Cried the Hero of Bern: “Forbid it, God, that this should be!
This were a ghastly vengeance, ’twere the Fiend’s arch-mockery!
Rüdiger?—how should he ever such evil requital have earned?
True friend to the homeless strangers was he, long since I learned.”
Cried Wolfhart the lion-hearted: “If the righteous blood they have shed,
All these shall dearly abye it! Their lives be forfeited!
If we should endure such outrage, our shame and reproach it were!
How oft hath it rendered us service, the hand of Rüdiger!”
The Prince of the Amal people bade them inquire yet more.
He sat him down at a casement: heavy his heart was and sore.