He carried on his foot
Silken straps,
And his plumage was
All red of gold....
May God send them together,
Who would fain be loved.”
The key-note of the whole poem of the “Nibelunge,” such as it was written down at the end of the twelfth, or the beginning of the thirteenth century, is “Sorrow after Joy.” This is the fatal spell against which all the heroes are fighting, and fighting in vain. And as Hagen dashes the Chaplain into the waves, in order to belie the prophecy of the Mermaids, but the Chaplain rises, and Hagen rushes headlong into destruction, so Chriemhilt is bargaining and playing with [pg 056] the same inevitable fate, cautiously guarding her young heart against the happiness of love, that she may escape the sorrows of a broken heart. She, too, has been dreaming “of a wild young falcon that she trained for many a day, till two fierce eagles tore it.” And she rushes to her mother Ute, that she may read the dream for her; and her mother tells her what it means. And then the coy maiden answers:—
“No more, no more, dear mother, say,
From many a woman's fortune this truth is clear as day,
That falsely smiling Pleasure with Pain requites us ever.