So rode they without all escort from Worms on Rhine away. Well might they go all-fearless: so stern of mood were they, That if haply foemen in malice had set upon them then, Their heads had their own hands warded, those aweless Niblung men. No leave would they take of any: they shook off the dust of their feet. Yet Giselher and Gernot full lovingly came to greet The old king at his departing; for they sorrowed in his heart-pain, And thereof did they give clear witness, those valiant heroes twain. For to Siegmund spake Prince Gernot exceeding courteously: "Now God in Heaven be witness, of the death of Siegfried am I Wholly and utterly guiltless! Never I heard this said, That any bare him malice. From mine heart do I mourn for thy dead." Then Giselher the young prince provided them escort fair. So led he unvexed of any the hearts overburdened with care, Even the King and his good knights, back to their Netherland home. Ah, with how little rejoicing their kinsmen beheld them come!
Touching all that befell them thereafter the old song holdeth its peace: But at Worms was the plaining of Kriemhild heard without surcease That her heart and her wounded spirit had no comforter, Save one, the loving and faithful, her brother Giselher. But there sat Brunhild the lovely enthroned in her arrogant pride. Little she recked of Kriemhild as from depths of despair she cried. Never in kindness or pity she stooped to the stricken again. But the years stole on, till Kriemhild wrung her heart too with pain.
XIX. How the Hoard of the Niblungs came to Worms
While sat the noble Kriemhild a watcher by Siegfried's grave, Eckwart, Lord of the Marches, unto her with his war-band clave, In Burgundia-land abiding constrained by his fealty; And aye for the dead with his mistress he mourned right bitterly. { P. 150} At Worms hard by the minster they reared her a palace-hall Wide and stately-builded, and royally-dight withal: And there with her handmaids round her that joyless one abode, And oft she fared to the minster, for she loved the house of God. There, where her belovèd was buried, full seldom her presence failed; Day after day did she enter with spirit that inly wailed, And prayed unto God the Almighty to take to his mercy his soul: Ay, ever the faithful-hearted made for the knight great dole. Came Uta and all her women to comfort her day by day; But Kriemhild's wounded spirit so crushed 'neath affliction lay, That nothing availed consolation that the lips of the loving spake, Forasmuch as with sharper anguish did her heart for her lost love ache Than wife felt ever for husband, were her sorrow never so keen; And the love of the true and faithful herein was of all men seen That on to the end she mourned him, long as endured her life, Till that great vengeance for Siegfried was wreaked at last by the wife.