The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries Volume Ix Part 66

Perchance he lives!

My Siegfried! Had he strength to speak one word Or gaze but once upon me!

UTE.

My poor child, It is but nature, moving once again.

Ghastly enough!

CHAPLAIN.

It is the hand of G.o.d, That softly stirs once more these sacred springs Because He must inscribe the sign of Cain.

HAGEN (_bending over the coffin_).

The scarlet blood! I ne'er believed the sign!

But now I see it here with mine own eyes.

KRIEMHILD.

Yet thou canst stand and gaze?

[_She springs toward him._]

Away, thou fiend!

Who knows but every drop of blood gives pain, That thy foul, murderous presence draws from him!

HAGEN.

Fair Kriemhild, if a dead man's blood still boils, Why may not mine? I am a living man.

KRIEMHILD.

Away! Away! I'd seize thee with my hands, Had I but some one who would back them off And cast them from me that I might be clean-- For was.h.i.+ng would not cleanse them, even if I dipped them in thy blood. Away! Away!

So stood'st thou not to deal the deadly blow, Thy wolfish eyes fixed on him steadily, With fiendish grin disclosing thy intent Before the time! But slyly didst thou creep Behind him, ever shrinking from his gaze, As wild beasts do that fear the human eye, And peered to find the spot, that I--Thou dog, What was thine oath to me?

HAGEN.

To shelter him From fire and water.

KRIEMHILD.

Not from human foes?

HAGEN.

That too, and I'd have done it.

KRIEMHILD.

Thou didst mean To murder him thyself?

HAGEN.

To punish him!

KRIEMHILD.

Was murder ever called a punishment Since heaven and earth began?

HAGEN. I'd challenged him To mortal combat, thou may'st take my word, But none might tell the hero from the dragon, And dragons must be killed. So proud a knight, Why did he hide him in the dragon's skin!

KRIEMHILD.

The dragon's skin! He had to slay him first, And with the dragon slew he all the world!

The forest depths with all their monstrous beasts, And every warrior that had feared to slay The dreadful dragon, Hagen with the rest!

Thy slander cannot harm him. But the dart Thine envy borrowed from thy wickedness.

And folk will tell of his n.o.bility As long as men still dwell upon the earth, And just so long they'll tell thy tale of shame.

HAGEN.

So be it then!

[_He takes_ SIEGFRIED'S _sword, Balmung, from beside the body._]

And now 'twill never end!

[_He girds on the sword and walks slowly back to his kindred._]

KRIEMHILD.

To murder foul is added robbery!

(_To_ GUNTHER.)

A judgment, Gunther! Judgment I demand.

CHAPLAIN.

Remember Him who on the cross forgave!

KRIEMHILD.

A judgment! If the king denies it me, The blood of Siegfried stains his mantle too.

UTE. Cease, Kriemhild! Thou wilt ruin thy whole house!

KRIEMHILD.

So be it! For the measure's over full!