(C) Now as touching that selfsame fountain--if ye peradventure be fain To learn where welleth the water whereby was Siegfried slain-- On the Odenwald's fringe a village, hight Odenheim, doth lie: Still floweth the stream--of a surety Siegfried died thereby. XVII. How Siegfried was Mourned and Buried Till the even they waited; in darkness they crossed the Rhineflood then. Never from eviller hunting came heroes home again! That quarry was cause of lamenting unto many a noble wife: For his sake must many a warrior forfeit a gallant life. Of exceeding arrogant outrage now must the minstrel sing, Yea, of revenge inhuman; for Hagen made them bring The Netherland hero Siegfried, even his murdered kin, Before a certain chamber--and Kriemhild lay therein! Secretly there he laid him, before that door to lie, That his wife might find his body when her feet came forth thereby Unto mass in the grey dawn faring ere rising of the sun; For thereof the Lady Kriemhild missed full seldom one. {P. 137} Then heard they the bells as aforetime peal from the minster-tower; And Kriemhild the lovely wakened the maidens of her bower; And she bade bring lights, and the raiment withal that she should wear; And a chamberlain bringing them stumbled on Siegfried lying there. He beheld one blood-empurpled, with all his vesture wet; But that this was his own lord Siegfried in no wise knew he yet. So bare he into the chamber the torch in his hand that burned; And from him the Lady Kriemhild a tale of horror learned. For, even as she with her maidens would forth to the holy place, "O Lady," the chamberlain stammered, "tarry a little space! Behold, without the chamber a murdered knight doth lie!" Rang out from the lips of Kriemhild an exceeding bitter cry. Ere she had looked, ere the fearful truth was certainly known, Back to that question of Hagen her thought had swiftly flown, How he should shield him. Anguish she never had known till that day; But now with his death all gladness from her life had fled away. To the floor then sank she swooning; no word her lips could say. There in the heavy silence the lovely and joyless lay. Full was her cup of sorrow, sharp was her anguish-pang. She came to herself with a wild shriek, that all the chamber rang. Then faltered her bower-maidens, "A stranger it haply may be." But the blood from her mouth came bursting in her heart's fierce agony-- "O nay, it is Siegfried, Siegfried, my lord, my belovèd one! Brunhild hath plotted the murder, and Hagen the deed hath done!" Then forth did her handmaids lead her, where lay the hero dead; And the wife's white hands uplifted the husband's comely head. Albeit with blood all crimsoned, he was known of love's keen sight. There lay the Niblung hero in lamentable plight.