Yea, small and great together, if he fell, in death would lie.”
Then added and spake Lord Dietrich with knightly courtesy:
“O mighty Queen, I pray thee, put all such pleading by.
Never to me have thy kinsmen done any deed of wrong
That I should defy to battle such valiant thanes and strong.
For thy prayer, O noble Lady, small honour to thee is therein
That so thou devisest mischief against the lives of thy kin.
They came under pledge of friendship hither to Etzel’s land.
It must needs be that Siegfried remaineth unavenged by Dietrich’s hand.”
So when in the Bernese champions no treachery might be found,