KRIEMHILD.

  Oh, no! 
  Did nothing else remind me of that day,
  That evil day, ’twould be a dream that’s past. 
  My lord hath spared me every unkind word.

  HAGEN.

  I’m glad he is so gentle.

  KRIEMHILD.

  I could wish
  That he would blame me, yet perchance he knows
  I blame myself enough!

  HAGEN.

  Be not too harsh!

  KRIEMHILD.

  I know how bitterly I wounded her! 
  I’ll not forgive myself.  I’d rather far
  Have felt the hurt myself than injured her.

  HAGEN.

  And this it is that drove thee from thy room?

  KRIEMHILD.

  Oh, no! ’twould make me hide myself away! 
  I am so anxious for him!

  HAGEN.

  Dost thou fear?

  KRIEMHILD.

  There is another war.

  HAGEN.

  Yes, that is true.

  KRIEMHILD.

  The lying scoundrels!

  HAGEN.

  Be not overwrought
  Nor cease thy preparations for the voyage. 
  Work tranquilly and do not be disturbed,
  For thou canst put away his armor last. 
  What am I saying!  For he wears no mail,
  Nor doth he need to wear it.

  KRIEMHILD.

  Thinkest thou

  HAGEN.

  I well might laugh.  If any other wife
  So sighed, I’d say:  Out of a thousand darts
  But one could touch him, and that one would break. 
  But thee I ridicule and must advise
  Let thy stray fancy sing some wiser song.

  KRIEMHILD.

  Thou speak’st of arrows!  Arrows are the thing
  That most I dread.  I know an arrow’s point
  Needs at the most the space of my thumb nail
  To penetrate, and yet it kills a man.

  HAGEN.

  Especially if ’tis a poisoned dart. 
  These savages, who broke the bulwark down,
  The bulwark of our life and of the state,
  Which we hold sacred even in our wars,
  Would do a deed like this as soon as that.

  KRIEMHILD.

  Thou see’st!

  HAGEN.

  How can thy Siegfried come to harm? 
  He is secure.  And if there were such shafts
  That straighter flew than fly the sun’s own rays,
  He’d shake them off as we shake off the snow;
  And this he knows, and so his confidence
  Abandons him no moment in the fray. 
  We were not born beneath an aspen tree,
  Yet we nigh tremble at the deeds he dares. 
  And heartily he laughs at this sometimes,
  And we laugh too.  For iron you may thrust
  Into the fire—­it changes into steel.

  KRIEMHILD.

  I shudder!

  HAGEN.

  Child, thou art but newly wed,
  Or I’d rejoice at thy timidity.

  KRIEMHILD.

  Hast thou forgotten, or hast thou not heard
  What in the ballads hath oft times been sung,
  That Siegfried may be wounded in one spot?