"My masters well belovéd, / knights and kinsmen true,
'Tis meet that ye betake you / unto the minster too,
That God do not forsake you / in peril and in need,
For certain now I make you / that death is nigh to us indeed.
"Forget ye not whatever / wrong ye e'er have done,
But there 'fore God right meekly / all your errors own;
Thereto would I advise you, / ye knights of high degree,
For God alone in heaven / may will that other mass ye see."
Thus went they to the minster, / the princes and their men.
Within the holy churchyard / bade them Hagen then
Stand all still together / that they part not at all.
Quoth he: "Knows not any / what may at hands of Huns befall.
"Let stand, good friends, all ready, / your shields before your feet,
That if ever any / would you in malice greet,
With deep-cut wound ye pay him; / that is Hagen's rede,
That from men may never / aught but praises be your meed."
Volker and Hagen, / the twain thence did pass
Before the broad minster. / Therein their purpose was
That the royal Kriemhild / must meet them where they stood
There athwart her pathway. / In sooth full grim she was of mood.