Then on the viol-minstrel, his dead friend, Hagen thought,
Whose death by the grey-haired hero Hildebrand had been wrought;
And he cried to the old man dauntless: “Thou for my grief shalt pay!
Of valiant knights too many hast thou robbed us in this fray!”
Then upon Hildebrand rushed he, and smote, and the hall rang wide
With the clang of the great sword Balmung, the blade that from Siegfried’s side
Hagen the grim had taken, when he murdered the Hero of old.
But the grey-haired warded him deftly, the old knight fearless-bold.
With a battle-glaive broad-bladed Dietrich’s liegeman lashed
At Hagen the Lord of Troneg, and the edge through the mail-rings crashed;