Alpharts Tod
Alpharts Tod (The Death of Alphart) is an anonymous late medieval Middle High German poem in the poetic cycle of the hero Dietrich von Bern, the counterpart of the historical Ostrogothic king Theodoric the Great in Germanic heroic legend.
Alphart insists on riding out alone, and while he is brave and a powerful warrior, he eventually encounters Witege and Heime, two traitors who have switched sides to Ermenrich.
Emperor Emenrich tells Heime to bring Ermenrich's declaration of war to Dietrich.
Heime attempts to convince Ermenrich to abandon his plan to drive Dietrich into exile, but to no avail.
Alphart, the brother of Dietrich's companion Wolfhart, recommends scouting out the enemy and volunteers to do it alone himself, ignoring attempts to convince him to let a more experienced warrior do it.
In the ensuing battle, Dietrich seeks Witege and Heime, who have broken the heraldic devices from their shields and helmets so as not to be recognized.
Ermenrich is defeated and Dietrich wins a lot of booty, and the allied army returns to Breisach.
[15] However, Heinzle notes that Alphart's behavior is never condemned, in contrast to his weak and cowardly opponents Witege and Heime: rather, it seems to glorify in his heroic aristeia and grow sentimental at his loss.
[16] Werner Hoffmann shares a similar opinion: the poem presents a genuine representation of the old heroic ethos, although its moral code of battle (only one may fight against one at a time, etc.)
[19] Witege and Heime's scruples about breaking the rules that Alphart sets out shows them to acknowledge their validity.
[21] The two opponents nevertheless are not described as pure evil, but are rather given a subtle characterization, with their conflict of loyalty between Ermenrich and Dietrich specifically mentioned.
[20] Heinzle suggests that the audience may have any easier time identifying with Witege and Heime, who are willing to compromise and reconcile, than with Alphart.
[22] Elisabeth Lienert suggests that Hildebrand personifies a more pragmatic form of heroism that is less self-destruction than Alphart's, and is thus more of a model for behavior.
[18] Like most German heroic poems, Alpharts Tod is written in stanzas that were meant to be sung and accompanied by music.
[23] Heinzle prints the following stanza as in the Nibelungen stanza, in which the first three lines consist of three metrical feet, a caesura, then three additional metrical feet, the fourth line adding a fourth foot after the caesura:[24] The basic rhyme scheme is: AABB.
[27] Alphart's encounter with Witege, as recounted in the poem, is referenced in a fifteenth-century version of the Rosengarten zu Worms, however, Heinzle notes that this does not mean that story is very old.
