FRIGGA.

  They bartered thee!

  BRUNHILDA.

  Too mean to be his wife,
  I was the price for which he bought him one.

  FRIGGA.

  The price, my child!

  BRUNHILDA.

  O this is worse than murder! 
  And I will have revenge, revenge, revenge!

     [Exeunt omnes.]

  ACT IV

  Worms.

  SCENE I

  Great hall. GUNTHER with his warriors. HAGEN carries a spear.

  HAGEN.

  A blind man e’en can hit a linden leaf;
  At fifty paces I will wager you
  With this good spear to split a hazelnut.

  GISELHER.

  Why dost thou choose this day to show thy skill? 
  We’ve always known thy arms would never rust.

  HAGEN.

  He comes!  Now show me you can wear dark looks
  And altered bearing although none has lost
  His father.

  SCENE II

  Enter SIEGFRIED.

  SIEGFRIED.

  Ho, ye knights!  And hear ye not
  The hounds give tongue, and hark!  Our youngest hunter
  Impatient tries his horn!  To horse!  Away!

  HAGEN.

  The day is fair!

  SIEGFRIED.

  And have you not been told
  That bears have ventured in the very stalls,
  And that the eagles wait before the doors
  And watch when they are opened for a child
  That may stray out?

  VOLKER.

  Indeed that has been known.

  SIEGFRIED.

  While we were courting no one thought to hunt. 
  Then come, and we’ll drive back the enemy,
  And hack and hew him.

  HAGEN.  Friend, more need have we
  To grind our swords and nail our spear-heads firm.

  SIEGFRIED.

  And why?

  HAGEN.

  Thou’st dallied all these last few days
  With honeyed words, else hadst thou well known why.

  SIEGFRIED.

  I am about to say farewell, ye know! 
  Yet speak, what’s toward?

  HAGEN.

  Danes and Saxons too
  Again are coming.

  SIEGFRIED.

  Are the princes dead,
  Who swore allegiance to us?

  HAGEN.

  Nay, not dead;
  They’re leading on the army.

  SIEGFRIED.

  Luedegast
  And Luedeger, who were my prisoners,
  Set free without a ransom?

  GUNTHER.

  Yesterday
  Renounced they every oath.

  SIEGFRIED.

  Their messengers—­
  You surely must have hewn them limb from limb? 
  Has every vulture had his share of them?

  HAGEN.

  So speakest thou?

  SIEGFRIED.