Loving hands from the bier uplifted the corpse that lay thereon.
But the Queen said: “Nay, I beseech you, lay him not yet in the grave;
Ere then heavy tribute of mourning from all that love him I crave.”
In a pall most costly-woven that lifeless form they wound.
Of a surety none that wept not was in all that concourse found.
From her heart poured Uta the noble lamentation and mourning and woe;
Wailing were all her handmaids for the princely head brought low.
When the folk heard how in the minster they sang the requiem,
And that Siegfried lay in his coffin, there came vast throngs of them
With their offerings—ah, how freely!—to buy his soul’s repose.