The Nibelungenlied Part 153

(St. XVI.) This description of a castle (_burc_) does not materially differ from those which occur elsewhere in the poem. The castle was not one building, however large and complex, but included in the same ample circuit of its walls several extensive buildings, and afforded sufficient accommodation for a very great number of persons. The most conspicuous of the buildings within the castle seem to have been large detached erections, to which in this poem are applied the words _hus_ (house), _palas_ (palace), _sal_ (hall), and _gadem_ (room). In the pa.s.sage before us, _palas_ and _sal_ are distinguished from one another; the same is the case at St. Lx.x.xIV, Twenty-fourth Adventure (_palas unde sal_), and at St. x.x.xVII, Ninth Adventure, where Etzel's and Gunther's dwellings are respectively spoken of. On the other hand, the hall where the Burgundians feast with Etzel, and where the repeated conflicts take place, is called _palas_ at St. XIX, Thirty-sixth Adventure, _sal_ at St. XX, same Adventure, _hus_ at St. IX, same Adventure, and _gadem_ at St. XX, Thirty-ninth Adventure, not to mention other pa.s.sages; and the large building in Etzel's castle, where Gunther and his knights sleep, is called _sal_ at stanzas VII and XVI, _hus_ at stanzas XV and XVII, and _gadem_ at St. XIX, of the Thirtieth Adventure. These terms therefore seem nearly synonymous, or at least equally applicable to the large detached buildings in question, which resembled our public halls, such as Westminster hall and Guild-hall, and the halls of colleges and Inns of Court. Some of the halls in this poem seem to have been of truly poetical dimensions. Gunther (St. XXVI, of the Thirteenth Adventure) entertains in his hall twelve hundred knights of Siegfried's, besides his own Burgundians. Etzel's circle was still more numerous. The Burgundian knights were more than a thousand in number; Rudeger's five hundred or more: Dietrich had many a stately man, no doubt the six hundred mentioned at St. IV, of the Thirty-second Adventure, and we learn from stanza V, of the Thirty-fourth Adventure, that 7,000 Huns were ma.s.sacred by the Burgundians; all these made up a dinner party of about 9,000 guests. The less aristocratic followers of Gunther, 9,000 in number, seem also to have been feasting in one immense room, when the Huns took advantage of their unarmed condition to ma.s.sacre them. The term, indeed, applied to the building is _hus_, but this, we have seen, is one of the words used to designate great public halls. The hall, where Gunther and his knights lay so splendidly (St. IX, Thirtieth Adventure), seems to have been an Eton Long Chamber on a gigantic scale.

After allowing for the twelve knights with Dankwart and the yeomen, he must have had more than a thousand warriors in his train. Treachery and violence were so common in the Middle Ages, that a great man was not safe except with a mult.i.tude of dependents about him, and the peculiar circ.u.mstances of Gunther's case required peculiar precaution. Yet even Siegfried took a thousand warriors of his own, and a hundred of Siegmund's, when they went together to visit his brother-in-law. These large halls were used for feasting, dancing, conversation, and sleeping, but there were other smaller separate buildings (_kemenaten_) for the residence of people of consequence, which no doubt contained several rooms. These also formed the bowers, or private apartments, of high-born ladies. The _kamere_ (chamber) seems to have been a room used for all sorts of purposes, among others for keeping stores and treasure as well as for living and sleeping. There seem to have been no private chapels within the walls of the castles described in this poem, none, for instance, such as St. George's Chapel in Windsor Castle, or the chapels in our Inns of Court and Colleges. Everybody went for his divinity to the minster. Kriemhild, who was in the habit of going to matins before daybreak, took her way to the minster, though it was so far from the castle at Worms that the ladies (St. x.x.xIV, Thirteenth Adventure) rode on horseback from one to the other. Gunther's castle was connected with the city of Worms, but seems to have communicated with the surrounding country, like the citadels of our present fortified towns. At stanzas x.x.xII, x.x.xIII, Thirteenth Adventure, the ladies view from the castle windows a tournament held in the country outside the walls. Etzel's castle, as far as I remember, is not represented as connected with any town.

(St. XXII.) All this description of the adventurers bears a resemblance to the pa.s.sage in the Iliad where Helen points out the Greek chiefs to Priam; it reminds us also of the imitation of Homer in the "Jerusalem Delivered."

(St. x.x.xIV.) Siegfried here seems to apologize to Brunhild for presenting himself before her.

(St. XLIII.) Compare stanzas Lx.x.xIV, Seventh Adventure--Lx.x.xV, Tenth Adventure--x.x.xI, Nineteenth Adventure, and the observations.

(St. XLVI.) I cannot understand how the skin could be seen under a silken surcoat, which was so strong as never to have been cut by weapon, and which was moreover worn over a breastplate. Lachmann has reason to say "_die Brunne ist vergessen_."

(St. LXX.)

So did Sir Artegal upon her lay, As if she had an iron anvil been, That flakes of fire, bright as the sunny ray, Out of her steely arms were flashing seen, That all on fire you would her surely ween.

"Faerie Queene," V, v. 8.

(St. LXX.) For _der helt_, the hero, Lachmann conjectures _der helde_, the concealed one.

(St. Lx.x.xVIII.) According to Lachmann the Fourth Lay concludes with this stanza (L. St. XLII). What follows between this stanza and St. XLI, Tenth Adventure (L. St. XXVII, Ninth Adventure) he considers to consist of two continuations by different authors. Among other matters, they contain the two marriages of Brunhild and Kriemhild, events which I can scarcely imagine to have been pa.s.sed over without notice, though I admit that they are not related in the clearest manner.

EIGHTH ADVENTURE

(St. I.) Lachmann observes that this stanza is inconsistent with St.

Lx.x.xIV, Seventh Adventure, where Siegfried is said to have taken the cloak back to the ship.

(St. XVIII.) Siegfried, I suppose, was not recognized from being in complete armor, but his shield might have identified him, as in the battle with the Saxons. Nothing is said here of what he had done with his _tarnkappe_.

(St. XXIII.) The _lutertranc_ (clear drink) was wine pa.s.sed through spices, and afterward strained.

(St. XLV.) Our common participle _bound_ (bound for such and such a place) seems in this sense to be derived from the old northern verb _bown_, to make ready, and not from _bind_.

And Jedburgh heard the Regent's order, That each should bown him for the border.

"Lay of the Last Minstrel."

NINTH ADVENTURE

(St. I.) According to Lachmann (L. St. XCV, Seventh Adventure) another continuation begins here. He thinks this addition is by another author than the composer of the first, and that it resembles in several respects the Third Lay of his edition, which answers to the Fifth Adventure ("How Siegfried first saw Kriemhild") of other editions.

(St. III.) Hagan here speaks ironically, but with good nature, as to a friend. He exhibits the same turn, but with the bitterness that suits the change of circ.u.mstances and the person whom he addresses, in his dialogues with his enemy Kriemhild, when he meets her in Hungary.

(St. XXVII, Ninth Adventure.) The lady supplies the place of the modern pocket handkerchief _mit sneblanken geren_ in the original. The German _gere_ is evidently the English _gore_, a word which puzzled no less a person than Tyrwhitt, and which Johnson, who writes it _goar_, has confounded with the _gusset_. The latter is the piece under the arm of a shirt; the gore, as Tyrwhitt was afterward accurately informed by "a learned person," is a common name for a slip, which is inserted to widen a garment in any particular part. It is a wedge-shaped piece, as the German commentators say of their _gere_. Shirts at present, however it may have been in Chaucer's or in Tyrwhitt's time, are not made with gores; the opening on each side renders gores unnecessary; but in the female of the shirt and in the smockfrock, gores are, I believe, still used. The pa.s.sage in Chaucer ill.u.s.trates the pa.s.sage before us. The poet says of the Carpenter's Wife (Canterbury Tales, 3235)--

A seint (girdle) she wered, barred all of silk, A barme-cloth (ap.r.o.n) eke white as morwe (morning) milk Upon hire lendes (loins) full of many a gore.

In the last line the expression "full of many a gore" means, probably, full made, spread out by means of many a gore; otherwise "full of gores"

would have been sufficient, and the addition of "many" an inelegant piece of surplusage. However that may be, it is clear that the ap.r.o.n stuck out and extended round the person of the wearer in consequence of the number of these gores, or wedge-shaped pieces, which made the bottom much wider than the top. An ap.r.o.n, thus made up of a mult.i.tude of gores, might not unaptly be itself called in the plural a woman's gores, and this seems to have been formerly the case in Germany. Kriemhild is here said to wipe her eyes with snow-white gores, and, in the Gudrun, the heroine of that name is rated by the tyrannical Gerlind for wrapping up her hands indolently in her gores. It is of course impossible for a translator to render these two pa.s.sages literally, at least if he wishes to be intelligible.

(St. XLVIII.) The commentators are not particularly clear as to what these garments, called in the original "n.o.ble Ferrans robes," really were. Von der Hagan says there must have been a city of that name in the East, from which these robes came, while Lachmann says there is a stuff composed of silk and wool, which still goes by the name of _ferrandine_.

The Dictionary of the French Academy mentions a silk stuff as _formerly_ going by that name.

TENTH ADVENTURE

(St. XLI.) Lachmann's Fifth Lay begins here, and concludes with St.

DCCV.

(St. LXIX.) The cord or girdle, thus worn by ladies, seems to have been tolerably strong, not merely from the use to which Brunhild put hers here, but also from the manner in which Florimel's is applied by Sir Satyrane.--"Faerie Queene," III, vii., 36.

The golden ribband, which that virgin wore About her slender waste, he took in hand, And with it bownd the beast, that lowd did rore For great despight of that unwonted band.

(St. LXXII.)

???? a?pe??? ????? ?? ????, ???? t??' ?ta?

????et' e??a?a? ?? Ta????? ????a?.

Eurip. Androm. 103.

(St. Lx.x.xI.) If this and the following stanza are, as Lachmann thinks, an addition, they no doubt were added to supply a palpable defect in the narrative. If it were not for them, the company would be spoken of as rising from table (St. Lx.x.xIV) when it is nowhere mentioned that they had sat down.

I must venture to remark that Lachmann's note to the next stanza is not very satisfactory. Though the knights and ladies may usually have eaten apart, it seems to have been allowable for the mistress of the house at least to be present when the knights were feasting (St. XXVI, this Adventure, to St. XXIII, Twenty-seventh Adventure), and there is nothing unreasonable in supposing that the married sister of the host might have accompanied her husband. This seems more natural than to a.s.sume that the queens left their apartments and went to the hall (probably a detached building) just to show themselves before they retired to bed. I must own I do not see the difficulty about _coming_ and _going_ noticed by Lachmann. Everybody, who goes to a place, comes to it when he gets there. As the poem stands, everything is consistent. The queens cross the palace court and go to the hall for the good substantial reason of getting their suppers. They come back to their private apartments, or bowers, where they remain awhile with their immediate attendants, and during the short interval, that elapses before dismissing the latter and going to bed, Siegfried slips through his wife's fingers, and goes to Gunther's private apartments.

I should add that, at St. XXIV, Twenty-seventh Adventure, the young margravine and her damsels are brought back into the eating hall after the men have finished their repast, but that depends on the correctness of the reading _die schnen_ (see note to St. x.x.xI, Twenty-seventh Adventure) and on the consequent expulsion of the latter stanza. If we retain the latter stanza, the young margravine is sent for _ze hove_, like Kriemhild at St. x.x.xI, Tenth Adventure. But we can scarcely apply to young married women and their near female connections, also married, pa.s.sages like these, that relate to young spinsters. In the pa.s.sages quoted in the note to St. XXIV, Twenty-seventh Adventure, men and women are mentioned as eating apart, but it is stated to be an old custom, and is noted as an ancient peculiarity.

(St. Lx.x.xV, Tenth Adventure.) It appears from this description that the wearer of the cloak must have had the power of being visible orinvisible as he chose. He might have on the mantle, and yet be visible.

Siegfried does not here leave his wife in the ordinary way, and then put on the cloak. He seems to disappear miraculously. This differs from the account given in stanzas XLIII, Seventh Adventure, and Lx.x.xIV, of the same, where Siegfried puts on the cloak before he becomes invisible, and remains so till he puts it off, but agrees with St. XXI, Nineteenth Adventure, where it is distinctly stated that Siegfried wore the cloak at all times. I should however add that, in the original, there is what appears to my ignorance a difficulty, though, as the commentators take no notice of it, I suppose there is really none. The original stands thus:--

Si trute sine hende mit ir vil wizen hant, Unz er vor ir augen, sine wesse wenne, verswant,

literally, "She fondled his hands with her very white hand, till he before her eyes, she knew not when, vanished." As to the interpreters, Braunfels simply modernizes the old dialect, rendering _wenne_ by _wann_; Simrock and Marbach are equally literal, except that they put _wie_, how, where Braunfels has _wann_; Beta, who here as elsewhere is less rigorously literal than his comrades, merely says, "then it happened that he suddenly vanished before her sight." I must confess I cannot understand how Kriemhild could not know _when_ a thing happened that pa.s.sed before her eyes, though she might well be puzzled how to account for it. It is remarkable that the La.s.sberg ma.n.u.script, which is said by Lachmann and other competent judges to contain a revised and remodelled text, omits altogether St. Lx.x.xVI, Tenth Adventure, and alters the stanza before it, and that after it in such a way, that the supernatural seems to disappear, and Siegfried is merely represented as stealing away from the women, and coming secretly and mysteriously (_vil tougen_) to Gunther's chamber. This ma.n.u.script however mentions the tarnkappe at St. LXXVII, same Adventure. Did the reviser of this ma.n.u.script wish it to be inferred, that Siegfried, after leaving his wife, went and put on the tarnkappe?

(St. CX.) In the Volsunga Saga Brunhild is a Valkyrie, or Chooser of the Slain, a sort of Northern Bellona, endowed with supernatural strength.

This superhuman prowess is connected with her virgin state, and by becoming a wife she is reduced to the ordinary weakness of woman. In the Nibelungenlied this circ.u.mstance comes upon us by surprise, for we are nowhere told that the strength of Brunhild differed from that of other women, except in degree, and no reason is given why matrimony should produce any greater change in Brunhild than in the rest of her s.e.x. The pa.s.sage is in fact derived from the Scandinavian form of the legend, and seems scarcely in harmony with the spirit of the German poem.

ELEVENTH ADVENTURE

(St. XIV.) Worms beyond the Rhine, _Wormez uber Rin_. The writer here as elsewhere speaks of Worms with reference to his own situation to the east of the Rhine, whereas Xanten, like Worms, is on the west side of that river.

(St. XVI.) Newsman's bread, _botenbrot_, was the term for the present given to a messenger.

(St. x.x.xI.) Lachmann's Sixth Lay begins here and ends with St. XLIX, Fourteenth Adventure.

TWELFTH ADVENTURE