German, that is, the High German written and spoken in the period
between 1100 and 1500, the language of the great romances of chivalry
and of the "Minnesingers". More exactly, the poem is written in the
Austrian dialect of the close of the twelfth century, but contains many
archaisms, which point to the fact of its having undergone a number of
revisions.

In closing this brief study of the "Nibelungenlied", just a word or
two further with reference to the poem, its character, and its place in
German literature. Its theme is the ancient Teutonic ideal of "Treue"
(faithfulness or fidelity), which has found here its most magnificent
portrayal; faithfulness unto death, the loyalty of the vassal for his
lord, as depicted in Hagen, the fidelity of the wife for her husband,
as shown by Kriemhild, carried out with unhesitating consistency to the
bitter end. This is not the gallantry of medieval chivalry, which colors
so largely the opening scenes of the poem, but the heroic valor, the
death-despising stoicism of the ancient Germans, before which the
masters of the world, the all-conquering Romans, were compelled to bow.

In so far as the "Nibelungenlied" has forgotten most of the history of
the youthful Siegfried, and knows nothing of his love for Brunhild, it
is a torso, but so grand withal, that one hardly regrets the loss of
these integral elements of the old saga. As it is a working over of
originally separate lays, it is not entirely homogeneous, and contains
not a few contradictions. In spite of these faults, however, which a
close study reveals, it is nevertheless the grandest product of Middle
High German epic poetry, and deservedly the most popular poem of older
German literature. It lacks, to be sure, the grace of diction found in
Gottfried von Strassburg's "Tristan und Isolde", the detailed and often
magnificent descriptions of armor and dress to be met with in the epics
of Hartman von Ouwe; it is wanting in the lofty philosophy of Wolfram
von Eschenbach's "Parzival", and does not, as this latter, lead the
reader into the realms of religious doubts and struggles. It is imposing
through its very simplicity, through the grandeur of the story, which
it does not seek to adorn and decorate. It nowhere pauses to analyze
motives nor to give us a picture of inner conflict as modern authors are
fond of doing. Its characters are impulsive and prompt in action, and
when they have once acted, waste no time in useless regret o