Now take things as they are And leave it all to me.  If thou art not Offended, or forgivest what is past, So be it, yet forbid thy servant not To rescue and avenge thy noble wife!  She will not break the solemn oath she swore.  If she’s deceived in her firm trust in us—­Her confidence that we’ll redeem the pledge—­Then all the joy of life that once again, May be aroused within her youthful heart When shadows deepen and the end is near, Will be transformed into one dreadful curse, One final imprecation upon thee!

  GUNTHER.

  There still is time.

  SCENE II

  Enter SIEGFRIED with RUMOLT and huntsmen.

  SIEGFRIED.

  I’m here!  And now ye hunters,
  Where are your spoils?  Mine were to follow me
  Upon a wagon, but the wagon broke.

  HAGEN.

  A lion is the game I chase today,
  But I have failed to find one.

  SIEGFRIED.

  That I know,
  For I myself have killed him!—­Food is spread. 
  Sound trumpets in his praise who ordered that,
  For now we feel the need.  Accursed ravens,
  Here too?  Now blow your bugles till they burst! 
  I’ve thrown near every kind of game I killed
  At this black flock; at last I threw a fox,
  But still they would not fly, and yet I hate
  Nothing so much in all the woodland green
  As that deep black—­’tis like the devil’s hue. 
  The doves have never flocked around me so! 
  Shall we stay here to pass the night?

  GUNTHER.

  We thought—­

  SIEGFRIED.

  ’Tis well, the choice is fitting, and there gapes
  A hollow tree.  I’ll take it for myself. 
  For all my life have I been used to that,
  And I know nothing better than at night
  On soft dry wood to lay my weary head,
  And so to dream, half waking, half asleep,
  To count the passing hours by the birds
  That waken slowly, softly, one by one,
  Each singing in his turn.  Then tick, tick, tick! 
  Now it is two.  Tock, tock, and one must stretch! 
  Kiwitt, kiwitt!  The sun is blinking now,
  And now its eyes are open.  Chanticleer
  Bids all arise, lest they should sneeze.

  VOLKER.

  I know! 
  It is as if Time wakened them himself,
  As in the dark he feels his way along,
  To beat the rhythm of his pace for him. 
  In measured intervals, as from the glass
  Trickles the sand, and as the shadow long
  Creeps on the dial, so there follow now
  The mountain cock, the blackbird and the thrush,
  And none disturbs the other as by day,
  Nor coaxes him to warble ere his time. 
  I’ve watched it oft myself.

  SIEGFRIED.

  I too.—­My brother,
  Thou art not happy.

  GUNTHER.

  But I am!

  SIEGFRIED.