"Ah!" cried the prince impassion'd, "harrow and welaway!
That the hand of a woman the noblest knight should slay,
That e'er struck stroke in battle, or ever buckler bore!
Albeit I was his foeman, needs must I sorrow sore."
Then said the aged Hildebrand, "let not her boast of gain,
In that by her contrivance this noble chief was slain.
Though to sore strait he brought me, let ruin on me light,
But I will take full vengeance for Trony's murdered knight."
Hildebrand the aged fierce on Kriemhild sprung:
To the death he smote her as his sword he swung.
Sudden and remorseless he his wrath did wreak.
What could then avail her her fearful thrilling shriek?
There now the dreary corpses stretch'd all around were seen;
There lay, hewn in pieces, the fair and noble queen.
Sir Dietrich and king Etzel, their tears began to start;
For kinsmen and for vassals each sorrow'd in his heart.
The mighty and the noble there lay together dead;
For this had all the people dole and drearihead.
The feast of royal Etzel was thus shut up in woe.
Pain in the steps of Pleasure treads ever here below.
'Tis more than I can tell you what afterwards befell,
Save that there was weeping for friends belov'd so well;
Knights and squires, dames and damsels, were seen lamenting all,
So here I end my story. This is THE NIBELUNGERS' FALL.
—Tr. by Littsom.
ROMANCES.
As elsewhere in Europe, the twelfth and thirteenth centuries in Germany produced numberless romances. These may be classed under (1) Romances of Arthur, (2) Romances of the Holy Graal, (3) Romances of Antiquity, and (4) Romances of Love and Chivalry. The chief poets of romances were Hartmann von Aue, Gottfried von Strassburg, and Wolfram von Eschenbach. A good example of the romance of love is "Der Arme Heinrich of Hartmann von Aue". "Poor Henry", to quote Scherer, "is a kind of Job, a man of noble birth; rich, handsome, and beloved, who is suddenly visited by God with the terrible affliction of leprosy, and who can be cured only by the lifeblood of a young maiden who is willing to die for him. The daughter of a peasant, to whose house he has retired in his despair, resolves to sacrifice her life for him. Heinrich accepts her offer, and the knife to kill her is already whetted, when a better feeling arises in his breast, and he refuses to take upon himself the guilt of her death, resolving to resign himself to the will of God. This resignation saves him; he recovers and marries the maiden." Our extracts are from the first and last of the poem.
HENRY THE LEPER.
Ll. 1-131.—