The language of the Nibelungenlied presents about the same difficulty to
the German reader of to-day as that of our English Chaucer to us. Many
translations into modern German have accordingly been made to render it
accessible to the average reader without special study. In the year 1767
Bodmer in Zurich published a translation into hexameters of a portion of
it, and since the investigations of Lachmann raised it to the position of
a national epic of first magnitude many more have appeared, both in prose
and verse. The best in prose is that by Scherr, of the year 1860. Of the
metrical translations that by Simrock, which in its later editions
follows pretty closely the text of MS. C, is deservedly the most popular
and has passed through a great number of editions. Bartsch has also made
a translation based on his edition of MS. B. These modern versions by
Simrock and Bartsch reproduce best the metrical quality of the original
strophe. Easily obtainable recent translations are those by Junghans (in
Reclam's Universalbibliothek) of text C, and by Hahn (Collection Spemann)
of text A.