IX
Thereto the queen made answer, "Tell me now, I pray,
When you will send to ask them, and about what day
We may expect the travellers to both of us so dear;
And who will bear your message, I willingly would hear."
X
"So will I do," replied he; "thirty of my men
Shall be commission'd thither." Forthwith he summon'd them
Those by whom his message to Siegfried's land he sent,
Brunhild sumptuous vesture gave them to their full content.
XI
Then spake the king, "Ye warriors, from me this message bear
(That you keep back nothing I bid you well beware),
Which I to valiant Siegfried and to my sister send,
That in this world can no man to both be more a friend;
XII
"And beg them hasten hither us on the Rhine to see;
It shall be well requited both by my wife and me.
By the next midsummer he and his men shall find
From every one among us high honor, welcome kind.
XIII
"Unto the good King Siegmund my service, too, commend;
Say, I and mine shall ever hold him as our friend.
Bid too my sister hasten to meet her kinsmen dear.
Ne'er graced she royal festal like that which waits her here."