No further could Hildebrand question for sighing, but spake one word: "Now grant to us that, O heroes, for the which we were sent of our lord. Give forth of the hall the body unto us of the noble dead, In whom is our sunny joyance into night of mourning fled. Let our last sad service requite him for all that to us he hath done In kindness passing loyal, and to many a homeless one. We be here in a strange land strangers like Rüdiger the knight... Why keep ye us here waiting? Let us bear him hence forthright, And render the perished hero such honour as we may, Such as we gladly had rendered, were he alive this day." Answered and spake King Gunther: "No service is worthier praise Than that to a dead friend rendered by his friends of the olden days; {P. 310} Yea, when in your power it lieth, that call I friendship true. It is meet ye should do him service for the love he hath shown unto you." "Words, words!--how long must we pray you?" cried Wolfhart with passionate breath. "There lieth our chiefest comfort, by your hands done to death! And we to our sorrow no longer may have our friend in our sight. Let us bear him hence from his slayers, and lay in the grave forthright!" Volker flung back his answer: "None giveth him up at thine hest! He is here--e'en take him from us! The noblest knight and the best Lieth amidst of a blood-pool with death-wounds stricken down. Unto Rüdiger do this service: it shall be your friendship's crown!" Made answer Wolfhart the dreadless: "God knows, thou master of song, Thou hast little to do to provoke us! Ye have done us enow of wrong! But that awe of my lord constrains me, thou wert in sorry plight! But now must we brook thine insults, since he hath forbidden the fight." Then sneered the viol-minstrel: "Who goeth in timorous doubt Lest he haply transgress a commandment, shall brook full many a flout. Small share of the spirit of heroes I find in a mood so mild!" At the biting speech of his comrade Hagen grimly smiled. "Thou shalt lack not proof of my spirit!" hotly Wolfhart cried. "I will jangle thy viol-music so, that if ever thou ride Homeward hence to the Rhineland, thou shalt croak a new song there! Thy malapert tongue, thou scorner, with honour I may not bear!" Answered the viol-minstrel: "An thou mar one faintest tone Of the strings of my good viol, the sheen of thy morion Shall be grievously dimmed and sullied with thy blood by my right hand, Howsoever it fall with my riding back to Burgundia-land."