2132.
Then many of them shouted: “Come nigh, ye heroes, pray,
That we may have our ending,— ay, come without delay!
Here none there are remaining but have been doom’d to die!”
With shafts one saw their bucklers all bristling speedily.
2133.
What have I more to tell you? A good twelve hundred men
Made onset sore upon them, again and yet again.
The strangers cool’d their fury by wounding many a one—
No truce could be between them; one saw the life blood run
2134.
From wounds of deadly deepness; and many were there slain
And every man among them one heard for friends complain.
The mighty king and noble lost all his bravest there,
For whom their loving kinsfolk sore sorrow had to bear.
ADVENTURE XXXVII—HOW THE MARGRAVE RÜDEGER WAS SLAIN.
2135.
The strangers, until morning, right gallantly had done.
By then Gotlinda’s husband unto the court had gone,
And, looking round on all sides, he saw such horrors there
As moved to inward weeping true-hearted Rüdeger.
2136.
“Woe’s me,” then said the warrior, ‘that e’er I saw the day!
To think that none availeth this misery to stay!
Though peace would I make gladly, the king will ne’er agree,
For more and more he dwelleth upon his injury.”
