Adventure
XXXIV
How They Cast Forth the Dead
Down sat the knights and nobles,
by all their labours spent;
Before the hall together
Volker and Hagen went.
These warriors over-weary
lean’d on their shields for rest;
The while betwixt the couple
pass’d many a ready jest.
Then Giselher, the warrior
from Burgundy, outspake:
“Dear friends, ye must in no wise
seek yet your rest to take:
The dead folk must ye carry
straight from the house away.
There’ll be another onset,
that can I surely say.
“Beneath our feet ’tis needful
they should no longer lie.
And ere by storm the Hunsmen
undo us utterly,
Some wounds we yet will give them,
e’en as I love to do;
For firmly am I minded,”
said Giselher, “thereto.”
“Well’s me for such a master,”
said Hagen, thereunto;
“From none such rede were likely,
save from a warrior true,
As we from my young master
this very day have had:
I trow all ye Burgundians
may therefore be right glad.”
Then follow’d they his counsel,
and carried through the door
Dead warriors seven thousand
and cast them therebefore.
At foot of the hall stairway
they fell upon the ground;
Then rose a doleful wailing
from all their kinsmen round.
Some few there were among them
whose wounds were not so bad
But that with gentler usage
they yet might life have had,
Who from that height down falling
in death must needs lie low;
For this their friends were wailing
and grievous was their woe.
Then spake the fiddler Volker,
a goodly hero he:
“Now witness I the truth of
what hath been told to me:
Base cowards are these Hunsmen,
they wail like womankind!
These sorely wounded bodies
they ought to tend and bind.”
Then deem’d a certain margrave
he spake with purpose good.
He saw one of his kinsmen
who lay amid the blood,
And clasp’d his arms about him
and sought to drag him thence;
Then shot the ruthless minstrel
and slew him with a lance.
And when the others saw it,
a panic seized the crowd;
They all against the minstrel
began to curse aloud.
Then pluck’d he up a javelin,
that temper’d was and keen,
Which by some Hun or other
aim’d at himself had been.
This, right across the fortress,
he cast with might and main
Far o’er the crowd of people;
and thereby Etzel’s men
He warn’d to take their station
more distant from the hall.
The folk his mighty prowess
now dreaded above all.
Yet still before the palace
stood many a thousand men.
Sir Volker and Sir Hagen
began to parley then,
And unto the King Etzel
all in their minds to tell:
Whence grievous ills thereafter
those heroes bold befell.
“To give the people courage,”
quoth Hagen, “ ’tis but right
That ever should the nobles
be foremost in the fight:
Not otherwise my masters
have here been seen to do:
They hew right through the helmets,
blood flows at every blow.”
So valiant was Etzel,
he straightway gripp’d his shield.
“Now prithee be thou wary,”
said to him Dame Kriemhild,
“Offer unto thy warriors
gold overflowingly.
If Hagen yonder reach thee,
death will be nigh to thee.”
So bold a man the king was,
he was not to be stay’d;—
The like of such great princes
can seldom now be said!
Needs must they by his shield-strap
to draw him backward try.
Again the savage Hagen
spake to him scoffingly:
“It was a far-fetch’d kinship,”
the warrior Hagen cried,
“That Etzel and Sir Siegfried
to one another tied.
He was Kriemhilda’s lover
ere she set eyes on thee,
Thou coward king! why shouldst thou
take counsel against me?”
To him so speaking hearken’d
the noble sovran’s wife.
Thereon within Kriemhilda
was evil humour rife,
That he should dare upbraid her
in face of Etzel’s men:
Against the guests began she
therefore to plot again.
“Who Hagen, Lord of Tronjé,
will do to death,” she said,
“And hither at my bidding
will bring to me his head,
For him the shield of Etzel
I’ll fill with ruddy gold,
And give him lands for guerdon,
and goodly burghs to hold.”
“Now truly,” quoth the minstrel,
“I know not what they lack!
I never yet saw heroes
so sluggishly hang back
When one hath heard them offer’d
so noble a reward:
From this time forth can Etzel
ne’er hold them in regard.
“Of those who vilely batten
upon their prince’s bread
And now are fain to shun him
in his most pressing need,
Of such here mark I many
who would be reckon’d brave,
And stand like very cravens:
shame must they ever have!”