.
For all that he was wounded to the death, he smote so mightily that the
shield well-nigh brake, and the precious stones flew out. The noble
guest had fain taken vengeance.

Hagen fell beneath his stroke. The meadow rang loud with the noise of
the blow. If he had had his sword to hand, Hagen had been a dead man.
But the anguish of his wound constrained him. His colour was wan; he
could not stand upright; and the strength of his body failed him, for he
bare death's mark on his white cheek. Fair women enow made dole for him.

Then Kriemhild's husband fell among the flowers. The blood flowed fast
from his wound, and in his great anguish he began to upbraid them that
had falsely contrived his death. "False cowards!" cried the dying
knight. "What availeth all my service to you, since ye have slain me? I
was true to you, and pay the price for it. Ye have done ill by your
friends. Cursed by this deed are your sons yet unborn. Ye have avenged
your spite on my body all too bitterly. For your crime ye shall be
shunned by good knights."

All the warriors ran where he lay stabbed. To many among them it was a
woeful day. They that were true mourned for him, the which the hero had
well deserved of all men.

The King of Burgundy, also, wept for his death, but the dying man said,
"He needeth not to weep for the evil, by whom the evil cometh. Better
had he left it undone, for mickle is his blame."

Then said grim Hagen, "I know not what ye rue. All is ended for us--care
and trouble. Few are they now that will withstand us. Glad am I
that, through me, his might is fallen."

"Lightly mayst thou boast now," said Siegfried; "if I had known thy
murderous hate, it had been an easy thing to guard my body from thee. My
bitterest dole is for Kriemhild, my wife. God pity me that ever I had a
son. For all men will reproach him that he hath murderers to his
kinsmen. I would grieve for that, had I the time."

He said to the king, "Never in this world was so foul a murder as thou
hast done on me. In thy sore need I saved thy life and thine honour.
Dear have I paid for that I did well by thee." With a groan the wounded
man said further, "Yet if thou canst show truth to any on this earth, O
King, show it to my dear wife, that I commend to thee. Let it advantage
her to be thy sister. By all princely honour stand by her. Long must my
father and my knights wait for my coming. Never hath woman won such woe
through a de