This Gudrun would not brook.
“Approach me not!” she proudly said,
“Thou cause of all my woe!
For me to suffer thy embrace
Were worse than crime, I trow!”
Gerlinda seemed not to hear these words, but her heart swelled within her with rage. Tents were now pitched on the green sunny meadow, and Hartmut spared no pains to please and cheer Gudrun with music and tilting, but her tears flowed unceasingly, nor could all his efforts avail to comfort her. She sat with her head on Ortrun’s shoulder, and Ortrun wept with her.
Moved by her sorrow, Hartmut put an end to the games and gave the signal for departure. At the castle Gudrun found sumptuous apartments prepared for her and her maidens, but she felt as if she were entering a tomb; in truth, it would have been a welcome thought to her could she have felt that never again should she awake.
Chapter IX
Gudrun’s Test
Many months passed during which Hartmut omitted no proof of devotion to his fair captive, but never did the King’s daughter cease to think of him whose ring of gold she wore upon her finger.
One day Gerlinda said to Gudrun in the presence of her son: “When wilt thou relent, perverse one? Delay no longer, but give thy hand to Hartmut, for, of a truth, he is the peer of any king alive!”