Such vipers’ messengers
  One tramples like a viper.  Fiends of hell! 
  Now feel I my first anger!  I believed
  That often I knew hatred, but I erred;
  ’Twas but less love I felt.  For I can hate
  Nothing but broken vows and treachery,
  Hypocrisy and all the coward’s sins
  That seek their victim as the spider crawls
  Upon its hollow legs.  How can it be
  That such brave men (for surely they were brave),
  Could so besmirch themselves?  Oh, my dear friends,
  Stand not so coldly by and gaze on me
  As though you thought me mad, as though I knew
  No longer great from small!  We’ve never known
  What outrage is till now.  Our reckoning
  May we strike calmly out to the last score. 
  Only these two are guilty.

  GISELHER.

  Shameful ’tis. 
  The way they praised thee echoes in my ear. 
  When came this messenger?

  HAGEN.

  ’Twas even now. 
  Didst thou not see him.  He made haste to leave
  As soon as he had done his errand here,
  Nor tarried for his messenger’s reward.

  SIEGFRIED.

  Oh, shame that you did not chastise the man
  For impudence!  A raven would have come
  And plucked his eyes out, and in very scorn
  Have cast them forth again before his lord. 
  That was the only answer that was due. 
  This is no lawful feud, this is no war
  That right and custom sanction—­’tis the chase
  Of evil beasts!  Nay, Hagen, do not smile! 
  The headsman’s ax should be our weapon now,
  So that we should not soil our noble blades,
  And, since the ax is iron like the sword,
  It were a shame to use it till we find
  No rope would be enough to hang the dogs.

  HAGEN.

  Thou say’st!

  SIEGFRIED.

  Thou mockest at me as it seems. 
  ’Tis strange, for trifles used to anger thee! 
  I know thou art an older man than I,
  But ’tis not youth that’s speaking through me now,
  Nor is it indignation that ’twas I
  Who begged thy mercy for them.  Nay, I stand
  For the whole world.  As calls a bell to prayer,
  So calls my tongue to vengeance every one
  Who stands as man amidst his fellow-men.

  GUNTHER.

  ’Tis so.

  SIEGFRIED (to HAGEN).

  Know’st thou betrayal?  Treachery
  Gaze on the traitor!  Smile then if thou canst. 
  To open combat dost thou challenge him
  And dost o’erthrow him.  But thou art too proud,
  If not too noble, to thrust home thy sword,
  And so thou set’st him free, and givest him
  His weapons once again that thou hadst won. 
  He does not rage at thee and thrust them back;
  He gives thee humble thanks and praises sweet
  And swears with thousand oaths to be thy man. 
  But when, the honeyed words still in thine ear,
  Thou lay’st thy weary limbs upon thy couch,
  Bare and defenseless as a helpless child,
  Then creeps the traitor up and murders thee,
  And even while thou diest spits on thee.