(As SIEGFRIED refuses his hand.)

  Brunhilda now is like a wounded deer,
  Who’d let it with the arrow run away? 
  A noble hunter sends the second shaft. 
  The lost is ever lost, nor may return. 
  The haughty heiress of the Valkyries
  And Norns is dying.  Give the final stroke! 
  A happy woman laughs tomorrow morn
  And only says:  I had a troubled dream!

  SIEGFRIED.

  I know not, something warns me.

  HAGEN.

  Will Frau Ute
  Be ready ere thou art?  Nay, there’s no fear,
  For three times yet will she call Kriemhild back
  To bless her and embrace her.

  SIEGFRIED.

  I refuse.

  HAGEN.

  What?  If this moment came a messenger
  In haste announcing that thy father lay
  Sick unto death, would’st thou not call at once
  For thy good steed?  And surely would thy bride
  Speed thy departure!  Yet a father may,
  Though old, recover.  Honor wounded once
  By cruel wrong, nor mended speedily,
  Will never from the dead be raised again. 
  The honor of the king’s the guiding star
  Which brings or light or darkness to the knights,
  As to the king himself.  O woe to him
  Who hesitates and robs him of one ray. 
  Had I thy strength I’d sue to thee no more,
  But do the deed myself with pride and joy. 
  And yet by magic was Brunhilda won,
  And magic arts must finish now the task. 
  Then do it!  Must I kneel?

  SIEGFRIED.

  I like it not! 
  Who would have dreamed of this!  And yet it lay
  So very near!  O nature three times blest! 
  In all my life no deed I’ve shunned like this;
  Yet what thou say’st is true.  So let it be.

  GUNTHER.

  I’ll go and give my mother but a hint—­

  HAGEN.

  No, no!  No woman!  We’re already three
  And have, I hope, no tongue to tell the tale. 
  Let death the fourth one in our compact be!

  [Exeunt omnes.]

  ACT III

  Morning.  Courtyard of the castle.  The cathedral is at one side.

  SCENE I

  Enter RUMOLT and DANKWART armed.

  RUMOLT.

  Three dead!

  DANKWART.

  For yesterday it was enough,
  For that was but the prelude!  Now there’ll be
  Another tale to tell.

  RUMOLT.

  These Nibelungs
  Are e’er prepared for death; they bring their shrouds
  And each man wears both shroud and sword at once.

  DANKWART.

  The customs are so strange in northern lands! 
  For as the mountains grow more rugged still
  And cheerful oaks make way for sombre firs,
  Just so does man grow gloomy, till at last
  He’s wholly lost and but the brute remains! 
  First comes a race that cannot even sing,
  And next another race that cannot laugh,
  Then follows one that’s dumb, and so it goes.