tomorrow, and the new day yet to be born.
But Brynhild cried to her maidens: "Now open ark and chest,And draw forth queenly raiment of the loveliest and the best,Red rings that the Dwarf-lords fashioned, fair cloths that queens have sewed,To array the bride for the mighty, and the traveller for the road."
They wept as they wrought her bidding and did on her goodliest gear;But she laughed mid the dainty linen, and the gold-rings fashioned fair:She arose from the bed of the Niblungs, and her face no more was wan;As a star in the dawn-tide heavens, mid the dusky house she shone:And they that stood about her, their hearts were raised aloftAmid their fear and wonder: then she spake them kind and soft:
"Now give me the sword, O maidens, wherewith I sheared the windWhen the Kings of Earth were gathered to know the Chooser's mind."
All sheathed the maidens brought it, and feared the hidden blade,But the naked blue-white edges across her knees she laid,And spake: "The heaped-up riches, the gear my fathers left,All dear-bought woven wonders, all rings from battle reft,All goods of men desired, now strew them on the floor,And so share among you, maidens, the gifts of Brynhild's store."
They brought them mid their weeping, but none put forth a handTo take that wealth desired, the spoils of many a land:There they stand and weep before her, and some are moved to speech,And they cast their arms about her and strive with her, and beseechThat she look on her loved-ones' sorrow and the glory of the day.It was nought; she scarce might see them, and she put their hands awayAnd she said: "Peace, ye that love me! and take the gifts and the goldIn remembrance of my fathers and the faithful deeds of old."
Then she spake: "Where now is Gunnar, that I may speak with him?For new things are mine eyes beholding and the Niblung house grows dim,And new sounds gather about me, that may hinder me to speakWhen the breath is near to flitting, and the voice is waxen weak."
Then upright by the bed of the Niblungs for a moment doth she stand,And the blade flasheth bright in the chamber, but no more they hinder her handThan if a God were smiting to rend the world in two:Then dulled are the glittering edges, and the bitter point cleaves throughThe breast of the all-wise Brynhild, and her feet from the pavement fail,And the sigh of her heart is hearkened mid the hush of the maidens' wail.Chill, deep is the fear upon them, but they bring her aback to the bed,And her hand is yet on the hilts, and sidelong droopeth her head.
Then there cometh a cry from withoutward, and Gunnar's hurrying feetAre swift on the kingly threshold, and Brynhild's blood they meet.Low down o'er the bed he hangeth and hearkeneth for her word,And her heavy lids are opened to look on the Niblung lord,And she saith:"I pray thee a prayer, the last word in the world I speak,That ye bear me forth to Sigurd, and the hand my hand would seek;The bale for the dead is builded, it is wrought full wide on the plain,It is raised for Earth's best Helper, and thereon is room for twain:Ye have hung the shields about it, and the Southland hangings spread,There lay me adown by Sigurd and my head beside his head:But ere ye leave us sleeping, draw his Wrath from out the sheath,And lay that Light of the Branstock, and the blade that frighted deathsBetwixt my side and Sigurd's, as it lay that while agone,When once in one bed together we twain were laid alone:How then when the flames flare upward may I be left behind?How then may the road he wendeth be hard for my feet to find?How then in the gates of Valhall may the door of the gleaming ringClash to on the heel of Sigurd, as I follow on my king?"
Then she raised herself on her elbow, but again her eyelids sank,And the wound by the sword-edge whispered, as her heart from the iron shrank,And she moaned: "O lives of man-folk, for unrest all overlongBy the Father were ye fashioned; and what hope amendeth a wrong?Now at last, O my belovèd, all is gone; none else is near,Through the ages of all ages, never sundered, shall we wear."
Scarce more than a sigh was the word, as back on the bed she fell,Nor was there need in the chamber of the passing of Brynhild to tell;And no more their lamentation might the maidens hold aback,But the sound of their bitter mourning was as if red-handed wrackRan wild in the Burg of the Niblungs, and the fire were master of all.
Then the voice of Gunnar the war-king cried out o'er the weeping hall:"Wail on, O women forsaken, for the mightiest woman born!Now the hearth is cold and joyless, and the waste bed lieth forlorn.Wail on, but amid your weeping lay hand to the glorious dead,That not alone for an hour may lie Queen Brynhild's head:For here have been heavy tidings, and the Mightiest under shieldIs laid on the bale high-builded in the Niblungs' hallowed field.Fare forth! for he abideth, and we do Allfather wrong,If the shining Valhall's pavement await their feet o'erlong."
Then they took the body of Brynhild in the raiment that she wore,And out through the gate of the Niblungs the holy corpse they bore,And thence forth to the mead of the people, and the high-built shielded bale;Then afresh in the open meadows breaks forth the women's wailWhen they see the bed of Sigurd and the glittering of his gear;And fresh is the wail of the people as Brynhild draweth anear,And the tidings go before her that for twain the bale is built,That for twain is the oak-wood shielded and the pleasant odours spilt.
There is peace on the bale of Sigurd, and the Gods look down from on high,And they see the lids of the Volsung close shut against the sky,As he lies with his shield beside him in the Hauberk all of gold,That has not its like in the heavens, nor has earth of its fellow told;And forth from the Helm of Aweing are the sunbeams flashing wide,And the sheathèd Wrath of Sigurd lies still by his mighty side.Then cometh an elder of days, a man of the ancient times,Who is long past sorrow and joy, and the steep of the bale he climbs;And he kneeleth down by Sigurd, and bareth the Wrath to the sunThat the beams are gathered about it, and from hilt to blood-point run,And wide o'er the plain of the Niblungs doth the Light of the Branstock glare,Till the wondering mountain-shepherds on that star of noontide stare,And fear for many an evil; but the ancient man stands stillWith the war-flame on his shoulder, nor thinks of good or of ill,Till the feet of Brynhild's bearers on the topmost bale are laid,And her bed is dight by Sigurd's; then he sinks the pale white bladeAnd lays it 'twixt the sleepers, and leaves them there alone—He, the last that shall ever behold them,—and his days are well nigh done.
Then is silence over the plain; in the noon shine the torches paleAs the best of the Niblung Earl-folk bear fire to the builded bale:Then a wind in the west ariseth, and the white flames leap on highsAnd with one voice crieth the people a great and mighty cry,And men cast up hands to the Heavens, and pray without a word,As they that have seen God's visage, and the face of the Father have heard.
They are gone—the lovely, the mighty, the hope of the ancient Earth:It shall labour and bear the burden as before that day of their birth:It shall groan in its blind abiding for the day that Sigurd hath sped,And the hour that Brynhild hath hastened, and the dawn that waketh the dead:It shall yearn, and be oft-times holpen, and forget their deeds no more,Till the new sun beams on Baldur, and the happy sealess shore.
herein is told of the days of the niblungs after they slew sigurd, and of their woeful need and fall in the house of king atli.
herein is told of the days of the niblungs after they slew sigurd, and of their woeful need and fall in the house of king atli.
Hear now of those Niblung war-kings, how in glorious state they dwell;They do and undo at their pleasure and wear their life-days well;They deal out doom to the people, and their hosts of war array,Nor storm nor wind nor winter their eager swords shall stay:They ride the lealand highways, they ride the desert plain,They cry out kind to the Sea-god and loose the wave-steed's rein:They climb the unmeasured mountains, and gleam on the world beneath,And their swords are the blinding lightning, and their shields are the shadow of death:When men tell of the lords of the Goth-folk, of the Niblungs is their word,All folk in the round world's compass of their mighty fame have heard:They are lords of the Ransom of Odin, the uncounted sea-born Gold,The Grief of the wise Andvari, the Death of the Dwarfs of old,The gleaming Load of Greyfell, the ancient Serpent's Bed,The store of the days forgotten, by the dead heaped up for the dead.Lo, such are the Kings of the Niblungs, but yet they crave and desireLest the world hold greater than they, lest the Gods and their kindred be higher.Fair, bright is their hall in the even; still up to the cloudy roofThere goeth the glee and the singing while the eagles chatter aloof,And the Gods on the hangings waver in the doubtful wind of night;Still fair are the linen-clad damsels, still are the war-dukes bright;Men come and go in the even; men come and go in the morn;Good tidings with the daybreak, fair fame with the glooming is born:—But no tidings of Sigurd and Brynhild, and whoso remembereth their daysTurns back to the toil or the laughter from his words of lamenting or praise,Turns back to the glorious Gunnar, casts hope on the Niblung name,Doeth deeds from the morn to the even, and beareth no burden of shame.Well wedded is Gunnar the King, and Hogni hath wedded a wife;Fair queens are those wives of the Niblungs, good helpmates in peace and in strifeSweet they sit on the golden high-seat, and Grimhild sitteth beside,And the years have made her glorious, and the days have swollen her pride;She looketh down on the people, from on high she looketh down,And her days have become a wonder, and her redes are wisdom's crown.She saith: Where then are the Gods? what things have they shapen and madeMore of might than the days I have shapen? of whom shall our hearts be afraid?Now there was a King of the outlands, and Atli was his name,The lord of a mighty people, a man of marvellous fame,Who craved the utmost increase of all that kings desire;Who would reach his hand to the gold as it ran in the ruddy fire,Or go down to the ocean-pavement to harry the people beneath,Or cast up his sword at the Gods, or bid the friendship of death.By hap was the man unwedded, and wide in the world he soughtFor a queen to increase his glory lest his name should come to nought;And no kin like the kin of the Niblungs he found in all the earth.No treasure like their treasure, no glory like their worth;So he sendeth an ancient war-duke with a goodly company,And three days they ride the mirk-wood and ten days they sail the sea,And three days they ride the highways till they come to Gunnar's land;And there on an even of summer in Gunnar's hall they stand,And the spears of Welshland glitter, and the Southland garments gleam,For those folk are fair apparelled as the people of a dream.But the glorious Son of Giuki from amidst the high-seat spoke:"Why stand ye mid men sitting, or fast mid feasting folk?No meat nor drink there lacketh, and the hall is long and wide.Three days in the peace of the Niblungs unquestioned shall ye bide,Then timely do your message, and bid us peace or war."But spake the Earl of Atli yet standing on the floor:"All hail, O glorious Gunnar, O mighty King of men!O'er-short is the life of man-folk, the three-score years and ten,Long, long is the craft for the learning, and sore doth the right hand waste:Lo, lord, our spurs are bloody, and our brows besweat with haste;Our gear is stained by the sea-spray and rent by bitter gales,For we struck no mast to the tempest, and the East was in our sails;By the thorns is our raiment rended, for we rode the mirk-wood through,And our steeds were the God-bred coursers, nor day from night-tide knew:Lo, we are the men of Atli, and his will and his spoken wordLies not beneath our pillow, nor hangs above the board;Nay, how shall it fail but slay us if three days we hold it hid?—I will speak to-night, O Niblung, save thy very mouth forbid:But lo now, look on the tokens, and the rune-staff of the King."Then spake the Son of Giuki: "Give forth the word and the thing.Since thy faithfulness constraineth: but I know thy tokens true,And thy rune-staff hath the letters that in days agone I knew.""Then this is the word," said the elder, "that Atli set in my mouth:'I have known thee of old, King Gunnar, when we twain drew sword in the southIn the days of thy father Giuki, and great was the fame of thee then:But now it rejoiceth my heart that thou growest the greatest of men,And anew I crave thy friendship, and I crave a gift at thy hands,That thou give me the white-armed Gudrun, the queen and the darling of lands,To be my wife and my helpmate, my glory in hall and afield;That mine ancient house may blossom and fresh fruit of the King-tree yield.I send thee gifts moreover, though little things be these.But such is the fashion of great-ones when they speak across the seas.'"Then cried out that earl of the strangers, and men brought the gifts and the gold;White steeds from the Eastland horse-plain, fine webs of price untold,Huge pearls of the nether ocean, strange masteries subtly wroughtBy the hands of craftsmen perished and people come to nought.But Gunnar laughed and answered: "King Atli speaketh well;Across the sea, peradventure, I too a tale may tell:Now born is thy burden of speech; so rejoice at the Niblung board,For here art thou sweetly welcome for thyself and thy mighty lord:And maybe by this time tomorrow, or maybe in a longer space,Shall ye have an answer for Atli, and a word to gladden his face."So the strangers sit and are merry, and the Wonder of the EastAnd the glory of the Westland kissed lips in the Niblung feast.But again on the morrow-morning speaks Gunnar with Grimhild and saith:"Where then in the world is Gudrun, and is she delivered from death?For nought hereof hast thou told me: but the wisest of women art thou,And I deem that all things thou knowest, and thy cunning is timely now;For King Atli wooeth my sister; and as wise as thou mayst be,What thing mayst thou think of greater 'twixt the ice and the uttermost seaThan the might of the Niblung people, if this wedding come to pass?"Then answered the mighty Grimhild, and glad of heart she was:"It is sooth that Gudrun liveth; for that daughter of thy folkFled forth from the Burg of the Niblungs when the Volsung's might ye broke:She fled from all holy dwellings to the houses of the deer,And the feet of the mountains deserted that few folk come anear:There the wolves were about and around her, and no mind she had to live;Dull sleep she deemed was better than with turmoiled thought to strive:But there rode a wife in the wood, a queen of the daughters of men,And she came where Gudrun abided, whose might was minished as then,Till she was as a child forgotten; nor that queen might she gainsay;Who took the white-armed Gudrun, and bore my daughter awayTo her burg o'er the hither mountains; there she cherished her soft and sweet,Till she rose, from death delivered, and went upon her feet:She awoke and beheld those strangers, a trusty folk and a kind,A goodly and simple people, that few lords of war shall find:Glorious and mighty they deemed her, as an outcast wandering God,And she loved their loving-kindness, and the fields of the tiller she trod,And went 'twixt the rose and the lily, and sat in the chamber of wool,And smiled at the laughing maidens, and sang over shuttle and spool.Seven seasons there hath she bided, and this have I wotted for long;But I knew that her heart is as mine to remember the grief and the wrong,So the days of thy sister I told not, in her life would I have no part,Lest a foe for thy life I should fashion, and sharpen a sword for thine heart:But now is the day of our deeds, and no longer durst I refrain,Lest I put the Gods' hands from me, and make their gifts but vain.Yea, the woman is of the Niblungs, and often I knew her of old,How her heart would burn within her when the tale of their glory was told.With wisdom and craft shall I work, with the gifts that Odin hath given,Wherewith my fathers of old, and the ancient mothers have striven.""Thy word is good," quoth Gunnar, "a happy word indeed:Lo, how shall I fear a woman, who have played with kings in my need?Yea, how may I speak of my sister, save well rememberingHow goodly she was aforetime, how fair in everything,How kind in the days passed over, how all fulfilled of loveFor the glory of the Niblungs, and the might that the world shall move?She shall see my face and Hogni's, she shall yearn to do our will,And the latter days of her brethren with glory shall fulfil."Then Grimhild laughed and answered: "Today then shalt thou rideTo the dwelling of Thora the Queen, for there doth thy sister abide."As she spake came the wise-heart Hogni, and that speech of his mother he heard,And he said: "How then are ye saying a new and wonderful word,That ye meddle with Gudrun's sorrow, and her grief of heart awake?Will ye draw out a dove from her nest, and a worm to your hall-hearth take?""What then," said his brother Gunnar, "shall we thrust by Atli's word?Shall we strive, while the world is mocking, with the might of the Eastland sword,While the wise are mocking to see it, how the great devour the great?""O wise-heart Hogni," said Grimhild, "wilt thou strive with the hand of fate,And thrust back the hand of Odin that the Niblung glory will crown?Wert thou born in a cot-carle's chamber, or the bed of a King's renown?""I know not, I know not," said Hogni, "but an unsure bridge is the sea,And such would I oft were builded betwixt my foeman and me.I know a sorrow that sleepeth, and a wakened grief I know,And the torment of the mighty is a strong and fearful foe."They spake no word before him; but he said: "I see the road;I see the ways we must journey—I have long cast off the load,The burden of men's bearing wherein they needs must bindAll-eager hope unseeing with eyeless fear and blind:So today shall my riding be light; nor now, nor ever henceforthShall men curse the sword of Hogni in the tale of the Niblung worth."Therewith he went out from before them, and through chamber and hall he criedOn the best of the Niblung earl-folk, for that now the Kings would ride:Soon are all men assembled, and their shields are fresh and bright,Nor gold their raiment lacketh; then the strong-necked steeds they dight,They dight the wain for Grimhild, and she goeth up therein,And the well-clad girded maidens have left the work they win,To sit by the Mother of Kings and make her glory great:Then to horse get the Kings of the Niblungs, and ride out by the ancient gate;And amidst its dusky hollows stir up the sound of swords:Forth then from the hallowed houses ride on those war-fain lords,Till they come to the dales deserted, and the woodland waste and drear;There the wood-wolves shrink before them, fast flee the forest-deer,And the stony wood-ways clatter as the Niblung host goes by.Adown by the feet of the mountains that eve in sleep they lie,And arise on the morrow-morning and climb the mountain-pass,And the sunless hollow places, and the slopes that hate the grass.So they cross the hither ridges and ride a stony bentAdown to the dale of Thora, and the country of content;By the homes of a simple people, by cot and close they go,Till they come to Thora's dwelling; but fair it stands and lowAmidst of orchard-closes, and round about men winFair work in field and garden, and sweet are the sounds therein.Then down by the door leaps Gunnar, but awhile in the porch he standsTo hearken the women's voices and the sound of their labouring hands;And amidst of their many murmurings a mightier voice he hears,The speech of his sister Gudrun: his inmost heart it stirs,And he entereth glad and smiling; bright, huge in the lowly hallHe stands in the beam of sunlight where the dust-motes dance and fall.On the high-seat sitteth Gudrun when she sees the man of warCome gleaming into the chamber; then she standeth up on the floor,And is great and goodly to look on mid the women of that place:But she knoweth the guise of the Niblungs, and she knoweth Gunnar's face,And at first she turneth to flee, as erewhile she fled awayWhen she rose from the wound of Sigurd and loathed the light of day:But her father's heart rose in her, and the sleeping wrong awoke,And she made one step from the high-seat before Queen Thora's folk;And Gunnar moved from the threshold, and smiled as he drew anear,And Hogni went behind him and the Mother of Kings was there;And her maids and the Earls of the Niblungs stood gleaming there behind:Lo, the kin and the friends of Gudrun, a smiling folk and kind!In the midst stood Gudrun before them, and cried aloud and said:"What! bear ye tidings of Sigurd? is he new come back from the dead?O then will I hasten to greet him, and cherish my love and my lord,Though the murderous sons of Giuki have borne the tale abroad."Dead-pale she stood before them, and no mouth answered again,And the summer morn grew heavy, and chill were the hearts of menAnd Thora's people trembled: there the simple people firstSaw the horror of the King-folk, and mighty lives accurst.All hushed stood the glorious Gunnar, but Hogni came before,And he said: "It is sooth, my sister, that thy sorrow hath been sore,That hath rent thee away from thy kindred and the folk that love thee most:But to double sorrow with hatred is to cast all after the lost,And to die and to rest not in death, and to loathe and linger the end:Now today do we come to this dwelling thy grief and thy woe to amend,And to give thee the gift that we may; for without thy love and thy peaceDoth our life and our glory sicken, though its outward show increase.Lo, we bear thee rule and dominion, and hope and the glory of life,For King Atli wooeth thee, Gudrun, for his queen and his wedded wife."Still she stood as a carven image, as a stone of ancient daysWhen the sun is bright about it and the wind sweeps low o'er the ways.All hushed was Gunnar the Niblung and knew not how to beseech,But still Hogni faced his sister, nor faltered aught in his speech:"Thou art young," he said, "O sister; thou wert called a mighty queenWhen the nurses first upraised thee and first thy body was seen:If thou bide with these toiling women when a great king bids thee to wife,Then first is it seen of the Niblungs that they cringe and cower from strife:By the deeds of the Golden Sigurd I charge thee hinder us not,When the Norns have dight the way-beasts, and our hearts for the journey are hot!"She answered not with speaking, she questioned not with eyes,Nought did her deadly anger to her brow unknitted rise,Then forth came Grimhild the Mighty, and the cup was in her hand,Wherein with the sea's dread mingled was the might and the blood of the land;And the guile of the summer serpent and the herb of the sunless daleWere blent for the deadening slumber that forgetteth joy and bale;And cold words of ancient wisdom that the very Gods would dimWere the foreshores of that wine-sea and the cliffs that girt its rim:Therewith in the hall stood Grimhild, and cried aloud and spake:"It was I that bore thee, daughter; I laboured once for thy sake,I groaned to bear thee a queen, I sickened sore for thy fame:By me and my womb I command thee that thou worship the Niblung name,And take the gift we would give thee, and be wed to a king of the earth,And rejoice in kings hereafter when thy sons are come to the birth:Lo, then as thou lookest upon them, and thinkest of glory to come,It shall be as if Sigmund were living, and Sigurd sat in thine home."Nought answered the white-armed Gudrun, no master of masters might seeThe hate in her soul swift-growing or the rage of her misery.But great waxed the wrath of Grimhild; there huge in the hall she stood,And her fathers' might stirred in her, and the well-spring of her blood;And she cried out blind with anger: "Though all we die on one day,Though we live for ever in sorrow, yet shalt thou be given awayTo Atli the King of the mighty, high lord of the Eastland gold:Drink now, that my love and my wisdom may thaw thine heart grown cold;And take those great gifts of our giving, the cities long builded for thee,The wine-burgs digged for thy pleasure, the fateful wealthy lea,The darkling woods of the deer, the courts of mighty lords,The hosts of men war-shielded, the groves of fallow swords!"Nought changed the eyes of Gudrun, but she reached her hand to the cupAnd drank before her kindred, and the blood from her heart went up,And was blent with the guile of the serpent, and many a thing she forgat,But never the day of her sorrow, and of how o'er Sigurd she sat:But the land's-folk looked on the Niblungs as the daughter of Giuki drank,And before their wrath they trembled, and before their joy they shrank.Then yet again spake Gudrun, and they that stood thereby,—O how their hearts were heavy as though the sun should die!She said: "O Kings of my kindred, I shall nought gainsay your will;With the fruit of your fond desires your hearts shall ye fulfil;Bear me back to the Burg of the Niblungs, and the house of my fathers of old,That the men of King Atli may take me with the tokens and treasure of gold."Then the cry goeth up from the Niblungs, and no while in that house they abide;Forth fare the Cloudy People and the stony slopes they ride,And the sun is bright behind them o'er queen Thora's lowly dale,Where the sound of their speech abideth as an ancient woeful tale.But the Niblungs ride the forest and the dwellings of the deer,And the wife of the Golden Sigurd to the ancient Burg they bear;She speaks not of good nor of evil, and no change in her face men see,Nay, not when the Niblung towers rise up above the lea;Nay, not when they come to the gateway, and that builded gloom againSwallows up the steed and its rider, and sword, and gilded wain;Nay, not when to earth she steppeth, and her feet again pass o'erThe threshold of the Niblungs and the holy house of yore;Nay, not when alone she lieth in the chamber, on the bedWhere she lay, a little maiden, ere her hope was born and dead:Yea, how fair is her face on the morrow, how it winneth all people's praise,As the moon that forebodeth nothing on the night of the last of days.Nought tarry the lords of King Atli, and the Niblungs stay them nought;The doors of the treasure are opened and the gold and the tokens are brought;And all men in the hall are assembled, where Gunnar speaketh and saith:"Go hence, O men of King Atli, and tell of our love and our faithTo thy master, the mighty of men: go take him this treasure of gold,And show him how we have hearkened, and nought from his heart may withhold,Nay, not our best and our dearest, nay, not the crown of our worth,Our sister, the white-armed Gudrun, the wise and the Queen of the earth."Then arose the cry of the people, and that Duke of Atli spake:"We bless thee, O mighty Gunnar, for the Eastland Atli's sake,And his kingdom as thy kingdom, and his men as thy men shall be,And the gold in Atli's treasure is stored and gathered for thee."So spake he amid their shouting, and the Queen from the high-seat stept,And Gudrun stood with the strangers, and there were women who wept,But she wept no more than she smiled, nor spake, nor turned againTo that place in the ancient dwelling where once lay Sigurd slain.But she mounteth the wain all golden, and the Earls to the saddle leap,And forth they ride in the morning, and adown the builded steepThat hath no name for Gudrun, save the place where Sigurd fell,The strong abode of treason, the house where murderers dwell.Three days they ride the lealand till they come to the side of the sea:Ten days they sail the sea-flood to the land where they would be:Three days they ride the mirk-wood to the peopled country-side,Three days through a land of cities and plenteous tilth they ride;On the fourth the Burg of Atli o'er the meadows riseth up,And the houses of his dwelling fine-wrought as a silver cup.Far off in a bight of the mountains by the inner sea it stands,Turned away from the house of Gudrun, and her kindred and their lands.Then to right and to left looked Gudrun and beheld the outland folk,With no love nor hate nor wonder, as out from the teeth she spokeTo that unfamiliar people that had seen not Sigurd's face.There she saw the walls most mighty as they came to the fencèd place:But lo, by the gate of the city and the entering in of the streetIs an host exceeding glorious, for the King his bride will greet:So Gudrun stayeth her fellows, and lighteth down from the wain,And afoot cometh Atli to meet hers and they meet in the midst, they twain,And he casteth his arms about her as a great man glad at heart;Nought she smiles, nor her brow is knitted as she draweth aback and apart,No man could say who beheld her if sorry or glad she were;But her steady eyes are beholding the King and the Eastland's Fear,And she thinks: Have I lived too long? how swift doth the world grow worse,Though it was but a little season that I slept, forgetting the curse!But the King speaks kingly unto her and they pass forth under the gate,And she sees he is rich and mighty, though the Niblung folk be great;So strong is his house upbuilded, so many are his lords,So great the hosts for the murder and the meeting of the swords;And she saith: It is surely enough and no further now shall I wend;In this house, in the house of a stranger shall be the tale and the end.
Hear now of those Niblung war-kings, how in glorious state they dwell;They do and undo at their pleasure and wear their life-days well;They deal out doom to the people, and their hosts of war array,Nor storm nor wind nor winter their eager swords shall stay:They ride the lealand highways, they ride the desert plain,They cry out kind to the Sea-god and loose the wave-steed's rein:They climb the unmeasured mountains, and gleam on the world beneath,And their swords are the blinding lightning, and their shields are the shadow of death:When men tell of the lords of the Goth-folk, of the Niblungs is their word,All folk in the round world's compass of their mighty fame have heard:They are lords of the Ransom of Odin, the uncounted sea-born Gold,The Grief of the wise Andvari, the Death of the Dwarfs of old,The gleaming Load of Greyfell, the ancient Serpent's Bed,The store of the days forgotten, by the dead heaped up for the dead.Lo, such are the Kings of the Niblungs, but yet they crave and desireLest the world hold greater than they, lest the Gods and their kindred be higher.
Fair, bright is their hall in the even; still up to the cloudy roofThere goeth the glee and the singing while the eagles chatter aloof,And the Gods on the hangings waver in the doubtful wind of night;Still fair are the linen-clad damsels, still are the war-dukes bright;Men come and go in the even; men come and go in the morn;Good tidings with the daybreak, fair fame with the glooming is born:—But no tidings of Sigurd and Brynhild, and whoso remembereth their daysTurns back to the toil or the laughter from his words of lamenting or praise,Turns back to the glorious Gunnar, casts hope on the Niblung name,Doeth deeds from the morn to the even, and beareth no burden of shame.
Well wedded is Gunnar the King, and Hogni hath wedded a wife;Fair queens are those wives of the Niblungs, good helpmates in peace and in strifeSweet they sit on the golden high-seat, and Grimhild sitteth beside,And the years have made her glorious, and the days have swollen her pride;She looketh down on the people, from on high she looketh down,And her days have become a wonder, and her redes are wisdom's crown.She saith: Where then are the Gods? what things have they shapen and madeMore of might than the days I have shapen? of whom shall our hearts be afraid?
Now there was a King of the outlands, and Atli was his name,The lord of a mighty people, a man of marvellous fame,Who craved the utmost increase of all that kings desire;Who would reach his hand to the gold as it ran in the ruddy fire,Or go down to the ocean-pavement to harry the people beneath,Or cast up his sword at the Gods, or bid the friendship of death.
By hap was the man unwedded, and wide in the world he soughtFor a queen to increase his glory lest his name should come to nought;And no kin like the kin of the Niblungs he found in all the earth.No treasure like their treasure, no glory like their worth;So he sendeth an ancient war-duke with a goodly company,And three days they ride the mirk-wood and ten days they sail the sea,And three days they ride the highways till they come to Gunnar's land;And there on an even of summer in Gunnar's hall they stand,And the spears of Welshland glitter, and the Southland garments gleam,For those folk are fair apparelled as the people of a dream.
But the glorious Son of Giuki from amidst the high-seat spoke:"Why stand ye mid men sitting, or fast mid feasting folk?No meat nor drink there lacketh, and the hall is long and wide.Three days in the peace of the Niblungs unquestioned shall ye bide,Then timely do your message, and bid us peace or war."
But spake the Earl of Atli yet standing on the floor:"All hail, O glorious Gunnar, O mighty King of men!O'er-short is the life of man-folk, the three-score years and ten,Long, long is the craft for the learning, and sore doth the right hand waste:Lo, lord, our spurs are bloody, and our brows besweat with haste;Our gear is stained by the sea-spray and rent by bitter gales,For we struck no mast to the tempest, and the East was in our sails;By the thorns is our raiment rended, for we rode the mirk-wood through,And our steeds were the God-bred coursers, nor day from night-tide knew:Lo, we are the men of Atli, and his will and his spoken wordLies not beneath our pillow, nor hangs above the board;Nay, how shall it fail but slay us if three days we hold it hid?—I will speak to-night, O Niblung, save thy very mouth forbid:But lo now, look on the tokens, and the rune-staff of the King."
Then spake the Son of Giuki: "Give forth the word and the thing.Since thy faithfulness constraineth: but I know thy tokens true,And thy rune-staff hath the letters that in days agone I knew."
"Then this is the word," said the elder, "that Atli set in my mouth:'I have known thee of old, King Gunnar, when we twain drew sword in the southIn the days of thy father Giuki, and great was the fame of thee then:But now it rejoiceth my heart that thou growest the greatest of men,And anew I crave thy friendship, and I crave a gift at thy hands,That thou give me the white-armed Gudrun, the queen and the darling of lands,To be my wife and my helpmate, my glory in hall and afield;That mine ancient house may blossom and fresh fruit of the King-tree yield.I send thee gifts moreover, though little things be these.But such is the fashion of great-ones when they speak across the seas.'"
Then cried out that earl of the strangers, and men brought the gifts and the gold;White steeds from the Eastland horse-plain, fine webs of price untold,Huge pearls of the nether ocean, strange masteries subtly wroughtBy the hands of craftsmen perished and people come to nought.
But Gunnar laughed and answered: "King Atli speaketh well;Across the sea, peradventure, I too a tale may tell:Now born is thy burden of speech; so rejoice at the Niblung board,For here art thou sweetly welcome for thyself and thy mighty lord:And maybe by this time tomorrow, or maybe in a longer space,Shall ye have an answer for Atli, and a word to gladden his face."
So the strangers sit and are merry, and the Wonder of the EastAnd the glory of the Westland kissed lips in the Niblung feast.
But again on the morrow-morning speaks Gunnar with Grimhild and saith:"Where then in the world is Gudrun, and is she delivered from death?For nought hereof hast thou told me: but the wisest of women art thou,And I deem that all things thou knowest, and thy cunning is timely now;For King Atli wooeth my sister; and as wise as thou mayst be,What thing mayst thou think of greater 'twixt the ice and the uttermost seaThan the might of the Niblung people, if this wedding come to pass?"
Then answered the mighty Grimhild, and glad of heart she was:"It is sooth that Gudrun liveth; for that daughter of thy folkFled forth from the Burg of the Niblungs when the Volsung's might ye broke:She fled from all holy dwellings to the houses of the deer,And the feet of the mountains deserted that few folk come anear:There the wolves were about and around her, and no mind she had to live;Dull sleep she deemed was better than with turmoiled thought to strive:But there rode a wife in the wood, a queen of the daughters of men,And she came where Gudrun abided, whose might was minished as then,Till she was as a child forgotten; nor that queen might she gainsay;Who took the white-armed Gudrun, and bore my daughter awayTo her burg o'er the hither mountains; there she cherished her soft and sweet,Till she rose, from death delivered, and went upon her feet:She awoke and beheld those strangers, a trusty folk and a kind,A goodly and simple people, that few lords of war shall find:Glorious and mighty they deemed her, as an outcast wandering God,And she loved their loving-kindness, and the fields of the tiller she trod,And went 'twixt the rose and the lily, and sat in the chamber of wool,And smiled at the laughing maidens, and sang over shuttle and spool.Seven seasons there hath she bided, and this have I wotted for long;But I knew that her heart is as mine to remember the grief and the wrong,So the days of thy sister I told not, in her life would I have no part,Lest a foe for thy life I should fashion, and sharpen a sword for thine heart:But now is the day of our deeds, and no longer durst I refrain,Lest I put the Gods' hands from me, and make their gifts but vain.Yea, the woman is of the Niblungs, and often I knew her of old,How her heart would burn within her when the tale of their glory was told.With wisdom and craft shall I work, with the gifts that Odin hath given,Wherewith my fathers of old, and the ancient mothers have striven."
"Thy word is good," quoth Gunnar, "a happy word indeed:Lo, how shall I fear a woman, who have played with kings in my need?Yea, how may I speak of my sister, save well rememberingHow goodly she was aforetime, how fair in everything,How kind in the days passed over, how all fulfilled of loveFor the glory of the Niblungs, and the might that the world shall move?She shall see my face and Hogni's, she shall yearn to do our will,And the latter days of her brethren with glory shall fulfil."
Then Grimhild laughed and answered: "Today then shalt thou rideTo the dwelling of Thora the Queen, for there doth thy sister abide."
As she spake came the wise-heart Hogni, and that speech of his mother he heard,And he said: "How then are ye saying a new and wonderful word,That ye meddle with Gudrun's sorrow, and her grief of heart awake?Will ye draw out a dove from her nest, and a worm to your hall-hearth take?"
"What then," said his brother Gunnar, "shall we thrust by Atli's word?Shall we strive, while the world is mocking, with the might of the Eastland sword,While the wise are mocking to see it, how the great devour the great?"
"O wise-heart Hogni," said Grimhild, "wilt thou strive with the hand of fate,And thrust back the hand of Odin that the Niblung glory will crown?Wert thou born in a cot-carle's chamber, or the bed of a King's renown?"
"I know not, I know not," said Hogni, "but an unsure bridge is the sea,And such would I oft were builded betwixt my foeman and me.I know a sorrow that sleepeth, and a wakened grief I know,And the torment of the mighty is a strong and fearful foe."
They spake no word before him; but he said: "I see the road;I see the ways we must journey—I have long cast off the load,The burden of men's bearing wherein they needs must bindAll-eager hope unseeing with eyeless fear and blind:So today shall my riding be light; nor now, nor ever henceforthShall men curse the sword of Hogni in the tale of the Niblung worth."
Therewith he went out from before them, and through chamber and hall he criedOn the best of the Niblung earl-folk, for that now the Kings would ride:Soon are all men assembled, and their shields are fresh and bright,Nor gold their raiment lacketh; then the strong-necked steeds they dight,They dight the wain for Grimhild, and she goeth up therein,And the well-clad girded maidens have left the work they win,To sit by the Mother of Kings and make her glory great:Then to horse get the Kings of the Niblungs, and ride out by the ancient gate;And amidst its dusky hollows stir up the sound of swords:Forth then from the hallowed houses ride on those war-fain lords,Till they come to the dales deserted, and the woodland waste and drear;There the wood-wolves shrink before them, fast flee the forest-deer,And the stony wood-ways clatter as the Niblung host goes by.Adown by the feet of the mountains that eve in sleep they lie,And arise on the morrow-morning and climb the mountain-pass,And the sunless hollow places, and the slopes that hate the grass.So they cross the hither ridges and ride a stony bentAdown to the dale of Thora, and the country of content;By the homes of a simple people, by cot and close they go,Till they come to Thora's dwelling; but fair it stands and lowAmidst of orchard-closes, and round about men winFair work in field and garden, and sweet are the sounds therein.
Then down by the door leaps Gunnar, but awhile in the porch he standsTo hearken the women's voices and the sound of their labouring hands;And amidst of their many murmurings a mightier voice he hears,The speech of his sister Gudrun: his inmost heart it stirs,And he entereth glad and smiling; bright, huge in the lowly hallHe stands in the beam of sunlight where the dust-motes dance and fall.
On the high-seat sitteth Gudrun when she sees the man of warCome gleaming into the chamber; then she standeth up on the floor,And is great and goodly to look on mid the women of that place:But she knoweth the guise of the Niblungs, and she knoweth Gunnar's face,And at first she turneth to flee, as erewhile she fled awayWhen she rose from the wound of Sigurd and loathed the light of day:But her father's heart rose in her, and the sleeping wrong awoke,And she made one step from the high-seat before Queen Thora's folk;And Gunnar moved from the threshold, and smiled as he drew anear,And Hogni went behind him and the Mother of Kings was there;And her maids and the Earls of the Niblungs stood gleaming there behind:Lo, the kin and the friends of Gudrun, a smiling folk and kind!
In the midst stood Gudrun before them, and cried aloud and said:"What! bear ye tidings of Sigurd? is he new come back from the dead?O then will I hasten to greet him, and cherish my love and my lord,Though the murderous sons of Giuki have borne the tale abroad."
Dead-pale she stood before them, and no mouth answered again,And the summer morn grew heavy, and chill were the hearts of menAnd Thora's people trembled: there the simple people firstSaw the horror of the King-folk, and mighty lives accurst.
All hushed stood the glorious Gunnar, but Hogni came before,And he said: "It is sooth, my sister, that thy sorrow hath been sore,That hath rent thee away from thy kindred and the folk that love thee most:But to double sorrow with hatred is to cast all after the lost,And to die and to rest not in death, and to loathe and linger the end:Now today do we come to this dwelling thy grief and thy woe to amend,And to give thee the gift that we may; for without thy love and thy peaceDoth our life and our glory sicken, though its outward show increase.Lo, we bear thee rule and dominion, and hope and the glory of life,For King Atli wooeth thee, Gudrun, for his queen and his wedded wife."
Still she stood as a carven image, as a stone of ancient daysWhen the sun is bright about it and the wind sweeps low o'er the ways.All hushed was Gunnar the Niblung and knew not how to beseech,But still Hogni faced his sister, nor faltered aught in his speech:
"Thou art young," he said, "O sister; thou wert called a mighty queenWhen the nurses first upraised thee and first thy body was seen:If thou bide with these toiling women when a great king bids thee to wife,Then first is it seen of the Niblungs that they cringe and cower from strife:By the deeds of the Golden Sigurd I charge thee hinder us not,When the Norns have dight the way-beasts, and our hearts for the journey are hot!"
She answered not with speaking, she questioned not with eyes,Nought did her deadly anger to her brow unknitted rise,Then forth came Grimhild the Mighty, and the cup was in her hand,Wherein with the sea's dread mingled was the might and the blood of the land;And the guile of the summer serpent and the herb of the sunless daleWere blent for the deadening slumber that forgetteth joy and bale;And cold words of ancient wisdom that the very Gods would dimWere the foreshores of that wine-sea and the cliffs that girt its rim:Therewith in the hall stood Grimhild, and cried aloud and spake:
"It was I that bore thee, daughter; I laboured once for thy sake,I groaned to bear thee a queen, I sickened sore for thy fame:By me and my womb I command thee that thou worship the Niblung name,And take the gift we would give thee, and be wed to a king of the earth,And rejoice in kings hereafter when thy sons are come to the birth:Lo, then as thou lookest upon them, and thinkest of glory to come,It shall be as if Sigmund were living, and Sigurd sat in thine home."
Nought answered the white-armed Gudrun, no master of masters might seeThe hate in her soul swift-growing or the rage of her misery.But great waxed the wrath of Grimhild; there huge in the hall she stood,And her fathers' might stirred in her, and the well-spring of her blood;And she cried out blind with anger: "Though all we die on one day,Though we live for ever in sorrow, yet shalt thou be given awayTo Atli the King of the mighty, high lord of the Eastland gold:Drink now, that my love and my wisdom may thaw thine heart grown cold;And take those great gifts of our giving, the cities long builded for thee,The wine-burgs digged for thy pleasure, the fateful wealthy lea,The darkling woods of the deer, the courts of mighty lords,The hosts of men war-shielded, the groves of fallow swords!"
Nought changed the eyes of Gudrun, but she reached her hand to the cupAnd drank before her kindred, and the blood from her heart went up,And was blent with the guile of the serpent, and many a thing she forgat,But never the day of her sorrow, and of how o'er Sigurd she sat:But the land's-folk looked on the Niblungs as the daughter of Giuki drank,And before their wrath they trembled, and before their joy they shrank.
Then yet again spake Gudrun, and they that stood thereby,—O how their hearts were heavy as though the sun should die!She said: "O Kings of my kindred, I shall nought gainsay your will;With the fruit of your fond desires your hearts shall ye fulfil;Bear me back to the Burg of the Niblungs, and the house of my fathers of old,That the men of King Atli may take me with the tokens and treasure of gold."
Then the cry goeth up from the Niblungs, and no while in that house they abide;Forth fare the Cloudy People and the stony slopes they ride,And the sun is bright behind them o'er queen Thora's lowly dale,Where the sound of their speech abideth as an ancient woeful tale.But the Niblungs ride the forest and the dwellings of the deer,And the wife of the Golden Sigurd to the ancient Burg they bear;She speaks not of good nor of evil, and no change in her face men see,Nay, not when the Niblung towers rise up above the lea;Nay, not when they come to the gateway, and that builded gloom againSwallows up the steed and its rider, and sword, and gilded wain;Nay, not when to earth she steppeth, and her feet again pass o'erThe threshold of the Niblungs and the holy house of yore;Nay, not when alone she lieth in the chamber, on the bedWhere she lay, a little maiden, ere her hope was born and dead:Yea, how fair is her face on the morrow, how it winneth all people's praise,As the moon that forebodeth nothing on the night of the last of days.
Nought tarry the lords of King Atli, and the Niblungs stay them nought;The doors of the treasure are opened and the gold and the tokens are brought;And all men in the hall are assembled, where Gunnar speaketh and saith:
"Go hence, O men of King Atli, and tell of our love and our faithTo thy master, the mighty of men: go take him this treasure of gold,And show him how we have hearkened, and nought from his heart may withhold,Nay, not our best and our dearest, nay, not the crown of our worth,Our sister, the white-armed Gudrun, the wise and the Queen of the earth."
Then arose the cry of the people, and that Duke of Atli spake:"We bless thee, O mighty Gunnar, for the Eastland Atli's sake,And his kingdom as thy kingdom, and his men as thy men shall be,And the gold in Atli's treasure is stored and gathered for thee."
So spake he amid their shouting, and the Queen from the high-seat stept,And Gudrun stood with the strangers, and there were women who wept,But she wept no more than she smiled, nor spake, nor turned againTo that place in the ancient dwelling where once lay Sigurd slain.But she mounteth the wain all golden, and the Earls to the saddle leap,And forth they ride in the morning, and adown the builded steepThat hath no name for Gudrun, save the place where Sigurd fell,The strong abode of treason, the house where murderers dwell.
Three days they ride the lealand till they come to the side of the sea:Ten days they sail the sea-flood to the land where they would be:Three days they ride the mirk-wood to the peopled country-side,Three days through a land of cities and plenteous tilth they ride;On the fourth the Burg of Atli o'er the meadows riseth up,And the houses of his dwelling fine-wrought as a silver cup.
Far off in a bight of the mountains by the inner sea it stands,Turned away from the house of Gudrun, and her kindred and their lands.Then to right and to left looked Gudrun and beheld the outland folk,With no love nor hate nor wonder, as out from the teeth she spokeTo that unfamiliar people that had seen not Sigurd's face.There she saw the walls most mighty as they came to the fencèd place:But lo, by the gate of the city and the entering in of the streetIs an host exceeding glorious, for the King his bride will greet:So Gudrun stayeth her fellows, and lighteth down from the wain,And afoot cometh Atli to meet hers and they meet in the midst, they twain,And he casteth his arms about her as a great man glad at heart;Nought she smiles, nor her brow is knitted as she draweth aback and apart,No man could say who beheld her if sorry or glad she were;But her steady eyes are beholding the King and the Eastland's Fear,And she thinks: Have I lived too long? how swift doth the world grow worse,Though it was but a little season that I slept, forgetting the curse!
But the King speaks kingly unto her and they pass forth under the gate,And she sees he is rich and mighty, though the Niblung folk be great;So strong is his house upbuilded, so many are his lords,So great the hosts for the murder and the meeting of the swords;And she saith: It is surely enough and no further now shall I wend;In this house, in the house of a stranger shall be the tale and the end.