Yet again that death-stricken hero spake with an anguished moan: "If it be possible, Gunther, that to any on earth can be shown By thee true faith hereafter, let one be commended now, My dear-loved wife, to thine honour as a king: protect her thou. May this for her profit avail her, that she is thy sister still. By all the honour of princes, defend her thou from ill! For me, for me shall my father and my liegemen tarry long. Ne'er from her nearest and dearest hath woman received such wrong!"
(C) Then writhed he in mortal sufferance: he gasped with hard-drawn breath; And he groaned from a heart sore anguished: "For this my murderous death Through all your days hereafter shall ye bear the brand of Cain. Know me herein true prophet--your own selves have ye slain!" To right and to left were the flowers all drenched with the crimson flow. Now hard with death is he wrestling, but short is the agony-throe, For the wound that the blade death-dealing had stricken was all too sore. Now the peerless knight and stainless shall never speak word more.
When they saw, those lords there standing, that the noble hero was dead, They lifted him up, and they laid him on a golden buckler red. { P. 136} Then took they counsel together that the truth might be known unto none, And how this thing should be hidden, that of Hagen the deed had been done. Spake of them many: "Evil this day is, a day of bale! Remaineth only concealment: ye needs must be all in a tale. We must say, as alone he was riding, robbers beset and slew The hero, the lord of Kriemhild, as he fared the wildwood through." Spake Hagen of Troneg: "To Rhineland will I bear him, even I. No whit shall it trouble Hagen, though she know all certainly, That woman who dared flout Brunhild, and fill her heart with woe! Let her weep, let her do as she listeth--I shall reck of it little enow."
(C) Now as touching that selfsame fountain--if ye peradventure be fain To learn where welleth the water whereby was Siegfried slain-- On the Odenwald's fringe a village, hight Odenheim, doth lie: Still floweth the stream--of a surety Siegfried died thereby.
XVII. How Siegfried was Mourned and Buried
Till the even they waited; in darkness they crossed the Rhineflood then. Never from eviller hunting came heroes home again! That quarry was cause of lamenting unto many a noble wife: For his sake must many a warrior forfeit a gallant life.