Then unto the host of her vassals Queen Brunhild looked, and she cried, When she saw that hero standing safe on the lists' far side: "O ye my friends and liegemen, hitherward come straightway! Ye be all unto this King Gunther vassals from this day." Down laid each valiant warrior his weapons from his hand, And low at the feet they bowed them of the Lord of Burgundia-land; Yea, unto Gunther the mighty bent many a valiant knight, For they weened he had won that contest by his own unaided might. With chivalrous grace and in loving wise he greeted the maid; And now that Queen of Beauty her hand in his hath laid, And to him all rule she yielded over all her wide domain. Then glad in his heart was Hagen, that bold and knightly thane. {P. 64} She besought that noble chieftain to her palace builded wide With her to return, and thither strode Gunther at her side. There all men fearing before him in homage lowly bent. So the brethren, Dankwart and Hagen, thereat were well content. Now Siegfried, the swift war-helper, in all deep craft was wise: Back bare he the Hood of Darkness, and hid it from all men's eyes. Then he passed to the hall, where fair ones sat in their bravery; And he spake unto King Gunther, and cunningly dealt he:-- "Now why, Lord King, dost thou tarry, that the games not yet begin Whereof this Queen made promise, and challenged thee herein? Let us now full soon behold them, and know of the trial's stress." --As nothing knowing of all things he spake in his wiliness. Then spake that Daughter of Princes: "How might this marvel befall That thou of the games, Lord Siegfried, hast witnessed nought at all, Wherein was the victory given unto this King Gunther's hand?" Out spake and answered Hagen, the knight of Burgundia-land: "Thou, Queen," he said, "didst trouble our spirit exceedingly: Therefore was Siegfried the good knight abiding by ship and sea In the hour when the Lord of Rhineland overcame in the wooer's play; So nought thereof he knoweth," did Gunther's liegeman say. "Now welcome to me be the tidings," Siegfried the hero replied, "That here in such wise a wooer hath humbled thy tameless pride, And that some one lives to be master at last over thee and thine! Now shalt thou, noble maiden, fare with us to the Rhine."