lse than
precedent. Mankind needs to repose in the security of this protection.
Woe to him, said Hebbel, who disturbs the sleep of the world! Changes
must come, but rarely in the way of revolution.

The tragedy of the Nibelungen Hebbel approached somewhat differently
from the other subjects that he treated. He had his own conception of
the tragic content of the matter, of course; but he found that the
author of the _Nibelungenlied_, a dramatist from head to foot, has so
clearly presented the tragic aspects of the story that the modern
dramatist need only make himself the interpreter of the medieval epic
poet. Herewith Hebbel's trilogy is at once distinguished from such other
modern treatments of the subject as Geibel's _Brunhild_ or Wagner's
_Nibelungen Ring_. Geibel eliminated everything supernatural; Wagner
made use chiefly of the Old Norse versions of the story; Hebbel, on the
contrary, dramatized what he regarded as the significant content of the
Middle High German poem, retaining its mythological, Christian,
chivalrous, historical, and legendary elements. The mythological
elements of the epic are indeed indistinct survivals of earlier ages.
Hebbel leaned somewhat upon Norse myths in his reproduction of them,
though it was part of his plan to preserve a certain indistinctness and
mystery in these undramatic presuppositions. Similarly, he made more of
the element of Christianity than is made of it by the _Nibelungenlied_.
In both epic and drama the Burgundians are only formally Christian; the
cardinal principles of heathen ethics, tribal loyalty and vengeance, are
entirely unaffected by the Christian doctrine of forgiveness. In the
play, however, the transition from one system to the other is much more
strongly emphasized than in the poem. The heathen ethics lead to the
mutual destruction of those who profess them, and out of the ruins of
the old civilization a new world rises heralded by Theodoric of Verona,
who accepts the sovereignty relinquished by Attila the Hun, "in His name
who died on the cross."

The downfall of two peoples follows in the train of personal calamity.
Siegfried, foreordained by the ancient gods to become the husband of
Brunhild, neglects in the adventurous days of youth to woo her, and
undertakes for the price of Kriemhild's hand to secure her as a wife for
Gunther. Hidden in his cloak of invisibility, he twice overcomes
Brunhild, thereby committing against her the same kind of outrage as
He