[Very softly, but audibly.
And yet loves beyond all the rest.
MIME [With more cheerfulness.
Though unlearnèd
In heroes' kinship,
This question I answer with ease.
The Wälsungs are Wotan's
Chosen stock,
By him begotten
And loved with passion,
Though they are shown no grace.
Siegmund and Sieglinde
Born were to Wälse,
A wild and desperate
Twin-born pair;
Siegfried had they as son,
The strongest shoot from the tree.
My head, say, is it
Still, Wanderer, mine?
WANDERER [Pleasantly.
How well thou knowest
And namest the race!
Rogue, I see thou art clever.
The foremost question
Thou hast solved;
The second answer me, dwarf.
A crafty Niblung
Shelters Siegfried,
Hoping he will slay Fafner,
That the dwarf may be lord of the hoard,
The ring being his.
Say, what sword,
If Fafner to fall is,
Must be by Siegfried swung?
MIME
[Forgetting his present situation more and more, rubs his hands joyfully.
Nothung is
The name of the sword;
Into an ash-tree's stem
Wotan struck it;
One only might bear it:
He who could draw it forth.
The strongest heroes
Tried it and failed;
Only by Siegmund
Was it done;
Well he fought with the sword
Till on Wotan's spear it was split.
By a crafty smith
Are the fragments kept,
For he knows that alone
With the Wotan sword
A brave and foolish boy,
Siegfried, can slay the foe.