Well, Mime, being so clever,

      This one thing more also tell me:

      The birds sang together

      So gaily in spring,

      The one alluring the other;

      And thou didst say,

      When I asked thee why,

      That they were wives with their husbands.

      They chattered so sweetly,

      Were never apart;

      They builded a nest

      In which they might brood;

      The fluttering young ones

      Came flying out,

      And both took care of the young.

      The roes in the woods, too,

      Rested in pairs,

      The wild wolves even, and foxes.

      Food was found them and brought

      By the father,

      The mother suckled the young ones.

      And there I learned

      What love was like;

      A whelp from its mother

      I never took.

      But where hast thou, Mime,

      A wife dear and loving,

      That I may call her mother?

      What dost thou mean?

      Fool, thou art mad!

      Art thou then a bird or a fox?

      When I was a babe

      Thou wert my nurse,

      Made the mite clothing

      To keep him warm;

      But tell me, whence

      Did the tiny mite come?

      Could babe without mother

      Be born to thee?

      Thou must always

      Trust what I tell thee.

      I am thy father

      And mother in one.

      Thou liest, filthy old fright!

      The resemblance 'twixt child and parent

      I often have seen for myself.

      I came to the limpid brook,

      And the beasts and the trees

      I saw reflected;

      Sun and clouds too,

      Just as they are,

      Were mirrored quite plain in the stream.

      I also could spy

      This face of mine,

      And quite unlike thine

      Seemed it to me;

      As little alike

      As a fish to a toad:

      And when had fish toad for its father?

      How canst thou talk

      Such terrible stuff?

      Listen! At last

      I understand

      What in vain I pondered so long:

      Why I roam the woods

      And run to escape thee,

      Yet return home in the end.

      I cannot go till thou tell me

      What father and mother were mine.

      What father? What mother?

      Meaningless questions!

      To answer a question

      Thou must be caught first;

      Willingly

      Thou never wilt speak;

      Thou givest nothing

      Unless forced to.

      How to talk

      I hardly had learned

      Had it not by force

      Been wrung from the wretch.

      Come, out with it,

      Mangy old scamp!

      Who are my father and mother?

      Dost want to kill me outright!

      Hands off, and the facts thou shalt hear,

      As far as known to myself.

      O ungrateful

      And graceless child,

      Now learn the cause of thy hatred!

      Neither thy father

      Nor kinsman I,

      And yet thou dost owe me thy life!

      To me, thy one friend,

      A stranger wert thou;

      It was pity alone

      Sheltered thee here;

      And this is all my reward.

      And I hoped for thanks like a fool!

      A woman once I found

      Who wept in the forest wild;

      I helped her here to the cave,

      That by the fire I might warm her.

      The woman bore a child here;

      Sadly she gave it birth.

      She writhed about in pain;

      I helped her as I could.

      Bitter her plight; she died.

      But Siegfried lived and throve.

      My poor mother died, then, through me?

      To