The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries Volume Ix Part 50

KRIEMHILD.

I know how bitterly I wounded her!

I'll not forgive myself. I'd rather far Have felt the hurt myself than injured her.

HAGEN.

And this it is that drove thee from thy room?

KRIEMHILD.

Oh, no! 'twould make me hide myself away!

I am so anxious for him!

HAGEN.

Dost thou fear?

KRIEMHILD.

There is another war.

HAGEN.

Yes, that is true.

KRIEMHILD.

The lying scoundrels!

HAGEN.

Be not overwrought Nor cease thy preparations for the voyage.

Work tranquilly and do not be disturbed, For thou canst put away his armor last.

What am I saying! For he wears no mail, Nor doth he need to wear it.

KRIEMHILD.

Thinkest thou

HAGEN.

I well might laugh. If any other wife So sighed, I'd say: Out of a thousand darts But one could touch him, and that one would break.

But thee I ridicule and must advise Let thy stray fancy sing some wiser song.

KRIEMHILD.

Thou speak'st of arrows! Arrows are the thing That most I dread. I know an arrow's point Needs at the most the s.p.a.ce of my thumb nail To penetrate, and yet it kills a man.

HAGEN.

Especially if 'tis a poisoned dart.

These savages, who broke the bulwark down, The bulwark of our life and of the state, Which we hold sacred even in our wars, Would do a deed like this as soon as that.

KRIEMHILD.

Thou see'st!

HAGEN.

How can thy Siegfried come to harm?

He is secure. And if there were such shafts That straighter flew than fly the sun's own rays, He'd shake them off as we shake off the snow; And this he knows, and so his confidence Abandons him no moment in the fray.

We were not born beneath an aspen tree, Yet we nigh tremble at the deeds he dares.

And heartily he laughs at this sometimes, And we laugh too. For iron you may thrust Into the fire--it changes into steel.

KRIEMHILD.

I shudder!

HAGEN.

Child, thou art but newly wed, Or I'd rejoice at thy timidity.

KRIEMHILD.

Hast thou forgotten, or hast thou not heard What in the ballads hath oft times been sung, That Siegfried may be wounded in one spot?

HAGEN.

I'd quite forgotten that, although 'tis true.

I recollect, he spoke of it himself.

It seems to me he told us of a leaf, But what it signified I cannot say.

KRIEMHILD.

It was a linden leaf.

HAGEN.

Oh yes! But say, How could a linden leaf have done him harm?

For that's a riddle like no other one.

KRIEMHILD.

It floated down upon him on the breeze When he was bathing in the dragon's blood, And he is vulnerable where it fell.

HAGEN. He would have seen it if it fell in front!-- What matters it? Thou see'st thy nearest kin, Thy brothers even, who would s.h.i.+eld him still Were but the shadow of a danger nigh, Know nothing of his vulnerable spot.

What dost thou fear? Thy anguish is for naught.

KRIEMHILD.