The Nibelungenlied Part 156

TWENTY-SIXTH ADVENTURE

(St. V.)

On the other side Adam, soon as he heard The fatal trespa.s.s done by Eve, amaz'd, Astonied stood, and blank.

"Paradise Lost," ix. 888.

Upright men shall be astonied at this.--Job, xvii. 8.

(St. LIV.) Rudeger is an Austrian Axylus.--"Iliad," vi. 14.

?f?e??? ??t???, f???? d'?? ?????p??s??, p??ta? ??? f???es?e?, ?d? ?p? ????a ?a???.

The German poem is here certainly not inferior to the Greek. Similes are as rare in the Nibelungenlied as they are abundant in the Iliad, but it would be difficult to find one more just and elegant than this.

(St. LVII.) Lachmann's Fifteenth Lay begins here; it concludes with St.

XIV, Twenty-eighth Adventure.

TWENTY-SEVENTH ADVENTURE

(St. XXIV.) I quote some pa.s.sages from Ellis's "Specimens" on the custom of the two s.e.xes eating apart:

The king was to his palace, tho the service was ydo, Ylad with all his menye, and the queen to hers also, For hii held the old usages, that men with men were By hem selve, and women by hem selve also here.

Robert of Gloucester.--"Specimens," vol. i. p. 100.

The above metre, though very rough and uncouth, resembles that of the Nibelungenlied. In the corresponding pa.s.sage quoted by Ellis from Geoffry of Monmouth, the custom is said to have come from Troy.

"_Antiquam consuetudinem Trojae servantes Britones consueverant mares c.u.m maribus, mulieres c.u.m mulieribus, festivos dies separatim celebrare._"

Ellis gives a similar account of Arthur's coronation from Robert de Brunne's translation of Wace:

Sometime was custom of Troy, When they made feast of joy, Men thogether should go to meat Ladies by themself should eat.

See the note to St. Lx.x.xI, Tenth Adventure.

(St. x.x.xI.) There is a difficulty here from its being said that the young margravine was desired to go to court, _i.e._, to the a.s.sembly in the hall, when at St. XXIV the ladies (_die schonen_ in the original) had already returned thither. Lachmann removes the difficulty by condemning the stanzas x.x.xI, x.x.xII, x.x.xIV as spurious; he thinks it impossible that anyone can collect from the third line of St. XXII that the men went into a different hall from that which they had entered at St. XIX; but it is not the third but the second line of St. XXII that describes the separation of the men and women, and that too in the following words,

_"Rittere unde vrouwen die giengen anderswa_;"

now who can collect from this verse that the women went and the men stayed? If words mean anything, both went away. As to the return of the ladies at St. XXIV, that rests on a doubtful reading, _die schonen_, the fair ones, whereas the best ma.n.u.script, that on which Professor Lachmann's text is generally founded, reads _die kunen_, the bold ones, meaning the knights. I should add that the preliminary conversation from St. XXV to St. x.x.xI is fitter to be held in the young lady's absence.

(St. XLIV.) These foreign champions are the Burgundians themselves according to von der Hagen. This is far from satisfactory, but I can offer nothing more so. Can it be possible that there was once a version (now lost) of the story, in which the Nibelungers, properly so called, accompanied the Burgundians into Hungary? This might account not merely for these foreign champions, but for the term _Nibelunge_ being applied to the Burgundians. But, in fact, everything relating to the Nibelungers is obscure and confused to the last degree.

(St. L.) Nudung was the son, or, according to another account, the brother of Gotelind.

(St. LXVI.) Lachmann transposes this and the two following stanzas to after St. XVI, Twenty-eighth Adventure, where they form the beginning of his Sixteenth Lay, which ends with St. XLIV, Twenty-ninth Adventure. The speech which begins at the third line of this stanza is attributed to the messenger by von der Hagen, and perhaps justly, as appears from the last verse of the next stanza, from which it would seem that the king heard the news afterward. On the other hand, Kriemhild here is addressed in the singular, while in a similar pa.s.sage (St. XCI, Fourth Adventure) she is addressed by a messenger in the plural. She, however, would scarcely have uttered before Etzel the words at the close of St. LXVIII, Twenty-seventh Adventure.

TWENTY-EIGHTH ADVENTURE

(St. I.) Bern is Verona according to von der Hagen and Wackernagel and the whole body of Commentators. Von der Hagen applies to Hildebrand the words in the third line, _ez was im harte liet_; so does Marbach.

Braunfels and Beta apply them to Dietrich. But in that case would not the author have said _dem was ez_?

(St. IV.) The Amelungs, or Amelungers, were the reputed descendants of Amala, king of the Goths, the tenth ancestor of Theodoric king of Italy.

(St. V.) This famous hero, the redoubted Dietrich, is only a secondary character in the Nibelungenlied, though in old German traditions generally he bears the princ.i.p.al part. He was the son of a nocturnal spirit, and his fiery breath made him more than a match for Siegfried himself, as it melted the h.o.r.n.y hide of his antagonist. He is identified, I believe, by universal consent, with Theodoric the Ostrogoth. I am afraid that it is too certain that he came to a bad end, but whether he disappeared on being summoned by a dwarf, or was carried off by the devil in the shape of a black horse, or, according to the monastic legend reported by Gibbon, was deposited by foul fiends in the volcano of Libari, is more than I can decide.

(St. XX.) Lachmann's Seventeenth Lay begins here and ends with St.

x.x.xII, Thirtieth Adventure.

(St. XXI.) Hagan's suspicions are natural enough, for Kriemhild appears to have kissed n.o.body but Giselher, whereas, according to the etiquette of this poem, she should not only have kissed her other two brothers, but Hagan himself, not merely as her cousin, but as one of Gunther's princ.i.p.al retainers.

(St. XXVI.) This stanza is rejected by Lachmann on account of the interior rhyme _waere_ and _swaere_ in the third and fourth lines, but surely the outbreak of Hagan in the next stanza is the beginning of a speech. It would have been more plausible, if St. VIII is to be rejected, to reject St. XXI, Thirtieth Adventure, as well, for the first line of St. XXVII would come in very well after the last of St. XXIV; but then, on the other hand, no answer would be given to Kriemhild's question, "Where have you that bestowed?"

(St. XXVII.) The two languages agree in taking the devil's name in vain by using it as a ludicrous but forcible negative. The phrase is authorized by Johnson.

(St. XXVIII.) Von der Hagen explains these two robberies by observing that Hagan had despoiled Kriemhild of her own inheritance as well as of the wondrous h.o.a.rd. The poem itself, however, seems to explain the matter somewhat differently. Hagan committed the first robbery when he took the h.o.a.rd (St. x.x.xV, Nineteenth Adventure); the second, when he seized Siegfried's other treasures (St. Cx.x.xII, Twentieth Adventure).

(St. x.x.xIV.) Lachmann places this and the following stanzas after St.

XIX, as part of his Sixteenth Lay.

TWENTY-NINTH ADVENTURE

(St. I.) Von der Hagen discovers here (v. 7055 of his Remarks) a trace of the tradition (which, however, is not noticed in this poem) that Hagan had lost an eye. This appears visionary to me. At St. XVII, Thirty-second Adventure, the same words are applied to Dankwart, who certainly had two eyes in his head. Twice in this poem a personal description of Hagan occurs (St. XXV, Seventh Adventure, and XVII, Twenty-eighth Adventure) and in neither case is a hint given that he was a _dux luscus_. The author or authors of the Nibelungenlied, therefore, must have followed a different tradition.

(St. XXVIII.) It is Folker's long broadsword that the poet, with a grim kind of merriment, calls his fiddlestick. We shall soon see the minstrel ???? ??a???tat?? p?????e?e??.

(St. XL.) Walter of Spain, _Waltharius manu fortis_, is the hero here alluded to. See note to St. XXI; Thirty-ninth Adventure.

(St. XLVII.) This stanza, and those that follow, come, according to Lachmann's arrangement, after St. x.x.xIII, Twenty-eighth Adventure, and form part of his Seventeenth Lay.

(St. XLVIII.) This allusion to the future is of such a nature as to be irreconcilable with the notion of separate lays. The like may be said of many other pa.s.sages.

(St. LV.) _Morat_ or _mora.s.s_, as far as I can make out from a rather confused note of von der Hagen's, was a sort of caudle, flavored with mulberry or cherry juice. Ziemann's recipe is to take old and good wine, and to mix it with mulberry syrup, rose julep, cinnamon water, and an _ad libitum_ infusion of simples. All this together composes the sweet drink in question.

THIRTIETH ADVENTURE

(St. XVIII.) So in the Ballad of the Lochmaben Harper in the "Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border,"

And aye he harped, and aye he carped, Till a the n.o.bles were fast asleep.

(St. XIX.) "As now," says von der Hagen, "at the entrance of many old buildings, particularly churches, a tower stands, containing the stairs which lead directly to the upper story."

(St. XXI.) This stanza, which is only found in the La.s.sberg and two other ma.n.u.scripts, seems to have been inserted, like several others, in order to soften the ferocious character attributed to Kriemhild in the latter part of the poem.