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THE NIBELUNGENLIED
Translated by
WILLIAM NANSON LETTSOM
With a Special Introduction by William H. Carpenter, Ph.D.
Professor of Germanic Philology in Columbia University
REVISED EDITION
[Illustration]
New York
P.F. Collier & Son
Copyright, 1901
By the Colonial Press
SPECIAL INTRODUCTION
The "Nibelungenlied," as the great national epic of Germany, is not only
one of the most important literary monuments that the German mind has
produced in all periods of its history, but, in reality beyond this, it
is also in its matter and its manner one of the world's great classics.
It is this inherently because of the universal intelligibility of its
story, for the broad human sympathy which must be felt with its
characters and their motives of action, and for the sustained poetic
treatment of the whole in the long poem. In all these respects the
"Nibelungenlied," although German in its spirit and its environment,
rises inevitably above the confines of nationality, and becomes, like
other works that are in a true sense great, by virtue of its
universality an integral part of that cosmopolitan body that we call the
literature of the world.
Like the "Iliad," or any other popular epic whatever, the
"Nibelungenlied" is, however, first and foremost a picture of the
national life and the national soul. Its characters in this way are,
consequently, both fundamentally and of necessity a part of their own
special environment into which each, according to his individuality,
fits; and the manners and customs, the religion and ethics, are first of
all essentially German in order to embody them and to motive their
actions to the public for which the poem was originally intended. What
we are given in the "Nibelungenlied" is primarily then, at least in its
exterior, a picture of German life in the twelfth and thirteenth
centuries. The customs are those of the courts and castles of the place
and time, the men and women are the knights and ladies who inhabit them;
and if the real mainsprings of motive and action sometimes go back
beyond the poet's own day and generation for reasons that shall
presently be told, the thoughts and feelings of the characters under his
hand betray on the surface no trace of it.
To an English reader there is astonishingly little in the
"Nibelungenlied" in motive that is unintelligible or hopelessly remote.
It is not that its manners of thought are our manners of thought, or its
ethics our ethics. Its deeds, since the real story is an ancient
inheritance, are tragic with battle, murder, and sudden death; but, in
spite of all this, there is in us an innate appreciation of it and of
its spirit that it is utterly impossible to feel in much literature that
is not our own. This of course arises from the fact that it is, in a
sense, our own, as, in part, at the beginning in very truth it was. The
difference in its whole environment from us is still, in reality, not
great, and we realize, consciously or unconsciously, that it is in many
ways our own ancient past that is chronicled in the German poem.
For all these reasons it comes readily about that, in the light of the
poet's master touch, the characters of the "Nibelungenlied" that he has
left in such actuality in his verses are to us neither vague nor
shadowy, but are real persons who live and act before us. This is in
fact truer of the "Nibelungenlied" than of almost any other great poem
of the kind, whatever its time and place of origin. Siegfried and
Kriemhild, Hagen and Rudeger are not the mere creations and
impersonations of a poet's imagination; they are to us real men and
women who lived their lives and died their deaths as the poet has
described them. That he has told his tale with wonderful literary skill
as a whole and at times with marvellous appreciation of the value of the
moment, is also to be stated. Because no doubt in part from the way in
which the poem has come down to us, there is at times superfluous
material that had better been left away, but in this fact, too, the poem
differs but little from other popular epics.
As a whole, the "Nibelungenlied" is characterized by a literary unity of
treatment by no means inconsiderable, and greater, in point of fact,
than its origin would ordinarily promise. Its unity, however, is
dramatic, rather than epic in the ordinary sense. This character it
never loses throughout the whole long action. Deed follows deed, stroke
upon stroke, until the final catastrophe is inevitably reached and the
story is ended.
That this story in its origin is not narrowly German, but is Germanic
property, should be borne in mind by its reader, since many of its
episodes acquire thereby a broader significance, and the whole poem
assumes a wider interest.
The earliest versions of the story of the Volsungs and Nibelungs, the
Germanic "tale of Troy," that have come down to us are not from German
territory, but from the Scandinavian North, although here, too, the
scene of the principal action is on the Rhine and in the land of the
Huns, which is vaguely conceived to be a part of the German country.
Sigmund, the father of Sigurd, is a King in the land of the Franks;
Sigurd is slain to the south of the Rhine, and in the Rhine is forever
hidden the fateful hoard of the Nibelungs. The story in reality wandered
out twice into the North from its original home in Germany: once
apparently in the Viking age when the Northmen for the first time
came into close contact with the other Germanic people on the
continent and in the British Islands, a period long antecedent to the
"Nibelungenlied;" and again five hundred years later, after the German
poem had arisen, since it can be readily shown that this has been used
as a source of a part of the material.
The very first of these Northern versions is that contained in the
"Elder Edda," a collection of mythological and legendary poems in the
Old Norse language, of unknown authorship, whose time and place of
origin are alike matters of varying supposition. The subject was the
theme of poets for centuries in the North. The oldest of the poems in
the "Edda" that has to do with the story of the "Nibelungenlied," from
internal evidence, was made as early as the year 900; the latest is from
a time not far from 1200. These poems and fragments of poems, some of
them even in prose rescript and most of them interspersed here and there
with bits of prose, do not make in any sense a connected story. Their
unknown collector arranged them as well as might be in connected
sequence, but even then their action is not consecutive; they overlap
each other, parts of the story are told and retold and not seldom with
an inconsistency of detail. There is, accordingly, in the "Elder Edda"
no thought of an epic either in matter or manner. There is the material
for an epic in the rough, but without an idea in the mind of any poet of
the time of actual epical treatment.
The story as contained in the Old Norse poems is by no means identical
with the "Nibelungenlied." First and foremost, it is infinitely older in
its whole conception, and much more nearly approaches original
conditions as they existed in the mode of thought and in the manner of
living of the early Germanic people. It is a story, here, of the days
when the world was young; when the gods still walked the earth and mixed
themselves in with human affairs in which they had an active interest;
when motives were clearer and action was more direct; when human
passions burned even fiercer than in the "Nibelungenlied," and love and
hate together knew no boundaries until they had worked themselves out in
the utter destruction of their object. Of the first of these conditions,
the "Nibelungenlied" in its character of an epic of the Middle Ages has
not kept a trace. In the Eddic poems it is the ring cursed by the gods
to all its possessors that motives the entire action; that leads with
the certainty of fate to the death of Sigurd, the Siegfried of the
"Edda," to all the woes that follow, and to the ultimate utter
destruction of the entire race of the Nibelungs.
As most critics have pointed out, the fundamental difference in the
treatment of the story consists in the fact that the principal epic
interest in the Eddic poems is the relation of Sigurd to Brynhild, the
Valkyrie, who is here a heroic figure, who rises immeasurably not only
above the other women of the tale, but above most of the other
characters in importance of personality. In the "Nibelungenlied" it is
Kriemhild, Gudrun in the "Edda," and Hagen who are the principal figures
in the action. In the Northern version, Gudrun does not avenge herself
upon her brothers as does Kriemhild in the "Nibelungenlied," but Atli,
her husband after Sigurd, slays them, and Gudrun then takes vengeance
upon him. In the "Edda," too, other saga cycles are brought into
connection with this, viz., the Northern legend of Helgi, at the
beginning, and the Gothic legend of Ermanrich, at the end.
The Eddic poems are not the only versions in Old Norse literature. An
epitome of the story based upon the poems is contained in the "Snorra
Edda," a work written by the Icelander Snorri Sturluson, who lived from
1178 to 1241, to serve as a handbook for poets and which contains in
this way the myths and legends of the North.
Next to the Eddic songs the most important of the Northern versions,
however, is the long "Völsunga Saga" from the second half of the
thirteenth century, which, again, is based upon the Eddic poems and upon
others in addition that have now been lost. Like most of the Old Norse
sagas, it is prose with the occasional inclusion of verse cited to
justify or to embellish its statements. It gives with extraordinary
wealth of detail the whole old story in connected form and desires to be
called, as it has been called, a prose epic. William Morris, in his
superb translation, has deservedly characterized it as "the most
complete and dramatic form of the Great Epic of the North." The story is
further contained, in some of its details only, in the strange tale of
"Nornagest," which has again made use of the Eddic songs and quotes one
of them entire.
The Old Norse story is so important for its bearing on the
intelligibility of the "Nibelungenlied" that it is absolutely necessary
to take it actively into consideration in any discussion of the German
poem. The epitome contained in the "Snorra Edda," since it gives the
whole story from beginning to end in a form as short as may be, is here
given in its entirety:
"Three gods, Odin, Hœnir, and Loki, once went out to explore the
whole world. They came to a certain river, and went along the river to a
waterfall, and at the waterfall there was an otter that had taken a
salmon out of the fall and ate it, half asleep. Then Loki took up a
stone and cast it at the otter and struck him in the head. Loki
thereupon boasted of his catch that he had got at a blow both the otter
and the salmon. They took the salmon and the otter and carried them
along with them until they came to a farmstead, where they went in. The
head of the household that dwelt there was named Hreidmar; he was a
mighty man and much skilled in magic. He invited the gods to lodge there
for the night, and they told him that they had with them provisions in
plenty and showed him their booty. But when Hreidmar saw the otter he
called his sons Fafnir and Regin and said that Otter, their brother, had
been killed, and told them who had done it. Thereupon, the father and
his sons fell upon the gods and took them and bound them, saying that
the otter was the son of Hreidmar. The gods offered as a ransom as much
money as Hreidmar himself should determine, and that was agreed upon as
a reconciliation and was bound with oaths.
"Then the otter was flayed, and Hreidmar took the otter's skin and said
that they should fill it with red gold and should then cover it wholly
up with gold, and that should be their atonement. Odin then sent Loki
into the land of the black elves and he came to the dwarf who is called
Andvari; he was a fish in the water, and Loki took him and laid upon him
as a ransom all the gold that he had in his stone. And when they came
into the stone where he dwelt, the dwarf brought out all the gold that
he owned and that was a very great treasure. Then the dwarf slipped
under his hand a little gold ring. That Loki, however, saw and bade him
produce the ring. The dwarf begged him not to take the ring from him,
and said that he could breed treasure out of it if he kept it. Loki told
him that he should not keep back a penny, and took the ring from him andwent
out. The dwarf said that the ring should be the death of everyone
who owned it. Loki replied that that suited him well, and that the
condition should be held good, since he would bring it to the ears of
them who might get possession of it. He then went away to Hreidmar's and
showed Odin the gold; but when he saw the ring, it seemed to him very
beautiful and he took it out of the treasure, but paid over to Hreidmar
the gold.
"Then Hreidmar filled the otter's skin as full as he could and set it up
on its feet when it was full; Odin then went up to cover the skin with
gold and said to Hreidmar that he should see whether the skin were
wholly covered. Hreidmar looked at it and considered it carefully and
saw a whisker, and bade him cover that, also, or else their atonement
were at an end. Then Odin brought out the ring and covered the whisker
and said that they now were freed from the otter ransom. When, however,
Odin had taken his spear and Loki his shoes, and they needed no longer
to fear, then said Loki that what Andvari had spoken, that the ring
should be the death of him who owned it, should hold good, and it did
hold good thereafter.
"Hreidmar took the gold as ransom for his son, but Fafnir and Regin
demanded some of it as a ransom for their brother. Hreidmar, however,
would not grant them a single penny of the gold. That was the
ill-advised deed of the brothers that they killed their father for the
gold. Then Regin demanded that Fafnir divide the gold in halves between
them. Fafnir replied that there was little chance that he would share
the gold with his brother when he had killed his father for the sake of
it, and bade Regin to begone or he would fare as had Hreidmar. Fafnir
had then taken the helmet which Hreidmar had owned, which was called the
Helmet of Awe and which all living things feared that saw it, and set it
upon his head, and he took the sword which is called Hrotti. Regin had
the sword that is called Refil and he fled away; but Fafnir went up upon
the Glittering Heath and made him there a lair, and he took upon himself
the shape of a serpent and lay upon the gold.
"Regin then went to King Hjalprek, at Thy, in Denmark, and there set up
a smithy, and he took to foster Sigurd, the son of Sigmund (the son of
Volsung) and of Hjordis, the daughter of Eylimi. Sigurd was the most
glorious of all war kings in lineage and strength. Regin told him where
Fafnir lay upon the gold, and egged him on to seek it. Then Regin made
the sword that is called Gram, which was so sharp that Sigurd thrust it
in the water and it cut asunder a lock of wool that drove before the
current against the edge of the sword. Afterward, Sigurd clove in two
Regin's anvil down to the stock with the sword. After that, Sigurd and
Regin went out upon the Glittering Heath. Then Sigurd dug a pit in
Fafnir's path and got into it; and when Fafnir crept to the water and
came over the pit, then Sigurd thrust the sword up against him and that
was his death. Regin then came up and said that Sigurd had killed his
brother and offered him as a reconciliation that he should take the
heart of Fafnir and roast it at the fire; but Regin himself got down and
drank the blood of Fafnir and then lay down to sleep. And when Sigurd
had roasted the heart and thought that it must be done, he touched it
with his finger to see how hard it was. And when the juice ran out of
the heart upon his finger, he burnt himself and thrust his finger into
his mouth. And when the heart's blood came upon his tongue, then he knew
the speech of birds and understood what the nuthatches said that sat in
the tree above him.
"Then said one:
'There sits Sigurd
blood besprinkled,
the heart of Fafnir
at the fire roasting;
wise methinks were
the ring despoiler,
if he the gleaming
heart were eating.'
"Then said the other:
'There lies Regin
with himself communing;
he will beguile the youth
who is trusting in him;
in rage he brings now
ill words together;
the evil-worker will
avenge his brother.'
"Then Sigurd went up to Regin and killed him, and took his horse, which
was named Grani, and rode until he came to the lair of Fafnir. There he
took the gold and bound it up in packs and laid it on the back of Grani,
and then mounted and rode on his way. Sigurd rode until he found a house
upon the fell. Within it slept a woman who had on a helmet and a coat of
mail. He drew his sword and cut her coat of mail off her. Then she awoke
and named herself Hild. She is called Brynhild and was a Valkyrie.
Sigurd rode thence and came to the King who is named Gjuki; his wife is
named Grimhild; their children were Gunnar, Högni, Gudrun, Gudny;
Gotthorm was a step-son of Gjuki. There Sigurd dwelt for a long time;
and he took to wife Gudrun, the daughter of Gjuki, and Gunnar and Högni
swore with him oaths of brotherhood. Afterward, Sigurd and the sons of
Gjuki went to Atli, the son of Budli, to ask as a wife for Gunnar
Brynhild, his sister. She dwelt upon Hind Fell, and about her hall was a
flaming fire, and she had made a vow to have as a husband that man,
only, who dared to ride through the flame.
"Then Sigurd and the Gjukings (who are also called Niflungs) rode up
upon the fell, and Gunnar was minded to ride through the flame. He had
the horse that was named Goti, but the horse did not dare to leap into
the fire. Then Sigurd and Gunnar changed their shapes and also their
names, since Grani would not go under any man except Sigurd. Then Sigurd
leaped upon Grani and rode through the flaming fire. That night he held
a wedding with Brynhild, and when they came to bed he drew the sword
Gram out of its scabbard and laid it between them. And in the morning,
when he awoke and dressed himself, then he gave Brynhild as a bridal
gift the gold ring which he had taken on the Glittering Heath, and Loki
had taken from Andvari, and he took from her another ring as a
remembrance. Sigurd then leaped upon his horse and rode to his
companions; Gunnar and he again changed their shapes and they went back
to Gjuki with Brynhild. Sigurd had two children with Gudrun: Sigmund and
Swanhild.
"It was once upon a time that Brynhild and Gudrun went to the water to
bleach their hair. When they came to the river, Brynhild waded out into
the water away from the land and said that she would not have on her
head the water that ran out of Gudrun's hair, since she had the more
noble husband. Then Gudrun went out into the river after Brynhild and
said that she should wash her hair in the river above, because she had
the husband who was braver than anyone else in the world, since he slew
Fafnir and Regin and gained the inheritance of them both. Then Brynhild
replied: 'It was of still greater renown that Gunnar rode the flaming
fire and Sigurd dared not.' Then Gudrun laughed and said: 'Do you think
that Gunnar rode through the flaming fire? Him I deem to have gone to
bed with you, who gave me this gold ring. But the ring that you have on
your hand, and that you received as a bridal gift, that is called the
Ring of Andvari, and I deem that it was not Gunnar who sought it on the
Glittering Heath.' Then Brynhild was silent and went home. After that
she egged on Gunnar and Högni to kill Sigurd, but because they had sworn
oaths with him they egged on Gotthorm, their brother, to kill him.
Gotthorm laid sword on him while he slept, and when he felt the wound he
hurled the sword Gram after his slayer so that it cut the man asunder.
Then Sigurd fell and his three-year old son, who was named Sigmund, whom
they killed. After that, Brynhild turned sword upon herself and she was
burned with Sigurd. And Gunnar and Högni took the treasure of Fafnir and
the Ring of Andvari and ruled all the land.
"King Atli, the son of Budli, the brother of Brynhild, then took to wife
Gudrun, whom Sigurd had had, and they had children together. King Atli
bade Gunnar and Högni to visit him, and they went at his invitation, but
before they went away from home they hid the gold, the Treasure of
Andvari, in the river Rhine, and it has never since been found. And King
Atli had assembled a great force and fought with Gunnar and Högni and
they were taken prisoners. And Atli had the heart cut out of Högni while
he lived, and that was his death. Gunnar he caused to be cast into a
serpent pit, and a harp was brought to him secretly and he struck it
with his toes, since his hands were bound, so that all the serpents
slept except one adder, which sprang at him, and struck in through his
breast so that she thrust in her head and hung upon his liver until he
died. Gunnar and Högni are called Niflungs and Gjukungs, and for this
reason the gold is called the Treasure of the Niflungs, or their
inheritance. A little while after, Gudrun killed her two sons, and with
gold and silver had beakers made out of their skulls and then was
celebrated the funeral feast of the Niflungs.
"At this banquet Gudrun had King Atli served with mead from the beakers,
and there was mixed with it the blood of the boys, and their hearts she
caused to be roasted and brought to the King to eat. And when that was
done she told him these things herself with many ugly words. There was
no lack there of intoxicating mead, so that most people slept where they
sat. And in the night she went to the King where he was sleeping, and
with her the son of Högni, and they fell upon him, and that was his
death. Then they hurled fire into the hall and the people were burned
that were within. After that she went to the sea and leaped in and
wished to destroy herself, but she drifted over the fjord and came to
the land of King Jonakr. And when he saw her, he took her to him and
wedded her. They had three sons, who were called Sörli, Hamdir, and Erp;
they were all as black as ravens in the color of their hair, like Gunnar
and Högni and the other Niflungs.
"There grew up Swanhild, the daughter of Sigurd; she was the most
beautiful of all women. That Jörmunrek the Mighty learned and sent his
son Randver to ask her hand. And when he came to Jonakr, Swanhild was
given over to him that he might bring her to Jörmunrek. Then said Bikki
that it had fallen out better if Randver had Swanhild, since he was
young, as were they both, and Jörmunrek was old. This counsel pleased
the young people well; and thereupon Bikki told it to the King. Then
Jörmunrek had his son taken and brought to the gallows, but Randver took
his falcon and plucked off the feathers and bade that it be sent to his
father; then he was hanged. But when King Jörmunrek saw the falcon, it
came into his mind that just as the falcon was incapable of flight and
featherless, so was also his kingdom disabled, since he was old and
without a son.
"It was once upon a time when King Jörmunrek rode out of the forest from
hunting with his men that Swanhild the Queen sat bleaching her hair.
Then they rode upon her and trod her to death under the horses' hoofs.
And when Gudrun learned this, she egged on her sons to avenge Swanhild.
And when they made ready for the journey, she got them mail, and helmets
so strong that iron would not take hold upon it. She said the plan for
them to follow was that when they came to King Jörmunrek they should
fall upon him at night while he slept; Sörli and Hamdir should then hew
off his hands and feet, and Erp his head. When, however, they came on
the way, they asked Erp what assistance they might have of him if they
met King Jörmunrek. He replied that he would give them such aid as the
hand gave the foot. They replied that naught at all did the foot depend
upon the hand. They were so angry at their mother that she had led them
out with words of hatred, that they desired to do that which should be
the worst thing of all to her and they killed Erp, since she loved him
most. A little while after, as Sörli walked along he slipped with both
feet, but held himself up with his hand. Then he said: 'The hand does
now help the foot; better it were that Erp were alive!' And when they
came to King Jörmunrek's at night, and went in where he slept and hewed
off his hands and feet, he awoke and called upon his men and bade them
awaken. Then said Hamdir: 'Off were now his head, if Erp were alive!'
Then the men-at-arms arose and attacked them, but could not overcome
them with weapons. Jörmunrek then called out that stones should be
hurled at them, and this was done. Then Sörli and Hamdir fell, and then
were dead all the race and descendants of the Gjukings."
The Eddic poems and the "Völsunga Saga" give us even much more fully in
detail than does this epitome the deeds of Sigurd's youth of which the
"Nibelungenlied" knows so little. The latter, too, has forgotten the
early relationship of Sigurd to Brynhild and her whole early history,
although her superhuman character is still remembered and obscure
reference is made to their previous acquaintance. There is no longer a
reason why Siegfried and Brunhild should die together, as in the "Edda."
That the ultimate catastrophe falls out differently in the two versions
of the story is due to this very fact of the loss of original detail. In
that her brothers who had murdered Sigurd live in triumph afterward and
no true reconciliation can be possible between them, Kriemhild must of
necessity avenge herself upon them, instead of upon Atli, as in the
earlier form of the story. And, as has already been remarked, the real
significance to the action of the fateful "Ring of the Nibelungs" and
the accursed hoard has wholly vanished to give place to reasons that
have much more affinity with human motives of conduct.
The "Nibelungenlied," like the Northern poems before it, is legendary,
with only here and there a historical fact as a nucleus about which has
gathered in the course of the centuries material for many times and
places. The destruction of the Burgundians, under their King Gunther, by
the Huns, which occurred in the year 437, has undoubtedly furnished the
ultimate catastrophe. It is not known, however, that Attila, the Atli of
the "Edda" and the Etzel of the "Nibelungenlied," was the leader of the
Huns on this occasion, although the event did take place during his
lifetime. Attila's brother Bleda appears in the poem as Blœdelin.
Giselher, the brother of Gunther, is also mentioned in the old
Burgundian law-code, the _Lex Burgundionum_. Of Siegfried and Brunhild
history knows no trace, although an attempt has been made to connect the
one with Arminius and the other with Brünehild of Austrasia. The
appearance in the poem of Dietrich of Bern, Theodoric the Great, the
Ostrogothic conqueror of Italy, who lived from 475 to 526, is an example
of the absorption of material from another cycle into the original
legend, material which, in its turn, clusters about a historical
character. The Bishop Pilgrin, of Passau, represented in the poem as the
uncle of the Burgundian kings and of Kriemhild, has a historical
prototype in an actual Pilgrin who held the see of Passau from 971 to
991 and has, it may be, been here introduced by the poet to honor him.
As for the rest, facts that may have been ultimately historical have
been freely used by the poet of the "Nibelungenlied" and his
predecessors until it is no longer possible to tell where legend begins
and history ends.
That Siegfried and Brunhild are at the end mythical, rather than at all
historical, has been surmised, rather than proved. It has been
attempted, in point of fact, to show that the whole story has arisen in
its earliest form through a union of an old myth of Siegfried with the
historical materials that have been indicated and others whose real
significance has subsequently been obliterated and lost. The believers
of this theory have pointed to the thoroughly mythical character of the
version of the story in the "Edda" and particularly of its earliest part
as plausible evidence, and they would see in the whole the union of a
Frankish myth of Siegfried, originally independent, with a Burgundian
historical narrative. Siegfried and Brunhild, in this way, have been
thought to embody, at the beginning, the nature-myth of the awakening
earth-goddess from the sleep of winter at the reanimating touch of
summer. Lachmann makes the fundamental fact at the outset a myth of the
death of Balder, and Wilhelm Müller a myth of Freyr, both light-gods of
the old mythology. It is, nevertheless, impossible to follow the
upholders of these theories into the details of their interpretation,
and the whole main assumption of a mythical origin is a matter of
doubt. That Siegfried and Brunhild, however, have mythical
characteristics that they have retained after all memory of the ancient
mythology as such has been absolutely forgotten, no reader of the story
can deny, and in this respect the "Nibelungenlied" is no different from
the legendary literature of all the nations of the world.
Early German poems on the story of the Nibelungs, although it is
altogether likely that they once existed, have not been preserved. The
"Nibelungenlied" itself it is not possible to follow back of the twelfth
century, by the middle of which it seems to have already had the form in
which it has come down to us. The internal evidence of metre, rhyme, and
language shows, too, beyond a doubt, that it could not have arisen at a
much earlier time.
The author of the poem is unknown. The most plausible hypothesis as to
his actual personality makes him an Austrian knight of about 1140,
possibly a member of the Kürenberg family, who lived in the neighborhood
of Linz, on the Danube. A Kürenberg of the twelfth century is the oldest
court poet who used in his lyrics the same strophic form that is
characteristic of the "Nibelungenlied," but that the two poets are
identical is by no manner of means a certainty. In the same way, the
place of origin of the poem is a matter of supposition. In all
probability, however, it arose in southeastern German territory in
Austria. Although the poet knows the region on the Rhine about Worms, he
has an infinitely wider acquaintance with Austrian localities of which
he makes specific mention. It was in Austria, too, at this time that the
beginnings arose of the court lyric poetry, that Minnesangs Frühling, as
the Germans strikingly characterize the period, that presently blossomed
out into one of the fullest expressions in all its history of German
life and thought.
Bartsch, in the introduction to his edition of the "Nibelungenlied," has
most admirably summarized this whole matter. According to him, it was an
Austrian poet who, before the middle of the twelfth century, united
songs sung at his time and oral tradition, known to him as well as to
everybody else, into a single whole. How far folk-song and tradition had
anticipated him in this is no longer to be ascertained, but it may be
inferred from the Northern form of the legend that it had long since
taken place. It remained to him, however, to arrange the whole in its
details of sequence of action, to fill out the gaps left by popular song
and story, and to give it the impress of his own day, which it so
unmistakably bears. That this is not in accord with other ideas of
authorship and origin must nevertheless be stated. Karl Lachmann, one of
the most astute, if not one of the most mistaken, critics of the poem,
taking Wolf's Prolegomena to Homer for his model, set up the theory that
has since played an important part in the discussion of the genesis of
the "Nibelungenlied."
According to the Lachmann theory, the poem consists of no less than
twenty distinct lays, each differing inherently from the rest, and each,
with the exception of the Eighth and Ninth, by different authors. To
arrive at this result, more than a third of the entire number of stanzas
has, for one reason or another, been rejected as not genuine. As Lettsom
has cleverly put it in the original preface to his translation, where
this whole matter is presented with some detail: "He [Lachmann] has in
fact put every stanza and every verse on its trial. Some have been
condemned by him to italics, as interpolations; others to brackets, as
continuations by different hands; others again, which he supposes to be
the latest additions, so far from being pitied for their youth, have
been visited with both kinds of punishment. He has not, however,
sentenced any of the delinquents to transportation from the text; or,
perhaps it would be more correct to say that he has sentenced them, but
has not carried the sentence into execution. The result of the whole
assize has been that out of the 2,316 stanzas 1,437 have been honorably
acquitted; the rest have been italicised, bracketed, or both.... The
twenty lays," he continues, "which had already suffered from the
interpolations and corruptions incident to oral tradition, were first
collected, committed to writing, and patched together into one poem
about the year 1210 by some unknown compiler, whose handiwork was
afterward corrected or depraved by two separate but equally unknown
revisers. It is his opinion that scarcely a stanza of what we possess is
older than 1190, while even the latest additions are not more recent
than 1225. The whole poem, therefore, is, according to Professor
Lachmann, the work of contemporary authors, whether we call their
compositions spurious or genuine; and the task undertaken is neither
more nor less than to distribute a mass of unowned literary property
among nineteen or twenty poets and an indefinite number of poetasters,
of whom nothing, not even their existence, is known except by
conjecture, and of whose distinguishing characteristics we are of course
completely ignorant, except as far as we may guess at them from the
internal evidence, real or imagined, of the poem itself."
Lachmann's theory of separate authorship of portions of the poem has not
maintained itself against the critics. That there are contradictions in
its statements and different values in its parts cannot be denied, but
they are not explained on the grounds here set forth. The attempted
restoration of the poem by elimination and rearrangement has not left
twenty or any number of lays that have actually the air of being
separate poems. "It is just here," continues Lettsom, "that the failure
of the hypothesis is most conspicuous.... Some of the lays are not
ill-adapted, from the nature of their contents, to form separate poems,
but they are by no means out of place as episodes in a long work, and
are, besides, connected with the rest, while the latter, from the
insignificance of their contents alone, from their reference to one
another, from their allusions to the past and anticipations of the
future, from their abrupt commencements and still more abrupt
conclusions, and from their general fragmentary nature, could never have
been independent lays.... The dream of Kriemhild forms a strange opening
for a lay that just brings Siegfried to Worms, and there leaves him.
Nobody, in fact, would have composed a separate poem on so insignificant
a matter. The dream, however, is beyond all doubt the introduction, the
fit and appropriate introduction, to a poem that must go on at least to
the marriage of Kriemhild and the death of her husband.
"Professor Lachmann himself seems to be in doubt whether this First Lay
be complete; he talks of 'this lay, or what has been preserved of it;'
he tells us that 'it several times indicates a continuation, and might
have deserved a better than that which follows;' but though he expresses
a doubt, he gives no reasons for entertaining one. It certainly would
require far less ingenuity to assign cogent reasons for a doubt, and
indeed for much more than a doubt, on this point; the lay, as it stands,
is a 'passage that leads to nothing,' a mountain in labor that does not
produce even so much as a mouse; but it is not singular in this respect;
its brethren for the most part keep it in countenance; or, if they
contain matter of interest, they too often try the temper of the reader
by disappointing his expectations at the most critical moment, and
coming to an abrupt conclusion in the midst of an action. Thus the
Eighteenth Lay ends just after the battle between Huns and Burgundians
has begun; the Nineteenth stops short just at the moment when Etzel has
brought up 20,000 fresh men and commenced another attack on Gunther and
his followers.
"It really is a waste of words to dwell on the peculiarities of such
whimsical arrangements as these. I will merely add a word or two on the
Fourteenth Lay, which, inasmuch as it is an introduction to what
follows, bears some resemblance to the First. The dream of Uta, the
prophecy of the mermaids, and all the gloomy forebodings which give a
peculiar character to this lay, are ludicrously out of place as
component parts of a short poem, which merely conducts the Burgundians
to Rudeger's castle, where, so far from being destroyed, they do not
even run any risk whatever, except that of being killed with kindness;
but in fact the whole tenor of the lay (one might almost say, every
line, every word of it) proves beyond dispute that we are there in the
midst of an extensive poem, which can end only with the destruction of
the last Burgundian. An attentive examination of the three or four lays
just noticed, would, I think, convince every unprejudiced reader that
the hypothesis of twenty separate lays by different authors is utterly
untenable.... The wisest course," he concludes, and it is easy to concur
with him, "is, in such uncertainty, to take the poem as we find it, and
to prefer the authority, however occasionally unsatisfactory, of
manuscripts to the speculations of the most ingenious critics."
The metre of the "Nibelungenlied" needs a word of explanation. The
characteristic strophe in which it is written consists of four verses,
the first three of equal length, the fourth somewhat longer, rhymed in
couplets on the final syllable. The rhythmical system is dependent, not
upon measure, but upon accent, with considerable freedom in the
addition or suppression of unaccented syllables. Every verse, with the
exception of the last, is made up of two half-verses each containing
three accented syllables and separated by a ringing cæsura, that is, a
cæsura on an unaccented syllable. The last half-verse contains an
additional accent, or four, instead of three, as in the others. A
strophe in the original Middle High German, the second of the poem, will
make this analysis clear:
Ez wúohs in Búregónden ein vil édel magedî́n,
dáz in állen lánden niht schœ́ners móhte sî́n,
Kríemhilt gehéizen: diu wart ein schœ́ne wî́p
dar úmbe múosen dégene víl verlíesen den lî́p.
The metre of the present translation follows the original, except for
the lengthening of the fourth line of the stanza which the author only
occasionally differentiates in this respect from the rest.
The "Nibelungenlied," like other poems of the Middle Ages that were
widely read and widely copied, was subjected all along its career of
transmission to additions and alterations, and has consequently come
down to us not in a single form, but in a number of different versions
that deviate to a greater or less extent from the original poem and from
each other. Whole or in part there are no less than twenty-eight MSS.
Ten of these are complete: three of them, usually cited A, B, C, are
parchment MSS. of the thirteenth century, two are parchments of the
fourteenth century, four are paper MSS. of the fifteenth century, and
one is a parchment of the sixteenth century. Of all these manuscripts it
is commonly conceded that only A, B, C have independent authenticity. It
is not necessary here to go into the details of the long discussion as
to the relative value of the MSS. with regard to the age and original
condition of the particular text which each contains. Each one has by
different critics been given the preference over the others.
Zarncke, who is one of the most rational and impartial of the critics of
the poem in all its bearings, makes C, a beautifully written MS. from
the dividing line between the twelfth and thirteenth centuries,
preserved in the court library of Donaueschingen, the nearest in every
essential way to the original form of the poem. Subsequently, the
whole, according to him, was subjected to a revision which brought it
more into accord with contemporary taste. The text is amplified by the
introduction of new episodes into the narrative, although some of the
older strophes are omitted, and, unfortunately, the old dignity and
simplicity of the diction is frequently sacrificed in favor of a more
pronounced effect. This stage of the poem in its full form is not
represented in either of the oldest MSS. B, a manuscript from the middle
of the thirteenth century, in the monastery of St. Gallen, occupied an
intermediate position in length. It is made by Bartsch, who regards it
"as relatively the most faithful picture of the original form of the
lost poem," the basis of his edition of the "Nibelungenlied." A, a
carelessly written MS. in the Munich Library, is the shortest form of
the poem, but is, nevertheless, in its turn regarded by Lachmann as
inherently the oldest and best version that we possess. Lettsom's
translation, in that it follows the text and modern German version of
Braunfels, published in 1846, is based upon A, but with the inclusion of
other strophes, particularly from C.
The "Nibelungenlied" was first published at Zurich, by Bodmer, in 1757,
and since then has appeared in many editions and modernized versions at
home, and in numerous translations abroad, among them Low German,
French, Italian, Dutch, and Hungarian.
In English, the first translations of parts of the "Nibelungenlied" are
contained in the "Illustrations of Northern Antiquities," by Weber,
published in 1814, in Edinburgh. The version here given consists in part
only of a metrical translation, in part of prose. Lockhart, in his
biography of Sir Walter Scott, states that he has no doubt but that the
rhymed versions came from that poet's pen, although of this there is no
more direct proof. The second attempt in this direction is not less
notable. This is from 1831, when Thomas Carlyle wrote in the
"Westminster Review" an essay on the "Nibelungenlied" as a review of
Karl Simrock's German translation of the poem, in which are contained a
number of strophes given with characteristic vigor and a genuine
appreciation of the real spirit of the original. The next translation,
that of Gostik, in his "Spirit of German Poetry," 1846, is metrical,
but, like its predecessors, consists only of parts of the poem. The
first translation to lay claim to any degree of completeness was that of
Jonathan Birch, published in 1848. It is a metrical version, as its
title states, of Lachmann's text, and, like it, divides the poem into
twenty lays. The first complete edition of the poem in English does not,
however, appear until this of Lettsom's, which has admirably retained
the form of the original and much of its spirit, and which for the first
time gave to English readers an adequate idea of the real work as it is.
For those who care to pursue the subject further than these pages it may
be stated that the best editions of the "Nibelungenlied" in the original
are those of Friedrich Zarncke, "_Das Nibelungenlied_," originally
published in 1856 and since then in several editions, and of Karl
Bartsch, "_Das Nibelungenlied_," originally published in 1866, both of
which have abundant critical apparatus. The "Nibelungenlied" is not yet
sufficiently well known among us, for it is, in the way that has been
indicated, not alone the great epic of Germany, but in its widest sense
an epic of the Germanic race.
[Illustration: Wm H. Carpenter.]
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY, May 1, 1901.
CONTENTS
FIRST ADVENTURE: PAGE
Kriemhild's Dream 1
SECOND ADVENTURE:
Of Siegfried 4
THIRD ADVENTURE:
How Siegfried Went to Worms 8
FOURTH ADVENTURE:
How Siegfried Fought with the Saxons 23
FIFTH ADVENTURE:
How Siegfried First Saw Kriemhild 44
SIXTH ADVENTURE:
How Gunther Went to Woo Brunhild 53
SEVENTH ADVENTURE:
How Gunther Won Brunhild 64
EIGHTH ADVENTURE:
How Siegfried Came to the Nibelungers 78
NINTH ADVENTURE:
How Siegfried was Sent to Worms 86
TENTH ADVENTURE:
How Brunhild was Received at Worms 94
ELEVENTH ADVENTURE:
How Siegfried Brought his Wife Home 111
TWELFTH ADVENTURE:
How Gunther Invited Siegfried to the Festival 117
THIRTEENTH ADVENTURE:
How They Went to the Festival 126
FOURTEENTH ADVENTURE:
How the Two Queens Reviled One Another 131
FIFTEENTH ADVENTURE:
How Siegfried was Betrayed 141
SIXTEENTH ADVENTURE:
How Siegfried was Slain 147
SEVENTEENTH ADVENTURE:
How Siegfried was Bewailed and Buried 161
EIGHTEENTH ADVENTURE:
How Siegmund Returned Home 173
NINETEENTH ADVENTURE:
How the Treasure of the Nibelungers was Brought to Worms 177
TWENTIETH ADVENTURE:
How King Etzel Proposed for Kriemhild 185
TWENTY-FIRST ADVENTURE:
How Kriemhild Departed 207
TWENTY-SECOND ADVENTURE:
How the Huns Received Kriemhild 215
TWENTY-THIRD ADVENTURE:
How Kriemhild Thought of Revenging her Injuries 222
TWENTY-FOURTH ADVENTURE:
How Werbel and Swemmeline Delivered the Message 228
TWENTY-FIFTH ADVENTURE:
How the Lords all Came into Hungary 241
TWENTY-SIXTH ADVENTURE:
How Dankwart Slew Gelfrat 254
TWENTY-SEVENTH ADVENTURE:
Rudeger's Hospitality 264
TWENTY-EIGHTH ADVENTURE:
How Kriemhild Received Hagan 275
TWENTY-NINTH ADVENTURE:
How Hagan Refused to Rise to Kriemhild 281
THIRTIETH ADVENTURE:
How the Knights Kept Watch 291
THIRTY-FIRST ADVENTURE:
How the Knights Went to Church 296
THIRTY-SECOND ADVENTURE:
How Blœdel was Slain 309
THIRTY-THIRD ADVENTURE:
How the Burgundians Fought with the Huns 314
THIRTY-FOURTH ADVENTURE:
How They Threw Down the Dead 323
THIRTY-FIFTH ADVENTURE:
How Iring was Slain 327
THIRTY-SIXTH ADVENTURE:
How the Queen Gave Orders to Burn Down the Hall 335
THIRTY-SEVENTH ADVENTURE:
How Margrave Rudeger was Slain 344
THIRTY-EIGHTH ADVENTURE:
How Sir Dietrich's Men were all Slain 360
THIRTY-NINTH ADVENTURE:
How Gunther and Hagan and Kriemhild were Slain 374
NOTES 383
THE NIBELUNGENLIED
FIRST ADVENTURE
KRIEMHILD'S DREAM
I
In stories of our fathers high marvels we are told
Of champions well approved in perils manifold.
Of feasts and merry meetings, of weeping and of wail,
And deeds of gallant daring I'll tell you in my tale.
II
In Burgundy there flourish'd a maid so fair to see,
That in all the world together a fairer could not be.
This maiden's name was Kriemhild; through her in dismal strife
Full many a prowest warrior thereafter lost his life.
III
Many a fearless champion, as such well became,
Woo'd the lovely lady; she from none had blame.
Matchless was her person, matchless was her mind.
This one maiden's virtue grac'd all womankind.
IV
Three puissant Kings her guarded with all the care they might,
Gunther and eke Gernot, each a redoubted knight,
And Giselher the youthful, a chosen champion he;
This lady was their sister, well lov'd of all the three.
V
They were high of lineage, thereto mild of mood,
But in field and foray champions fierce and rude.
They rul'd a mighty kingdom, Burgundy by name;
They wrought in Etzel's country deeds of deathless fame.
VI
At Worms was their proud dwelling, the fair Rhine flowing by,
There had they suit and service from haughtiest chivalry,
For broad lands and lordships, and glorious was their state,
Till wretchedly they perish'd by two noble ladies' hate.
VII
Dame Uta was their mother, a queen both rich and sage;
Their father hight Dancrat, who the fair heritage
Left to his noble children when he his course had run;
He too by deeds of knighthood in youth had worship won.
VIII
Each of these three princes, as you have heard me say,
Were men of mighty puissance. They had beneath their sway
The noblest knights for liegemen that ever dwelt on ground;
For hardihood and prowess were none so high renown'd.
IX