How by a vengeful woman could fearfuller deed be wrought?
Forth four men went from the feast-hall of Etzel’s following,
And returned with the young prince Ortlieb, the little child of the King;
And they set him before the princes—and Hagen sat thereby,
He through whose murderous hatred that child was doomed to die.
So then when the great King Etzel beheld his son brought in,
In faith and in lovingkindness he spake unto Kriemhild’s kin:
“Behold, my friends and my kinsmen, mine only son is this,
And the child of Kriemhild your sister: your friend that shall be he is.
If he favour his Rhineland kinsmen, a stalwart man shall he be,