LXXXV
The youths they ran their swiftest, and nois'd abroad the whole.
Then laugh'd who late lamented; delight succeeded dole.
All bosoms straight were beating to learn the news they bore,
And every noble lady would ask them o'er and o'er,
LXXXVI
How the knights of Gunther in Saxony had sped.
Then too the lovelorn Kriemhild had one in secret led
(For publicly she durst not) to a distant bower apart,
For she would learn how far'd it with the chosen of her heart.
LXXXVII
Soon as to the chamber the melancholy maid
Saw the youth approaching, sweetly thus she said,
"Now tell me happy tidings, and I'll give thee gold in store,
And if 'tis truth thou tell'st me, I'll befriend thee evermore.
LXXXVIII
"Tell me how in battle my brother Gernot sped,
And all our friends around him; is any of them dead?
Who prov'd the best and bravest? this thou must tell me true."
"No coward," the youth made answer, "had we in all the crew;
LXXXIX
"But sure to fight or foray (the simple truth to tell)
Fair and noble princess! rode never knight so well
As the noble stranger from distant Netherland.
Wonders that mock believing were wrought by Siegfried's hand.