Lüdegast
And Lüdeger, who were my prisoners,
Set free without a ransom?
GUNTHER.
Yesterday
Renounced they every oath.
SIEGFRIED.
Their messengers—
You surely must have hewn them limb from limb?
Has every vulture had his share of them?
HAGEN.
So speakest thou?
SIEGFRIED.
Such vipers' messengers
One tramples like a viper. Fiends of hell!
Now feel I my first anger! I believed
That often I knew hatred, but I erred;
'Twas but less love I felt. For I can hate
Nothing but broken vows and treachery,
Hypocrisy and all the coward's sins
That seek their victim as the spider crawls
Upon its hollow legs. How can it be
That such brave men (for surely they were brave),
Could so besmirch themselves? Oh, my dear friends,
Stand not so coldly by and gaze on me
As though you thought me mad, as though I knew
No longer great from small! We've never known
What outrage is till now. Our reckoning
May we strike calmly out to the last score.
Only these two are guilty.