GUNTHER.

  And here’s the castle! 
  My mother’s coming now to welcome thee,
  Kriemhilda too.

  VOLKER (to BRUNHILDA, as the women approach each other_).

  Are they no gain to thee?

  HAGEN.

  Siegfried, a word!  Thy trick availed us naught.

  SIEGFRIED.

  Availed us naught?  Was she not vanquished then? 
  Is she not here?

  HAGEN.

  What profit is in that?

  SIEGFRIED.

  Why, all!

  HAGEN.

  But nay!  Who cannot take by force
  Her first caress will master nevermore
  This maid, and Gunther is not strong enough.

  SIEGFRIED.

  And has he tried?

  HAGEN.

  Why else should I complain? 
  In full sight of the castle!  She at first
  Resisted him, as it befits a maid,
  And as our mothers may have done of old;
  But when she saw that but the lightest touch
  Sufficed to drive the ardent wooer forth,
  She grew enraged, and, when he tarried still,
  She seized and held him with her outstretched arm
  Above the Rhine.  A shame it was to him,
  A shame to all of us.

  SIEGFRIED.

  She is a witch!

  HAGEN.

  Chide not, but help!

  SIEGFRIED.

  I think that if the priest
  But married them—­

  HAGEN.

  Were that old hag not there,
  The woman that attends her!  All day long
  She spies and questions, and she sits by her
  As the embodiment of wise old age. 
  I fear the nurse the most.

  UTE (to KRIEMHILD and BRUNHILDA).

  Now love each other,
  And may the circlet that your arms have twined
  In this first joyful moment widen out
  Further and further to a perfect ring
  Within which you may wander, side by side,
  Sharing your joys in harmony complete! 
  Yours is a privilege that I had not,
  For what I might not say unto my lord
  I had to bear in silence; but at least
  I could not speak complainingly of him.

  KRIEMHILD.

  Let us be like two sisters.

  BRUNHILDA.

  For your sake
  Your son and brother may imprint the seal
  Upon my lips that stamps me as his maid
  Before the nightfall comes, for I am still
  Unblemished and untouched like some young tree,
  And were it not for your sweet gentleness
  Forever would I hold this shame afar.

  UTE.

  Thou speak’st of shame?

  BRUNHILDA.

Forgive me for that word; I speak but as I feel.  And I am strange Here in your world, and as my rugged land Would surely terrify you, were you there, So does your land alarm me, for I feel That here I could not have been born at all—­Yet must I live here!—­Is the sky so blue Forever?

  KRIEMHILD.