The Nibelungenlied: The Lay of the Nibelungs (Oxford World's Classics)
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A further group is concerned primarily with Gudrun and Brynhild in the aftermath of Sigurd’s death: Guðrúnarkviða in fyrsta (The First Lay of Gudrun); Guðrúnarkviða onnur (The Second Lay of Gudrun); Guðrúnarkviða in Þriðja (The Third Lay of Gudrun); Sigurðarkviða in skamma (A Short Poem about Sigurd), and Helreið Brynhildar (Brynhild’s Ride to Hell). The prose passage called Dráp Niflunga (The Death of the Niflungs) relates to the second part of the Nibelungenlied, as does Oddrúnargrátr (Oddrun’s Lament). These accounts contradict one another; the story of Sigurd does not emerge clearly from the Eddic verse.
A third group of poems tells of Gudrun and Atli. The oldest of these2 is Atlaqviða (The Lay of Atli). This has a radically different slant to the Nibelungenlied on the treacherous invitation, which is issued by Atli to Gunnar and Högni. Atli wishes to obtain the treasure that had belonged to Sigurd. Gudrun avenges her brothers on Atli, killing him after slaughtering her children. Atlamál in Grœnlenzco (The Greenlandic Poem of Atli) is similar in plot, though Atli’s lust for treasure is not present. (Guðrunarhvöt (The Whetting of Gudrun) and Hamðismál (The Lay of Hamdir) have little relevance to the Nibelungenlied, extending the story of Gudrun and her revenge over subsequent generations.)
3. Þiðreks saga. A Norwegian prose compilation, thought to date from c. 1230–50, which claims to be modelled on a North German source, but also shows knowledge of the Lay of the Nibelungs. Its name derives from that of one of its heroes, Þiðrek, who corresponds to Dietrich in the Nibelungenlied. Grimhild, Hildibrand, Sigmund, Attila, and Rodingeir (Rüedeger) also figure in the saga. Hagen’s killing of Grimhilt’s son is one motif which is treated more fully in Þiðreks saga.
4. Völsunga saga (The Saga of the Volsungs). An Icelandic prose compilation, largely based on the Eddic poems and other lost oral traditions, but showing some knowledge of Þiðreks saga.
5. Faroese ballads collected in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, bearing the collective name Sjúrðarkvœði (The Poem of Sigurd). Despite the lateness of these texts, arguments have been put relating them to the lost earlier forms of the legend.
All in all, the Nordic analogues seem to have developed within an independent oral tradition, until the Eddic poems came to be written down in the thirteenth century. They can cast some light on some motifs in the Nibelungenlied, yet differences are as apparent as similarities.
These and other texts, including the sixteenth-century German Lied vom Hürnen Seyfried (Lay of Horny Seyfried), have been adduced by the many scholars who have played the game of positing lost poems in attempts to chart the lay’s genesis. There can be no doubt that both the story of Sivrit and that of Kriemhilt’s revenge were in widespread circulation long before 1200. The Anglo-Saxon poem Beowulf shows an awareness of the story, when a skilled minstrel sings all he knows of Sigemund, the son of Wæls. He tells of how Sigemund slew the dragon and thus obtained the treasure-hoard, loading it on to a boat. Sigemund is praised as the most renowned warrior in the world (Beowulf, 875–900). The Danish historian Saxo Grammaticus tells us, in his Gesta Danorum, how in 1131 a Saxon singer warned Duke Knut of Denmark against a treacherous invitation by referring to the notorious perfidy of Grimhild against her brothers (Book 13, vi, 7). Saxo was writing c.1210, but shows an awareness that the tale of Kriemhilt’s treachery was well attested in the past. Andreas Heusler, indeed, thought that the tradition available to Saxo may have been a source of the Nibelungenlied.3
Karl Lachmann, the great nineteenth-century editor of MHG texts, argued that the Nibelungen Noth (The Doom of the Nibelungs), as he named it, was an amalgam of some twenty lays.4 This was refuted by the Swiss scholar Andreas Heusler (1865–1940), who argued that the lay had its origin in two distinct legends, a Brünhild saga and a Burgundian saga. Heusler drew up a family-tree of sources based on this distinction, arguing that the two legends, over a period of seven centuries, evolved through five stages, merging in the Ältere Not (The Older Doom), a postulated predecessor of the Nibelungenlied itself, which may have been composed in the mid-twelfth century.5 Defining the length and nature of these hypothetical poems, and indeed their number, is a task which will continue to intrigue scholars. Heusler’s ideas held sway for a long time; they are still being refined, and often refuted. The existence of two distinct branches of legend is strongly suggested by the Eddic lays, by Beowulf, and by Saxo Grammaticus, but we are left with what Andersson rightly calls a ‘maze of texts’.6 It seems almost certain that the ‘Last Poet’ combined a number of shorter, earlier sources to forge his plot, but whether these sources were oral or written, German, Norwegian, or Icelandic, has led to much debate and will continue to do so. It seems probable that even c. 1200 the Nibelungenlied was a ‘labile’ text. Writing made it less so, and thus the manuscripts show relatively little variation. What is clear is that neither the ‘Last Poet’s’ plot, nor its Eddic analogues, have much foundation in the scanty historical data at our disposal. History served as a springboard for legend, which leapt in multifarious directions.
To illustrate how the Nordic material can elucidate the Nibelungenlied, one example may serve. Perhaps the most difficult motif that the Nibelungenlied poet has to explain away is Sivrit’s taking of Prünhilt’s ring and girdle, the first a symbol of betrothal or marriage, while taking the girdle symbolizes taking virginity. The exigencies of plot in the Nibelungenlied mean that it is not Sivrit, but Gunther, who takes Prünhilt’s virginity, thus causing her to lose her superhuman strength, yet the taking of the ring and girdle is vital in that it leads to the quarrel between the two queens, Prünhilt’s treachery, and the ensuing events in the second part of the poem. The poet can scarcely conceal his embarrassment at this action on Sivrit’s part: ‘I don’t know if he did that out of his high spirits’ (strophe 680).
A previous relationship between Sivrit and Prünhilt is hinted at in the lay, but never made explicit. When the wooing voyage to Iceland is planned Sivrit shows prior knowledge of Prünhilt, which leads to the ironic comment by Hagen: ‘since he is so well acquainted with how things stand with Prünhilt’ (strophe 331). Sivrit is well versed in the sea-routes to Iceland, and Prünhilt’s retinue recognize him on the arrival of the four warriors, as does Prünhilt herself (strophe 419). The Icelandic analogues are far less reticent on this relationship. In Völsunga saga Brynhild loses her virginity to Sigurd, who makes his way through the wall of fire surrounding her hall. The couple are betrothed. In Ragnars saga or The saga of Ragnar Lodbrok, which is preserved in the same manuscript as Völsunga saga, they have a daughter, Aslaug, who is in effect the heroine of Ragnars saga. The saga begins: ‘Heimir heard the tidings of the death of Sigurd and Brynhild in Hlymdale; and their daughter Aslaug whom Heimir was fostering was then three winters old.’7 Later Aslaug tells Ragnar that ‘she was the daughter of Sigurd Fafnir’s Bane and Brynhild, Budli’s daughter…. she told him of the meeting of Sigurd and Brynhild on the rock, and of her begetting; “and when Brynhild was delivered a name was given to me and I was called Aslaug”.’8 Aslaug in turn gives birth to a son, Sigurd Snake-in-the-Eye, who proves a great hero. This typifies the way in which the Nordic material pursues its own routes, yet it helps explain the poet’s dilemma, and perhaps Hagen’s somewhat cryptic question, as he plots Sivrit’s murder: ‘Are we to breed bastards?’ (strophe 867).
APPENDIX III
THE METRE OF THE NIBELUNGENLIED
MUCH scholarly attention has been paid to the form of the Nibelungenlied, as it has to all other aspects of the lay. The division into ‘adventures’ is well attested by the manuscripts. The strophic form consists of four lines. These each divide into half-lines, separated by a caesura. The end-rhyme has an aabb pattern, but there is also often internal rhyme, i.e. with the half-lines preceding the caesura rhyming. The way in which the feet are filled varies. Must commonly a foot consists of a trochee (/*). Ultimately the form goes back to Germanic alliterative verse, the long line of the Hildebrandslied (and of Beowulf). That alliteration is also freque
nt in the Nibelungenlied thus comes as no surprise.
The most idiosyncratic feature of the poem’s form is the placing of four, rather than three, main stresses in the last half-line of the strophe. This is not consistent throughout the poem, but is present in the majority of strophes. It lends greater emphasis to the final line of the strophe and is often echoed in the content, coinciding with the epic prophecies, the harbingers of doom. The penultimate strophe may serve as an illustration, with the verse translation by Burton Raffel below:
Diu vil michel êre was dâ gelegen tôt.
die liute heten alle jâmer unde nôt.
mit leide was verendet des küniges hôhgezît,
als ie diu liebe leide z’aller jungeste gît.
All their once enormous honor was dead and gone
People everywhere shared the pain and grief.
Etzel’s celebration ended in heavy sorrow
as love and joy have a way of doing, today becoming tomorrow.1
The metrical scheme of the MHG is as follows (‘denoting a stressed syllable, and * an unstressed syllable):
′ * ′ * ′ * * ′ * ′ * ′
* ′ * ′ * ′ * ′ * ′ * ′
* ′ * ′ * ′ * * ′ * * ′ * ′
* ′ * ′ * ′ * ′ * ′ ′ * ′
Raffel has boldly ‘followed this pattern very closely throughout his translation’.2 Yet the problem with a verse translation is that the exigencies of metre and the constant hunt for rhyme tend to lead the translator away from the sense of the original. Thus, while Helmut de Boor’s edition of the Nibelungenlied remains the standard one, his verse translation into German fell on deaf ears.3 Raffel’s translation of the first strophe illustrates the problems:
We know from ancient stories filled with wondrous names
how heroes fought for glory, won their fight for fame,
their flowing feasts and pleasures, their tears, their moans, their mourning,
their noble quarrels and courage, and here once more is more of the same.
The closest roughly contemporary parallel to the metrical scheme is to be found in the lyrics of Der von Kürenberg, perhaps the oldest named German lyric poet. We know virtually nothing about his identity, but he is thought to belong to a group of Danubian poets who composed songs around the middle of the twelfth century. This dating is based on criteria of both style and content. The thirteen strophes attributed to Kürenberg employ the long line with a caesura and impure rhyme (assonance), features which are absent from the German lyric from c.1170 onwards, when pure rhyme and the tripartite form of the canzona, borrowed from the French troubadours and trouvères, begin to dominate. Kürenberg’s lyrics, in contrast, are for the most part monostrophic vignettes. Generally his songs are free from the influence of courtly love, which established itself in the last quarter of the twelfth century, again under Romance influence. The females in Kürenberg’s lyrics are forceful and outspoken, in contrast to their later lyric counterparts. A further link with the Nibelungenlied is the probable Danubian provenance of Der von Kürenberg’s lyrics. Most significantly, however, the last half-line of their strophes generally has four feet, as in the following monostrophic lyric in the female voice:
Ich stuont mir nehtint spâte an einer zinne,
dô hôrt ich einen rîter vil wol singen
in Kürenberges wîse, al ûz der menigîn.
er muoz mir diu lant rûmen, alder ich geniete mich sîn.
I stood late one night at a turret;
Then I heard a knight singing full well
in Kürenberg’s melody, from out of the crowd.
He must leave my lands, or I’ll have my way with him!
The metrical scheme is:
* ′ * ′ * ′ * ′ ′ * ′ *
* ′ * ′ * ′ * ′ ′ ′ *
* ′ * ′ * ′ * * ′ * ′ * ′
* ′ * * ′ ′ * ′ * ′ * ′ * * ′
Kriemhilt’s dream in the First Adventure has been compared with the most celebrated of Kürenberg’s lyrics, the ‘Falcon Song’, which has the same metrical form:
I reared myself a falcon for more than a year.
When I had tamed him, as I would wish,
and I had bound his plumage well with gold,
he rose to a great height and flew into other lands.
Afterwards I saw the falcon, lovely in flight.
He wore silk ribbons on his legs,
and his plumage was all red gold.
May God send those together who would gladly be lovers!
It has even been suggested, in the constant search to identify the poet of the Nibelungenlied, that Der von Kürenberg might have been its author. The equation of the male lover with the (often phallic) falcon is, however, a common topos in medieval German literature.
From the Anglo-American point of view, the metrical scheme bears a resemblance to that obtaining in many of the ballads collected by Francis Child,4 for example in one of the melodies to which the border ballad Lord Bateman (Child 53; also known in Scotland as Young Beichan) is sung, in the Aeolian mode.5 A version sung by Campbell MacLean has the characteristic extra foot in the fourth line:
Lord Beichan was a noble lord,
A noble lord of high degree.
He set his ships upon the ocean;
Some foreign country he would go see.
The Child ballads, like the medieval lay, are in quatrains; the usual rhyme-scheme is xaxa, as above, or aabb. The extra length of the fourth line gives a sense of finality, of closure, underlining the end of the strophe as a unit, and matching the expectations of the audience.
EXPLANATORY NOTES
Adventure: this has the sense, derived from Old French, of ‘something that happens’. In effect, it comes to mean ‘chapter’ in the manuscripts of the Nibelungenlied.
Of Kriemhilt: this subtitle is not in the central manuscripts A, B, and C, but is to be found in D and d. The subtitles vary greatly in the manuscripts. I have followed those in the Bartsch/De Boor edition.
such marvels told: the Middle High German (MHG) poet employs the device of apo koinu here, linking two main clauses by the same object. A more literal translation would read: ‘In ancient tales we are told many marvels, of renowned heroes, of great hardship, of joys, festivities, of weeping and lamenting, of bold warriors’ battles you may now hear marvels told.’ This programmatic first strophe is not in MS B.
noble maiden: a distinction is drawn between the young ‘maiden’, a virgin, and the ‘woman’, after her future marriage. The term edel, ‘noble’ is shifting in significance c.1200. Originally denoting high rank, it comes to mean ‘noble of mind’.
in all the lands: probably a proverbial expression, though the poet may have in mind the constituent lands of the Holy Roman Empire.
margraves: counts of the marks or marches, border territories; by the twelfth century this had become a hereditary title.
marshal… steward… cup-bearer… chamberlain: these are the four highest offices at court, established in Ottonian times.
without a guard: or ‘without supervision’. This courtly portrait of a safely guarded young prince contrasts starkly with Hagen’s account of Sivrit’s early adventures in the Third Adventure. See Introduction, p. xvii.
took sword: i.e. ‘were knighted’.
bohort: a mounted charge carried out in teams.
travelling people: minstrels such as, perhaps, the author of the Nibelungenlied.
noble love: MHG hôhe minne usually refers to courtly love, a relationship that remains generally unfulfilled. Sivrit’s love-life is complicated by the genesis of the poem. He is bent on marriage, but the ethos of courtly love influences his wooing. See Introduction, p. xvii.
for whom my heart holds very great love: love unseen, love at a distance, is a common topos in medieval literature. For example, in Book XIV of Wolfram von Eschenbach’s Parzival, Gramoflanz expresses love for a lady he has never beheld, Itonje, sister of Gawan, his deadly enemy. Gramoflanz is not
one to make things easy for himself.
said King Sigmunt: such double attribution of speeches is common in the Nibelungenlied.
with twelve others: MHG selbe zwelfte ought to mean ‘with eleven others’, but this is contradicted by strophe 64. Numbers in the poem should not be taken too literally.
grey and coloured garments: ‘grey’ refers to the fur of grey squirrels, ‘coloured’ to the same animal’s stomach fur, which is white with black edges.
spans: a span is the breadth of an outstretched hand.
turned his eye: normally (but not invariably) the plural ‘eyes’ obtains in such MHG idioms. This may be a reference to Hagen’s loss of one eye in battle against Walther of Spain, in the Latin poem Waltharius.
Schilbunc and Nibelunc, those powerful king’s sons: the background is not explained, but Schilbunc and Nibelunc would appear to be the sons of the deceased King Nibelunc, who have subsequently quarrelled over their inheritance.