"By this deed dishonored / hereafter evermore Are their generations. / Your anger all too sore Have ye now thus vented / and vengeance ta'en on me. With shame henceforth be parted / from all good knights' company." 991 All the hunters hastened / where he stricken lay, It was in sooth for many / of them a joyless day. Had any aught of honor, / he mourned that day, I ween, And well the same did merit / the knight high-spirited and keen. 992 As there the king of Burgundy / mourned that he should die, Spake the knight sore wounded: / "To weep o'er injury, Who hath wrought the evil / hath smallest need, I trow. Reviling doth he merit, / and weeping may he well forego." 993 Thereto quoth grim Hagen: / "Ye mourn, I know not why: This same day hath ended / all our anxiety. Few shall we find henceforward / for fear will give us need, And well is me that from his / mastery we thus are freed." 994 "Light thing is now thy vaunting," / did Siegfried then reply. "Had I e'er bethought me / of this thy infamy Well had I preserved / 'gainst all thy hate my life. Me rueth naught so sorely / as Lady Kriemhild my wife. 995 "Now may God have mercy / that to me a son was born, That him alack!, the people / in times to come shall spurn, That those he nameth kinsmen / have done the murderer's deed. An had I breath," spake Siegfried, / "to mourn o'er this I well had need." 996 Then spake, in anguish praying, / the hero doomed to die: "An wilt thou, king, to any / yet not good faith deny, In all the world to any, / to thee commended be And to thy loving mercy / the spouse erstwhile was wed to me. 997 "Let it be her good fortune / that she thy sister is: By all the princely virtues, / I beg thee pledge me this. For me long time my father / and men henceforth must wait: Upon a spouse was never / wrought, as mine, a wrong so great." 998 All around the flowers / were wetted with the blood As there with death he struggled. / Yet not for long he could, Because the deadly weapon / had cut him all too sore: And soon the keen and noble / knight was doomed to speak no more. 999 When the lords perceived / how that the knight was dead, Upon a shield they laid him / that was of gold full red, And counsel took together / how of the thing should naught Be known, but held in secret / that Hagen the deed had wrought. 1000 Then spake of them a many: / "This is an evil day. Now shall ye all conceal it / and all alike shall say, When as Kriemhild's husband / the dark forest through Rode alone a-hunting, / him the hand of robber slew." 1001 Then spake of Tronje Hagen: / "Myself will bring him home. In sooth I reck but little / if to her ears it come, Who my Lady Brunhild / herself hath grieved so sore. It maketh me small worry, / an if she weep for evermore." SEVENTEENTH ADVENTURE How Kriemhild mourned for Siegfried, and How he was Buried 1002