“Shall we rear bastards?” cried Hagen. “That were small honour to good knights. I will avenge on him the boast that he hath made, or I will die.”
But the king himself said, “Good, and not evil, hath he done to us. Let him live. Wherefore should I hate the knight? He hath ever been true to me.”
But Ortwin of Metz said, “His great strength shall not avail him. Allow, O Lord, that I challenge him to his death.” So, without cause, they banded against him. Yet none had urged it further, had not Hagen tempted Gunther every day, saying, that if Siegfried lived not, many kings’ lands were subject to him.
Whereat the warrior began to grieve.
Meanwhile they let the matter lie, and returned to the tourney. Ha! what stark spears they brake before Kriemhild, atween the minster and the palace; but Gunther’s men were wroth.
Then said the king, “Give over this deadly hate. For our weal and honour he was born. Thereto the man is so wonderly stark and grim, that, if he were ware of this, none durst stand against him.”
“Not so,” said Hagen. “Assure thee on that score. For I will contrive secretly that he pay for Brunhild’s weeping. Hagen is his foe evermore.”
But Gunther said, “How meanest thou?”
And Hagen answered, “On this wise. Men that none here knoweth shall ride as envoys into this land and declare war. Whereupon thou wilt say before thy guests that thou must to battle with thy liegemen. When thou hast done this, he will promise to help thee. Then he shall die, after I have learnt a certain thing from his wife.”
Evilly the king followed Hagen, and they plotted black treason against the chosen knight, without any suspecting it. So, through the quarrel of two women, died many warriors.