Unto him the Queen made answer: "Well known is this unto thee, That indeed I have high-born kinsmen; but sorely it troubleth me That, since I wedded thee, never their faces have I seen. In sooth, of all thy people am I known for 'the Kinless Queen'!" Made answer and spake King Etzel: "O wife, heart's dearest mine, If not too great be the journey, I will bid them over Rhine Hither to this my kingdom, the friends thou art fain to see." Then for the word that spake him her ally glad was she. "If thou, my lord," she made answer, "thy kindness to me wilt show, Unto Worms, to the city of Rhineland, forth let thy messengers go; So will I send mine heart's wish to the friends in the far-away home; And so knights noble and gentle full many to us shall come." He answered: "If this thou askest, thereto hast thou my consent. Thyself in the sight of thy kinsmen shall be never so well content As I, in beholding the faces of noble Uta's sons. I grieve that these have been strangers so long from the land of the Huns. My wife, my well-belovèd, if this be thy pleasure," he said, "As messengers unto thy kinsmen straightway of me shall be sped Unto Burgundy-land our minstrels, the lords of the viol-string." Into his presence the minstrels he bade them straightway bring. Then came the King's two servants to the presence of their lord Where he sat by the Queen, and Etzel delivered to them his word {P. 192} That he would they should be his heralds unto far Burgundia-land. And for their arraying in vesture right goodly he gave command. For good knights four-and-twenty were provided mantle and vest; For to these withal with the minstrels was given the King's behest, Even to bear his bidding unto Gunther and his men. But the Lady Kriemhild set her to commune with them privily then. Said the mighty King: "Now hearken, that mine hest ye may so fulfil: I send unto those our kinsmen all love and all good will, And I pray them to ride to my country unto them that love them here. Never in all my life-days guests have I known so dear. And if these peradventure be minded to grant the thing that I pray, Even the kinsmen of Kriemhild, I beseech them not to delay, But to come in the summer season of this year unto my feast: So by these my marriage-kinsmen shall the joy of my life be increased." Made answer the viol-minstrel, and Schwemmel the knightly replied: "When, O my Lord, in the Hunland shall fall thy festal tide, To the end that unto thy kinsmen by Rhine we may certainly say?" Made answer and spake King Etzel, "On next Midsummer Day." "We will do after thy commandment," straight Werbel made reply.