instance, the twenty-second:

In sinen besten ziten, / bi sinen jungen tagen,
man mohte michel wunder / von Sivride sagen,
waz eren an im wuchse / und wie scoene was sin lip.
sit heten in ze minne / diu vil waetlichen wip.

Here the rhyme of the first and second lines is still masculine, _tagen_
and _sagen_ being pronounced _tagn_ and _sagn_. The unaccented syllable
is lacking, e.g., before the second accent of the second half of line
two, also before the first and the third accent of the second half of
line four. There are two unaccented syllables at the beginning
(_Auftakt_) of the second half of line three. The absence of the
unaccented syllable between the second and the third accent of the last
half of the fourth line of a strophe, as here, is so frequent in the poem
as to amount almost to a rule; it shows an utter misconception, or
disregard, of its true character, nevertheless, to treat this last
half-line as having only three accented syllables, as all translators
hitherto have done.


8. Editions Of The Nibelungenlied

MS. A. (Hohenems-Munich).
Lachmann, _Der Nibelunge Not und die Klage_, 5th ed., Berlin, 1878.
Several reprints of the text alone later.

MS. B. (St. Gall).
Bartsch, _Das Nibelungenlied_, 6th ed., Leipzig, 1886. (Vol. 3 of the
series Deutsche Classiker des Mittelalters.)