John Lothrop Motley - "History of the United Netherlands, 1586"

Annie Payson Call - "Power Through Repose"

Mary Johnston - "Pioneers of the Old South, A Chronicle of English Colonial Beginnings"

J. Cuthbert Hadden - "Haydn"

New Philadelphia Book Publisher Highlights Local Talent
Book and Publishing News from Publishers Newswire(tm)

Looking for Child to be on Cover of a New Book, 'The Model Child'
PHILADELPHIA, Pa. -- The Philadelphia literary world will celebrate the launch of two new players today, April 10th: Kay Square Press, a new publishing company focused on Philadelphia-area artists, their stories, and their art; and Kay Square's first release, 'With the Rich and Mighty: Emlen Etting of Philadelphia' (ISBN: 978-0-9815129-0-7), a critical biography by Kenneth C. Kaleta.

FlatSigned Press Alleges Don Imus Remarks Damage Legacy of President Gerald R. Ford
NEW YORK, N.Y. -- Nathan Yungerberg, an accomplished model scout and professional child photographer is launching a nation-wide casting call to find the cover model for his highly anticipated book release, 'The Model Child: A Parents Guide to the Child Modeling Industry' (ISBN: 978-0-9817018-0-6).

Books: The Nibelungenlied

T >> trans. by George Henry Needler >> The Nibelungenlied




But it is in the concluding part of the story--the part which, as we
shall see, has its basis in actual history--that the two accounts diverge
most widely. So strange, indeed, has been the evolution of the saga that
the central character of it, Kriemhild (Gudrun) holds a diametrically
opposite relation to her husband Etzel (Atli) at the final catastrophe in
the two versions. In the Nibelungenlied as in the Edda the widowed
Kriemhild (Gudrun) marries King Etzel (Atli), her consent in the former
resulting from a desire for revenge upon the murderers of Siegfried, in
the latter from the drinking of a potion which takes away her memory of
him; in the Nibelungenlied it is Kriemhild who treacherously lures
Gunther and his men to their destruction unknown to Etzel, in the Edda
the invitation comes from Atli, while Gudrun tries to warn them to stay
at home; in the former Kriemhild is the author of the attack on the
guests, in the latter Atli; in the former Kriemhild is the frenzied
avenger of her former husband Siegfried's death upon her brother Gunther,
in the latter Gudrun is the avenger of her brothers' death upon her
husband Atli.


4. Mythical Element and Historical Element

A sifting of the Nibelungen saga reveals a mythical element (the story of
Siegfried) and a historical element (the story of the Burgundians and
Etzel). How, when, and where these two elements were blended together
must remain largely a matter of conjecture. This united central body
received then from time to time accessions of other elements, some of
them originally historical in character, some of them pure inventions of
the poetic imagination.

The Siegfried myth is the oldest portion of the Nibelungen saga, and had
already passed through a long period of development before its union with
the story of the Burgundian kings. Like so many others of its kind, it is
part of the spiritual equipment of our Germanic ancestors at the dawn of
their recorded history. It grew gradually with the people themselves and
has its counterpart among other peoples. Such myths are a record of the
impressions made upon the mind of man by the mighty manifestations of the
world of nature in which he lives; their formation may be likened to the
unconscious impressions of its surroundings on the mind of the child. And
just as the grown man is unable to trace back the formation of his own
individuality to its very beginnings in infancy, so is it impossible for
the later nation in its advanced stage to peer back beyond the dawn of
its history. It is in the gloom beyond the dawn that such myths as this
of Siegfried have their origin.

Though modern authorities differ greatly in their conjectures, it is
generally agreed that the Siegfried story was in its original form a
nature-myth. The young day slays the mist-dragon and awakens the
sun-maiden that sleeps on the mountain; at evening he falls a prey to the
powers of gloom that draw the sun down again beneath the earth. With this
day-myth was probably combined the parallel myth of the changing seasons:
the light returns in spring, slays the cloud-dragon, and frees the
budding earth from the bonds of winter.[2]

[2] For the Siegfried saga in general see Symons in Paul's Grundriss der
germanischen Philologie, 2d ed., vol. III, pp. 651-671.

In the course of time this nature-myth became transformed into a
hero-saga; the liberating power of light was humanized into the person of
the light-hero Siegfried. This stage of development had already been
reached at the time of our earliest records, and the evidences point to
the Rhine Franks, a West Germanic tribe settled in the fifth century in
the country about Cologne, as the people among whom the transformation
from nature-myth to hero-saga took place, for it is among them that the
saga in its earliest form is localized. By the Rhine Siegfried is born,
there he wins the Nibelungen hoard, and in Frankenland he finds the
sleeping valkyrie. By the Rhine, too, he enters into service with the
Nibelungen kings and weds their sister.

The Franks had as neighbors up-stream in the first half of the fifth
century the Burgundians, an East Germanic tribe. These Burgundians, who
were closely allied to the Goths, had originally dwelt in the Baltic
region between the Vistula and the Oder, whence they had made their way
south westward across Germany and settled in the year 413 in _Germania
prima_ on the west bank of the Rhine about Worms. Here a tragic fate was
soon to overtake them. In the year 435 they had already suffered a
reverse in a conflict with the Romans under Aetius, and two years later,
in 437, they were practically annihilated by the Huns. Twenty thousand of
them, we are told, fell in battle, the remainder were scattered
southward. Beyond the brief record by a contemporary, Prosper, we know
but little of this event. It has been conjectured that the Huns were on
this occasion acting as auxiliaries of Aetius. At any rate it is fairly
certain that Attila was not personally on the scene.

We can easily imagine what a profound impression this extinction of the
Burgundians would produce upon the minds of their neighbors the Rhine
Franks. Fact, too, would soon become mingled with fiction. This new feat
was ascribed to Attila himself, already too well known as the scourge of
Europe and the subduer of so many German tribes. A very few years later,
however, fate was to subdue the mighty conqueror himself. With the great
battle of Chalons in 451 the tide turned against him, and two years
afterwards he died a mysterious death. The historian Jordanes of the
sixth century relates that on the morning after Attila's wedding with a
German princess named Ildico (Hildiko) he was found lying in bed in a
pool of blood, having died of a hemorrhage. The mysteriousness of
Attila's ending inspired his contemporaries with awe, and the popular
fancy was not slow to clothe this event also in a dress of fiction. The
attendant circumstances peculiarly favored such a process. Historians
soon recorded the belief that Attila had perished at the hands of his
wife, and it was only a step further for the imagination to find the
motive for the deed in the desire of Hildiko to avenge the death of her
German kinsmen who had perished through Attila. The saga of Attila's
death is before long connected with the growing Burgundian saga, Hildiko
becomes the sister of the Burgundian kings Gundahari, Godomar, and
Gislahari, and her deed is vengeance taken upon Attila for his
destruction of her brothers. As is seen at once from the outline I have
already given (Chapter 2.) of the saga as we find it in the Edda, this is
the stage of development it had reached when it began to find its way
northward from the Rhine country to Norway and Iceland.

It is unnecessary here to record the speculations--for beyond
speculations we cannot go--as to how the union of this historical saga of
the Burgundians and Attila with the Siegfried saga took place. In the
course of time, and naturally with greatest probability among the Rhine
Franks who followed the Burgundians as occupants of _Germania prima_, the
two were brought together, and the three Burgundian kings and their
sister were identified with the three Nibelungen kings and their sister
of the already localized Siegfried saga. It is also beyond the scope of
this introduction to follow the course of the saga northward or to note
its further evolution during its wanderings and in its new home until it
was finally recorded in poetic form in the Edda. We have now to consider
briefly the transformation it passed through in Germany between this date
(about 500) and the time (about 1200) when it emerges in written record
as the Nibelungenlied.

An account has already been given (Chapter 3.) of the chief features in
which the Nibelungenlied differs from the Northern form. As we saw there,
the mythical element of the Siegfried saga has almost entirely evaporated
and the historical saga of the Burgundian kings and Attila has undergone
a complete transformation. That the originally mythical and heathen
Siegfried saga should dwindle away with the progress of civilization and
under the influence of Christianity was but natural. The character of the
valkyrie Brynhild who avenges upon Sigurd his infidelity to her, yet
voluntarily unites herself with him in death, as heathen custom demanded,
is no longer intelligible. She recedes into the background, and after
Siegfried's death, though she is still living, she plays no further part.
The Nibelungenlied found its final form on Upper German, doubtless
Austrian, territory. Here alone was it possible that that greatest of all
transformations could take place, namely, in the character of Attila. The
Franks of the Rhine knew him only as the awe-inspiring conqueror who had
annihilated their neighbors the Burgundians. In Austrian lands it was
quite otherwise. Many Germanic tribes, particularly the East Goths, had
fought under the banner of Attila, and in the tradition handed down from
them he lived as the embodiment of wisdom and generosity. Here it was
impossible that epic story should picture him as slaying the Burgundian
kings through a covetous desire for their gold. The annihilation of the
Burgundians is thus left without a motive. To supply this, Kriemhild's
character is placed upon an entirely different basis. Instead of avenging
upon Attila the death of her brothers the Burgundian kings, Kriemhild now
avenges upon her brothers the slaying of her first husband Siegfried.
This fundamental change in the character of Kriemhild has a deep ethical
reason. To the ancient heathen Germans the tie of blood-relationship was
stronger than that of wedlock, and thus in the original version of the
story Attila's wife avenges upon him the death of her _brothers_; to the
Christianized Germans of later times the marriage bond was the stronger,
and accordingly from the altered motive Kriemhild avenges upon her
brothers the slaying of her _husband_. In accordance, too, with this
ethical transformation the scene of the catastrophe is transferred from
Worms to Attila's court. Kriemhild now looms up as the central figure of
the second half of the drama, while Etzel remains to the last ignorant of
her designs for revenge.

This transformation of the fundamental parts of the saga was accompanied
by another process, namely, the addition of new characters. Some of these
are the product of the poetic faculty of the people or individuals who
preserved and remoulded the story in the course of centuries, others are
based upon history. To the former class belong the Margrave Ruediger, the
ideal of gentle chivalry, and Volker the Fiddler-knight, doubtless a
creation of the _spielleute_. To the second class belong Dietrich of
Bern, in whom we see the mighty East Gothic king, Theodoric of Verona;
also Bishop Pilgrim of Passau, a very late importation, besides several
others in whom are perpetuated in more or less faint outline actual
persons of history. This introduction of fresh characters from time to
time as the saga grew has led to some strange anachronisms, which however
are a disturbing element only to us readers of a modern day, who with
sacrilegious hand lift the veil through which they were seen in a uniform
haze of romance by the eye of the knights and ladies of seven centuries
ago. _They_ neither knew nor cared to know, for instance, that Attila was
dead before Theodoric was born, and that Bishop Pilgrim flourished at
Passau the trifling space of five hundred years later still.[3]


[3] Attila lived from about 406 to 453; Theodoric, 475 to 526. Pilgrim
was Bishop of Passau, 971 to 991.




II. THE NIBELUNGENLIED

1. The Manuscripts

Among the German epic poems of the Middle Ages the Nibelungenlied [4]
enjoyed an exceptional popularity, as is evident from the large number of
manuscripts--some thirty, either complete or fragmentary--that have been
preserved from the centuries immediately following its appearance. Three
are of prime importance as texts, namely, those preserved now in Munich,
St. Gall, and Donaueschingen, and cited as A, B, and C respectively.
Since the time when Lachmann, about a century ago, made the first
scientific study of the poem, a whole flood of writings has been poured
forth discussing the relative merits of these texts. Each in turn has had
its claims advocated with warmth and even acrimony. None of these three
principal manuscripts, however, offers the poem in its earliest form;
they all point to a still earlier version. It is now generally admitted
that the St. Gall manuscript (B), according to which the present
translation has been made, contains the best and most nearly original
text.

[4] The closing strophe of MS. C calls the poem der _Nibelunge liet_, or
Nibelungenlied, i.e. the lay of the Nibelungen, and this is the title
by which it is commonly known. MSS. A and B have in the corresponding
strophe _der Nibelunge not_, i.e. the 'need', 'distress',
'downfall' of the Nibelungen. In the title of the poem 'Nibelungen'
is simply equivalent to 'Burgundians': the poem relates the downfall
of the Burgundian kings and their people. Originally the Nibelungen
were, as their name, which is connected with _nebel_, 'mist',
'gloom', signifies, the powers of darkness to whom the light-hero
Siegfried fell a prey. After Siegfried obtains possession of the
treasure the name Nibelungen is still applied to Alberich and the
dwarfs who guard it and who are now Siegfried's vassals. Then after
Siegfried's death the name is given to the Burgundians. It is a
mistake to suppose that the name was applied in each case to those
who became possessors of the hoard, for Siegfried himself is never so
designated.


2. Stages in the Evolution of the Poem

Hand in hand with the discussion of the relative authenticity of the
manuscripts went the consideration of another more important literary
question,--the evolution of the poem itself. Even if we knew nothing of
the history of the Nibelungen saga as revealed in the Edda and through
other literary and historic sources, a reading of the poem would give us
unmistakable hints that it is not, in its present form, a perfect
literary unit. We detect inconsistencies in matter and inequalities of
style that prove it to be a remodelling of material already existing in
some earlier form. What, then, has been the history of its evolution? How
did this primeval Siegfried myth, this historical saga of the Burgundians
and Attila, first come to be part of the poetic stock of the German
people? What was its earliest poetic form, and what series of
transformations did it pass through during seven centuries of growth?
These and many kindred questions present themselves, and the search for
answers to them takes us through many winding labyrinths of the nation's
contemporary history. Few products of German literature have so exercised
and tantalized critics as the Nibelungenlied.

In this connection we have to remind ourselves that comparatively little
of what must have been the large body of native poetry in Germany
previous to the eleventh century has come down to us. Barely enough has
been preserved to show the path of the nation's literary progress. Some
of the important monuments have been saved by chance, while others of
equal or perhaps greater value have been irrecoverably lost. The interest
in the various incidents of the Nibelungen story was sufficient to keep
it alive among the people and hand it down orally through many
generations. If we could observe it as it passed from age to age we
should doubtless see it undergoing continuous change according to the
time and the class of the people that were the preservers of the native
literature in its many ups and downs. Lachmann in the year 1816 was the
first to bring scientific criticism to bear on the question of the
Nibelungenlied and its origin. Applying to it the same methods as had
recently been used by Wolf in his criticism of the Homeric poems, he
thought he was able to discover as the basis of the complete epic a cycle
of twenty separate _lieder_, ballads or shorter episodic poems, on the
strength of which belief he went so far as to publish an edition of the
poem in which he made the division into the twenty separate lays and
eliminated those strophes (more than one third of the whole number) that
he deemed not genuine. It is now generally admitted, however, that the
pioneer of Nibelungen investigation fell here into over-positive
refinements of literary criticism. Separate shorter poems there doubtless
existed narrating separate episodes of the story, but these are no longer
to be arrived at by a process of critical disintegration and pruning of
the epic as we have it. An examination of the twenty _lieder_ according
to Lachmann's division convinces us that they are not separate units in
the sense he conceived them to be. Though these twenty _lieder_ may be
based upon a number of earlier episodic poems, yet the latter already
constituted a connected series. They were already like so many scenes of
a gradually developing drama. Events were foreshadowed in one that were
only fulfilled in another, and the incidents of later ones are often only
intelligible on the supposition of an acquaintance with motives that
originated in preceding ones. It is in this sense only, not according to
Lachmann's overwrought theory, that we are justified in speaking of a
_liedercyclus_, or cycle of separate episodic poems, as the stage of the
epic antecedent to the complete form in which we now have it. But beyond
this cycle we cannot trace it back. How the mythical saga of Siegfried
and the Nibelungen, and the story of the Burgundians and Attila, were
first sung in alliterative lays in the Migration Period, how as heathen
song they were pushed aside or slowly influenced by the spirit of
Christianity, how with changing time they changed also their outward
poetical garb from alliteration to rhyme and altered verse-form, till at
last in the twelfth century they have become the cycle of poems from
which the great epic of the Nibelungenlied could be constructed--of all
this we may form a faint picture from the development of the literature
in general, but direct written record of it is almost completely wanting.


3. Character of the Poem

The twelfth and thirteenth centuries witnessed far-reaching changes in
the social and intellectual life of the German lands, the leading feature
of which is the high development of all that is included under the name
of chivalry. It is marked, too, by a revival of the native literature
such as had not been known before, a revival which is due almost entirely
to its cultivation by the nobility. From emperor down to the simple
knight they were patrons of poetry and, what is most striking, nearly all
the poets themselves belong to the knightly class. The drama has not yet
begun, but in the field of epic and lyric there appear about the year
1200 poets who are among the greatest that German literature even down to
the present time has to show. The epic poetry of that period, though
written almost entirely by the knights, is of two distinct kinds
according to its subject: on the one hand what is called the Court Epic,
on the other hand the National, or Popular, Epic. The Court Epic follows
for the most part French models and deals chiefly with the life of
chivalry, whose ideals were embodied in king Arthur and his circle of
knights; the National Epic drew its subjects from the national German
saga, its two great products being the Nibelungenlied and the poem of
Gudrun. Court Epic and National Epic are further distinct in form, the
Court Epic being written in the rhymed couplets popularized in modern
times in English by Sir Walter Scott, while the National Epic is composed
in four-lined strophes.

Though we know the name and more or less of the life of the authors of
the many court epics of the period, the name of the poet who gave the
Nibelungenlied its final form has not been recorded. As we have seen, the
poem is at bottom of a truly popular, national character, having its
beginnings in mythology and early national history. For centuries the
subject had been national property and connected with the name of no one
individual. We have it now in the form in which it was remodelled to suit
the taste of the court and the nobility, and like the court epic to be
read aloud in castle hall. That it is written in four-lined strophes[5]
and not in the usual rhymed couplets of the court epics is doubtless due
to the fact that the former verse-form had already been used in the
earlier ballads upon which it is based, and was simply taken over by the
final moulder of the poem. This latter was probably a member of the
nobility like the great majority of the epic poets of the time; he must
at least have been well acquainted with the manners, tastes, sentiments,
and general life of the nobility. Through him the poem was brought
outwardly more into line with the literary ideals of the court circles.
This shows itself chiefly in a negative way, namely, in the almost
complete avoidance of the coarse language and farcical situations so
common with the popular poet, the _spielmann_. Beyond this no violence is
done to the simple form of the original. The style is still inornate and
direct, facts still speak rather than words, and there is nothing
approaching the refined psychological dissection of characters and
motives such as we find in Wolfram von Eschenbach and the other court
writers.

[5] For description of the Nibelungen strophe see below, Chapter 7.

When we look to the inner substance we see that the ground ideals are
still those of the original Germanic heroic age. The chief characters are
still those of the first stages of the story--Siegfried, Brunhild,
Gunther, Kriemhild, Hagen. The fundamental theme is the ancient theme of
_triuwe_, unswerving personal loyalty and devotion, which manifests
itself above all in the characters of Kriemhild and Hagen. Kriemhild's
husband Siegfried is treacherously slain: her sorrow and revenge are the
motives of the drama. Hagen's mistress has, though with no evil intent on
Siegfried's part, received an insult to her honor: to avenge that insult
is Hagen's absorbing duty, which he fulfils with an utter disregard of
consequences. Over this their fundamental character the various persons
of the story have received a gloss of outward conduct in keeping with the
close of the twelfth century. The poet is at pains to picture them as
models of courtly bearing, excelling in _hofscheit_, _zuht_, _tugent_.
Great attention is paid to dress, and the preparation of fitting apparel
for court festivities is described and re-described with wearisome
prolixity. A cardinal virtue is _milte_, liberality in the bestowal of
gifts. Courtesy toward women is observed with the careful formality of
the age of the minnesingers. It was above all Siegfried, the light-hero
of the original myth, whose character lent itself to an idealization of
knighthood. Ruediger holds a like place in the latter part of the poem.
In the evident pleasure with which the minstrel-knight Volker of the
sword-fiddlebow is depicted, as well doubtless as in occasional gleams of
broader humor, the hand of the minstrels who wrought on the story in its
earlier ballad stages may be seen. And the whole poem, in keeping with
its form in an age strongly under church influence, has been tinged with
the ideals of Christianity. Not only does the ordinary conversation of
all the characters, including even the heathen Etzel, contain a great
number of formal imprecations of God, but Christian institutions and
Christian ethics come frequently into play. Mass is sung in the minster,
baptism, marriage, burial are celebrated in Christian fashion, the devil
is mentioned according to the Christian conception, we hear of priest,
chaplain, and bishop, Christians are contrasted with heathen, and
Kriemhild, in marrying Etzel, has a hope of turning him to Christianity.
In Hagen's attempt to drown the chaplain whom the Burgundians have with
them as they set out for the land of the Huns we have perhaps an
expression of the conflict between the heathen and the Christian
elements, possibly also a reflection of the traditional animosity of the
_spielmann_ to his clerical rival.

The Nibelungenlied and the Iliad of Homer have often been compared, but
after all to no great purpose. The two epics are alike in having their
roots deep in national origins, but beyond this we have contrasts rather
than resemblances. The Iliad is a more varied and complete picture of the
whole Greek world than the Nibelungenlied is of the German, its religious
atmosphere has not been disturbed in the same way as that of the saga of
early Germanic times projected several centuries into a later Christian
age, and it possesses in every way a greater unity of sentiment. In the
varied beauty of its language, its wealth of imagery, its depth of
feeling and copiousness of incident the Iliad is superior to the
Nibelungenlied with its language of simple directness, its few lyrical
passages, its expression of feeling by deeds rather than by words. Homer,
too, is in general buoyant, the Nibelungenlied is sombre and stern. And
in one last respect the two epics differ most of all: the Iliad is
essentially narrative and descriptive, a series of episodes; the
Nibelungenlied is essentially dramatic, scene following scene of dramatic
necessity and pointing steadily to a final and inevitable catastrophe.