What profit is this unto Etzel, that here the homeless die?
Myself am in grievous trouble,” furthermore Hagen spake:
“The shield that the Lady Gotlind gave me to bear for her sake,
Even this in the strife with the Hunfolk was in fragments hewn from mine hand;
A memorial of thy kindness I brought it to Etzel’s land.
Now would that God in Heaven would grant to me this one prayer,
That such a trusty buckler even I might also bear
As that which is on thy shoulder, O Rüdiger, noble knight!
Then, though I had not a hauberk, I were fenced in the storm of the fight.”
“How gladly to thee would I render my shield for thy battle-screen,