But no word answered Brynhild, and the wife of Sigurd spake: 
    “Lo, I humble myself before thee for many a warrior’s sake,
    And yet is thine anger heavy—­well then, tell all thy tale,
    And the grief that sickens thine heart, that a kindly word may avail.”

    Then spake Brynhild and said:  “Thou art great and livest in bliss,
    And the noble queens and the happy should ask better tidings than this: 
    For ugly words must tell it; thou shouldst scarce know what they mean;
    Thou, the child of the mighty Niblungs, thou, Sigurd’s wedded queen. 
    It is good to be kindly and soft while the heart hath all its will.”

    Said the Queen:  “There is that in thy word that the joy of my heart
      would kill. 
    I have humbled myself before thee, and what further shall I say?”

    Then spake Brynhild the Queen:  “I spake heavy words today;
    And thereof do I repent me; but one thing I beseech thee and crave: 
    That thou speak but a word in thy turn my life and my soul to save: 
    —­Yea the lives of many warriors, and the joy of the Niblung home,
    And the days of the unborn children, and the health of the days to
      come—­
    Say thou it was Gunnar thy brother that gave thee the Dwarf-lord’s
      ring,
    And not the glorious Sigurd, the peerless lovely King;
    E’en so will I serve thee for ever, and peace on this house shall be,
    And rest ere my departing, and a joyous life for thee;
    And long life for the lovely Sigurd, and a glorious tale to tell. 
    O speak, thou sister of Gunnar, that all may be better than well!”

    But hard grew the heart of Gudrun, and she said:  “Hast thou heard the
      tale
    That the wives of the Niblungs lie, lest the joy of their life-days
      fail? 
    Wilt thou threaten the house of the Niblungs, wilt thou threaten my
      love and my lord? 
    —­It was Sigurd that lay in thy bed with thee and the edge of the
      sword;
    And he told me the tale of the night-tide, and the bitterest tidings
      thereof,
    And the shame of my brother Gunnar, how his glory was turned to a
      scoff;
    And he set the ring on my finger with sweet words of the sweetest
      of men,
    And no more from me shall it sunder—­lo, wilt thou behold it again?”
    And her hand gleamed white in the even with the ring of Andvari
      thereon,
    The thrice-cursed burden of greed and the grain from the needy won;
    Then uprose the voice of Brynhild, and she cried to the towers aloft: 

    “O house of the ancient people, I blessed thee sweet and soft;
    In the day of my grief I blessed thee, when my life seemed evil and
      long;
    Look down, O house of the Niblungs, on the hapless Brynhild’s wrong! 
    Lest the day and the hour be coming when no man in thy courts shall be