Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 3, 2025
The story begins as a lovely idyll but ends in gloomy tragedy. The ancient Rhenish town of Worms was during the great migrations the seat of authority of the Burgundian invaders, an east Germanic stock. During the glorious reign of King Gunther there appears, attracted by the beauty of Chriemhild the king's sister, a young hero, Siegfried, by name.
In her rash insolence she represents to Brunhild that it was not Gunther but Siegfried who formerly overcame her. As proof of this she produces the ring and girdle which Siegfried had taken on that night from the powerful Brunhild, and which he had presented to Chriemhild.
History has at last done justice to the memory of this woman, whose long yellow hair was so beautiful, and whose character was so colorless. The legend which made her a poison-brewing Mænad has been proved a lie but only at the expense of the whole society in which she lived. The simple northern folk, familiar with the tales of Chriemhild, Brynhild, and Gudrun, who helped to forge this legend, could not understand that a woman should be irresponsible for all the crimes and scandals perpetrated in her name. Yet it seems now clear enough that not hers, but her father's and her brother's, were the atrocities which made her married life in Rome a byword. She sat and smiled through all the tempests which tossed her to and fro, until she found at last a fair port in the Duchy of Ferrara. Nursed in the corruption of Papal Rome, which Lorenzo de' Medici described to his son Giovanni as 'a sink of all the vices, consorting habitually with her father's concubines, and conscious that her own mother had been married for show to two successive husbands, it is not possible that Lucrezia ruled her conduct at any time with propriety. It is even probable that the darkest tales about her are true. The Lord of Pesaro, we must remember, told his kinsman, the Duke of Milan, that the assigned reasons for his divorce were false, and that the fact was what can scarcely be recorded. Still, there is no ground for supposing that, in the matter of her first husband's divorce and the second's murder, she was more than a passive agent in the hands of Alexander and Cesare. The pleasure-loving, careless woman of the Renaissance is very different from the Medea of Victor Hugo's romance; and what remains most revolting to the modern conscience in her conduct is complacent acquiescence in scenes of debauchery devised for her amusement. Instead of viewing her with dread as a potent and malignant witch, we have to regard her with contempt as a feeble woman, soiled with sensual foulness from the cradle. It is also due to truth to remember that at Ferrara she won the esteem of a husband who had married her unwillingly, attached the whole state to her by her sweetness of temper, and received the panegyrics of the two Strozzi, Bembo, Ariosto, Aldo Manuzio, and many other men of note. Foreigners who saw her surrounded by her brilliant Court exclaimed, like the French biographer of Bayard: 'J'ose bien dire que, de son temps, ni beau coup avant, il ne s'est point trouvé de plus triomphante princesse; car elle était belle, bonne douce, et courtoise
Guenther resolves to try his fortune, and to win her or perish, and Siegfried accompanies him on condition that the hand of Chriemhild shall be his reward if they succeed. At the court of Brunhild, Siegfried presents himself as the vassal of Guenther, to increase her sense of his friend's power, and this falsehood is one cause of the subsequent calamities.
In the early morning as Chriemhild accompanied by her attendants was preparing to go to mass in the cathedral she noticed the corpse of her hero. A wail of sorrow arose. Chriemhild threw herself weeping on the body of her murdered husband. "Alas!" she cried "thy shield is not hewn by swords: thou hast been foully murdered. Did I but know who has done this, I would avenge thy death."
In the Nibelungen, Chriemhild is represented as the sister of Guenther the King of Burgundy; the gallant Siegfried having heard of her surpassing beauty, resolves to woo her for his bride, but all his splendid achievements fail to secure her favors.
Besides Chriemhild there was another secretly drawn towards the hero, and in Brunhild's heart the bridal happiness of Chriemhild awakens such envy that soon no friendly word passes between the women. They become estranged and one day her bad feeling leads Brunhild to harsh words. Then alas, Chriemhild gave unbridled licence to her tongue.
A dispute having afterwards arisen between the two queens, Chriemhild, carried away by pride and passion, produces the fatal girdle, a token which, if found in the possession of any save the husband, was regarded as an almost irrefutable proof of guilt among the nations of the North.
There is also the inevitable deterioration in the character of Brynhild, without the compensating elevation in that of her rival by which the Nibelungen Lied places Chriemhild on a height as lofty and unapproachable as that occupied by the Norse Valkyrie; the Brynhild of Völsunga Saga is something of a virago, the Gudrun is jealous and shrewish.
Guenther and Hagan are taken prisoners by Dietrich of Berne, and put to death by Chriemhild, who in turn suffers death at the hands of one of the followers of Dietrich. Such is an imperfect outline of this ancient poem, which, despite all its horrors and improbabilities, has many passages of touching beauty, and wonderful power.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking