And the King said: "Sister belovèd, alas for thy sore distress! Alas for the heavy affliction that toucheth us no less! We too for the death of Siegfried must evermore lament." "Wrongly ye do!" cried the Lady from a heart with anguish rent. "If ye hereby were afflicted, it had never befallen so! Nay, me had ye wholly forgotten, and this full well I know, In the hour when thus I was severed from my lord, my love, my one! Oh would to God in heaven that to me this deed had been done!" But they held to their lying story. Then did Kriemhild say: "He that affirmeth him guiltless may prove it now straightway. Here in the presence of all men let him go and stand by the bier! Forthright before all people shall the very truth appear." {P. 142} A marvel it is past telling, oft have we known it betide:-- When the slayer murder-polluted is seen by the dead man's side, The wounds bleed in witness against him: so did it now befall, And thereby was the guilt of Hagen made manifest unto all. For the wound brake forth into bleeding, as freely as at the first. Now they that before wept sorely into wilder weeping burst. But answered and spake King Gunther: "Now hearken, the truth is this-- He was set on and slain of robbers: no deed of Hagen it is." But Kriemhild replied: "These robbers but all too well I know! God give to the hands of his kinsmen vengeance on his foe! Thou, Gunther, and thou, Hagen, of you was the foul deed done!" Surged forward the vassals of Siegfried, fierce-eager to fall on. But Kriemhild spake: "Unto mourning be this hour sacred, I pray!" Then two beside of her kinsmen drew nigh where the dead man lay, Even her brethren, Gernot and the stripling Giselher: And in leal faith these bewailed him with all the true souls there. Yea, from the heart they lamented for Kriemhild's perished lord. Now pealed the holy mass-chant: through the doors of the minster poured On every hand young children no less than women and men. Even they whom his death smote lightly, wept with the best for him then. Spake Giselher and Gernot: "O sister, receive of us thou For the death of thy lord consolation: it is past all healing now. Thy loss by our love will we make good, so long as we both shall live." But no one on earth could console her, of none would she comfort receive.