A maiden looks out anxiously from the lofty tower
at the wide sea.
To the mournful, heavy sound of the zither
her melancholy song echoes:
"I am kept under lock and key;
my rescuer tarries so long."

Take comfort, noble maid!
Look - behind the chalky stone cliffs
in the darkness of the bay
a warship is coming in:
The eagle's plume, the shield with a rose -
it is your rescuer!
Already his hero's horn is calling
for battle down at the scalloped bank.

"Welcome, flamboyant youth!
Have you come to me?
Soon I will hew from your dark shield
all of the golden flowers.
Those eighteen flowers will be spattered with your blood
and your regal bride will find
them on the sand by the waves.
Quick, just draw your sword!"

The clangor of the swordfight reaches the tower;
how anxiously the bride waits!
The struggle resounds loudly through the wood, 
violent and long.
It seems endless, endless to her,
until the sound of the blows died away.

The lock cracks and the door splits open:
she can now look outside once more;
she hurries in a breathless run
down to the scalloped shore.
There lies her slain tormenter,
but alas, next to him
on the blood-spattered field
is the pale body of her rescuer.

Quietly she gathers roses
into her chaste lap
and with them lays her love to rest;
a tear steals down,
moistening the wide wound,
and she says: "I have done this!"

A companion of the robber,
his mind rankling with the idea
that she, she ruined his master,
draws close.
From the bushes where he lies hidden,
fuming with savage lust for death,
he sends an arrow singing through the air
and into her chaste breast.

They made her a bridal chamber
in the gravelly earth, quiet and small;
they lowered her with her love
and covered them with a stone
now overgrown with thistles;
and they remain there by the ruins of the tower.