And for this is there no atonement, so long as I yet have life;
And for this must ye all pay forfeit!” So spake King Etzel’s wife.
“Yet—yet if Hagen only for hostage to me ye give,
Not utterly will I deny you, I will haply let you live,
Forasmuch as ye be my brethren; sons of my mother ye are:
So will I commune of pardon with these my men of war.”
“Now God in Heaven forbid it!” Gernot indignantly cried.
“Though yet we numbered a thousand, we would all die side by side—
We who are yet thy kinsmen!—ere one man of us all
Shall be rendered up for a hostage: that shame shall never befall.”