"No matter whose hearth this may be, here I must rest." "A stranger?" "I must question him." "Who has come into the house and is lying there by the fire?" "He lies there weary and travel-worn?" "Has he fainted?" "Could he be ill?" "He is still breathing:" "he has only closed his eyes." "The man seems robust, though he has collapsed from exhaustion." "A drink!" "A drink!" "I'll bring something to revive you..." "I've brought a drink for your parched lips:" "water as you requested." "Cool and refreshing was the water;" "it has lightened the burden of my weariness." "My spirits are revived;" "my eyes enjoy the blessed boon of sight." "Who is it that has comforted me so?" "This house and this woman belong to Hunding." "He will not grudge you shelter as a guest." "Wait till he comes home." "I am weaponless: your husband will not turn away a wounded guest." "Quick!" "Show me your wounds." "They are slight, not worth mentioning;" "the limbs of my body are still intact and firm." "Had my shield and spear supported me half as stoutly as my arms" "I would never have fled from my foes." "But they shattered my spear and shield:" "the pack of foemen harried me till I was weary:" "the violence of the storm exhausted my strength." "Yet my weariness has fled from me faster than I from my pursuers." "Night fell on my eyelids," "but now the sun smiles on me anew!" "Do not refuse from me a sweet drink of honeyed mead." "Will you taste it first?" "You have comforted an ill-starred man;" "his wish is to keep you from misfortune." "I am rested and sweetly refreshed:" "now I must be on my way." "Who is pursuing you, that you flee already?" "Ill luck pursues me wherever I flee." "Ill luck approaches wherever I stay." "Woman, far may it remain from you!" "I will direct my steps, and my gaze, away." "Then remain here!" "You cannot bring misfortune into a house where misfortune has its home." "I have called myself Woeful." "I will wait for Hunding." "I found this man exhausted by our hearth." "Dire need drove him to this house." " Have you tended him?" " I refreshed his lips and treated him as a guest." "For shelter and rest I thank her." "Will you rebuke your wife for that?" "Sacred is my hearth." "Let my house be sacrosanct to you!" "Prepare the meal for us men!" "How like my wife he is!" "A serpent's guile gleams from his eyes, too." "Your steps have led you far from your course, I fancy." "He who rested here rode no horse." "What rough path caused your plight?" "Storm and dire distress drove me through forest and field, heath and thicket." "I know not the way that I came." "Still less do I know whither I have wandered." "That I would gladly learn." "Hunding is the name of the owner of the roof that covers you, of the house that harbours you." "If you make your way westwards from here there in rich estates dwell kinsmen who guard Hunding's honour." "Let my guest now do me the honour of telling me his name." "If you are uneasy at confiding in me inform my wife here." "See how eagerly she asks you!" "Guest, I would gladly know who you are." "I may not call myself Peaceful." "Would that I were Joyful, but Woeful" "must be my name." "My father was Wolfe:" "I came into the world one of two, a twin sister and I." "Mother and sister were soon lost to me." "I hardly ever knew her who bore me nor her born with me." "Warlike and strong was Wolfe;" "he made many enemies." "Father took the youth out hunting." "One day they came home from harrying and coursing." "The wolf's lair lay empty." "The splendid hall was burnt to ashes, the oak's sturdy trunk reduced to a stump, the mother's brave body slain, all trace of the sister lost in the flames." "This bitter blow was dealt us by a cruel, envious band." "The old man and I fled as outlaws." "Many years the youth lived with Wolfe in the wild woods." "Many a pursuit after them was made, but the Wolf pair stoutly defended itself." "A wolf cub tells you this whom many knew well as Wölfing." "Wonderful and strange tales you tell, intrepid guest!" "Woeful the Wölfing!" "I think I have heard dark stories of that warlike pair although I have never known Wolfe and Wölfing." "But tell us more, stranger." "Where is your father now?" "Our vengeful foes launched a fierce onslaught on us." "Many of the hunters fell to the Wolves." "Their quarry drove them in flight." "The foe was scattered like chaff." "But I was separated from my father and lost track of him, though long I sought him." "I found only a wolf-skin in the forest, lying empty before me." "I did not find my father." "I felt the urge to leave the woods." "I was drawn to men and women." "However many I met, wherever I found them, if I sought a friend or wooed a woman," "I was always rejected." "Ill luck lay on me." "Whatever I thought right seemed bad to others." "Whatever I held to be wrong others favoured." "Wherever I found myself I fell into feuds, wherever I went I was met with resentment." "If I craved for happiness, I created only woe." "So I had to call myself Wehwalt:" "I was master only of woe." "She who assigned you so grievous a lot, the Norn, did not love you." "No one to whom, as stranger, you come as guest" "greets you with joy." "Only the cowardly fear the man who travels unarmed and alone." "Tell us more, guest, of how, finally, you lost your weapons in combat." "A young girl in distress called on me to defend her." "Her family wanted to wed the maid to a man she did not love." "I met her horde of oppressors in fight:" "the enemy fell before the victor." "Her brothers lay there dead." "The girl threw her arms around their bodies;" "grief replaced her rage." "In a flood of wild tears she surveyed the carnage, weeping." "The unhappy bride lamented the slaughter of her brothers." "Then the kinsmen of the dead rushed in, crying for vengeance, in superior numbers." "Enemies towered above me from every quarter." "But the girl would not budge from the scene of battle." "With shield and spear I protected her for long until spear and shield" "were hacked from my hands." "Wounded and weaponless I stood," "and saw the maid die." "The raging crowd pursued me." "On the bodies she lay dead..." "Woman, you asked me." "Now you know" "why I am not called" "Peaceful." "I know a turbulent race who hold sacred nothing that others revere." "They are hated by all, and by me." "I was summoned to wreak vengeance, to exact reparation for kinsmen's blood." "I arrived too late, and now come home to see the track of the fleeing culprit in my own house." "Wölfing, my house shelters you today, for tonight I accept you." "But tomorrow arm yourself with a stout weapon." "I choose daylight for the fight." "You shall pay dearly for the dead." "Leave the room!" "Do not linger here!" "Prepare my night drink and wait in there until I come to bed." "A man should arm himself with weapons." "Wölfing, I will meet you tomorrow." "You heard what I said." "Be on your guard!" "My father promised me a sword which I would find in my hour of need." "Unarmed, I have fallen into the house of a foe." "I wait here as a hostage to his vengeance." "I have seen a lovely woman of noble bearing." "A rapturous fear gnaws at my heart." "Longing now draws me to her who sears me with sweet magic." "But she is held by force by the man who mocks my lack of weapons." "Wälse!" "Wälse!" "Where is your sword, the trusty sword that I may wield in combat when the rage my heart still holds shall burst from my breast?" "What glints brightly there from the ash tree's trunk?" "A lightning gleam dazzles my eyes, the spark laughs in glee." "How gloriously does the gleam scorch my heart!" "Is it the glance of the radiant woman which, clinging there, she left behind her when she went out of the room?" "The darkness of night covered my eyes." "Then her radiant glance fell on me, bringing me warmth and daylight." "The sun's light shone on me in benison, its lovely radiance encircled my head till it sank behind the mountains." "Yet once more, as it departed, at evening its light fell on me." "Even the ancient ash tree's trunk was bathed in a golden glow." "That glow is fading, the light extinguished." "The darkness of night covers my eyes." "Hidden deep in my breast an obscure glow still smoulders." "Are you asleep, guest?" "Who is that creeping in?" "It is I. Listen to me!" "Hunding lies in heavy sleep." "I seasoned his drink with a drug." "Use the night to save yourself!" "Your nearness makes me safe!" "Let me show you a sword." "Oh, if you could only win it" "I could call you the noblest of heroes." "It was destined for the strongest alone." "Oh, mark well what I tell you!" "My husband's kinsmen sat here in this room, invited to Hunding's wedding." "He was marrying a wife whom robbers had given him as bride, without asking her." "Sadly I sat while they were drinking." "A stranger entered the house, an old man clad in grey." "His hat hung so low that it covered one of his eyes." "But the glint of the other struck fear in them all when the men observed its powerful menace." "To me alone his eye conveyed sweet yearning grief," "tears and solace together." "He looked at me and glared at them, while in his hand he brandished a sword which he then thrust into the ash tree's trunk," "plunging it there up to the hilt." "The sword should belong by right to the one who could draw it from the tree." "Resolutely as all the men strove, none could win the weapon." "Guests came and guests went." "The strongest tugged at the steel:" "not an inch could they loosen it from the tree." "Silently the sword remains there." "I knew then who it was that had greeted me in my grief." "I also know for whom alone the sword is embedded in the trunk." "Oh, if I could find him here and now, that friend, if he had come to me from afar to the most wretched of women, then all I have borne in bitter woe, all I have suffered in shame and humiliation," "sweet revenge would compensate for everything!" "I should have retrieved all I lost, all that I had wept for would be regained if I had found this sacred friend and could clasp that hero in my arms!" "Blessed woman, that friend for whom weapon and wife are destined holds you now!" "Fiercely in my breast burns the vow that unites me to you, noble soul." "What I have always yearned for I see in you." "In you I have found all that I lack!" "Though you suffered shame and I was afflicted with sorrow, though I was outlawed and you were dishonoured, joyful vengeance now calls us to happiness!" "I laugh aloud in highest delight as I hold your wondrous self in my embrace and feel your beating heart!" "Ah, who went out?" "Who came in?" "Nobody left, but someone has come:" "look, Spring is smiling into the room!" "Winter storms have given way to Maytime." "Spring sparkles in gentle radiance." "He is wafted, working wonders, on balmy breezes, light and lovely." "His breath blows through wood and meadow, his eyes, wide open, are smiling." "Sweetly he sounds from joyous birdsong, he breathes forth fragrant scents." "Lovely flowers spring from his warm blood, buds and shoots sprout from his vigour." "With his gentle weaponry of charm he conquers the world." "Winter and storm yield to his strong assault." "At his dauntless blows the stout doors that defiantly and stubbornly kept us from him had to yield." "To his sister here he swept." "Love lured the Spring." "Deep in our hearts love lay hidden." "Now she smiles happily at the light." "The brother frees his sister and bride, all that held them apart is demolished." "The young couple greet each other joyfully:" "Love and Spring are united!" "You are the Spring for which I have yearned through the long icy winter." "My heart greeted you with holy fear when I first blossomed at your glance." "I had always seen only what was alien, all around me was friendless." "All that ever happened was as if outside my ken." "But you I recognised plainly and clearly." "When my eyes saw you, you were my own." "What I hid in my heart, what I am, was revealed to me, bright as day." "It rang in my ear like a resounding peal when in alien empty winter I first saw my friend." "O sweetest bliss!" "Most blessed woman!" "Oh, let me come close to you, that I may clearly see the noble light that shines" "from your eyes and face and so sweetly overwhelms my senses." "In the spring moonlight you shine brightly, the waves of your hair crowning you with glory." "Now I can easily tell what captivated me, for my eyes feast on you in rapture." "How broad and open is your brow!" "How the network of veins winds into your temples!" "I tremble with the rapture that thrills me." "A marvel awakes in my memory:" "though I beheld you today, for the first time, my eyes have seen you before." "I too recall a dream of love, in ardent longing I have seen you before." "In the stream I have looked at my own image," "and now I behold it again." "As once it was reflected from the water, now you present my likeness to me!" "You are the likeness that" "I hid in myself." "Hush!" "Let me listen to that voice:" "I seem to have heard it as a child." "But no!" "I heard it recently when the woods echoed back to me the sound of my own voice." "O loveliest sound that I hear!" "The gleam of your eyes has shone on me before:" "that was how the old man gazed at me in greeting when he consoled my sorrow." "By that look his child recognised him." "I even wanted to call him by name!" "Are you truly called Woeful?" "That is not my name since you love me:" "now I am filled with the utmost bliss." "And, being happy, may you not call yourself Peaceful?" "Give me whatever name you love me to bear." "I will take my name from you." "But was your father's name Wolfe?" "He was a wolf to faint-hearted foxes." "But he whose eyes proudly shone, as yours now gloriously shine on me, wondrous woman, his name was Wälse." "If Wälse was your father and you are a Wälsung, it was for you he thrust his sword into the tree." "So let me name you as I love you:" "Siegmund, this I name you!" "Victorious you call me, and victorious I am!" "Let the sword I fearlessly hold be witness!" "Wälse promised me that one day, in direst need, I should find it." "Now I grasp it!" "Holiest love's highest need, yearning love's searing need," "burns bright in my breast, drives me to daring and death." "Notung!" "Needful do I call you, sword." "Notung!" "Notung, stubborn steel, show me the sharpness of your cutting edge!" "Come forth from your scabbard to me!" "Woman, you see Siegmund the Wälsung!" "As bridal gift he brings this sword." "With it he wins the fairest of women and carries you off from his enemy's house." "Far from here follow me now, forth into Spring's smiling mansion." "Notung the sword will guard you there should Siegmund die, loving you." "Is this Siegmund that I see here?" "I am Sieglinde, who longed for you." "Your own sister you have won together with the sword!" "You are bride and sister to your brother." "Then let the Wälsung race flourish!"