THE LAY
OF
THE NIBELUNG MEN
TRANSLATED FROM THE OLD GERMAN TEXT
BY
ARTHUR S. WAY, D.Lit.
AUTHOR OF TRANSLATIONS INTO ENGLISH VERSE OF HOMER'S ILIAD AND
ODYSSEY, THE TRAGEDIES OF AESCHYLUS, SOPHOCLES, EURIPIDES, ETC.
Cambridge:
at the University Press
1911
CONTENTS
Introduction
I. Of Kriemhild, and of her Dream
II. Of the Fostering and the Knighting of Siegfried
III. How Siegfried rode to the City of Worms
IV. How Siegfried warred against the Saxons
V. How Siegfried first saw Kriemhild
VI. How they voyaged on Love-quest to Isen-land
VII. How the Warrior-maid was won to be Gunther's Bride
VIII. How Siegfried went to the Niblung Land for his Knights
IX. How Siegfried bare Tidings to the Royal City
X. Of the strange Bridal of Gunther and Brunhild
XI. How Siegfried and his Wife journeyed Home
XII. How Gunther bade Siegfried to a Festival
XIII. How they fared to the Feast-tide
XIV. How the Queens spake bitter Words each unto other
XV. How woven for Siegfried was the Net of Betrayal
XVI. How Siegfried was murdered
XVII. How Siegfried was mourned and buried
XVIII. How Kriemhild would not return to the Lowland with Siegmund
XIX. How the Hoard of the Niblungs came to Worms
XX. How Queen Kriemhild was wooed for the King of the Huns
XXI. Of Kriemhild's journeying to the Land of the Huns
XXII. How King Etzel wedded Kriemhild
XXIII. How Kriemhild thought on Vengeance for her Wrongs
XXIV. How the Hun-king's Minstrels bade the Burgundians to the Feast
XXV. How the Princes rode to the Land of the Huns
XXVI. How Foes fell on them as they journeyed by Night
XXVII. How they came to Bechlaren
XXVIII. How the Burgundians came to Etzel's strong City
XXIX. How Hagen refused to rise up in presence of the Queen
XXX. How Hagen and Volker kept Watch while Men slept
XXXI. How they bore them at Mass and Tourney
XXXII. Of the Slaughter of the Squires and the Slaying of the Slayer
XXXIII. How the Fight began in Etzel's Hall
XXXIV. How they cast forth the dead
XXXV. How Iring fought and died
XXXVI. How the Queen bade set fire to the Hall
XXXVII. How the Margrave Rüdiger was slain
XXXVIII. How Dietrich's Men were all slain
XXXIX. How Gunther, Hagen, and Kriemhild were slain
Footnotes
INTRODUCTION
{P. vii}
IF we accept as our definition of an Epic:--(a) A long poem, (b) of
an interest not less than national[1], describing (c) in noble
language (d) a series of naturally and organically connected actions
(e) of heroic actors, we shall find that, while we must deny the name
to some so-called epics[2], we have to thank the spirit, the
imagination, the genius, of the Middle Ages for two great epics. If
some critics are inclined to place these on a lower plane, for the
alleged reason that the language is lacking in nobility, we may reply
that it is a rash literary judgment which appraises the language and
style of a far-off time by the standards either of a later
civilization and culture, or by those of a quite different race, as of
Greece. That is entitled to be called noble language which stirred
with heroic impulses, and lifted above themselves, the hearers to whom
it was addressed, and this great essential was, we know, amply
fulfilled by the _Chanson de Roland_ and the _Nibelungenlied_. These
are both Primitive Epics, as distinguished from the epics of the
study. They are National Epics, in the same sense in which the _Iliad_
is, and in a sense in which the _Aeneid_ is not one. By a strange
coincidence, the great national epics of the world are unfathered. Of
the authorship of the epics of the study, as of Virgil, Milton, Tasso,
in which the imagination of a poet bodied forth the life of a
long-past age, the scenes of a far-off world, there has never been the
shadow of a doubt; but those which paint in everlasting colours the
life, the stir of action, the thrill of passion, of an age in which
the poet lived and moved and had his being, these songs which pulsate
with the very life-blood of the past--when we ask, "Who was the
singer?" there comes back only a muffled voice from {P. viii} behind a
veil. In India, in France, in Germany, stand thrones waiting for ever
empty of the kings of song, and in Greece upon the most imperial of
all sits only a featureless shadow, to whose very name is denied by
some the attribute of personality.
For this obscurity of authorship there is, in the case of the
_Nibelungenlied_, more reason than with the other epics. What is
conjectural with respect to the _Iliad_ and the _Chanson_, is
indubitable with respect to the _Lied_, viz. that both in its origin
and in its construction it was composite, that the elements of which
it is a union are in date, perhaps in place of origin, widely remote
from each other. The Saga of the Niblungs, of which the
_Nibelungenlied_ is the finished poetical development, is a union of
mythical and historical elements.
1. _The Mythical Element_, The groundwork of this is the Saga of
Siegfried, or Sigurd, as he is named in the Northern versions of the
myth. In the old heroic age of the Teuton tribes, perhaps during the
period of the Migrations of the Peoples, in the 5th, 6th and 7th
centuries, there took shape this legend of a demigod hero[3]. The
supernatural pervades the whole atmosphere of this primitive form of
the myth. The Gods still walk the earth, the hero is descended from a
God, he woos a cloud-maiden, there is something more than earthly in
his sword, in his horse, in the glance of his eyes. But as the
Germanic tribes to whom this myth was a common inheritance broke up
and wandered far apart, it came to pass that it was just with those
who remained in the ancient home, the birth-land of the myth, that it
became most modified, and that its supernatural elements were removed
or toned down, as the result of admixture with more civilized peoples,
and, still more, of the acceptance of Christianity by the Germans
themselves. Christian teachers were too grimly in earnest to tolerate
poems which assumed the existence of heathen deities, and glorified
non-Christian virtues. Hence it came {P. ix} to pass that the tribes
of Teutonic origin which longest preserved the original form of the
myth were those which wandered farthest from the old home-land, and
which were the last to abandon the old faith.
The Norse form of the legend, which is most fully preserved for us in
the Eddas, or prose epics of Iceland, presents us with the original
story, transfigured with all gleams of fancy and splendours of
imagination which had gathered round it as it was handed down through
generations of bards. There is no need here to tell the story of this
Northern version of the Saga, since it has been told for all English
lovers of noble poetry by William Morris in his _Story of Sigurd_,
which has well been characterized as "the one great English epic of
the nineteenth century," and which is the most Homeric-spirited poem
since Homer. It is an expanded verse-rendering of the Volsunga-saga of
the prose Edda, a literal prose version of which is also accessible to
all readers, executed by the same author[4].
We will confine ourselves to indicating the features which reappear,
under some form or other, in the _Nibelungenlied_[5]. Sigurd, son
of Sigmund, slays Fafnir, the man who had been transformed into a
dragon, and takes the dragon-guarded treasure, three horse-loads of
gold, with a magic ring, the begetter of gold. But to this Hoard
cleaves the curse pronounced by the Dwarf Andvari, from whom it had
been taken, that it should prove the destruction of every possessor.
With this he rides away, and comes to a hill-top begirt with a wall of
fire. He rides through the fire, and finds Brynhild, a Valkyr-maid,
who had been cast into a trance-sleep by Odin for transgressing his
behests. He awakens her; they love, and plight their troth. But
Sigurd, to fulfil his destiny, has to ride on, and so comes to the
realm of the Niblungs (people of Mistland), who dwell by the Rhine.
Here Grimhild, mother of King Gunnar, gives him a drugged wine-cup
which makes him forget Brynhild, and so he weds Gudrun, the sister of
the King. He goes with Gunnar to help him to win Brynhild, who is
again begirt with the wall of fire. Gunnar cannot ride through it;
{P. x} so Sigurd, transformed by a spell into Gunnar's semblance, does
so, and, still in his shape, lies three nights by Brynhild, but lays
his sword between them. Gunnar is wedded to Brynhild, who sees at his
palace Sigurd wedded to Gudrun, while Sigurd at the same time recovers
memory of the past, and knows how he has been beguiled into proving
false to his first love. The queens in their jealousy quarrel, and
Gudrun tells Brynhild the truth about her wooing. The latter insists
upon having vengeance in Sigurd's death, and he is murdered in his
sleep. Brynhild, after brief exultation in her revenge, slays herself
to be united in her death to the only man she has ever loved: her body
is burnt with his, and together they enter Valhalla. After this, the
story, though with many differences of detail, follows substantially
the same broad lines as the _Nibelungenlied_, in the second marriage
of Gudrun, and the great vengeance wreaked in the hall of the
Hun-king.
Now this older version was a tale of a dateless past, when men lived
who were near in birth to Gods, and when Gods came down to earth as
freely as they do in Homer. It is suffused with a glamour of the
supernatural, with a weird magnificence, both of nature and of man.
Its actors are led on, or thrust on, by inevitable doom, their fates
are foretold to them, and they go clear-eyed to the consummation of
all. There is no pettiness about any of them, they are all moulded on
the heroic scale, and the light about them is not the light of common
day. But the poet of the _Nibelungenlied_, as we have it (however it
may have been with the lost original form of the lay), essayed a
practically impossible task, namely, to bring the essential characters
of the old Saga into the scenes and social atmosphere of the twelfth
century, with the supernatural elements left out. Hence he makes a
different story of the early life of Siegfried, which has the effect
of making his parents' fears for his safety, on his departure for
Burgundy, unreasonable in the light of his past exploits. He makes a
different tale of the slaying of the dragon, and of the winning of the
Hoard, the amount of which he enormously exaggerates, while omitting
all mention of the curse attached to it, though it does work in the
poem. He has to construct a different Brynhild, and a different
wooing, while he leaves unexplained Siegfried's previous acquaintance
with her, and her antipathy to him from the beginning. These flaws in
construction are not all; the characters also suffer. Deeds of
violence and wrong, which are accepted in the old Saga much as we
accept the incidents of a fairy-tale, {P. xi} especially as the actors
are not masters of their own fate, are now transferred to men and
women who are made as amenable to our judgment as, say, our early
Norman Kings, and who, moreover, live in a Christian land of minsters,
monasteries and priests. Hence they cannot but lose in moral dignity;
and it needs a mediaevally constituted mind to admire or respect a man
simply on the score of his unflinching courage and fidelity to a cause
which he has made a tainted cause. This weakness of treatment, which
we may fairly say was inevitable for any poet, however great, who
undertook to transfer the original story into so alien a setting, is
confined to the first half of the poem, which ends with the death of
Siegfried and its immediate sequel. In this first part he redeems his
work from failure, and (with its inevitable limitations) makes it a
triumphant success, by his charm of description, his beauty of
execution, his fertility in the invention of incident, and the
unfailing vivacity and energy with which it is described, and by his
command of pathos and power to stir the deepest springs of sympathy.
In the second part, where the poet has no longer to mutilate an
old-world giant, in order to fit him to a latter-day bed of
Procrustes, he treads surely and strongly, and proceeds unfalteringly
to his goal, steadily rising with his theme to its magnificent climax.
It is in this second part that the mythical element is largely
superseded by the historical.
2. _The Historical Element_. The Siegfried myth is supposed to have
taken shape as a connected story, as a sort of primitive epic,
somewhere about the fifth century, among that German tribe known as
the Rhine Franks, who lived between the east of Belgium and the Rhine
and Moselle, Cologne being about the middle of their territory. Their
next neighbours up the Rhine were another Germanic tribe, the
Burgundians, dwelling in a more mountainous district, of which Worms
may have been the middle point. Among these the Niblungs of the
original story seem to have been located; and it is curious that in
ancient Burgundian records may be found the names of three kings,
Gundahar, Godomer and Gislahar, the resemblance of whose names to
those in the _Lied_ is sufficiently suggestive. In the year 437 A.D.
this Burgundian tribe, with its king, whose name (as latinized by the
chronicler) was Gundicarius, was utterly defeated and practically
annihilated by an invasion of the Huns in the reign of Attila. This
disaster preceded, and perhaps gave the most powerful impulse to, that
general break-up of the old {P. xii} Germanic settlements, and the
period of stormy wanderings and wars, which lasted through nearly two
hundred years, and is known as the Migration of the Peoples. The
destruction of the Burgundians by Attila's host became incorporated
with the story as the destruction of the Niblungs by Atli. Its
locality was shifted (perhaps for the honour of the race) from a
German district invaded by Huns to the capital of Hunland into which
the heroes are entrapped by treachery.
The story had reached this stage of development when the
northward-wandering tribes carried it to Norway, and in due course to
Iceland, where it underwent much less modification than it did among
those who remained, or who finally settled down, in central Europe.
What changes it underwent during the wanderings of the tribes, by what
influences and by what steps a legend originally heathen and tribal
was modified by Christianity and feudalism, till after some six
hundred years it emerges to view in something approaching its present
form--of all this we have no real knowledge, and no subject of
literary criticism has been more fruitful of conjecture. We may assume
that it was handed down by oral tradition until, with the development
of chivalry, with its natural affinity for romance and poetry, there
came in the 12th and 13th centuries a great revival of interest in the
old heroic literature. Its cultivation became a passion with the
nobility, who followed it on two main lines, leading to the production
(or revival) of epic poetry of two classes:--(1) the Court Epic, which
took for its subject the romance of knight-errantry, and (2) the
National Epic, which took the old popular heroic tradition, and gave
it permanence in a metrical form peculiar to itself. The
_Nibelungenlied_ is essentially, in its subject and spirit, a national
epic; but, as it was remodelled by courtier-poets, their treatment of
it made it approximate in some respects very closely to the court
epic, especially in what we may call the veneer of chivalrous
refinement laid over the more elemental characters of the original
story. Hence it bears throughout, both in characters and incidents,
evidences of the influence of feudalism and chivalry, on the one hand,
and of Christianity on the other.
It is curious to note how the poet, having undertaken to shape a
credible, intelligible story, the actors of which have a known
geographical position, out of a tale of wonders wrought in some misty
land the gate to which has been lost, is sometimes confused by the
consequent contradictions, and sometimes triumphantly {P. xiii}
surmounts them. Thus, the Nibelungs are, in the first part of the
story, quite distinct from the Burgundians: they seem to be a tribe
of warriors dwelling by themselves on some uncharted shore. But, after
the Kings have got the Nibelung Hoard into their possession, and have
set out with their followers for Hunland, with a contingent of these
Nibelungs in their train, we find that the names Nibelung and
Burgundian have become interchangeable. For this no reason is given:
the possession of the Hoard does not of itself confer its name on the
owner, for that title is never applied to Siegfried, nor is it applied
to the Burgundians during all the years that it remains in their hands
before they set out for Hunland. The real explanation may be, that
there were still extant old folk-songs, familiar to all, which gave
all the information required to fill gaps in the _Nibelungenlied_,
and which also gave a full account of Siegfried's early life and
exploits[6], so that the poet felt himself emancipated from the
necessity of "beginning at the beginning," which has been a rock
steadily avoided by great epic poets from Homer downwards.
In his treatment of the supernatural, which so dominates the action of
the old Saga, but which was based wholly upon that faith in the old
Gods which the Christian poet not merely rejected, but ignored, he was
far more successful. As Carlyle expresses it:
"Yet neither is the _Nibelungen_ without its wonders; for it is poetry
and not prose; here too a supernatural world encompasses the natural,
and, though at rare intervals and in calm manner, reveals itself
there. It is truly wonderful with what skill our simple untaught poet
deals with the marvellous, admitting it without reluctance or
criticism, yet precisely in the degree and shape that will best avail
him. Here, if in no other respect, we should say that he has a decided
superiority to Homer himself. The whole story of the Nibelungen is
fateful, mysterious, guided on by unseen influences; yet the actual
marvels are few, and done in the far distance: those Dwarfs, and
Cloaks of Darkness, and charmed Treasure-caves, are heard of rather
than beheld; the tidings of them seem to issue from unknown space.
Vain were it to inquire where that Nibelungen-land specially is: its
very {P. xiv} name is Nebel-land or Nifl-land, the land of Darkness,
of Invisibility. The Nibelungen Heroes, that muster in thousands and
tens of thousands, though they march to the Rhine or Danube, and we
see their strong limbs and shining armour, we could almost fancy to be
children of the air. Far beyond the firm horizon, that wonder-bearing
region swims on the infinite waters, unseen by bodily eye, or at most
discerned as a faint streak, hanging in the blue depths, uncertain
whether island or cloud. And thus the Nibelungen Song, though based on
the bottomless foundations of Spirit, and not unvisited of skyey
messengers, is a real, rounded, habitable earth, where we find firm
footing, and the wondrous and the common live amicably together.
Perhaps it would be difficult to find any poet, of ancient or modern
times, who in this trying problem has steered his way with greater
delicacy and success."
As a drama of action and of destiny, the poem rises to real greatness.
To quote Carlyle again:
"The _Nibelungen_ has been called the Northern Epos; yet it has, in
great part, a dramatic character: those thirty-nine _Aventiuren_
(Adventures) which it consists of, might be so many scenes in a
Tragedy. The catastrophe is dimly prophesied from the beginning; and,
at every fresh step, rises more and more clearly into view. A shadow
of coming Fate, as it were, a low inarticulate voice of Doom falls,
from the first, out of that charmed Nibelungen-land: the discord of
two women is as a little spark of evil passion, which ere long
enlarges itself into a crime: foul murder is done; and now the Sin
rolls on like a devouring fire, till the guilty and the innocent are
alike encircled with it, and a whole land is ashes and a whole race is
swept away."
It is in the delineation of character that the poet is most
embarrassed by the intractable nature of the old material which he
must needs work up with the new. He had the same difficulty as Homer
had in dealing with Achilles' revenge on the body of Hector, or with
Odysseus' revenge on the faithless servants; and, if he made the best
of a bad case, it must be admitted that in his best there is somewhat
jarring. The poem has been called the Northern Iliad, but the
all-round nobility of the heroes of Homer, and, indeed, of epics
generally (in intention at least), is strangely lacking in the chief
Nibelungs. Hagen is a treacherous murderer of his niece's husband,
whom he assassinates in expiation of an offence of which the {P. xv}
victim has proved himself innocent; and he is a thief who robs the
same helpless woman twice. Gunther is an accomplice and an ingrate.
The other champions are fully conscious of the iniquity of those whose
cause they support: their merit is that which in those times covered a
multitude of sins--unflinching bravery and fidelity to their cause and
to each other. Hagen shows a cynical disregard of righteousness and of
honesty: he faces the consequences of his sin without a tremor: his
callous contempt for the hearts he tramples on is matched by his
reckless defiance of the retribution which involves a nation with
himself. There is no word of repentance, no hint of remorse; and it is
characteristic that none of his companions reproach him amid their
ruin, and that even Rüdiger, the flower of chivalry, receives him as
his most honoured guest, confers on him the most distinguished tokens
of regard, and sympathizes with him to the end. The author shows less
consideration for Kriemhild than for him in the final catastrophe;
for, while the King and the stainless heroes lament his fall, no hand
is raised to stay the vengeance upon Kriemhild that swiftly follows,
no word of regret is uttered over her. This recalls to our mind
certain characteristics of that period: first, the supreme importance
of a great warrior and leader of men, whose life is held of more
account, not merely to his party, but to the world, than that of many
women. Secondly, we are reminded how thin was the veneer of courtesy
to women in the so-called age of chivalry. It is significant that in
the Volsunga-saga, which is instinct with the old unalloyed Teutonic
spirit, no man thinks of taking vengeance on a woman: they may poison,
betray, or assassinate, but they are always immune from the last
penalty. The third characteristic here exemplified is well set forth
by Dr. Arnold:
"Philip de Comines praises his master Louis XI as one of the best of
princes, though he witnessed not only the crimes of his life, but the
miserable fears and suspicions of his latter end, and has even
faithfully recorded them. In this respect Philip de Comines is in no
respect superior to Froissart, with whom the crimes committed by his
knights and great lords never interfere with his general eulogies of
them: the habit of deference and respect was too strong to be broken,
and the facts which he himself relates to their discredit, appear to
have produced on his mind no impression" (_Lectures on Modern
History_, II).
In the historical characters which he introduced, the poet probably
meant to {P. xvi} adhere to historic truth, as he apprehended it; but
we have to make large allowances for the utterly uncritical historic
lore of the time, and for the probability, we might say the certainty,
that some of the history was based on popular tradition, which is
fruitful in confusion of personalities and in anachronisms. These
characters are three:--
1. Attila, called Etzel in the _Lied_. The Atli of the Volsunga-saga
much more nearly resembles the Attila of the historians of Rome and
Constantinople than does Etzel. He here appears as a just and generous
king, whose court is a rendezvous of foreign knights from every land,
proud to enlist in his service. Not only is he no party to the
treacherous entrapping of the Nibelungs, but he is utterly ignorant of
it; and is only driven to countenance hostilities against them by
their slaughter of his child and the intolerable insults they hurl at
himself. The reason for this presentment of him may be, that Attila
really was just, generous, and merciful to his own subjects, and to
the large numbers of foreign mercenaries, many of them Germans, who
took service under him. Some of these, on their return home, would
always speak of him as a great king and a good master, whose court was
magnificent; and this character of him might well persist in tradition
through the generations, and be an essential part of the popular lays
which formed the groundwork of the finished epic.
2. Theodoric, called in the _Lied_ Dietrich of Bern, where Bern has
nothing to do with Switzerland, but is the German form of Verona. The
poet no doubt meant the great Theodoric the Ostrogoth, conqueror of
Italy. But he (born 455 A.D.) lived a generation after Attila (died
453). Theodoric, king of the Visigoths, was indeed a contemporary of
Attila, but he was an enemy, and died fighting against him in the
great battle of Châlons, in 451. In Carlyle's words, "some
commentators have fished out another Theodoric, eighty years prior to
him of Verona, and who actually served in Attila's hosts with a
retinue of Goths and Germans." If this last be really historical, or
was even traditional, he might have been the original Dietrich of the
old lays who in the _Lied_ serves in proud independence in Attila's
palace-guard. But popular tradition and the poets knew as their only
Dietrich the great Theodoric, and were serenely unconscious that for
him it was, on every ground, as possible to have served under Attila,
as for our Alfred the Great to have served under Charlemagne.
{P. xvii}
3. Bishop Pilgrim. His introduction is a gross anachronism indeed, for
he lived more than 500 years after Attila's time. He owes his
inclusion, or intrusion, to the fact that he had the Saga rendered
into Latin verse by his secretary, Konrad, as he heard it from the
lips of bards, some two hundred years before the poem took shape as a
German epic. No doubt this Latin poem was used by the composers of the
epic; and, if they were conscious at all of the anachronism, it would
have troubled them as little as Walter Scott was troubled by the
anachronisms, of which he cheerfully makes confession, in _Ivanhoe_.
We have spoken of a "poet"; but in truth there was a long succession
of them. While the names of the authors of several of those trivial
romances, the Court Epics, have been carefully handed down, there is
no record of the authorship of the great National Epic; and this is
the more remarkable, as, during the period of the Literary Revival,
successive remodellings of it by different hands were produced, each,
we may presume, regarded as an improvement on its predecessor; yet no
trustworthy clue survives to the name of the composer of any one of
them.
The following would appear to have been the different stages through
which the _Nibelungenlied_, as a distinct poem, passed:--
I. The original form, in alliterative verse. (Not extant.) If we could
recover this, we might find it, both in metrical form and in literary
style, more like our Anglo-Saxon poem of _Beowulf_ than the existing
versions of the _Lied_.
II. The first 12th century version, cir. 1140, by an Austrian court
poet (the _Kürnberg Knight_ for whom Bartsch argues), in four-line
stanzas, or "strophes," of iambic basis, with assonant endings. (Not
extant.)
III. The second 12th century version, cir. 1170, in which rhyme was
partially substituted for assonance. (Not extant.)
IV. The third 12th century versions, of two contemporaneous poets,
cir. 1190-1200, in which assonances are almost entirely superseded by
rhymes. Extant in several MSS. which fall under two heads:--
1. MS. A. The Munich manuscript, of which only one single copy exists;
this perhaps represents the poem just as this _rédacteur_ left it. It
is based on a good and ancient original, but is very carelessly
written, and omits (apparently through oversight) a number of
strophes. This, the shortest version, was adopted by Lachmann as the
basis of his edition.
{P. xviii}
2. MS. B. The St. Gall manuscript. This represents the text as
modified by later hands in the 13th and 14th centuries. Of this there
are numerous copies. It was adopted by Bartsch as the basis of his
edition.
V. MS. C. The fourth 12th century version, of about the same date as
the preceding. It presents the same metrical characteristics, but aims
1. In its matter, at reconciling contradictions and inconsistencies in
the original Saga;
2. At establishing a connexion between the _Lied_ and _Lament for the
Niblungs_ (a poetically inferior continuation), which it does by a
reference in the concluding strophe, and more especially by the
insertion of a series of strophes at various points in the text, the
tendency of which is to excite and maintain sympathy with Kriemhild,
and to present her in the light of a righteous avenger. The author
also, in the last line of the poem, changes the title from the
original _Nibelungen-nôt_ to _Nibelungen-lied_. Extant in the
Donaueschingen manuscript, the additional strophes of which are
included in Simrock's modern German version.
The poem, after the Revival of Learning, suffered the same eclipse
through the fascination and superior literary finish of classical
literature, as did the _Chanson de Roland_ in France. Its rescue from
oblivion dates from the year 1757, when the first imperfect edition of
it was published from an old manuscript by Prof. Bodmer. The labours
of later scholars and critics produced more and more perfect editions;
and the interest of the German public in it was gradually awakened,
till it grew to an enthusiasm for what was at last recognised as a
great national epic. It was not only a subject for patriotic pride,
but, from its memories of old-time greatness, from its heroic spirit,
and, from that soul of loyalty to fatherland and king which pervades
it, and which is a fundamental trait of the German character, it
became an inspiration to great effort and noble sacrifice, coming just
at the time when these were pre-eminently called for. It was when the
old spirit of freedom awoke with tenfold strength, and all Germany
rose as one man against the Titanic tyranny of Napoleon, that this
book became for Germans what the Iliad was for Greeks. It helped to
fan patriotism into a flame of heroism; it was a voice crying from the
past, a great battle-call that blended with the voices of such
soldier-singers as Körner. In the year of Waterloo a cheap edition for
the use of soldiers {P. xix} was issued--which reminds us of the
claim Aeschylus (in Aristophanes' _Frogs_) puts forth for his two
dramas of war, that they made every spectator long to be a warrior,
and nerved him to resolve to conquer or die. And the national instinct
which then recognised and claimed for its own that spirit of loyalty
to king and country, through evil report and good report, which takes
for its watchword, "My country!--may she always be in the right; but
my country, right or wrong!" is fundamentally sound. It recognises
that he who sets up his private conscience against that of his country
in the hour of her need, must himself beware lest he make himself a
traitor in sinning against those to whom he owes the greatest earthly
debt a man can owe. It recognises that a man may be committing a far
deeper wrong by refusing to help his country in a cause in which he
thinks he detects some flaw, still more by striving with word or pen
to paralyse the efforts of those who are fighting for her, than if he
fought in a cause of which his conscience disapproves. Hence United
Germany has been no congenial foster-mother for "the friends of every
country save their own"; and her scholars are not wrong in claiming
for their great epic its share in thus moulding the patriotic
conscience.
This translation is based on the text of Bartsch (edit. 1886), but the
strophes of MS. C have been incorporated with it, so that it thus
corresponds with the widely read modern German version of Simrock. For
the English reader it may be explained that a marginal C denotes that
the four lines which follow are taken from that source, and he will
note that their ethical tendency is designed to be cumulative, to
excite and maintain sympathy for the murdered hero and his widow, and
to supply what justification can be found for her revenge. They appeal
to the modern reader's sense of justice, and are in themselves
poetically not unworthy of being included, as they often elaborate a
picturesque or stirring scene, and add touches of beauty, tenderness,
or pathos which we could not wish away.
The metre adopted is that on which William Morris fixed, with true
poetic instinct, for his _Story of Sigurd_, the great sister-poem to
the _Nibelungenlied_, from which, indeed, he really seems to have
taken it, as it preserves the "ringing caesura" of that original, and,
accentually, the same measure. It is not in essentials different from
that of the Middle High German text, for the basis of that is
accentual and not numerical, though other translators have thought
that it was {P. xx} best reproduced by rigidly adhering to an iambic
structure. This, in a long poem, is apt to have a somewhat heavy,
monotonous effect, whereas the anapaestic-iambic measure not only
secures something of the lightness of the movement of the original,
but has for English readers a variety, freedom and swiftness, a
"lilt," which has made it of late years widely popular.
The old division into "strophes" has been discarded. It has always
seemed to me a literary offence so to print an epic as to convey the
suggestion that it is but a long ballad. I cannot help thinking that
this device was one adopted for convenience' sake by the mediaeval
reciters or chanters of the _Lied_, as was the gap in the line after
the caesura, to mark artificially the cadence of the line. These,
however, have a somewhat pedantic, formal, and so irritating effect on
the modern reader who wants to enter into the spirit of an epic. The
literary argument against the division into strophes is well stated by
Bartsch: "I do not think that, fine as the Nibelungen strophe is in
itself, and admirably as it lends itself to lyric treatment, its
employment for the epic was a happy inspiration. A division into
regular strophes is altogether antagonistic to the Epic: the even flow
of the epic narrative does indeed require pauses, not, however, at
prescribed, but at free intervals. And this principle we see
invariably adhered to wherever a true epic has developed itself, in
India, in Greece, in France."
In dropping the strophic arrangement, I have of course dropped the
extra two syllables which lengthened the fourth line of each strophe.
I incline to think that their presence is another indication that the
_Lied_ was originally intended, not for reading, but for chanting or
recitative, like the older lays on which it was founded. It is a
common device of singers thus to lengthen the last line of a verse; it
helps to the satisfaction of the ear: but the effect is quite
different in reading. As a reviewer in the _Athenæum_ says: "No doubt
it is theoretically proper to follow the original form with absolute
fidelity, but unfortunately the line in English, or even, for that
matter, in Modern German, is very different from the line in Middle
High German. It drags grievously, and though it breaks the monotony to
a certain extent, and occasionally produces a fine effect, yet more
often it is merely irritating." The adoption of the principle laid
down by the only English translator who has preserved this
peculiarity, that "the very essence of a poem is its exact metrical
quality," would at once condemn all translations of {P. xxi} Homer and
Virgil into blank or heroic verse, or indeed, into anything but
English hexameters, and all translations of the classical drama into
anything but trimeter iambics and unrhymed choruses in the impossible
metres of the originals--a theory which surely needs only to be stated
to expose its untenability. The essence of a poem lies in its spirit
more than its formal structure; and whatever jars on the reader, and
puts a drag on the swift and easy movement of the verse, so far
interferes with his entering into the spirit of that poem.
A. S. W.
_October_, 1911.
THE LAY OF THE NIBELUNG MEN
I.
Of Kriemhild, and of her Dream
{P. 1}
Many a marvellous story have the ancient singers told
Of heroes and their glory and their travail manifold,
Of great feasts splendour-flashing that with weeping and wailing
ended,
Of the thunder of war-waves clashing--in the Lay shall ye hear all
blended.
In the Land Burgundian nurtured was a maiden princely of birth;
Though ye searched, ye should find none fairer to the uttermost ends
of the earth;
And her name far-sung was Kriemhild, she was sweeter than speech may
tell.
Ah, many a valiant champion in battle for her sake fell!
There was no man whose pride had warded his breast against love's dart
Shot from the eyes victorious, from the snare of many a heart:
She was lovely beyond all measure that speech or thought may find,
Yea, queenly withal and gracious, a glory of womankind.
Three high-born Kings and wealthy guarded and held her dear;
Gunther and Gernot, heroes in prowess without a peer,
And Giselher the youngest, unmatched in foughten field:
Their sister was she and their glory, and her sword were they and her
shield.
Lords were they of noble lineage, and of courtesy the crown,
And their aweless might was matchless, and limitless their renown;
And over the Land Burgundian they stretched the sceptred hand,
Ere the strange, grim end of their story was told in Etzel's land.
{P. 2}
In the City of Worms by the Rhine-flood these Kings in their might
abode,
And the best in the whole land served them, the proudest knights that
rode,
With glory of homage served them through their life's triumphant
tide--
Till the day when in woeful battle through the Feud of the Queens
they died.
And the mother that bare them was Uta, and the treasures of queens
were hers,
And their father the old king Dankart, and he made them heritors
Of his realm in the hour of his dying, a champion mighty of old,
Who in days of his youth reaped harvest of glory manifold.
As the tale of their goodlihead telleth, such kings were they, these
three,
Strong, fearless lords; and the vassals that bent before them the knee
Were the best of all of whose doings their songs have the minstrels
made,
Stalwart and aweless of spirit, in battle unafraid.
For these were Hagen of Troneg, and Dankwart his brother withal
The battle-eager, and Ortwein the warder of Metz's wall;
And with these stood Gere and Eckwart, lords of the marches twain,
And Volker the Knight Alsatian, the name without a stain;
And Rumold the feast-arrayer, a worship-worthy lord;
Sindold and Hunold, which ever kept heedful watch and ward
For the state of the palace royal, that all should be ordered well;
And with these were there knightly vassals whose tale no bard may
tell.
Dankwart was their palace-marshal, and beside the feastful board
Waited his nephew Ortwein, of Metz was he overlord;
And Sindold bare them the wine-cup, a goodly baron he;
And Hunold was chamberlain, perfect in utterest courtesy.
But of all their palace-splendour, and their might renowned afar,
And the majesty of their worship, and their knightly deeds of war,
And the joy that the kingly heroes therein had all their days--
No minstrel hath wholly told it, no harp sung all their praise.
Now it fell, in the midst of their glory, that a dream unto Kriemhild
appeared:
A strong, fair, tameless falcon in a bower of dreams she reared.
But before her eyes two eagles swooped upon him and slew--
Never a bitterer sorrow the heart of the maiden knew!
{P. 3}
So she told to her mother the vision; but from Lady Uta's eyes
Was it hid, that she could not interpret the dream save in halting
wise:
"The falcon reared in thy dream-bower, a princely husband is this--
Now God from evil defend him, else swift dark doom shall be his!"
"What is this that thou talkest of husbands, heart's dearest, mother,
to me?
In the net of love untangled will I for ever be.
Unto my death in the beauty of maidenhood I will abide,
That I taste not the manifold sorrows that from love of man betide."
But she answered: "Not wholly renounce it, for thy vow hath been
spoken amiss:
For if ever on earth thou knowest a heart full-brimmed with bliss,
Of the love of a man shall this come; and a fair and happy bride
Shalt thou be, if a noble baron by God's grace stand by thy side."
"Let be, let be vain talking, heart's dearest, mother mine.
In many a wife's repentance have I read the warning sign,
How love hath sorrow for guerdon when the end of its journey is
won:--
I will none of love nor of sorrow, I abide in my bliss alone."
So Kriemhild in pride of her spirit was a rebel to Lord Love's sway;
And her heart-peace flowed as a river through many a sunlit day;
And she looked upon earls and champions, but none might the heart of
her move:
Yet her hour drew near, and the breaking of the glory-dawn of love.
For in flight even now was the Falcon, the fulfilment drew nigh and
nigher
Of the dream half read of her mother--but woe for the vengeance-hire
That she paid to the eagles that slew him, her own blood-brethren
they!
Woe for the sons of women untold whom his death should slay!
II.
Of the Fostering and the Knighting of Siegfried
Now grew unto man in the Low Land the child of a line world-famed.
For Siegmund the King begat him, his mother was Siegelind named,
In a tower-engirdled stronghold renowned through the earth afar,
Where the Rhine and the sea meet: Xanten men named that burg of war.
{P. 4}
Now telleth the tale of a hero, how fair and stately he grew,
How the shield of his heart was honour, nor taint of shame he knew,
How shone the star of his glory, how strong was that fearless lord:--
Ho for the harvest of honour that earth's field gave to his sword!
And his far-sung name was Siegfried, the name of a noble Knight;
And he proved in his strength great-hearted full many a champion's
might,
And through many a strange land cleft he a path by his own right
hand:--
Ho for the fiery warriors he found in Burgundia-land!
(C) Or ever this valiant champion to man was fully grown,
By deeds of such marvellous prowess had the might of his hands been
shown
That the minstrel's voice and the harpstrings rang ever with his
praise:
Not a tithe thereof is remembered in these the latter days.
But the noontide of his glory, but the spring of his goodlihead--
How marvelled the world at his story, what things were of Siegfried
said,
How bloomed as a bower his honour, how goodly he was to behold,
How dreamed of his love fair women, how their eyes the heart's dream
told!
As beseems that a hero be fostered was he nurtured with diligent
heed;
But his own heart still was a wellspring of faith and of knightly
deed,
That by him was the land of his father as with gold of a diadem
crowned,
For in all the deeds of kingfolk all-kingly was he found.
And by this so great was he waxen that to halls of kings must he
fare:
Glad-faced did the earls look on him, and dame and damsel there
Sore longed to behold him wending thitherward evermore,
And their eyes unto his shone welcome, and he knew the love they
bore.
Ever that child of princes rode girt by a henchman-ring,
And in lovely-woven raiment of his mother's fashioning;
And the wise and the lessoned in honour must teach him their lore, as
one
For whom there waited a kingdom and a nation's heart to be won.
So waxed he to strength of manhood, till sword and shield he swayed,
And in goodliest harness of battle were his mighty limbs arrayed.
Then his thoughts after fair dream-faces of maids flew questing
wide--
And O for the bliss and the honour of her that should be his bride!
{P. 5}
Then sent King Siegmund the bidding-word to his vassals all,
And to all friends loyal-hearted, for a high-tide festival;
And the tale thereof into kingdoms of other lords they bare
With gifts for the friend and the stranger, even steeds and raiment
fair.
Wheresoever a strong young warrior high-born longed sore for the day
That should bring to him knighthood's golden spurs, all such bade
they
To come to the land of Siegmund, to Siegfried's festal tide,
To be girt with the sword of knighthood, standing by Siegfried's
side.
Long shall men sing of the wonder of that crown of festal days,
How Siegmund and Siegelind won them the treasure-giver's praise
For the gifts of cost uncounted that they gave with stintless hand,
How the rumour thereof drew strangers from afar into Siegmund's land.
Came thither squires four hundred in knighthood's vesture to be
Arrayed with the young prince Siegfried; and maidens comely to see
Sat fashioning goodly raiment, and their love with the threads was
enwound,
As they laid the priceless gemstones thereon with the gold set round,
As their broidery-work on the robe-hems gleamed fair in coil on coil
For the strong young knights high-hearted--they were worthy the
love-sped toil.
And the King bade dight the high-seats for the guests, for the
thanes of pride,
At the feast of the knighting of Siegfried in the heart of the
summer-tide.
Then fared they on to the minster, young squires of high degree
And noble knights full many; and in proud humility
Did the elder serve the younger, by the law that from old time came.
On their lips was mirth and laughter, in their eyes the hope of fame.
When they chanted the Mass to the honour of God in the highest
height,
The mighty throngs surged inward to gaze on that gallant sight,
When after the ancient custom those squires with spur and brand
Were arrayed, and with honour never since seen in any land.
Then hasted they where harnessed were the steeds abiding their lords:
Then rose in the lists of Siegmund the clash of spears and swords:
Then the halls of the palace re-echoed, as in joyous combat they
crashed,
When the mighty-hearted champions forth to the onset flashed.
{P. 6}
From old knight and young warrior the clash and the clang rose high:
The splintered spear-shafts flying leapt up to the laughing sky,
The shards of the lances upsoaring to the roof of the palace-hall.
And the earls and the high-born ladies sat throned beholding all.
Then the King bade stay the combat, and they led the war-steeds
thence,
From the field wide-strewn with the strong shields, the brave heart's
rifted fence,
Strewn with the costly gemstones wherewith was the grass bestarred
From the glittering shield-bands fallen in the grapple bitter-hard.
Then sat those guests in the feast-hall in their own ordained
high-seats;
And the war-toil's ache was banished like a dream by the goodly meats
And the wines of noble vintage that flowed as a fountain free.
There homeland guest and stranger had honour plenteously.
In gentle sports and joyous had they worn the long day out;
And now the song of the minstrels through the feast-hall went about;
And their singing had goodly guerdon of the ever-bounteous hand,
And their praise was a crown of glory upon all King Siegmund's land.
Then the King bade Siegfried deliver in fee to his vassals true
Broad lands and stately castles, as himself had been wont to do.
And he gave with hand ungrudging to his fellows of the sword,
That their hearts were glad for his presence, for their coming
thitherward.