The Nibelungenlied Part 157

THIRTY-FIRST ADVENTURE

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

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

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

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

(St. LXIII.) Kriemhild here deals with Bldel as Juno does in the Iliad with Sleep, and in the aeneid with olus.

(St. LXXII.) Something seems defective here, for it is not explained what bad object Kriemhild had in view in sending for her son, though it so happened that mischief came of it. Von der Hagen and Vollmer mention the account in the Vilkina Saga, according to which Kriemhild, in order to set the Huns and Burgundians by the ears, told her son to strike Hagan in the face, and Hagan returned the compliment by cutting off the lad's head and throwing it into his mother's lap, but this is incompatible with the manner in which the fighting begins in our poem, though this particular stanza seems to refer to something of that sort.

The reviser of the La.s.sberg ma.n.u.script seems to have observed the difficulty; at least the last line of the stanza is different in that ma.n.u.script. Possibly this stanza may have crept in from a now lost recension, which more nearly resembled the Vilkina Saga. The like may be said of St. IV, Thirty-second Adventure, which contains the celebrated contradiction about the age of Dankwart.

THIRTY-SECOND ADVENTURE

(St. IV.) This stanza is completely at variance with the earlier parts of the poem, in which Dankwart is represented as Siegfried's companion in arms. It is therefore a most efficient ally of those critics who attribute the poem to two or twenty different bards, and this has perhaps rather blinded them to its defects. It is quite inconsistent with the heroic character displayed by Dankwart in this very portion of the poem, and, as an answer to Bldel's speech, is a consummate piece of stupidity. Bldel had not accused Dankwart of having murdered Siegfried or offended Kriemhild, but of being the brother of Hagan, who had done both. Dankwart should either have attempted to show that Hagan, not himself, was innocent, or that they were not brothers, or he should have urged the hards.h.i.+p of making one brother suffer for the crimes of another. Any of these answers would have been to the purpose; not so the speech which is put into his mouth here. Bldel, with equal absurdity, after having already told him that he must die because his brother Hagan had murdered Siegfried, now replies that he must die because his _kinsmen_ Gunther and Hagan had done the deed. It appears probable that here, as elsewhere, a pa.s.sage has crept in from another version of the legend, which agreed, more nearly than our poem, with the Vilkina Saga. I quote the following pa.s.sage from the summary of that work in Vollmer's Preface to the "Nibelunge Not." "Hogni begged Attila to give peace to young Giselher, as he was guiltless of Sigurd's death.

Giselher himself said that he was then only five winters old, and slept in his mother's bed; still he did not wish to live alone after the death of his brothers." In the Vilkina Saga Hogni, who answers to the Hagan of our poem, is represented as the _brother_ of the other three kings. It may appear visionary to speculate on the contents of a poem which may never have existed, but certainly in any version of the legend, which represented Hagan as the _brother_ of Gunther and Giselher, Giselher might naturally have made the speech here put into the mouth of Dankwart, and have been told in reply that he must die for the crime that his _brothers_ Gunther and Hagan had committed. The idea of a recension more nearly allied to the Vilkina Saga than that which we possess is no notion of mine. It was started years ago by no less a person than Professor W. Grimm, though not with reference to this pa.s.sage of the poem. See his "Deutsche Heldensage," p. 182.

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

THIRTY-THIRD ADVENTURE

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

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

(St. x.x.xI.)

with huge two-handed sway Brandish'd aloft the horrid edge came down Wide wasting.

"Paradise Lost," b. 6.

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

XX, Thirtieth Adventure. These last had _attempted_ mischief, and Gunther may here take the will for the deed.

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

THIRTY-FOURTH ADVENTURE

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

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

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

THIRTY-FIFTH ADVENTURE

(St. XX.) I have here, without intending it, stumbled on an interior ryhme, _sounded confounded_. Still I can a.s.sure Professor Lachmann that the stanza is genuine.

THIRTY-SIXTH ADVENTURE

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

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

THIRTY-SEVENTH ADVENTURE

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

(St. LIX.) It is odd, that the hall, which must have been the princ.i.p.al eating-hall in the castle, is here called Kriemhild's. Von der Hagen thinks Kriemhild had appropriated it by having attempted to set it on fire, but arson is an odd kind of t.i.tle. He supposes, too, it may be the hall mentioned at St. IV, Twenty-ninth Adventure; yet it seems strange that Etzel should have received his guests anywhere but in his own hall.

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

THIRTY-EIGHTH ADVENTURE

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

(St. XLIII.) I have with Simrock and Beta followed the reading of the La.s.sberg ma.n.u.script, _struchen_ for _stieben_. The latter is explained by Braunfels and von der Hagen with reference to the flying out of sparks from armor, but this effect follows in the next line. To an Englishman the reading _stieben_ appears to bear a comical resemblance to our vulgar phrase, "dusting a man's jacket."

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

THIRTY-NINTH ADVENTURE

(St. V.) The phrase, outside the house, _uzen an dem huse_, appears to mean merely outside the hall. They seem to have stood in a sort of vestibule at the top of the stairs that led down into the courtyard.

Compare St. IX, Thirty-sixth Adventure, and the note.

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

One ma.n.u.script reads _freunde_ friends, instead of _freuden_ joys.

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

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

"Eventum videam, nec consors sim spoliorum,"

Dixerat, et collem petiit mox ipse propinquum, Descendensque ab equo consedit, et aspicit illo.

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

und 11. Jahrhunderts_" by J. Grimm and Schmeller, p. 123.

(St. XLVI.) This stanza, which is in the La.s.sberg ma.n.u.script only, has been added apparently, like others, to soften the character of Kriemhild.

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