Chapter 23 - Page 2

heart): "I'll give you to know however well the knights may fare, I may well have joy of this, for never have I won better kin through woman's love."

Again the queen spake: "It hath been well told you, that I have high-born kin; therefore do I grieve that they so seldom reck to see me here. I hear the folk aver that I be banished."

Then spake king Etzel: "Dear lady mine, and it think you not too far, I'll bid hither to my lands, from across the Rhine, whomso ye be fain to see."

The lady joyed her when she heard his will. She spake: "Would ye show me your faith, my lord, then send envoys to Worms across the Rhine, through whom I may tell my kinsfolk what I have in mind. Thus there will come hither to our land many a noble knight and a good."

He answered: "It shall hap whenso ye bid. Ye might not be more glad to see your kin than I to see the sons of the noble Uta. It doth irk me sore, that they have been strangers to us so long a time. If it please you, dear lady mine, I would fain send my minstrels for your kinsmen to the Burgundian land."

He bade the good minstrels be fetched straightway. Quickly they hasted to where the king sate by the queen. He told the twain they should be envoys to the Burgundian land and bade full lordly weeds be made ready for them. Clothing was prepared for four and twenty warriors, and the message was told them by the king, how they should bid Gunther and his liegemen hither. Kriemhild, the queen, talked with them apart. Then spake the mighty king: "I'll tell you what to say. I offer to my kin my love and service, that it may please them to ride hither to my land. But few such welcome guests have I known, and if they perchance will fulfill my wish, tell Kriemhild's kinsmen that they must not fall to come this summer to my feast, for much of my joy doth lie upon the kinsmen of my wife."

Then spake the minstrel, the proud Swemmel: "When shall your feasting be in these lands, that I may tell it yonder to your kin?"

King Etzel answered: "On next midsummer's day."

"We'll do as ye command," spake then Werbel.

The queen bade them be brought secretly unto her bower, where she then talked with the envoys. From this but little joy happed to many a knight. To the two messengers she spake: "Now earn ye mickle goods, in that ye do my pleasure full willingly and give the message which I send to my native land. I'll make you rich in goods and give you the lordly robes. And if ye see any of my kin at Worms upon the Rhine, ye must not tell them that ye ever saw me sad of heart. Tender my service to the heroes brave and good. Beg that they do as the king doth bid and thus part me from all my grief. The Huns ween, I be without kith and kin. Were I a knight, I'd visit them myself at times. And say to Gernot, too, the noble brother of mine, that