"Unlace ye now your helmets," spake Hagen Troneg's lord. "I and my comrade Volker will again keep watch and ward; And if yon vassals of Etzel once more the onset essay, Straightway will I warn my masters with all the speed I may." Then loosed was the band of his helmet by many a warrior good; And they sat them down on the corpses that lay there in their blood, Which had come by the hands Burgundian to their death, and cumbered the floor, The while with bitter hatred the Hunfolk scowled at the door. Ere the evening shadows had fallen, the King by hest and prayer, With Kriemhild the Queen, had persuaded that with hope of fortune fair The Huns should essay the onset again: in huge array They stood, full twenty thousand in ordered ranks for the fray. Then a wilder battle-tempest against the King's guests swept. Dankwart, the brother of Hagen, the mighty warrior, leapt From beside his lords to the foemen to meet them afront of the hall. They deemed him verily death-doomed, yet scatheless he won through all. Long lasted that stubborn conflict till the shadows darkened down; And the guests still stood unflinching like heroes of renown Against the hosts of Etzel through that long summer day. Ha, what unnumbered heroes in death before them lay! In the fair midsummer season was that mighty murder wrought, When Kriemhild for her heart's anguish revenge so dearly bought On her own nearest kinsfolk and on many guiltless men, By reason whereof King Etzel knew never joy again. (C) But so grim and great a murder had she purposed not at the first: Nay, in the strife's beginning one thought in her breast she nursed, {P. 286} That Hagen alone by her vengeance to a bloody end should come:-- But therein was the Foul Fiend working to fashion for all one doom. The day was past: the heroes were now in evil strait. Weary and famished, it seemed them swift death were a better fate Than long to linger in torment of hunger and thirst and pain. Wherefore the knights high-hearted for a truce with their foes were fain. They asked that the King might meet them before the feast-hall door. Then the heroes with armour-soilure blackened, and red with gore, Strode forth of the hall, and amidst them stood the Princes three: But their haggard eyes found nowhere one glance of sympathy. And now stand Etzel and Kriemhild that place of death before-- Theirs is the whole land, therefore waxeth their host evermore-- Then spake the King to the King's guests: "Say, what would ye of me? Haply for peace ye petition? Hardly this may be After the wrongs ye have done me, and your ruthless work of death. Ye shall not in any wise win it so long as I draw breath. My child whom ye have murdered, and all my friends laid low-- Look ye for peace and forgiveness for these? In sooth, not so!"