In many a thing is he worthy of honour’s chiefest meed.
Doth thine heart not tell thee, Brunhild, he is Gunther’s peer indeed?”
“Now this my word, O Kriemhild, take not as said in despite,
In that I say that my boasting is made of fullest right.
This said they both—I heard it, when first these twain I beheld
In the day when in my contests my will by the King’s was quelled,
When he won my love, in fashion so knightly triumphing,
Siegfried himself said, ‘Vassal am I unto Gunther the King.’
Therefore I hold him his liegeman: of himself I heard it confessed.”
Made answer Kriemhild the lovely: “For me ’twere a bitter jest!