Epic poetry, German -- Translations into English; Nibelungen -- Poetry
(St. XXX.) With this stanza (St. 1916, L.) ends Lachmann's Eighteenth
Lay. I must own that it appears to me quite impossible that any writer
could end a separate poem in this manner. Similar objections may be made
to the conclusion of most of these _Lieder_.
(St. XXXI.)
with huge two-handed sway
Brandish'd aloft the horrid edge came down
Wide wasting.
"Paradise Lost," b. 6.
(St. XLV.) There certainly seems some confusion here. The only people
who had injured Gunther in Hungary were the Huns who had massacred the
yeomen, and these were not present in the hall. If, on the other hand,
he suspected that the Huns in the hall were privy to it, why allow Etzel
and Kriemhild to depart without so much as an observation? Why, as
Lachmann has observed, does not Dietrich think it necessary even to make
a request in their behalf? It is easy to remove these objections by
declaring everything spurious between St. XXX and St. XII, Thirty-fourth
Adventure, but unfortunately, though St. XXIV, Twenty-eighth Adventure,
which brings Etzel and Kriemhild into the hall, is not admitted into
Lachmann's Lays, it is clear from stanzas XII-XIV, Thirty-third
Adventure (1898-1900 L.), which form part of his Eighteenth Lay, that
both Etzel and Kriemhild were present in the hall when the fighting
began, and indeed Lachmann admits that the plan of his Eighteenth Lay
requires that they should quit it. The composer however of the lay, who
surely ought to know his own plan best, seems to have been of a
different opinion, for, after having set the Huns and Burgundians by the
ears in the hall, and put Dankwart and Volker to keep the door, he has
left us to guess the final result of these serious preliminary
arrangements. The 7,000 Huns massacred here are no doubt the same as the
7,000 who accompanied Kriemhild to church at St. XX, Thirty-first
Adventure, and the same perhaps as the men of Kriemhild mentioned at St.
XX, Thirtieth Adventure. These last had _attempted_ mischief, and
Gunther may here take the will for the deed.
(St. LVIII.) The meaning of this stanza is anything but clear. From the
original, and the two readings _von_ and _vor_, it would seem doubtful
whether Hagan laments that he sat at a distance from Folker or that he
took precedence of him.
THIRTY-FOURTH ADVENTURE
(St. XI.) I must confess I cannot see any inconsistency between the
first line of this stanza and the third of the preceding one; but there
is certainly a discrepancy between the second line, in which both Hagan
and Folker are mentioned as scoffing at Etzel, and the two stanzas
immediately following, which confine the invectives to Hagan.
(St. XII.) Lachmann's Nineteenth Lay begins here and ends with St. V,
Thirty-sixth Adventure. Scarcely any of the whole twenty begin and end
so unappropriated as this.
(St. XIX, XX, XXI.) I have arranged these stanzas as Simrock and Beta
have done. Braunfels places them XX, XIX, XXI.
THIRTY-FIFTH ADVENTURE
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