She said:  “What aileth thee, Gunnar? time was thou wert great and glad. 
    And that was yester-morning:  how then is the good turned bad?”

    He said:  “I was glad in my dreams, and I woke and my glory was dead.”

    “Hath a God then wrought thee evil, or one of the King-folk?” she said.

    He said:  “In the snare am I taken, in the web that a traitor hath spun;
    And no deed knoweth my right-hand to do or to leave undone.”

    “I look upon thee,” said Brynhild, “I know thy race and thy name. 
    Yet meseems the deed thou sparest, to amend thine evil and shame.”

    “Nought, nought,” he said, “may amend it, save the hungry eyeless
      sword. 
    And the war without hope or honour, and the strife without reward.”

    “Thou hast spoken the word,” said Brynhild, “if the word is enough,
      it is well. 
    Let us eat and drink and be merry, that all men of our words may tell!”

    “O all-wise woman,” said Gunnar, “what deed lieth under the tongue? 
    What day for the dearth of the people, when the seed of thy sowing hath
      sprung?”

    She said:  “Our garment is Shame, and nought the web shall rend,
    Save the day without repentance, and the deed that nought may amend.”

    “Speak, mighty of women,” said Gunnar, “and cry out the name and the
      deed
    That the ends of the Earth may hearken, and the Niblungs’ grievous
      Need.”

    “To slay,” she said, “is the deed, to slay a King ere the morn,
    And the name is Sigurd the Volsung, my love and thy brother sworn.”

    She turned and departed from him, and he knew not whither she went;
    But he took his sword from the girdle and the peace-strings round it
      rent,
    And into the house he gat him, and the sunlit fair abode,
    But his heart in the mid-mirk waded, as through the halls he strode,
    Till he came to a chamber apart; and Grimhild his mother was there,
    And there was his brother Hogni in the cloudy Niblung gear: 
    Him-seemed there was silence between them as of them that have spoken,
      and wait
    Till the words of their mouths be accomplished by slow unholpen Fate: 
    But they turned to the door, and beheld him, and he took his sheathed
      sword
    And cast it adown betwixt them, and it clashed half bare on the board,
    And Grimhild spake as it clattered:  “For whom are the peace-strings
      rent? 
    For whom is the blood-point whetted and the edge of thine intent?”

    He said:  “For the heart of Sigurd; and thus all is rent away
    Betwixt this word and his slaying, save a little hour of day.”

    Then spake Hogni and answered:  “All lands beneath the sun
    Shall know and hearken and wonder that such a deed must be done.”

    “Speak, brother of Kings,” said Gunnar, “dost thou know deeds better
      or worse
    That shall wash us clean from shaming, and redeem our lives from the
      curse?”