Dead all round were they lying, the men foredoomed death's prey: Hewn in twain in the midmost of all a dead Queen lay! Dietrich and King Etzel into sudden weeping broke, And a bitter voice of wailing went up from all the folk. There was the might and the glory of heroes in death laid low; And the people had for their portion lamentation and mourning and woe. This was the dolorous ending of a great king's festival! So ever is sorrow begotten of joy at the end of all. What things befell thereafter in the land no minstrel hath sung[13], Save that ever the voice of weeping from Christian and Heathen rung, Weeping of knights and ladies, and of many a maiden fair: Whelmed in abysses of sorrow for the loved and the lost they were. (C) Ah no, no more can I tell you of a people's misery. There are the mighty fallen--in silence let them lie. I can bring not from years forgotten that nation's after-fate. The Lay is ended--the Story of the Niblungs' Bitter Strait. [The End] FOOTNOTES [1] The interest may be more than national, as in _Paradise Lost_. [2] The _Epic of Hades_ falls short of the requirements of this definition in (b) and (d); Bulwer Lytton's _King Arthur_ in (c); such poems as Arnold's _Sohrab and Rustum_ in (a) and (d); Tennyson's _Idylls of the King_ was felt by its author to fall so far short of answering to condition (d), that he would not claim for it the title _Epic of Arthur_. [3] For the origin of the conception of such a hero there are two theories. One is that of the nature-myth, according to which the hero is the personification of some natural force or phenomenon, as Achilles has been said to personify the Sun in his course. According to this, Sigurd represents the Day, or the Light, or the Spring. The other is that of an actual tribal chief, whose exploits are glorified and exaggerated in the folksongs of after days. According to this, the genesis of an epic poem proceeds somewhat thus:--(1) a warrior vaunts his own and his ancestors' exploits as a preliminary to fight, as Glaucus does in _Il._ vi, and as savage chiefs have done in all ages and countries; (2) his followers sing the prowess of the chief and his ancestors; (3) the specially gifted bard chants them at a feast like the Highland sennachie, or before a battle, like Taillefer. [4] _The Story of the Volsungs_, Camelot Series, Walter Scott, 1s.