Welcome, thou night!  O darkness thick! how friendly,
Compassionately hid’st thou me from Hother! 
From him, the weak, the overcome, the fallen! 
Come, then, embrace me, Hoe;theim’s murky princess! 
With all thy horrors dark, thou foe of gladness! 
Ah, come! conceal the feeble, shiver’d weapon! 
Cover the gloomy rock where I—­ Ha! thunder
Annihilate thee, accursed thought, that darest
Disturb the Skoldung where to rest he’s flung him! 
But I may breathe it to the night, and Hoe;theim
I may entrust with Hother’s ignominy. 
Ha! hear it, night! and in thy depths conceal it! 
There is a rock—­a gloomy one—­a horrid,
For ugly demons swarm upon its summit,
And dragons nestle in its murky caverns: 
There did I fall, and with me fell my honour. 
There knelt I powerless, and my life accepted! 
Now am I calm, for I no more behold it;
Nor yet behold the proud, the noble foeman,
Nor yet my Nanna’s cheek, o’erspread with blushes;
Nor yet the burning, hated tears which rescued,
Which purchased Hother from triumphant Balder! 
Ha! storm, thou sinkest!  Howl and whoop around me! 
Peal, thunders, peal! and drown the cruel echo
Of dastard prayer, of Nanna’s intercession!

   Life of my Nanna,
   Thy breath doth kill,
   Its sweet lamenting,
   One stroke preventing,
   With many, with many
   This breast doth fill.

Thou lovest me!  Ha! weak, enamour’d Nanna! 
Thou lovest Hother’s life, but not thy Hother. 
How cold, how cruel to his name, his honour! 
But I—­I too was cruel!  I accus’d thee—­
Beloved Nanna, at thy feet full quickly
Hother’s best blood shall wash away that insult!

[He springs up and walks about the scene.

Why do I slumber?  Why delay a moment
To keep my oath?  Ha, cruel, cruel destiny! 
E’en death itself thou dost refuse to Hother,
For every sword and precipice thou hidest;
Ha, feeble spear! whereon I, fool-like, trusted,
Where art thou now? and thou my fragile Mimring
Ne’er frail in fight before; and thou my dagger—­

[He stumbles over the horn which he cast away in the first act.

What, what is this?  By Hal, the horn which Vanfred
Gave me wherewith in time of need to call him. 
Ha! by the gods, was ever need so horrid,
To crave to die, yet want the power of dying;
Friendship so warm as his will never surely
Refuse a dagger to this breast.

[He winds the horn, which echoes frightfully among the rocks.

Ha, Vanfred! 
I call thee now; where art thou, Vanfred?  Vanfred!

[A whirlwind is heard, and Loke immediately appears.

Loke, Hother.

Loke.  Hail, hail to thee, most fortunate of heroes!

Hother.  Ha! darest thou mock Hother?

Loke.  What disturbeth
A fortune which thy foe himself, which Skulda,
Which heavenly and subterranean powers
Establish with united strength?