She heard and turned unto Gunnar as a queen that seeketh her place,
    But to Gudrun she gave no greeting, nor beheld the Niblung’s face. 
    Then up stood the wife of Sigurd and strove with the greeting-word,
    But the cold fear rose in her heart, and the hate within her stirred,
    And the greeting died on her lips, and she gazed for a moment or twain
    On the lovely face of Brynhild, and so sat in the high-seat again,
    And turned to her lord beside her with many a word of love.

    But the song sprang up in the hall, and the eagles cried from above,
    And forth to the freshness of May went the joyance of the feast: 
    And Sigurd sat with the Niblungs, and gave ear to most and to least,
    And showed no sign to the people of the grief that on him lay;
    Nor seemeth he worser to any than he was on the yesterday.

    Of the Contention betwixt the Queens.

    So there are all these abiding in the Burg of the ancient folk
    Mid the troth-plight sworn and broken, and the oaths of the earthly
      yoke. 
    Then Guttorm comes from his sea-fare, and is waxen fierce and strong,
    A man in the wars delighting, blind-eyed through right and wrong: 
    Still Sigurd rides with the Brethren, as oft in the other days,
    And never a whit abateth the sound of the people’s praise;
    They drink in the hall together, they doom in the people’s strife,
    And do every deed of the King-folk, that the world may rejoice in
      their life.

    There now is Brynhild abiding as a Queen in the house of the Kings,
    And hither and thither she wendeth through the day of queenly things;
    And no man knoweth her sorrow; though whiles is the Niblung bed
    Too hot and weary a dwelling for the temples of her head,
    And she wends, as her wont was aforetime, when the moon is riding high,
    And the night on the earth is deepest; and she deemeth it good to lie
    In the trench of the windy mountains, and the track of the wandering
      sheep,
    While soft in the arms of Sigurd Queen Gudrun lieth asleep: 
    There she cries on the lovely Sigurd, and she cries on the love and
      the oath,
    And she cries on the change and the vengeance, and the death to deliver
      them both. 
    But her crying none shall hearken, and her sorrow nought shall know,
    Save the heart of the golden Sigurd, and the man fast bound in woe: 
    So she wendeth her back in the dawning, toward the deeds and the
      dwellings of men,
    And she sits in the Niblung high-seat, and is fair and queenly again. 
    Close now is her converse with Gudrun, and sore therein she strives
    Lest the barren stark contention should mingle in their lives;
    And she humbles her oft before her, as before the Queen of the earth,
    The mistress, the overcomer,