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FOREWORD

Michael Dirda

The great literary works of the Middle Ages—and Das Nibelungenlied isone of the very greatest—are as exciting as they are often desolate andheartbreaking. In stark beauty and sudden violence, the brooding Njal

Saga can be readily likened to a Sergio Leone spaghetti western, on ice. TheSong of Roland, especially the last stand of its isolated and betrayed heroes atRoncevaux, perfectly represents W. P. Ker’s classic definition of the heroicepic as ‘‘the defense of a narrow place, against odds.’’ The Nibelungenlieditself could be easily updated to describe the downfall of a Mafia crime family,something like The Godfather, with swords.

Recited in great halls as the evening’s entertainment, medieval poetrycouldn’t afford to be dreary. A romance or epic, no matter how moralistic,still needed to entertain a provincial court, beguile its sleepy duke, flatter hislady, and keep everyone not only hanging on every word but also thinking,‘‘Hey, this is as good as Tolkien’’—if, of course, anyone back then had knownwho J. R. R. Tolkien was.

It’s widely recognized that The Lord of the Rings draws many of its specialeffects from the packed storehouse of medieval saga and especially frompoems like the Nibelungenlied. As an eminent linguist and student of whatone might call the northern world, Tolkien naturally gravitated to the work heloved most, borrowing themes and motifs from Anglo-Saxon poetry, Norsemyth, Teutonic history, and Celtic romance. Magical artifacts and enchanted

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weapons, ancient alliances, doomed battles, journeys to the Other World,monsters, women-warriors and weakling kings, scenes of tenderness andbeauty as well as moments of cold brutality and horror—all these can first befound in ‘‘The Battle of Maldon,’’ Grettir Saga, The Mabinogion, Beowulf, andmany other wonder-filled tales of fated and glorious heroes.

In its plot the Nibelungenlied moves inexorably from romance (at timesalmost tall tale) through tragedy to holocaust. It is fundamentally a storyabout the consequence of lies, of the heartbreaking disconnect betweenwords and reality. The great hero Sifried decides he wants to marry Krimhild,the beautiful sister of King Gunter of Burgundy. To this end, he supportsGunter in war, then helps the king to win, through trickery and subterfuge, aformidable bride. This is Brunhild, an Amazon-like beauty who possessesastonishing, even supernatural strength and who would seem more properlymatched with Sifried himself (as is the case in other versions of the story).

The two couples do marry, yet at the wedding dinner a puzzled Brunhildnotes the high degree of honor awarded to Sifried, supposedly a mere vassalof her seemingly indomitable husband. She’s also suspicious about why Gun-ter is giving his only sister as a bride to this underling. Only temporarilyallayed by further trickery, Brunhild’s suspicions continue to gnaw at her. Shemust learn the truth, no matter what the consequences. As the reader gradu-ally discovers, those consequences prove widespread and bloody.

But why? Because in a feudal world, where society stands or founders onpersonal relations, you need to be able to trust those who give you theirpledge. But in the Nibelungenlied, everyone lies to those who count most ontheir truthfulness. Sifried pretends to be Gunter’s vassal, Gunter and Sifriedtrick Brunhild into marriage, Brunhild discovers she has been living with anillusion, Gunter’s adviser Hagen betrays Krimhild’s confidences, and on andon. Slowly, an edifice built on personal honor starts to crumble and finallycomes crashing down into complete and devastating ruin.

Of course, any summary of its motivating action leaves out the artistrythat gives the Nibelungenlied its life. Not only is this the great national poemof Germany and one of the masterworks of medieval literature, it is also, in amemorable sentence by scholar A. T. Hatto, ‘‘the world’s best heroic epic, barone.’’ Moreover, like Homer’s Iliad, it repays all the attention you bring to it.

Composed around the year 1200, the Nibelungenlied draws on storiesthat go back to the fifth or sixth century, the period when Germanic tribeswandered through northern Europe. Its main characters appear to be based

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on actual historical figures, though they are obviously much fictionalized: Forexample, Krimhild’s second husband, Etzel, is none other than Attila theHun. Much of Sifried’s early life remains only hinted at in the Middle HighGerman poem, but his youthful adventures—with the Nibelung hoard andBrunhild—are more fully elaborated in the Volsunga Saga and other Icelandicworks. The unknown German poet has, however, altered later developmentssignificantly, especially in his portrayal of Krimhild’s deep love, indeed obses-sion, with Sifried and her subsequent determination to avenge his murder atany cost. Finally the wintry, Teutonic starkness of this family tragedy is reg-ularly softened by a courtliness drawn from twelfth-century French romance,those suave Arthurian tales of amour courtois and chivalry.

As a poem, the Nibelungenlied is built on four-line stanzas, each linedivided in half, with the final half-line of each stanza being slightly longer thanthe seven others. This gives a particular lilt or syncopation to the narrative.The epic thus moves cleanly along, avoiding similes, keeping the syntax asclear and stark as Hemingway. Burton Raffel’s translation closely emulates theoriginal’s structure and language.

Much of the poem’s considerable suspense derives, oddly enough, from apervasive use of foreshadowing. The reader is always being told that this orthat action will eventually bring tears and sorrow. Such asides create readerlyeagerness, a longing for the moment when these flashes of the future will befinally and fully played out. Krimhild’s prophetic dreams—of her marriageand Sifried’s death—perform a similar predictive function. At the same time,the narrator’s occasional recourse to phrases like ‘‘as we are told,’’ reminds usthat the general outline of the story was probably as well known to its au-dience as were the plots of the Greek tragedies to the ancient Athenians. Thusthe reader—roughly aware of what’s bound to happen—can better appreciatethe delineation of character, the play of language, the poem’s overall polish.

While these stylistic elements keep the narrative tightly knit and flowingright along, others slow it down to reveal the underlying sociology of thetimes. For instance, much of the Nibelungenlied hangs on questions of statusand protocol. In any encounter between approximate equals, there is always ajockeying for position, and usually an attempt to outshine the possible rival.Thus Brunhild and Krimhild, along with their respective maids-in-waiting,repeatedly try to outclass each other in the sheer gorgeousness of theirdresses. The disastrous quarrel that leads to the destruction of a whole nationstarts with the two queens attempting to determine who should first enter a

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church. Similarly, the unspoken issue between warriors is always: Who is thegreater fighter, hunter, king? Who, ultimately, is the lord and who the vassal?

In this light, the poem’s unfolding tragedy initially hinges on that mysteryof social hierarchy: Brunhild just can’t figure out exactly where to placeSifried in relationship to Gunter. She’s told he’s her husband’s liegeman, andyet the man behaves like Gunter’s equal, and proud Krimhild claims he’sactually Gunter’s superior. What is the truth? All this uncertainty is par-ticularly grating to Brunhild because her tests of strength and courage hadbeen instituted so that she could marry the best warrior in the world. Likenearly everyone else in the poem, Brunhild discovers that she has trusted toomuch in appearances.

For in the end, the Nibelungenlied isn’t primarily about battles and magiccloaks and treasure. Though starting like a fairy tale about a beautiful princessand a great warrior, it deepens into a study of human psychology. As we read,we learn more and more about the inner nature of its men and women, just aswe gradually recognize how their respective strengths and weaknesses lead totheir respective dooms. In these pages, character really is destiny.

The most interesting figures are, in fact, not the celebrated Sifried andBrunhild—so familiar to us from Richard Wagner’s quite different conceptionof their relationship in the four-part opera The Ring of the Nibelung—butrather Krimhild and Gunter’s adviser Hagen, who actually dominate thesecond half of the poem. (Some scholars have even thought Hagen the work’strue hero.) Krimhild neatly evolves from docile daughter and sister to money-and-prestige-obsessed queen, from passionate wife to Medea-like harpy. ButHagen is even more artfully portrayed. Whereas Gunter consistently displaysweakness and vacillation, his loyal lieutenant reveals rare courage and almostMachiavellian political acumen. He will perform the ‘‘necessary murder’’ forthe presumed good of the commonwealth. But as time passes, Hagen growsever more profound and clear-eyed about the fatality that dogs everyone, yetfirm in resolve, and heroic to the end. Throughout this poem we marvel thatthe contradictory human heart can be so full of both good and evil.

Edward Haymes, the distinguished Germanist, further elucidates thehistorical background of the Nibelungenlied in his informative and scholarlyintroduction. Yet what matters most in the following pages is surely the crisp,clear English translation of the epic itself. Certainly Burton Raffel’s Nibe-lungenlied deserves many enthralled readers and should, I hope, entice atleast some of them to explore further the riches of medieval literature.

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