From the fury of eager onset, from the erstwhile tiger-leap.
—Ware of all this was Gunther, though he hearkened in silence deep.
He crushed her against the bed-beam, that for pain aloud she cried;
For the strength of Siegfried the mighty tortured at last the bride.
In a desperate hope, at the girdle that around her sides she wore
She snatched, if she haply might bind him; but this from her grasp he tore.
Her joints are strained unto breaking, on the rack is her fainting frame—
Lo, now is the strife’s decision: wife to the King is the dame.
She moaned, “O king and hero, take not my life from me!
Atoned for in wifely duty shall be all scathe done unto thee!