Epic poetry, German -- Translations into English; Nibelungen -- Poetry
(St. LXVI.) Lachmann transposes this and the two following stanzas to
after St. XVI, Twenty-eighth Adventure, where they form the beginning of
his Sixteenth Lay, which ends with St. XLIV, Twenty-ninth Adventure. The
speech which begins at the third line of this stanza is attributed to
the messenger by von der Hagen, and perhaps justly, as appears from the
last verse of the next stanza, from which it would seem that the king
heard the news afterward. On the other hand, Kriemhild here is addressed
in the singular, while in a similar passage (St. XCI, Fourth Adventure)
she is addressed by a messenger in the plural. She, however, would
scarcely have uttered before Etzel the words at the close of St. LXVIII,
Twenty-seventh Adventure.
TWENTY-EIGHTH ADVENTURE
(St. I.) Bern is Verona according to von der Hagen and Wackernagel and
the whole body of Commentators. Von der Hagen applies to Hildebrand the
words in the third line, _ez was im harte liet_; so does Marbach.
Braunfels and Beta apply them to Dietrich. But in that case would not
the author have said _dem was ez_?
(St. IV.) The Amelungs, or Amelungers, were the reputed descendants of
Amala, king of the Goths, the tenth ancestor of Theodoric king of Italy.
(St. V.) This famous hero, the redoubted Dietrich, is only a secondary
character in the Nibelungenlied, though in old German traditions
generally he bears the principal part. He was the son of a nocturnal
spirit, and his fiery breath made him more than a match for Siegfried
himself, as it melted the horny hide of his antagonist. He is
identified, I believe, by universal consent, with Theodoric the
Ostrogoth. I am afraid that it is too certain that he came to a bad end,
but whether he disappeared on being summoned by a dwarf, or was carried
off by the devil in the shape of a black horse, or, according to the
monastic legend reported by Gibbon, was deposited by foul fiends in the
volcano of Libari, is more than I can decide.
(St. XX.) Lachmann's Seventeenth Lay begins here and ends with St.
XXXII, Thirtieth Adventure.
(St. XXI.) Hagan's suspicions are natural enough, for Kriemhild appears
to have kissed nobody but Giselher, whereas, according to the etiquette
of this poem, she should not only have kissed her other two brothers,
but Hagan himself, not merely as her cousin, but as one of Gunther's
principal retainers.
(St. XXVI.) This stanza is rejected by Lachmann on account of the
interior rhyme _wære_ and _swære_ in the third and fourth lines, but
surely the outbreak of Hagan in the next stanza is the beginning of a
speech. It would have been more plausible, if St. VIII is to be
rejected, to reject St. XXI, Thirtieth Adventure, as well, for the first
line of St. XXVII would come in very well after the last of St. XXIV;
but then, on the other hand, no answer would be given to Kriemhild's
question, "Where have you that bestowed?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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