The King came girt with his barons: he saw the grief-bowed head
And the tears of his dear wife Brunhild, and lovingly he said:
“Of whom, my wife, my belovèd, hath a hurt been done unto thee?”
And she spake to the King, and she answered: “Joyless for aye must I be!
Of all my wifely honour this thy sister is fain
To strip me by shameful accusing: unto thee I must needs complain.
She saith that with Siegfried her husband I have wantoned in shame and sin.”
Answered and spake King Gunther: “She hath wickedly done herein!”
“She weareth here my girdle, which long time since I lost,
And withal my ring of the red gold—O me, to my bitter cost