Silence!

  SIEGFRIED.

  Threats for a dead man? 
  Aimed I so true that thou dost fear me still? 
  Then draw, for now I fall, and thou canst dare
  To spit upon me like a heap of dust,
  For here I lie—­

  [He falls to the ground.]

  And you are free from Siegfried! 
  Yet know, the blow that slew him killed you too,
  For who will trust you?  They will drive you forth
  As I had driven the Danes.

  HAGEN.

  This simpleton! 
  He hath not grasped our trick!

  SIEGFRIED.

  Then ’tis not true? 
  Oh, horrible, that men should lie like this! 
  Ah well!  You are alone in this!  And folk
  Will always curse you too, whene’er they curse. 
  They’ll say:  Toads, vipers and Burgundians! 
  Nay you are first:  Burgundians, vipers, toads. 
  For all is lost to you—­nobility
  And honor, fame and all, are lost with me! 
  There is no bound nor limit now for crime,
  The arm indeed may pierce the heart, but when
  The heart is dead the arm is useless too. 
  My wife!  My poor, foreboding, tender wife—­
  How wilt thou bear the blow!  If Gunther’s heart
  Still means to do one deed of faith and love,
  May he be kind to thee!—­Yet rather go
  Unto my father!—­Hearest thou, Kriemhild?

  [He dies.]

  HAGEN.

  He’s silent now.  Small merit is in that!

  DANKWART.

  What shall we tell?

  HAGEN.

  Some stupid tale of thieves
  Who killed him in the forest.  It is true
  None will believe it, yet I think that none
  Will call us liars.  Once again we stand
  Where none will dare to call us to account;
  For we’re like fire and water.  Till the Rhine
  Seeks out some lie to justify its floods,
  And fire explains why it has broken forth,
  We need not fear accusers.  Thou, my King,
  Gav’st no commands—­thou should’st remember that! 
  The blame is mine alone.  Now bear him forth!

  [Exeunt with the body.]

  SCENE III

  KRIEMHILD’S room.  Deep night.

  KRIEMHILD.

  ’Tis far too early yet.  It is my blood
  That wakened me, and not the cock I heard,
  Or seemed to hear.

  [She goes to the window and opens it partly.]

                    The stars are shining still,
  It surely is an hour yet till mass. 
  Today I long to go to church and pray.

  SCENE IV

  Enter UTE softly.

  UTE.

  Already up, Kriemhild?

  KRIEMHILD.

  I am amazed
  That thou art up, for thou hast always slept
  More soundly after dawn and claimed thy right
  To have thy daughter wake thee, as thou her
  So long ago.

  UTE.

  Today I could not sleep,
  I heard strange sounds.