CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY 
 
 Gift of 
 Samuel B. Bird '21 
 
 MUSIC 
 
— .jr -r cerrall University Library 
 
 "TAJir ■«ir*o!_*y»BC46 
 
 Wotan, Siegfried, and Briinnhllde / 
 
 3 1924 021 791 516 
 
% Cornell University 
 S Library 
 
 The original of this book is in 
 the Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924021791516 
 
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 WOTAN 
 
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 SIEGFRIED, AND BRUNNHILDE 
 
 ANNA ALICE CHAPIN 
 
 AUTHOR OF " THE STORY OF THE RHINEGOLD " 
 "WONDER TALES FROM WAGNER" ETC. 
 
 NEW YORK AND LONDON 
 HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS 
 1899 
 
Copyright, 1899, by HaKpek & Brothers, 
 A 11 rights reserved. 
 
PREFACE 
 
 We all have heard Wagner's works termed in- 
 comprehensible, and have listened to the assertion 
 that to understand them one must be " educated 
 up " to a certain point. 
 
 All thinkers, poets, and philosophers of the 
 world have touched thoughts so high and broad 
 that it is necessary to use the best part of our 
 natures to appreciate them. But the greatest of 
 these have made their ideas so clear and applicable 
 to life itself that the simplest mind can under- 
 stand the fundamental feeling, though it may re- 
 quire a scholar to comprehend the ingenuity, subt- 
 lety, and skill of the presentation. In studying 
 the art of Wagner, as of all geniuses, one might 
 spend a lifetime and yet grasp the subject inade- 
 quately. But the spirit of Wagner — the philoso- 
 phy, the poetry, and the elemental strength — 
 must be understood by all who can feel and think. 
 
iv Preface 
 
 The truths which he tells are simple and universal, 
 expressing the philosophy of all thinkers who have, 
 through the ages, reiterated the message of wis- 
 dom in the ears of humanity. His art is as great 
 as his genius, for it is a part of it, and as such 
 bewilders those who expect the visible polish of 
 lesser craftsmen. 
 
 Which must we reverence most: the genius 
 which could create world-types such as his, giving 
 us the divinity of Wotan, the humanity of Sieg- 
 fried, and the divinity in humanity of Briinnhilde; 
 or the art which surrounds and connects these be- 
 ings in a tissue so fine and firm that nothing is 
 forgotten, nothing is superfluous, and every thread 
 is woven with supreme purpose? We can only 
 content ourselves with whole-hearted homage to 
 both, for they are surely one. 
 
 Of all words, Art is more maligned by misuse 
 than any other. In the sense in which it is too 
 often applied it means only a species of very brill- 
 iant veneer under which roughness and incom- 
 pleteness may be disguised. This is the reason 
 why Wagner rarely appeals to the casual inquirer 
 who looks on the surface for attraction. In Wag- 
 
Preface v 
 
 ner's music- dramas, as in our own life- tragedies, 
 there is no flaunting revelation of inner meanings 
 for the edification of the passer-by. In a wonder- 
 ful double language these inner meanings are ex- 
 pressed, — a language not difficult to understand, 
 for it is written for the heart. And so the Master 
 who knew that only the truthful delineation of life 
 can be art tells us the stories of souls and hearts 
 as well as of actions, often speaking of the past 
 and future instead of the present, and philosophiz- 
 ing to our spirits over a battle field. 
 
 A. A. C. 
 
WOTAN 
 
WOTAN, SIEGFRIED, AND 
 BRUNNHILDE 
 
 WOTAN 
 
 Wotan, or Odin, the chief of gods, has figured 
 in many poems and many tales. He is picturesque, 
 people tell us, in the helplessness of his dignity — 
 a foil for the prowess of heroes or the revels of 
 happier gods. The Vikings felt him to be a con- 
 tinual spur and inspiration in battle, a war force 
 more potent than that of the Walkures (or Valkyrs), 
 and so sang of him in their sagas. Those who 
 from time to time have been attracted by the bar- 
 baric pathos and beauty of the grand old Norse • 
 land spirit have rarely failed to come under the 
 spell of the all- father Odin. But it was left for 
 Wagner to see in him the supreme type of a de- 
 caying religion — a symbol of the old order that, 
 changing, gives place to new; further than this, 
 
4 Wotan 
 
 to invest him with hopes, fears, desires, regrets, 
 joys, and sorrows so actual that we give him almost 
 the same sympathy we would grant a suffering 
 mortal. And yet we recognize the indefinable 
 atmosphere of godhood with which Wagner, the 
 poet and magician, has surrounded him. 
 
 The great panorama of the growth and develop- 
 ment of a god passes before us in all its breadth 
 of conception and execution. One marvels in 
 contemplating it, the lights are so clear yet modu- 
 lated, the shadows so mysterious yet distinct, 
 the colors so wonderful in their perfection of 
 values. And so abundant is the strength of the 
 whole that it is only equalled by the delicacy of 
 touch, which is almost more remarkable. 
 
 In the course of the Nibelungen Ring we see 
 Wotan in four phases — four periods in the develop- 
 ment of his character. First he is the king, ruler 
 of gods and men. In that tranquil, translucent 
 light of the Golden Age, nothing has touched his 
 power, no shadow has come across the road he 
 travels. If he is weak, foolish, lower than mor- 
 tals in his personal life, it is forgiven him, for 
 he is the king of gods, and the world lives by his 
 
Wotan 5 
 
 law. Then we see him touched by that black 
 curse which sweeps on, lashing gods and men in 
 its mad pursuit of the Ring. We see him striving 
 to avert the horror that he fears, scheming to save 
 the glory of the ^Esir. Then, in a third phase, 
 he is more a man, and so more a god. When he 
 says farewell to Briinnhilde, he gives her up to the 
 workings of Fate. Though he places the world's 
 salvation upon her shoulders, it is all unwittingly. 
 In that hour of parting he does not think of the 
 salvation of the ^Esir and the world. He thinks 
 of the daughter relinquished, the love renounced, 
 the trust betrayed, the inconsequence of gods and 
 men before the eternal Fate which works its will 
 against all power and all planning. He is losing 
 his godhood, even as through his punishment 
 Briinnhilde will lose hers. This alone he sees 
 clearly. Later he will understand more. 
 
 For the last time he passes across the stage of 
 the approaching end of mythology — a wanderer 
 now. "As witness come I, not as worker" 
 ("Siegfried," act ii.). He has come to watch 
 the world adjust itself to the coming event. In 
 the light of his new knowledge he sees too clearly 
 
6 Wotan 
 
 for trivial passions or useless revolt. Wisely far. 
 seeing, he descries the glory of the new world 
 when the curse shall ^have' Jeft it. He is nearer 
 true divinity than ever before — in this last gray 
 light of the dying ^Esir. Finally he resigns the 
 heritage of power to the boy-hero, and quietly 
 wends his way to Walhalla to await the dusk of 
 the gods. 
 
 In studying this tragedy which Wagner formed 
 from the tangled and broken ends of a dead myth- 
 ology, it actually seems as though the " Runenseil " 
 (Rope of Runes) of the Nornir (or Fates) had 
 been taken by the master from the depths of the 
 earth and made to yield up the stories woven 
 therein. We feel that from those torn fibres of 
 mystic history have come these beings of another 
 time, another world, glorified and made immortal 
 through his genius. 
 
 The Nornir themselves, as Wagner presents 
 them to us, are strangely impressive. We heed 
 their words as those of oracles. We feel that in 
 that slender cord are woven every passing change 
 of the world, and a chill of awe responds to the 
 weird cadences of the sisters' singing. 
 
Wotan 7 
 
 "Die Erste Norn" in the Vorspiel to "Die 
 Gotterdammerung " tells the story of the first re- 
 corded action of the chief of gods in the drama of 
 mythology : 
 
 " By the World's Ash-Tree wove I once ; 
 There tall and strong the sacred branches 
 Rose in their dress of green ! 
 In shadowed coolness whispered a spring, — 
 Wisdom eddied forth in its flow ; 
 There sang I of wondrous things ! 
 
 " A fearless god sought a draught from the spring, 
 And for this he offered one of his eyes as a pledge. 
 From the World's Ash-Tree wrested Wotan then a 
 
 branch, 
 And a mighty spear he shaped full well from the 
 wood. 
 
 " As slowly passed the time, 
 Bitterly wasted the wood; 
 Dead, — leafless the verdure; 
 Sore wounded the tree ! 
 Drearily ceased then the flowing spring; 
 Heavy-hearted sang I my song." 
 
 The most descriptive music accompanies these 
 words. We hear the purling of the Fountain of 
 Wisdom ; we see the straight stem of the " Welt- 
 esche" covered with branching green; we mark 
 
8 
 
 Wotan 
 
 the weaving of the Rope of Runes. Into these 
 tranquil harmonies comes a godlike, melodious 
 phrase which is very simple, though emphasized 
 by repetitions : 
 
 Walhalla Motif. 
 
 It is often heard at the close of the Walhalla 
 motif; and though less majestic than the melody 
 of which it is thus almost a part, I think we may 
 consider it typical, if not of Wotan, at least of 
 the magical glamor of that Golden Age of which 
 he was the chief representative. 
 
 When Wotan had torn the limb from the World's 
 Ash-Tree and fashioned it into a spear, he engraved 
 on the shaft runes and laws by which the world 
 should be governed thereafter. This is the reason 
 why, whenever in the course of the workings of the 
 Cycle the Spear comes into prominence, we hear 
 the compact motif. It is a phrase barbaric and 
 
Wotan 9 
 
 uncompromising in form, with possibilities for the 
 thunder of wrath or the dignity of a consecrated 
 treaty : 
 
 Not content with the sway of the world, Wotan 
 desired in time a more visible proof of his god- 
 hood; and, counselled by his servant Loge, the fire- 
 god, he commanded the Giants to build him a palace 
 wherein the gods might dwell in eternal splendor. 
 The Giants undertook the task, asking in payment, 
 Freia, the goddess of love. Loge bade Wotan 
 agree to this, promising to help him evade the 
 payment when the time arrived. The fire-god's 
 method of fulfilling this promise was to describe 
 the " Rheingold " (Rhine-gold), stolen by Alberich 
 the Nibelung (Gnome), from the Rhine-Maidens 
 so vividly that the Giants declared themselves 
 willing to relinquish the goddess in exchange for 
 the Nibelung's treasure. Wotan and Loge ob- 
 tained this treasure by deceit from Alberich. The 
 Gnome having stolen the gold from the Rhine- 
 Maidens, had made it into a magic ring by might 
 
i o Wotan 
 
 of a spell which he learned by renouncing love 
 forever. This Ring gave its wearer power over the 
 world, and guided him to all the secret treasure 
 of the earth. When it was wrested from Alberich 
 by the gods he laid a curse upon it — a curse 
 which soon manifested itself in the course of the 
 slowly developing tragedy. 
 
 Wotan, enthralled by the thought of the power 
 the Ring might give him, was reluctant to relin- 
 quish it, but Erda, goddess of wisdom, rose from the 
 earth and warned him not to retain it. Fasolt and 
 Fafner, the Giants, being finally given as Freia's 
 ransom the entire treasure, including a magical 
 helmet called the Tarnhelm 9 fought together for 
 the curse-laden circlet. Fafner slew his brother, 
 and carried the hoard away to a cavern, where, by 
 the aid of the Tarnhelm, he changed himself into 
 a dragon, the better to guard it. The gods then 
 passed triumphantly over a rainbow bridge to 
 Walhalla. Loge's suggestions as to the disap- 
 pointment of the Rhine- Maidens, who had trusted 
 to the gods to give back what had been stolen from 
 them, met with no response. 
 
 Thus does Wotan sink three times to deeply 
 
Wotan 1 1 
 
 dishonorable deeds in "Das Rheingold." First, 
 he made a contract with the unsuspecting Giants 
 agreeing to pay them a certain specified price for 
 the building of a palace — a price which he never 
 had any intention of paying, trusting to Loge to 
 help him elude the just claims of his workmen. 
 Next, he participated, at least by acquiescence, in 
 the clever but treacherous strategem by which 
 Loge captured the Nibelung. 
 
 The third wrong of which he was guilty was the 
 evasion of his just responsibility, when he refused 
 to consider the rights of the Rhine-Maidens, and, 
 instead, gave the ring, their property, to the Giants. 
 The custom of using stolen goods to pay a debt — 
 of righting one wrong by committing another — is 
 one which quickly appeals to an indolent, pleasure- 
 loving, sensuous nature. And of such natures 
 Wotan was merely an illustrious example till, in 
 the consequences of his own folly, he learned many 
 things, and eventually became wise. 
 
 It has been offered as an " excuse " for Wotan 
 that his counsellor and servant was Loge, a being 
 so untrustworthy and bearing so unholy a hatred 
 for the gods that his help could not be for good, 
 
1 2 Wotan 
 
 and that his influence must be demoralizing. Per- 
 sonally, I should prefer to think of the king of 
 gods as a being above or beyond influence, as the 
 term is usually understood, and likewise the neces- 
 sity of an excuse. He was a joy-seeking " Licht- 
 Alben"— " spirit of light. " (See " Siegfried," act 
 i. : " Licht-Alben sind sie ; Licht-Alberich Wotan, 
 waltet der Schaar.") Unlike a mortal, a god was 
 not obliged to weigh his actions or consider con- 
 sequences. His own wishes and Loge's sugges- 
 tions coinciding, he was satisfied to allow the wary 
 fire-god to accomplish matters in his own way. 
 When, for the first time, Wotan countenanced de- 
 ceit, he did so carelessly, thoughtlessly, with a 
 smile. The second time it was with a sense of 
 imperative necessity. The gold must be had or 
 the gods would die, for without Freia's apples of 
 youth they could not live. The third time it was 
 because so many considerations, seemingly more 
 important, were taking form in his mind that he 
 cared nothing for the betrayed trust of the Rhine- 
 Maidens — cared, indeed, but for the might of the 
 gods, and the ways best to hold it supreme. 
 
 In the following translation of a scene between 
 
Wotan 1 3 
 
 Wotan and Fricka — that really fine and much- 
 misunderstood goddess — (scene 2, " Das Rhein- 
 gold "), we find explained in some measure the 
 relations between the king and queen of the gods, 
 and also vaguely indicated the general tendencies 
 in Wotan's character in that early period of his 
 development. 
 
 "Fricka — Had I the contract but known, 
 
 This fraud perchance I had stopped ; 
 But ye in your strength worked apart from 
 the women. 
 
 What know ye, hard ones, of holiest worth 
 When you crave only power ! 
 
 " Wotan — Likewise yearned not Fricka as well, 
 When she pleaded this might be built? 
 
 " Fricka — For my husband's troth ill-at-ease, 
 
 I sought to think in my sorrow 
 
 How beside me to keep him, 
 
 While he fain would depart! 
 
 Brightest of dwellings — home past all won- 
 drous — ■ 
 
 This might tardily hold him in rest! 
 
 But thou in this home could see but vi- 
 sions still of power, 
 
 Warfare and ruling might it bestow thee! 
 
1 4 Wotan 
 
 Thus riotous storm now arises 
 And menaces us from the Burg." 
 
 Later on, in " Die Walkiire," Fricka reminds 
 Wotan of his follies and misdeeds in the follow- 
 ing words : 
 
 " Thy faithful wife thou ever deceived 
 Where'er a depth or where'er a height 
 Did thy lustful glances beguile! 
 When the joys of change did enthrall thee, 
 Unnoticed brooded my heart! " 
 
 There is a peculiar glamour, the spirit of the 
 Golden Age, perhaps, which surrounds these gods 
 of " Das Rheingold " with an atmosphere as ex- 
 tenuating, as idealizing, and as deifying as that 
 which breathes through the "Iliad." So poetical 
 are they, so graceful and so gracious, in that im- 
 potent dignity, which is not human and not quite 
 godlike, that we find ourselves smiling at their 
 errors and weaknesses. We merely remember 
 that they are the children of the elements, the 
 Licht-Alben of heaven, the frequenters of the un- 
 approachable cloud-touched mountain peaks, of the 
 unknown depths of the earth, of all the strange 
 places of the world; the inhabitants of storm- 
 
Wotan 1 5 
 
 clouds and rainbows, and the warders of eternal 
 wisdom. 
 
 There is a touch of curious significance in " Das 
 Rheingold" which we do not fully appreciate until 
 we come to " Die Gbtterdammerung." This is 
 not at all unusual in the subtle working of the 
 Master. 
 
 "Loge— In glimmering glitter 
 Again could I wander, 
 Mocking — flickering — free, — 
 I well could sear them 
 Who fettered me once ! 
 
 "Not foolish seemeth that! — 
 I'll think upon it! 
 Who knows what I do ? " 
 
 When one remembers that Wotan once bound 
 the fire-god as his servant by might of his im- 
 mortal spear, and realizes, too, that in fire Walhalla 
 and the gods passed away, we find still another 
 meaning within a meaning — a hidden drama, but 
 faintly suggested, of godly wrong and revenge. 
 From all this it will be seen that Wotan, 
 though a god, was very weak and very short- 
 sighted. He, like the world, was in a spiritual 
 
1 6 Wotan 
 
 and moral childhood. With the coming of sorrow 
 — the first breaking notes of the tragedy of change 
 — the god grew wiser. But it was not until the 
 end that he grew great — great with the coronation 
 of suffering, the triumph of defeat, and the wisdom 
 born of that growing dawn of another day. 
 
 With the curse of Alberich ringing in his ears, 
 and the warning of Erda lingering in his memory, 
 Wotan approached the cloud-palace so dearly 
 bought. At last he realized that an element of 
 seriousness was creeping into these lightly planned 
 schemes of gods ; startled, he felt the shadow, and 
 a fear came upon him for the first time. The 
 curse was set loose upon the world. He had in- 
 curred it. The cloud of coming ill loomed large 
 upon the horizon ; what should be done to avert it, 
 and save earth and sky from the growing bonds ? 
 An inspiration sprang into his troubled mind, and 
 he seemed to see in prophecy a giant race born of 
 the gods and nurtured by mortals — a race with all 
 divine and human strength — a race which should 
 work in supreme freedom, and by might of sword 
 win the accursed gold, returning it through divine 
 guidance to the Rhine. At this point the sword 
 
Wotan i J 
 
 motif enters for the first time, typical of that 
 strong race yet to be born : 
 
 fe 
 
 But before this inspiration could be realized 
 there was more to be done. For the first time the 
 god was handling heavier things than love and 
 power and the joys of gods. He was becoming 
 an active worker in the giant drama which was 
 unfolding itself, and he must now work and plan 
 alone, without help from Loge. It was not 
 pleasure and success, but the world and the ^Esir 
 that troubled his heart, and he must know more 
 ere he could act. 
 
 So he sought Erda, the goddess of wisdom, in 
 the innermost recesses of the earth, and awakened 
 her from her sleep of wonderful dreams. She 
 unfolded to him all that she knew of past and 
 future, and bore to him nine daughters of marvel- 
 lous strength and wisdom. These daughters, when 
 they grew to womanhood, were his agents in an- 
 other colossal scheme which he had formed for the 
 protection of the ^Esir and Walhalla. Were the 
 
1 8 Wotan 
 
 sacred halls filled with the bravest heroes of the 
 earth, there would be no danger from Alberich, 
 even should the world-swaying Ring come back to 
 his hand. 
 
 So the nine maidens, whom men came to call 
 the Walkures, flew over the world on their wind- 
 horses in fulfilment of the all-father's will. And 
 men on the battle field and at sea grew to know 
 the flash of their armor and the rush of shrieking 
 wind when the Walkures passed on their way. 
 Wherever they went, combat arose and swords 
 clashed ; and after the battle back sped the war- 
 goddesses, bearing before them upon their horses 
 the heroes who had fallen, and singing through the 
 clouds. And Wotan was the " Walvater," the 
 father of war, and it is in this light that we 
 meet him oftenest in the sagas and tales of the 
 Vikings. 
 
 Meanwhile that first plan, weighted with as 
 many consequences as the second, had also been 
 put to the proof. To earth went Wotan, disguised 
 as a wanderer, and in union with a mortal woman 
 formed a new race — the race which he had seen 
 prophetically as he entered Walhalla. " Walse " 
 
Wotan 
 
 19 
 
 was his name as a mortal, and his children were 
 the Walsungs (or Volsungs). 
 
 A son and a daughter were born to him, demi- 
 gods, and thus greater than mortals and stronger 
 than the ^Esir. In accordance with his plot he 
 separated them and threw them both under the 
 heavy shadow of misfortune. The Miswende 
 motif has a veritable load of trouble in its sound : 
 
 Walsung Motif. 
 
 P 
 
 3I=Et 
 
 m 
 
 -3 X- 
 
 Miswende (Misfortune) Motif. 
 
 The girl (Sieglinde) was captured and wedded 
 by force to a brutal warrior (Hunding). During 
 the wedding festival the god came to the hall of 
 the warrior, in his disguise of Wanderer, and be- 
 fore the guests assembled there thrust a sword into 
 the great ash which was Hunding's roof -tree. 
 'This sword he had determined should be Sieg- 
 
20 Wotan 
 
 mund's heritage, and he declared aloud that it 
 should belong to any man strong enough to draw 
 it forth. As he left the house he smiled upon his 
 daughter, and the memory of that tender look 
 dwelt long in her thoughts. The years passed, 
 and through days and nights of indignity and mis- 
 ery, while warriors came and went striving to draw 
 out the sword, she still carried the recollection of 
 that strange smile, and felt it to have been a prom- 
 ise of some coming compensation. 
 
 Wotan under his title of Walse dwelt with his 
 son Siegmund in the woods, instilling in the boy 
 hatred of law and order and of the gods themselves. 
 Together they hunted and fought, and people grew 
 to know and fear the fierce and lawless pair. In 
 Siegmund's narrative ("Die Walkure," act i., 
 scene 2) there is a wonderful touch, as he de- 
 scribes returning one day to the spot where he 
 had left his father. He saw but an empty wolf- 
 skin, he says. His father he found no more. 
 And with the closing words we hear, very softly, 
 the motif of Walhalla, so often used to typify 
 Wotan, its lord. It tells us more plainly than 
 words that the father had gone back to resume his 
 
Wotan 21 
 
 godhood. It is in such places that we best appre- 
 ciate this double language of Wagner. 
 
 We may know what acute suffering it was to the 
 god to thus abandon the children whom he loved 
 by the phrase : " In bitterest sorrow grew he lonely 
 to manhood. My shield never sheltered him ! " — 
 set to the Misfortune motif, and the cold downward 
 crash of the Compact motif, which sounds in this 
 instance as stern as an inexorable law. 
 
 Siegmund reached manhood, and in time came 
 to Hunding's house and gained the sword. There 
 is a strong dramatic touch in this act (the first of 
 "Die Walkiire"). Swordless and helpless, the 
 Walsung remembers that his father once promised 
 him a sword, and in passionate, ringing tones he 
 cries : " Walse ! Walse ! Where is thy sword ? " 
 A crimson light falls on the hilt of the buried 
 weapon — the god's triumphant answer to his son. 
 
 The woman who tended Siegmund so gently in 
 Hunding's house, who brought him wine and gave 
 him her sympathy, aroused a love in the Walsung's 
 heart as strong as it was suddenly awakened, and, 
 sword in hand, he bade her leave the house and 
 come away with him into the wide forest where 
 
22 Wotan 
 
 the " house of spring " should shelter her. Carried 
 away by this power of love so new and wonderful 
 to her, she consented, and at last recognized in 
 him the twin brother from whom she had been 
 separated in childhood. Then came the recollec- 
 tion of the significant tender promise of the Wan- 
 derer's smile, and in a flash they seemed to see 
 the eternal destiny which had made their love its 
 medium. With the cry, " Thus must flourish the 
 race of the Walsungs ! " they fled into the moonlit 
 forest, their hearts filled with a new inspiration. 
 
 All these things were known to Wotan, who felt 
 at last at peace. What he had wished had come 
 to pass. His schemes would be successful. Into 
 this triumphant mood came a sudden change. 
 Fricka, the goddess of wedlock, had come to de- 
 mand vengeance for the broken laws. Perhaps 
 the god of the first period, " Das Rheingold," 
 would not have listened to her ; but he was wiser 
 now. He had considered too many things since 
 the building of Walhalla not to recognize the im- 
 portance of what she said. It was true, and he 
 knew it by every rune engraven on his Spear, by 
 every sense of law and right that he possessed. 
 
Wotan 23 
 
 Now he was the heart-broken, despairing god, 
 learning his bitter lesson with all that augmented 
 appreciation of suffering which his divinity gave 
 him. The children he loved he must disown ; the 
 plan he had formed with labor and pains he must 
 wittingly destroy ; the dusk of the gods seemed to 
 rise in an awful wall of blackness before him. In 
 a burst of despair he commanded Briinnhilde, the 
 Walkiire, to carry death to the Walsung. 
 
 Lovers of Wagner grow tired of hearing the 
 scenes between Wotan and Fricka, and Wotan and 
 Briinnhilde, spoken of in terms expressive of insult- 
 ing tolerance. Musically, of course, there have 
 been few such expositions of harmonic ingenuity, 
 and of dramatic music in its highest sense, as are 
 offered by these scenes. In significance the words 
 reach marvellous heights. In the first of these 
 much-discussed and consequently much-abused in- 
 terviews, take, for instance, the words in which 
 Wotan pleads for his beloved children who have 
 broken the law : 
 
 "That truthfully love they, must thou see clear; 
 To tenderer judgment then turn! 
 If e'er sweet love earned thy pure benediction, 
 
24 Wotan 
 
 Then smile, and lovingly bless thou 
 Siegmund and Sieglinde's bond! " 
 
 These lines with the music accompanying them 
 are surely not to be relinquished without regret ; 
 and so the rest of the scene. One need not men- 
 tion that wonderful melody, " Oh, was klag' ich um 
 Ehe und Eid ! " to strengthen the case in favor 
 of the Fricka scene. It is all so beautiful that 
 one is tempted to review it word by word and 
 note by.note, and to make special mention of each 
 and every line and bar. As for the scene follow- 
 ing, in which Wotan confides his sorrows and fears 
 to his daughter, I have tried in vain to find a pas- 
 sage which, omitted, does not leave an appreciable 
 void. Wagner lovers know what delight has been 
 theirs on those rare occasions when they have 
 been able to hear the whole, undesecrated by the 
 blue pencil of a conductor. 
 
 We all know that Wagner authorized and indi- 
 cated certain cuts in his works. Many persons 
 consider this an insurmountable argument against 
 the production of the Trilogy in full. To me it 
 seems a rather pathetic indication of the Master's 
 lack of faith in the public's comprehension of his 
 
Wotan 
 
 2 5 
 
 works — a lack of faith which, one must admit, 
 seems justified, judging from the objections often 
 made to the Nibelungen Cycle when given in its 
 entirety. 
 
 In the scene with Briinnhilde much striking mu- 
 sic is introduced, some of it entering for the first 
 time, or at least in a novel form. Notable among 
 the new phrases is the motif of the Gods' Need or 
 Gods' Stress : 
 
 The throbbing motif of the Nibelung's Hate 
 pulses angrily through the god's words when he 
 tells his daughter that Alberich has won to him a 
 woman, tempting her by gold since love is for- 
 bidden him. She will soon bear a child of hate 
 who may one day overcome the gods. 
 
 ^ 
 
 »1 1=1 * — H 
 
 In a climax of bitterness Wotan cries out that 
 
26 Wotan 
 
 the offspring of night, the Nibelung's son, may 
 have his blessing; it is well that the gods should 
 be quickly overthrown. Better that than the 
 gradual decay of their splendor and power. In 
 his sorrow he cries : 
 
 " I laid hands on Alberich's Ring, 
 Longing grasped the gold ; 
 The curse that I caused 
 Will leave me no more! 
 What I love best must I abandon, 
 Slay him I hold the dearest, 
 Faithless betray his trust in me! 
 Fadeth afar godliest pomp! 
 Splendor and glory wane in the shame! 
 In ruins broken lies all I built. 
 I leave now my work, 
 But one thing wish I still; 
 The Ending — the Ending! 
 And for that Ending waits Alberich ! " 
 
 Briinnhilde was commanded to aid Hunding, and 
 to destroy Siegmund. But through pity for the 
 unfortunate Walsungs and her knowledge of her 
 father's real desires, she endeavored to save the 
 hero whom she had been ordered to slay. This 
 could not be allowed by the law which was Wotan's 
 pledge of divine power. With his own Spear he 
 
Wotan 27 
 
 shattered the sword that he had bestowed upon 
 his son, and, despairing, watched the stroke with 
 which Hunding killed him. 
 
 Then in the midst of his grief came a still more 
 heartrending thought. Briinnhilde, his best-loved 
 daughter, had also broken the law. She had aided 
 the law-breaker; she had disobeyed his commands. 
 She also must be punished. In this was the high- 
 est and most poignant sorrow which he had yet 
 experienced. The consolation, the joy, the ex- 
 hilaration of his life — all these things had the 
 Walkiire been to him. In the discord of schemes 
 and broken bonds, of impossible dreams and heart- 
 sickening forebodings, his love for Briinnhilde had 
 been the one true and glorious note. And now 
 she too must fall under the shadow which to his 
 horror-stricken eyes seemed striding on to engulf 
 the world. With this was, at first, a more inti- 
 mate pain : grief that the Walkiire whose life had 
 been to execute his will should have disobeyed 
 him. The loss of the daughter was thus double. 
 After the first sting this sense of wrong vanished 
 in the wider and more generous sorrow. The 
 phrase commonly called the motif of Wotan's 
 
28 Wotan 
 
 anger, I should term instead the motif of Wotan's 
 pain, which, like all bitter and futile suffering, 
 sometimes takes the form of a despairing frenzy 
 akin to wrath. 
 
 W=£-<^ 
 
 Such is the anger of Wotan in the last act of " Die 
 Walkiire." He struggles with himself pitifully 
 in his sentence of Briinnhilde. His condemna- 
 tion of her wrong is strangely pathetic : 
 
 " Wish-maid wert to me, — 
 Yet against me hast thou wished! 
 Shield-maid wert to me, — ■ 
 Yet against me is thy shield! 
 Fate-holder thou wert for me, — 
 Yet dost thou now fate hold against me! 
 Hero-helper thou wert for me, — - 
 Yet against me helpest thou heroes! " 
 
 Slowly the bitterness faded out of his heart and 
 the pain of renunciation took its place. The full 
 measure of the god's sorrow flooded his soul. 
 Tenderness came to soften, yet sharpen, the hour 
 of parting. He drew the Walkiire into his arms 
 to gaze upon her brave and loving face before he 
 
Wotan 29 
 
 laid her down under the fir-trees in her long, 
 mystic slumber. 
 
 The following is a very inadequate translation 
 of one of the most exquisite passages of poetry 
 ever written : 
 
 Wotan's Farewell. 
 
 "Farewell, thou bravest, loveliest child, — 
 Thou highest pride my heart e'er could know, — 
 Farewell — farewell — farewell ! 
 
 " Now must I leave thee, 
 And never again may I lovingly greet thee; 
 Never more mayst thou ride by me blithely, 
 Nor stand, red wine to pour me! 
 Now I renounce thee, though I love thee, 
 Thou of my eyes the chief pleasure! 
 
 " Such torches of bridal shall for thee glimmer 
 As never a bride may have known! 
 Flickering flame thy shelter shall ring, 
 With burning and flashing frighten the cowards 
 Who fly, and near not Briinnhilde's Rock. 
 But one may pass, freeing the bride, — 
 One freer than I — the god ! 
 
 " The shining light of thine eyes 
 That oft I tenderly kissed, 
 
3° 
 
 Wotan 
 
 When after battles won thou my praising, 
 
 When sweetly thy gentle lips did speak 
 
 Of heroes' marvellous deeds; — 
 
 These wondrous, light-giving eyes ! 
 
 That bright through storm on me gleamed, 
 
 When hopeless longings my heart o'er-burdened, 
 
 When world's delights won my soul from thoughts 
 
 Of the glories of the battle ; — 
 
 Still shine they fair; for the last time 
 
 In a sad farewell I kiss thee now. 
 
 For happier man thine eyes shall be stars, — 
 
 The sorrowing immortal may no more behold them. 
 
 Now closes their brightness the god, — 
 
 And kisses thy godhood away." 
 
 Leaving his daughter asleep in her circle of 
 flame, the god slowly makes his way out of sight of 
 her rock-dwelling. With what intense sorrow he 
 looks back upon her sleeping figure ere he passes 
 the ring, realizing what he has lost, and perhaps 
 what she has lost — and gained — I suppose we 
 must be gods fully to understand. But a sugges- 
 tion of the sorrow is vouchsafed in the yearning 
 music of Wotan's farewell, which accompanies him 
 on his way, as though his heart were bidding her a 
 perpetual farewell — a loving and eternal renuncia- 
 tion: 
 
Wotan 
 
 :^-J=rg=fc g : H =t==3 I SEfg— I gl — g 
 
 :gp bj=B — T 
 
 =*=5 
 
 =fc= 
 
 So Wotan enters the fourth and last period, 
 dramatically speaking, of his being. When we 
 meet him again he is changed. In the stately 
 Wanderer who comes to Mime's smithy and enters 
 into the empty compact of the three questions, we 
 scarcely recognize the bowed and despairing god 
 we left but a short time since. Here, indeed, he 
 seems to have lost fear and foreboding. He has 
 learned much in the passing of years ; and now, 
 appreciating the strength of the omnipotent hand 
 of Fate, he resigns all plotting and planning, all re- 
 gret and all desire. The coming end of the ^Esir 
 no longer fills his heart with terror or anguish. 
 His weary and worn brain wishes, indeed, for the 
 rest of complete annulment. He has grown used 
 to the dimness, and the coming darkness has no evil 
 spectres to haunt him. He has little to do him- 
 self. The great workings of the giant drama of all 
 things require other actors. He is only a shadow 
 on the background — " Witness, not worker." 
 
3 2 
 
 Wo tan 
 
 To Mime he leaves a prophecy, to Fafner a 
 warning, to Alberich those words of calming wis- 
 dom : " All beings act according to their nature ; 
 not thou, nor any one, one thing can change. " 
 
 After his interview with Alberich, as he passes 
 through the woods, the swift measures of a portion 
 of the Walkiire's ride music, here typical of Wotan 
 as Walvater, accompany him in a vivid storm effect : 
 
 Through it swells the sorrowful melody of 
 Wotan's farewell — as though Briinnhilde were still 
 in his thoughts wherever he might turn his steps. 
 He wends his way to a high mountain-pass, and 
 summons Erda from her slumber in the earth's 
 depths. He relates to her much that has hap- 
 
Wotan 3 3 
 
 pened during the passing years, and tells her that 
 her wisdom is waning, that its illimitable sorrow 
 will soon vanish forever in the place of oblivion. 
 Gently he hushes her with promises for the eternal 
 well-being of the world. Then, divine prophecy 
 inspiring him, he declares in music of most won- 
 derful dignity and tenderness — 
 
 " Wakened, works thy wisdomful child 
 A deed to redeem the world ! " 
 
 Then comes Siegfried, the blithe-hearted youth, 
 and the god's heart is filled with a love for his off- 
 spring that softens every word in the scene be- 
 tween them, and lends a strange and touching 
 pathos to the motif of Wotan's pain. The tender- 
 ness which he felt for Siegmund and Sieglinde he 
 transfers to their son, and when Siegfried taunts 
 him he only says : 
 
 " Knewest thou me, offspring brave, 
 Thine insults wouldst thou spare! 
 Painfully wounds me, who love thee, this scoffing! " 
 
 He beseeches Siegfried to delay the moment 
 when the final stroke must fall ; as he gazes upon 
 3 
 
34 Wotan 
 
 him he forgets everything save his love for the 
 boy who defies him. " Why dost thou wear such 
 a great hat ? " laughs Siegfried ; and he answers 
 simply, " Such is the Wanderer's custom, when 
 he goeth against the wind. " There is a small but 
 vivid picture in the music underlying these words. 
 The Wanderer motif sounds with its habitual 
 broad, mysterious dignity : 
 
 u. Wanderer Motif. 
 
 W- 
 
 -fe 
 
 m 
 
 fc=l=-=|- 
 
 6J» 
 
 *ohS- Wns*- - 
 
 =$&- 
 
 
 w= 
 
 s»- 
 
 b. Walkure Motif. 
 
 The lower notes carry the wild Walkure motif; 
 the Walhalla motif follows. The inner eyes see a 
 lightning vision of clouds and storm, of Walkiires 
 speeding to execute the will of the Wanderer, of 
 godlike doings, and matters strange to the com- 
 prehension of mortals. 
 
 True to his promise to Briinnhilde, the god holds 
 out his Spear to gauge the might of the hero, to 
 gauge as well the dying strength of the ^Esir. 
 
Wotan 3 5 
 
 Siegfried strikes the sacred shaft to pieces. The 
 music comes to us like the convulsive sighs of the 
 god's own sad heart. As the Spear made from the 
 World's Ash falls in splinters to the ground, the 
 heavy, irregular octaves of the Compact motif storm 
 their way slowly down into subdued thunder and 
 then silence. At last the Erda motif rises, fraught 
 with sad, prophetic harmonies, ending in its ma- 
 jestic inversion, the motif of the Dusk of the Gods : 
 
 a. Erda Motif. 6. MotifoftheDuskoftheGods. 
 
 ^z^f^S 1 
 
 So Wotan turns, holding the broken Spear, and 
 passes away in the darkness. He enters the stage 
 of action no more. But from the mystic singing 
 of the Norns and the narrative of Waltraute when 
 she comes to Briinnhilde to beg for the Ring, we 
 gather the record of his final actions in the closing 
 hours of the great drama. 
 
 There remains but little for the king of gods to 
 say or do. But since he must depart in all honor 
 and pride, he may make ready for that event which, 
 
36 Wotan 
 
 he now sees, is not a catastrophe, but a supreme 
 blessing to the world. The World's Ash-Tree is 
 hewn into pieces by his orders, and piled into a 
 circle around Walhalla. Then from far and wide 
 he summons his heroes, and in silence takes his 
 place among them. He sends his great ravens out 
 for tidings ; and thus he waits, refusing the holy 
 apples of youth. The words which he whispers 
 to Waltraute are full of a deeper meaning than she 
 can understand. He tells her that when Brunn- 
 hilde shall return the Ring to the Rhine-Maidens, 
 gods and men will be free from the weight of the 
 curse. She tries to obtain the Ring from her 
 sister, but in vain. Fate wills that the Rhine 
 daughters shall receive their property from Briinn- 
 hilde's own hands, as a gift blessed by her wisdom 
 and her suffering. And, indeed, we may know 
 most surely that Wotan does not wish to avert the 
 destruction of the gods. His words are but proph- 
 ecy, for he sees farther than the twilight ; and the 
 freedom which he means is the annulment of the 
 gods, as well as the cleansing of the gold-cursed 
 earth. 
 
 The music which describes the burning of Wal- 
 
Wotan 37 
 
 halla is based on the motif of the God's Need, but 
 has a harmonic construction which produces a 
 thrilling and wonderful effect. Listening, one 
 finds oneself breathless from a strange, constrain- 
 ing force — it seems to hold in it a magic as 
 potent as it is indescribable. 
 
 The phrase first enters in the Norn scene, again in 
 Waltraute's narrative, and reaches its climax when 
 Briinnhilde commands the erection of the funeral 
 pyre — that funeral pyre the rising flames from 
 which finally destroyed Walhalla. Loge's revenge 
 is expressed by his characteristic music, which 
 sweeps up in a veritable surge of crackling fire. 
 
 Here let me draw your attention to a beautiful 
 musical touch. We remember the short but lovely 
 phrase so often used to bring the Walhalla motif 
 to a close, — the melody which seems to character- 
 
38 Wotan 
 
 ize Wotan as supreme god of the Golden Age. 
 Who but the master would have dared to give this 
 fresh and simple melody to the broken and weary 
 god awaiting the end of his power and splendor? 
 Yet, as Brunnhilde, raising her arms, sings solemn- 
 ly, " Ruhe ! ruhe ! du Gott ! " (" Rest ! rest ! thou 
 god!"), we hear first the Walhalla motif, full of 
 peace and dignity, then the motif of the God's 
 Need, subdued and lulled, and last the simple and 
 tranquil melody which, with the Walhalla motif, 
 seems to depict Wotan in his youth and strength 
 and the happy arrogance of his godhood. The touch 
 is perfect, and is like a gentle word at a death-bed. 
 Though he was long called god, Wotan, the 
 king of gods, was only frail, erring and weaker than 
 mortal until he had learned the lessons given him. 
 But he did learn them ; and so, with his petty 
 faults, and trivial plots, and his love, and his suf- 
 fering, and his heavy crown of godhood, he fell 
 asleep in the last twilight. For thus he was a 
 god at last : wise ere he died; great ere he slipped 
 into obscurity; divine ere he passed into the dead 
 days with the other shapes and shadows of the old 
 order. He, in keeping with the eternal necessity 
 
Wotan 39 
 
 of all things, was forced to suffer before he was 
 crowned ; but after we have pitied him, and blamed 
 him, and scorned him, we at last come to reverence 
 him as he fades away, a dim, godlike figure, among 
 the growing shadows of the Dusk of the Gods. 
 
 "Rune! ruhe! duGott!" 
 
SIEGFRIED 
 
SIEGFRIED 
 
 Among all the characters drawn in literature, 
 Siegfried is the only being absolutely natural. 
 Wagner desired to show a perfectly elemental 
 and primitive being influenced only by instinct, 
 governed only by impulse, and totally ignorant of 
 any constraint. To produce this effect he placed 
 his character in a wilderness, without instruction 
 or companionship. He must have no cultivation, 
 no artificial polish, — not even that rough learning 
 which passed for education at that day. There- 
 fore his only companion is an ignorant dwarf, who 
 can tell him nothing of the world save an occa- 
 sional tale of jousts or battles, and who can have 
 no possible refining influence upon him. For 
 whatever refinement he may possess must come 
 by instinct, and not by training. 
 
 He knows nothing of the world; he is unskilled 
 in the use of weapons ; he is quite untaught in mat- 
 ters of custom, law, or order; he has never heard 
 
44 Siegfried 
 
 of love, and he cannot even vaguely picture to him- 
 self a woman. It is of such material that the 
 strength of a perfect man is formed. So Wagner 
 wishes us to see. Giving us an absolutely pure 
 and absolutely natural nature, the Master proves 
 conclusively that, the knowledge of good and evil 
 being equally instinctive, it is the instinct of the 
 good and the beautiful which largely predominates. 
 Siegfried is a man, to whom the heritage of life 
 must come. In the course of time love must come 
 to him, pain also, yearning — even fear. He must 
 battle with the world and with men, he must learn 
 restraint and the most worthy exercise of his 
 strength; he must confront many strange things 
 unforeseen and hard to understand. But his brain 
 will be unclouded by artificiality, his heart will be 
 free from the doubt and hesitancy of a contagiously 
 cowardly world, and his arm will be strong with the 
 supreme strength of the forest. Whatever it is 
 necessary for him to experience, that he will meet. 
 He must love, and he must love deeply as befits 
 the depth and force of his nature ; and though the 
 word and its meaning are alike unknown to him 
 for a long time, he watches the birds and beasts 
 
Siegfried 45 
 
 and meditates upon the mysteries of life, stirred 
 by the vague, intangible sentiment of an utterly 
 untutored nature. And eventually he must die ; — 
 and he dies as all heroes have died, smiling at the 
 bright memories that death brings him. 
 
 What we feel most strongly, even in a superficial 
 glance at this character, is the extraordinary abun- 
 dance of vitality and energy. Here, also, let us 
 acknowledge the wise art of the Master. Had he 
 placed Siegfried in an atmosphere of greater re- 
 finement, had his interests been more numerous 
 and his freedom more restricted, he must have 
 been weaker, less overwhelmingly vigorous. This 
 is the reason why the Siegfried of the Nibelun- 
 genlied interests us less, being more a knight 
 of chivalry than a hero of barbaric simplicity. 
 The Siegfried who lived in Worms and engaged 
 in tourneys was an interesting, but not a con- 
 vincing character; the Siegfried who wandered 
 in the woods, and later by the Rhine, doing 
 great deeds and laughing at fear, seems strangely 
 real and near to us. For in spite of the divine 
 blood in his veins, Siegfried is the most human of 
 mortals. He is actual — living — true to life in 
 
46 Siegfried 
 
 every heart-beat. In the world of stories and 
 songs, poems and plays, I know of no more truth- 
 ful and charming picture of the possibilities of 
 this our inherent life. 
 
 After Siegmund's death, Briinnhilde gathered to- 
 gether the splinters of the broken sword and gave 
 them to Sieglinde, to keep as a treasure for her 
 child. With divine prophecy the Walkiire de- 
 clared that that child should be the highest hero 
 of the world, and that he should be called " Sieg- 
 fried" — "Son of Victory" (Sieg, in German, is 
 victory). With this one great end to live for, 
 Sieglinde wandered away into the woods, and after 
 a long interval of privations and sufferings was 
 finally found by Mime, the dwarf, half-brother of 
 Black Alberich who had originally stolen the 
 Rhine -gold. Mime saw a golden possibility in 
 caring for the unfortunate daughter of Walsung. 
 Were Fafner, the giant dragon, slain by some 
 mighty offspring of the demi-gods, the gold and 
 the treasure would be more available. Men could 
 be poisoned; dragons required more daring to 
 overcome. So, with this hope, he gave aid to 
 Sieglinde ; and when she died, having given birth 
 
Siegfried 47 
 
 to a boy, he expended all the care of which he was 
 capable upon the child. The pieces of the sword 
 he treasured against some future day when they 
 might be needed. He did his best to bring the 
 boy up to hardy and fearless manhood, and his 
 efforts were successful. Never before were seen 
 such strength and splendid vigor in mortal youth ; 
 and Mime cringed, at last, before the might that 
 he had fostered. 
 
 The first musical phrase that I will give is a 
 melody in which Mime ("Siegfried," act i.) de 
 scribes Siegfried's babyhood and early childhood. 
 
 ^~m 
 
 ■t-x 
 
 g fl|EE^=EgEEIE^ 
 
 P 
 
 fe=6J= 
 
 It has been charmingly likened to a folk-melody 
 or a cradle-song. It pictures to our imagination 
 the first grace of a young child, — all the simplicity 
 and freshness of that ignorant, happy childhood in 
 the woods. As the boy grew older, we learn from 
 Mime's querulous complaining that he made him 
 "a tuneful horn." And now let us consider this — 
 
48 Siegfried 
 
 the first definite expression of the nature of the 
 frank and blithe-hearted boy — the wild and lovely 
 sound that echoed through the forest when Sieg- 
 fried first tried his tuneful horn. 
 
 This horn-call is the motif of Siegfried the 
 Fearless in its -primitive form. Later the same 
 melody, when augmented and enriched, becomes 
 the motif of Siegfried the Hero. 
 
 " Talk'st thou of giants and vigorous warfare, 
 Of daring deeds and able defence ; 
 And swords dost thou sharpen, — forge the weapons, 
 Praising thy craft most highly indeed! 
 Put I my hand to what thou hast smithied, 
 With but a stroke destroyed is the trash ! " 
 
 Such is Siegfried's complaint, and the words are 
 accompanied by two delightfully characteristic 
 phrases. The setting of — 
 
 " Talk'st thou of giants and vigorous warfare, 
 Of daring deeds and able defence " — 
 
Siegfried 49 
 
 is as vigorous as the warfare of which he speaks. 
 
 :^=za— = 
 
 ^^ 
 
 " Talk'st thou of gi-ants and vi - gorous war-fare — " 
 
 The rapid downward sweep of the music to which 
 he sings his anger at the uselessness of Mime's 
 weapons is a motif well recognized in the Trilogy — 
 the motif of Siegfried the Impetuous : 
 
 w^^^^ 
 
 A wild young animal, he grew up in the forest, 
 the first softening and tender influences, as I have 
 said, coming from the loving woodland creatures. 
 The love that he saw around him among birds and 
 wolves and foxes, and " the gentle deer that had 
 paired,'' aroused an answering love in his heart. 
 "Thus learned I well what love is," he said to 
 Mime. The motif of Forest Life, or Love Life, is 
 very beautiful, and it is to this that his first tender 
 thoughts are set : 
 4 
 
5° 
 
 Siegfried 
 
 4^-J 
 
 j> A UA -V- J. 
 
 At last his mind awoke ; and tired of dreams of 
 distant warfare, and lonely musings in the wood, 
 he demanded some definite knowledge of his par- 
 ents. Instinct and a rough reasoning told him that 
 the cringing gnome could be "no father of his," 
 and he longed passionately to know something of 
 his mother, — the mother who belonged to that 
 beautiful unknown mystery of womanhood which 
 sometimes assailed his thoughts with its indefin- 
 able sweetness. Mime told him of her death at 
 last, and showed him the broken pieces of the 
 sword Nothung, while the boy stood, wondering and 
 touched, bewildered and sad. 
 
 As the Nibelung tells Siegfried the story of his 
 birth, the accompanying music also tells its tale, 
 — a tale of love and grief, of desolation and de- 
 spair, of pain and death. The Walsung motif, 
 weighted with woe, rises and falls as with a sigh; 
 
Siegfried 5 1 
 
 the motif of Sympathy and of Siegmund and Sieg- 
 linde's Love are repeated in changing keys, ever 
 increasing in sadness and pitiful discords. Then 
 all dies down into the weary and now supremely 
 tragic Walsung motif. Above a long-sustained 
 note we hear the words, " She died," and, im- 
 mediately afterward, very softly but freighted 
 with a thrill of hope, the Siegfried motif, which 
 in this instance has the ingenuous simplicity and 
 grace of the new-born child. 
 
 Awed and sorrowful, the boy listened to the 
 dwarf's tale ; wonderingly he heard of his father's 
 defeat ; pitifully he asked, " So died, then, my 
 mother ? " At last, with the sight of the sword, 
 all the wild longing for adventure that had been 
 brooding in his heart rushed out, together with a 
 deep-lying hatred for the sly and loathsome being 
 with whom he had been forced to associate. Tell- 
 ing Mime to forge him the sword speedily, he 
 darted off into the woods to think of his new 
 knowledge. The motif of Heroic Adventure fol- 
 lows him as he goes : 
 
 Sfe 
 
 •s 
 
 -r E S 
 
5 2 Siegfried 
 
 Meanwhile another phrase has been heard several 
 times in the orchestra, — the Siegfried motif, one 
 of the most important in the Cycle. 
 
 FFr^i 
 
 
 
 
 n — i - 
 
 
 1 . 
 
 
 
 
 ^ 
 
 r-l— 
 
 — I— 
 
 * 
 
 
 \m ■ * 
 
 -^ 
 
 
 — 1— 
 L -*-=' 
 
 -m- 
 
 
 When Siegfried returned to the cave, a new 
 thought was ready to greet him in Mime's mention 
 of " fear." He had never been taught the word, 
 and, having had no sensation demanding some such 
 phrase, had never acquired it. It is well known 
 that children learn first the words which they need 
 most in the expression of their daily desires and 
 feelings. It was a happy touch to show Siegfried's 
 freedom from fear by his ignorance of the term 
 expressing it. "Das Furchten?" he said won- 
 deringly. And when Mime had described this 
 strange " Furchten," he still shook his head, smil- 
 ing and curious. At this point, dimly suggestive, 
 like a prophetic glimmer through mist, the Sleep 
 motif steals out over the rest of the music. For 
 he was to learn fear, this calm-hearted boy. " Im 
 
Siegfried 5 3 
 
 Schlafe liegt eine Frau, die hat ihn das Furchten 
 gelehrt ! " (" Siegfried," act iii. ) 
 
 But this new suggestion had fired his imagina- 
 tion. If there was anything that he did not know 
 he must be taught at once. Mime declared that 
 Fafner the dragon had taught it to many dragons. 
 He, too, should learn of him. Siegfried demanded 
 the sword Nothung, saying that he would go to 
 the dragon, learn the art of fearing, and then fare 
 forth to the world. And as Mime wailed that he 
 could not smithy Nothung, the boy, fired by a 
 species of divine inspiration, filed the pieces, blew 
 up the forge, and fashioned the sword anew. 
 
 In this first contemplation of Siegfried, we are 
 impressed principally by these points. The youth 
 was the- complete antithesis of Mime in every re- 
 spect. The dwarf inspired him with a disgust so 
 overwhelming that at times it seemed as though 
 he must strike him aside like a venomous reptile. 
 Instinct alone brought him back to the cavern day 
 after day. 
 
 We are inclined, in viewing the deeds of these 
 gods and demi-gods of old, to criticise them in the 
 light of modern civilization, and therein are wrong. 
 
54 Siegfried 
 
 Were Siegfried a youth of to-day, and Mime his 
 plotting and scheming guardian, the boy, brought 
 up in cultivated and decorous surroundings, would 
 probably give him all due respect and proper 
 courtesy even while in his honest heart he must 
 scorn and distrust him. But Siegfried lived in a 
 primeval day, in a dense forest. Mime himself 
 was unlikely to have inculcated either courtesy or 
 kindliness in his charge's heart. So, there being 
 no necessity for outward hypocrisy, the youth 
 simply endured the Nibelung as long as he could. 
 When natural antipathy became augmented by 
 the knowledge that Mime was plotting his death 
 he struck him dead with his sword in a volume of 
 impetuous wrath. I have heard this described as 
 " murder " ; and while one could easily plead self- 
 defence, if one so desired, I do not wish to make 
 excuses for "The highest hero of the world." It 
 would be an insult to the embodiment of supreme, 
 elemental nature which the boy was. But, if I 
 could, I would bring home the picture of that 
 lonely boy, guided only by his own hot, passionate 
 heart and the tenderness taught him by the forest 
 creatures, — to those who would receive it. But it 
 
Siegfried 55 
 
 is a great canvas, and only the perusal of that giant 
 drama of Wagner's, the Nibelungen Ring, can give 
 the complete and heart -stirring whole. 
 
 The sword in hand, Siegfried followed Mime to 
 the cave of the dragon, and there lay under the 
 linden-tree watching the tiny shadows flicker and 
 listening to the great whispering surge of indefin 
 able, familiar sounds. The twittering of birds 
 mingled with the thousand voices of the wind in 
 the trees ; and what a symphony was the whole, 
 what a crowning perfection of tremulous harmony, 
 unmarred by melody, — almost without measure or 
 rhythm, yet pulsing like a great heart. The heart 
 of the wide world of nature was throbbing for the 
 boy that day; and, listening, cannot we, too, feel 
 the magic that steals upon us in that vague, in- 
 finite wave of music which engulfs the ears and 
 the heart and the soul in a ceaseless, formless flood 
 of sound ? " Waldweben " . . . . forest weaving 
 indeed, — the weaving, weaving of all that is loveli- 
 est in the forest secrets into a whole, mysterious 
 and heart-contenting and complete. 
 
 He wondered softly, affected like all simple and 
 susceptible beings by the influences of that tender, 
 
56 Siegfried 
 
 imperative nature around him, what his mother 
 had been like. It seemed impossible for him to 
 picture her. Was she like "the mother-deer, whose 
 bright eyes shone so softly with love ? No, even 
 lovelier. Finally he sighed ; 
 
 " When in her grief she bore me, 
 Ah, why must she thus have died! 
 Die so all human mothers, 
 Leaving their sons behind them alone? 
 Surely 'twere too sad, that! " 
 
 The tender motif of Freia quivers upward from 
 the orchestra, as though the gentle goddess of love 
 gave her benediction to the boy, in a smile that 
 gleams momentarily through the whisper of the 
 " Waldweben : " 
 
 A bird began to sing in the tree above him, and 
 in the whimsical hope of talking to it — for he was 
 very lonely — he cut a reed into a whistle and tried 
 bravely to imitate the clear note. But the whistle 
 sounded out of tune, and the bird only seemed to 
 
Siegfried $j 
 
 mock him. In disgust he threw " the stupid reed " 
 away, and acknowledged himself incapable of the 
 marvels of wood-talk. A lusty blast on his horn 
 brought Fafner the dragon before him, and quite 
 unconsciously the youth forged the first link of 
 the chain which should one day bind him hand 
 and foot. With the dragon he fought and plunged 
 Nothung into his heart. Dying, Fafner warned 
 him of the curse, and of coming ill, and lamented 
 in strange and impressive music the end of the 
 mighty "Riesen-geschlecht." 
 
 Looking down upon him, Siegfried said slowly : 
 
 " My race and parents fain would I know, — 
 Wise now thou seemest, wild one, in dying ! 
 Give me rede from my title, — 
 Siegfried, — so am I named ! " 
 
 But the dragon was dead. And the youth sighed 
 sorrowfully: "The dead can- give no tidings, so 
 have I naught but my good sword to lead me!" 
 
 The dragon's blood falling on his hand and so 
 touching his lips gave him power to understand 
 the language of the birds; and the small wood- 
 warbler which he had tried to imitate on the reed 
 
58 Siegfried 
 
 bade him in most musical tones enter the cave and 
 take the Tarnhelm and Ring which he would find 
 there. He obeyed, quite ignorant of their use, and 
 looking upon the rest of the treasure with wonder- 
 ing curiosity. Again came the bird-voice bidding 
 him beware of Mime. The dwarf drew near with 
 a cup of poison which he endeavored to force upon 
 Siegfried with cajolery ; but the dragon's blood had 
 also given power to read the evil and treacherous 
 thoughts that prompted the hypocritical protesta- 
 tions. In a storm of anger the Walsung killed him. 
 
 As he returned to the cool shadows under the 
 linden-tree, he felt, suddenly and more overpower- 
 ingly than ever before, his extreme loneliness. 
 There seemed no one in the wide world to whom 
 he could even speak — he seemed completely and 
 utterly alone. He envied the wild birds their 
 companionship, and their happiness with each 
 other, and wondered, sadly enough, if he should 
 ever have a friend of his own — " Ein gut Gesell." 
 
 Listening to the love-songs of the birds, brood- 
 ing on the customs of the forest-creatures, Sieg- 
 fried had long felt the indefinite instinct of love 
 stir in his heart, but it had never before risen to 
 
Siegfried 59 
 
 the height of yearning. Never before had he 
 thoroughly recognized his own intolerable loneli- 
 ness. Never before had he realized what was far 
 stranger and more thrilling — his own capacity for 
 love. Intangible, formless, nameless, this sense 
 of something unattained filled his being — this 
 tremulous, half-painful delight — this emotion 
 which seemed to carry his heart from him in a 
 rush of longing. 
 
 Molto appasionato. 
 
 r 
 
 Yearning Motif. 
 
 The bird sang to him of Brunnhilde, the sleep- 
 ing goddess, and promised to guide him to her 
 fire-encircled rock ; and at last Siegfried found the 
 knowledge of the meaning of his longing. Through 
 fire he would spring to find the Walkiire. 
 
 The boy was no longer a boy ; he was a man, 
 throbbing with life and vigor. He must come 
 into his heritage of love. The bird which led him 
 through the forest is but the symbol of the irre- 
 
6o 
 
 Siegfried 
 
 sistible instinct which sent him past all obstacles 
 to the woman whom he was to wed. 
 
 On the way he met Wotan, the Wanderer, and 
 broke the Spear of the immortals. In this scene 
 there is a phrase which enters most gracefully, 
 and seems to typify the light-heartedness of Sieg- 
 fried in contrast to the heavier and graver har- 
 monies characterizing the god : 
 
 As Wotan vanishes in the darkness a new phrase 
 is heard. It sounds continually during the jour- 
 ney through the fire, now triumphant, now elusive, 
 now tranquil. It seems to be a combination of 
 the Rhine-Maidens call — " Rheingold ! " — and one 
 of the bird-notes, and I think typifies the element 
 of magic, the mystical glamor — in short, the fan- 
 tastic, entrancing spirit of a fairy tale. 
 
Siegfried 6 1 
 
 Through the fire went Siegfried, blowing his 
 horn and gleefully fighting the tongues of magical 
 flame ; up the moutnain-side he sprang, until he 
 reached the summit and entered that trance-bound 
 enclosure where the Walkiire slept in the shadow 
 of the fir-trees. The Sleep motif sounds softly in 
 the passes; an. ethereal sweep of harp-tones rises 
 like the musical stir of the breeze through the 
 branches. The Freia motif greets the hero gra- 
 ciously, and the Fricka motif, one of the loveliest 
 melodies in the Cycle, seems to enfold him as in 
 a stately consecration : 
 
 The melody of Wotan's farewell lingers about the 
 place. The minor notes of the rhythmic Walkiire 
 motif throb faintly, like an echo. It is as though 
 the gods drew together to bless the coming of 
 the hero to the enchanted spot ; as though Freia, 
 goddess of love, and Fricka, goddess of wed- 
 lock, sanctified the coming union, and the 
 father of gods whispered his loving farewell once 
 
62 Siegfried 
 
 more to the daughter who was now to become a 
 woman. 
 
 It is the growth of Siegfried from a day-dream- 
 ing boy to a living man which interests us and 
 which stands out in importance. In the " Fiirch- 
 ten " — the wondering awe which assails Siegfried 
 when he finds Briinnhilde, the first woman he has 
 ever seen — Wagner has struck the keynote of the 
 change in him. The unrecognized instinct of love 
 which made him yearn for "ein lieber Gesell, " 
 and which sent him speeding through the woods 
 to the Walkiire's rock, was but the prelude to the 
 deeper love which was both passion and reverence, 
 yearning and joy. 
 
 Motif of Love's Greeting. 
 
 So the hero learned his lesson of fear, and 
 waked the sleeping Walkiire, and thus learned 
 from her the divine lesson of love. No longer a 
 boy, but a man crowned with this ineffable mystery 
 of a woman's faith, he is now given a .melody be- 
 yond all words tender and strong — the motif of 
 Siegfried the Protector : 
 
Siegfried 
 
 63 
 
 The motif of Siegfried's Love is also most stir- 
 ring and vigorous, with a flash of happiness in it, 
 and a cadence like a caress : 
 
 fP 
 
 a 
 
 3g 
 
 =3=*= 
 
 And so we come to the second and older Sieg- 
 fried, to whom is given the blithe musical phrase 
 which we have known as the motif of Siegfried 
 the Fearless, but which now, with its lusty strength 
 and manliness, we call the motif of Siegfried the 
 Hero: 
 
 3^= 
 
 -2=3*- 
 
 =S!S2=35E 
 
 ff 
 
 * # * y ^s r***^ 
 
 After a long lapse of time, Siegfried, urged by 
 Briinnhilde, determined to go forth into the world, 
 and test his good sword and the strength of his 
 arm. So he left with her the Ring as a love- 
 
64 Siegfried 
 
 pledge; and she gave him her horse, armor, and 
 weapons, and waved him a brave farewell as he 
 rode down into the valley. 
 
 During what is usually spoken of as Siegfried's 
 Rhine journey we have a wonderful web of motifs 
 woven with marvellous art, and all full of signifi- 
 cance and strange charm. Among others, we hear 
 the motif of Heroic Adventure, which was first 
 heard in Mime's cave when the boy longed for the 
 excitement of the world. 
 
 While he passed on his way down the Rhine, 
 a mighty plot was being prepared for him in the 
 hall of the Gibichungs, where Gunther and Gut- 
 rune, children of Gibich, lived with their half- 
 brother Hagen. Hagenwas the son of Grimhilde, 
 their mother, and of Alberich, the Nibelung, and 
 he it was whom Wotan had hailed in a moment of 
 bitterness as the sin-aided conqueror of Walhalla. 
 That the Ring might come back to the hands of 
 the Nibelungs, the Nibelung's son plotted deeply, 
 and worked in magic, until one day he could sug- 
 gest a project to Gunther and Gutrune which 
 seemed both plausible and pardonable. 
 
 It was meet that Gunther and Gutrune too should 
 
Siegfried 65 
 
 wed. The son of Gibich should find a fitting 
 mate, — thus he spoke. The race was a noble one, 
 and only the noblest of women could unite with it. 
 There was such a woman — though far beyond the 
 reach of most men. Fire encircled her dwelling, 
 and only a man who could fight his way through 
 it could wed with her. This was, unfortunately, 
 possible Only to one hero — Siegfried, the Wal- 
 sung, son of Siegmund and Sieglinde. He was 
 brave and strong — such a man, in sooth, as Gut- 
 rune, the daughter of Gibich, should make her 
 mate. Not only would he bring might and nobil- 
 ity to the race of the Gibichungs; he possessed 
 wealth also — the hoard of the Nibelungs, which 
 lay in Hate Hole. 
 
 Gunther sprang up disturbed, and asked Hagen 
 angrily why with such apparent pleasure he aroused 
 this desire for impossible things. Slowly and 
 secretly Hagen continued. If Siegfried could be 
 induced to bring the bride to Gunther, all would 
 be well. This was not so impossible as it seemed. 
 If Gutrune wove a spell for his enslavement, he 
 would gladly do their will. To Gutrune' s indig- 
 nant assertion that surely the greatest hero of the 
 5 
 
66 Siegfried 
 
 world would be beyond such enslavement, since 
 he must have already loved and won to him the 
 loveliest women of the earth, and that he would 
 scarcely stoop or be bound by her, Hagen answered 
 that magic could do many things. He bade her 
 remember the love-potion which he had lately 
 brewed — it was sweet, it was strong; for its 
 mystical power he, who had with labor concocted 
 it, could vouch. Did Siegfried even taste this 
 draught he would forget that he had ever seen a 
 woman before Gutrune, and any love which had 
 been in his heart would straightway pass away, 
 and he would love Gutrune instead. Thus could 
 he be bound to gain the flame-guarded bride for 
 Gunther. They need but wait till he came ; and 
 he surely would come, for the Gibichungs were a 
 far-famed race, and in the course of time he would 
 seek them out. 
 
 With such a web of deceit and treachery pre- 
 pared for him, why did not the hero feel an unholy 
 influence emanating from the hall of the Gibich- 
 ungs ? Why did he not turn the barge which bore 
 him and his horse, and continue down the Rhine, 
 blowing his horn in his glad confidence and 
 
Siegfried 
 
 6 7 
 
 strength? Instead, he sprang on shore and 
 greeted them. And Hagen hailed him as " Sieg- 
 fried, highest of heroes!" with the triumph of 
 black, successful hate in his voice. As the young 
 Walsung set forth upon the threshold the shadow 
 fell, all unrecognized, upon him. At this point 
 the Curse motif swells out like a fearful menace, 
 and as though in musical defiance the Siegfried 
 motif follows triumphantly ; 
 
 a. Curse Motif. 
 
 b. Siegfried Motif. 
 
 g|±= 
 
 -"■»=- 
 
 7& 
 
 u=>- 
 
 J^Bm 
 
 Soon afterward we hear the motif of the Wal- 
 sung' s Heroism. It is a minor melody, and has 
 sometimes been called the motif of the Walsung's 
 Fortitude. It sounded like a death march over the 
 dead Siegmund ; later we hear it after the death 
 of our hero himself. 
 
68 
 
 Siegfried 
 
 rs, l 
 
 After words of greeting and friendship between 
 the warriors, Gutrune came from an inner chamber 
 with the love-draught (the motif of Gutrune and 
 the motif of the Love-potion being heard at this 
 point), and offered the guest the usual drink of 
 hospitality. 
 
 As he takes the drinking-horn in his hand, the 
 motif of Love's Greeting accompanies him as he 
 softly whispers : 
 
 " Forgot I all that thou to me gav'st, 
 One lesson still I ever should hold, 
 This draught of wine with love eternal — 
 Briinnhild', I pledge to thee! " 
 
 There is a sense of heaviness in the air, — a 
 creeping mystery like a clinging mist. " What 
 unholy magic is this ? " asks Briinnhilde, later. 
 The same question takes form in our hearts as 
 
Siegfried 
 
 69 
 
 the mystic harmonies of the Spell motif stir the 
 silence : 
 
 fp= J = 
 
 p — , 1-, 
 
 • — |-— 1 
 
 4- 
 
 H£—*t^- 
 
 nss ^1 
 
 h-^'n 
 
 ^ - 1 
 
 S 2 fZZ 
 
 -s 1 
 
 u= 
 
 1 1 
 
 &*— **> • 
 
 =r- — ^ 
 
 
 r-*^ • 
 
 E=!s • 
 
 sU 1 
 
 ^ ■ 
 
 '-g • 1 
 
 And now it is all over, and Siegfried is Sieg- 
 fried no longer, but another. That " love eternal " 
 which was the central thought of his being as he 
 drank the potion has left him. Light-hearted, 
 generous, kindly, and courageous, — these things he 
 will always be ; but the love of his life has gone, 
 and with it a certain seriousness, a vein of tender 
 gravity — something which came with Briinnhilde's 
 love. These things float away on the cloying, in- 
 sinuating sweetness of the Love-potion motif, and 
 there is but the curse, ringing out its malignant 
 warning, and that he does not hear. With pathetic 
 significance we hear the melody which had stood 
 for Siegfried's love, now used to accompany him 
 when he offers help to Gunther in his undertak- 
 ing. It is as though the strong heart of the man, 
 robbed of the guiding love which had been its 
 
yo Siegfried 
 
 chief motive, expends all its warmth and force, 
 instead, upon friendship and the new and lighter 
 passion. 
 
 Now let us listen carefully. Gunther describes 
 the bride that he desires to win. " On rocky 
 height she dwells . . . fire encircles her abode 
 . . . but he strong enough to brave the fire . . . 
 may meetly wed Brunnhilde." Each phrase is 
 hastily repeated by Siegfried. He is fighting 
 with the hideous spell about him ; his memory is 
 struggling for clearness. The bird-notes flash 
 elusively, fitfully, mockingly, through the music, — 
 they become clearer! Ah, he almost has the 
 memory! The sweet bird-song thrills out dis- 
 tinctly, — it was that, then ! Secretly, mys- 
 teriously, weirdly rises the Spell motif like a 
 clammy vapor between him and the glowing past. 
 It is done : the magic chains are safely forged. 
 Siegfried is successfully enchanted, — he will do 
 their will ! 
 
 To win Gutrune, he gladly promises to conquer 
 the "wild mountain maiden" for Gunther, and 
 gladly swears the Oath of Blood-brotherhood 
 with the Gibichung; drinking with him a horn 
 
Siegfried y i 
 
 of wine into which each has let fall a drop of his 
 blood. 
 
 Motif of Blood -brotherhood. 
 
 Prompted by Hagen as to the use of the Tarn- 
 helm, he offers to change shapes with Gunther by 
 its power, and thus bring the Walkiire to the hall 
 on the Rhine without discovery as to his true 
 identity. So he blithely starts out on his second 
 journey through the fire. 
 
 It is necessary that Siegfried, too, shall become 
 the victim of fate. In the truth and honesty of 
 his nature he can never wittingly bring wrong or 
 sorrow to any one ; therefore he must be the dupe, 
 the machine, the blinded medium for the workings 
 of the great tragedy. It is impossible for him to 
 distrust any man. So honorable is he himself, 
 even when at the end he is stabbed treacherously 
 by the man he had accounted his friend he does 
 not fully appreciate the villainy. Well does 
 Gunther say to him, with the sadness of forebod- 
 
72 Siegfried 
 
 ing : " Thou over-happy hero ! " Though on his 
 way to the Gibichung's hall he had mixed with 
 men, he had not learned to suspect. He had 
 learned much of warfare, and many customs cur- 
 rent among the heroes of the day. We see that 
 he is familiar with the Oath of Blood-brotherhood. 
 Later he swears the warrior's oath of innocence 
 "on the spotless spear-head." He has come in 
 contact with the world, and has gained a knowl- 
 edge of the ways of men. Yet these things do 
 not seem to have changed the simplicity of his 
 heart nor the uncompromising directness of his 
 mind. There is something very refreshing and 
 characteristic in his greeting to Gunther. " I hear 
 thee widely spoken of beyond the Rhine. Now 
 fight with me, or be my friend ! " 
 
 In contradistinction to the sunny nature of 
 Siegfried, son of the gods and type of courage 
 and honesty, we have the gloom and treachery of 
 Hagen, offspring of the Nibelung, and represent- 
 ative of darkness and sin. From that loveless 
 union where gold was the only bond had come 
 this strange, evil-shadowed child of darkness. 
 While Wotan had founded a race of demi-gods for 
 
Siegfried 7 3 
 
 the lifting of the curse from the world, Alberich 
 had planned that this son, in whom were all his 
 own craft and hate, should with him overthrow 
 the gods, aided by the Ring which they should 
 win from Siegfried. It is a significant and some- 
 what ironical fact that Hagen, like all other be- 
 ings, labored under the weight of the curse. Bit- 
 terly enough do he and his Nibelung father hate 
 the world, and the hate recoils on themselves. 
 Happiness never comes into the life of the Nibe- 
 lung's son ; all is conspiracy and hate, envy and 
 disappointment. Better than any other, Hagen 
 knows his own grim heritage, recognizes the curse 
 that makes his life alien from other lives, that bars 
 him from joy and love. It is from his own lips 
 that we hear the words which most fittingly de- 
 scribe him, in his strange and nameless power, in 
 that supernatural aspect which is peculiarly impres- 
 sive at times. In "Die Gdtterdammerung," act i., 
 Siegfried asks him carelessly why he did not join 
 in the Oath of Brotherhood. The Nibelung motif 
 beats out a tragic message, the motif of the Apples 
 of Youth sounds in subdued harmonies as though 
 signifying hopelessly some unattainable privilege, 
 
74 Siegfried 
 
 and the Ring motif describes its strange thirds in 
 a mystic circle upon the air. And Hagen answers : 
 
 " My blood would trouble the draught; 
 Its flow is hardly noble enough. 
 Sluggish and cold doth it move; 
 Not e'en my cheek will it redden. 
 So, far I stay from vigorous bonds." 
 
 Even more fully we feel the weight of gloom, 
 the blight of sin, later on in his complaint to his 
 father, which is yet not a complaint, but a bitter 
 statement of his fate. 
 
 " If strength my mother gave, 
 I yet can never thank her 
 That thou didst win her to thee ; 
 Youthless, grim, and wan, 
 Hate I all glad ones, 
 Feel I no joy!" 
 
 He is a strangely tragic figure ; and sitting there 
 in the hall of the Gibichungs, brooding darkly as 
 he watches the two heroes hastening away toward 
 the Walkure's rock, he seems to arouse a form of 
 admiration in our hearts, — so grimly strong is he 
 under the shadow, so scornfully proud in his 
 dreary destiny. 
 
Siegfried 7$ 
 
 Siegfried, as agreed, passes through the fiery- 
 circle, struggles with Briinnhilde for the Ring with 
 which she defies him, and finally tears it from her 
 finger while we hear the Curse motif menacing 
 him from the orchestra. The circlet which he 
 now places on his own finger arouses no memory 
 in his mind, and indeed (and note here the 
 trickery, the intricate deception, of the spell 
 under which he lives !) he quickly forgets hav- 
 ing taken it from Briinnhilde, and, as time passes, 
 merely connects the ring that he wears with the 
 recollection of the dragon which he killed at Hate 
 Hole. For this memory is as clear as ever; he 
 has forgotten only Briinnhilde and all connected 
 with her. As the Walkiire falls at his feet, ex- 
 hausted and conquered, which of all the melodies 
 of the Cycle does the poet Wagner choose to reveal 
 a pathos too deep for other expectation? The 
 tender motif of Siegfried the Protector. And who, 
 hearing it and understanding, could fail to feel 
 that throb of sorrow which the Master knew would 
 be the tribute to this incomparable touch? 
 
 As Briinnhilde passes into the cave, by his com- 
 mand, he draws his sword, and, before following 
 
j6 Siegfried 
 
 her, says : " Now, Nothung, witness thou that in 
 purity keep I my oath to my brother; to seal the 
 bond, bar me now from his bride ! " The phrase 
 which ends this, and which occurs often during 
 the drama, is a part of the Sword motif, and has 
 veritably the uncompromising straightness and 
 sternness of an actual barrier. It is a phrase diffi- 
 cult to name, and I suppose could only be called 
 the motif of the Sword-barrier : 
 
 / 3 
 
 At dawn he leads her down the mountain, gains 
 his own shape, and leaving her with Gunther, speeds 
 on to the hall of the Gibichungs, where soon all is 
 in preparation for the wedding festival. 
 
 The scene in which he is accused of treachery 
 by Briinnhilde is so complex that were one to dis- 
 sect it minutely the analysis would almost fill a 
 volume. Step by step the tragedy goes its way ; 
 bit by bit the giant web is woven; link by link 
 the long chain is formed. It is not strange that 
 throughout " Die Gotterdammerung " the phrase 
 
Siegfried 
 
 77 
 
 which serves to impress itself most insistently 
 upon the mind is the Fate motif : 
 
 m 
 
 J_ 
 
 dk> 
 
 'J: 
 
 PP 
 
 $=z 
 
 t=r 
 
 The hero's wonder at being hailed by Briinnhilde, 
 his bewilderment in regard to the Ring, his dis- 
 gust at his apparent failure of the Tarnhelm magic, 
 — all go to make the situation complete, all show 
 to perfection the many sides of this " over-happy 
 hero.' 7 The innate sense of chivalry in his nature 
 is aroused by Bninnhilde's apparent grief, but her 
 desperate frankness shocks him; and, while it 
 awakes his quick desire to prevent this woman 
 from placing herself in so terrible a position, fills 
 him with indignation as well. 
 
 "Car'st thou so lightly for thine honor? 
 The false lips that revile it — 
 Must I of lying accuse them? " 
 
 This indignation gradually rises to personal re- 
 sentment at her accusations, and it is with the 
 
yS Siegfried 
 
 vehemence of insulted honor that he swears his 
 innocence on Hagen's spotless spear-head. 
 
 " Where sharpness can wound me 
 There wound thou me ! 
 Where'er death's hand can strike me, 
 Strike thou at me ! 
 If her lament is true, 
 If I have broken my bond ! " 
 
 This resentment, however, soon gives place to a 
 half-amused sympathy for Gunther in the sudden 
 turn matters have taken, and to a merry apprecia- 
 tion of the almost ludicrous — to him — situation. 
 As he turns away he sends a laughing word over 
 his shoulder to the vassals who have assembled : 
 
 " Ye men all ! Speed ye away ! 
 Leave to quarrel the wives; 
 Like cowards will we escape 
 If with our tongues we must fight! " 
 
 In his kindliness and his joyousness he strikes 
 some note of sorrow in our hearts ; for we feel a 
 void as we hear the careless words which awaken 
 regret for the Siegfried who has slumbered since 
 the drinking of the love-potion. Such a man as 
 this Siegfried might have been, blithe and brave 
 
Siegfried 79 
 
 and slow to grief, had he never found his way to 
 Briinnhilde's rock, long ago. Such a man he is 
 now with this difference, that he has gained 
 something — and lost it ; and there is a rent in his 
 broad and loving nature — a strange want which 
 one feels in every gesture and every word, mighty 
 hero though he be. 
 
 Read over, all you who desire a more intimate 
 knowledge of Wagner's art, the scene in which 
 Hagen first suggests the murder of Siegfried to 
 Gunther ("Die Gotterdammerung," act ii. , scene 
 5). The Gibichung gasps, " Siegfried's death ! " 
 with a thrill of horror, while the Murder motif 
 throbs out with sinister persistency. He falls 
 into meditation, while he half whispers reluctance : 
 
 " Gunther — Blood-brotherhood, both have we sworn. 
 
 Hagen — The traitor's blood only atones! 
 Gunther — Broke he the bond? 
 
 Hagen — Art thou not betrayed ? 
 Gunther — Betrayed he me? " 
 
 The music is dark and full of evil, breathing 
 treachery and the insidiousness of crime. In the 
 midst of it we hear, broad and strong, with note 
 of truth and cheery steadfastness in its melodious 
 
80 Siegfried 
 
 cadences, the music of the Oath of Brotherhood. 
 It is so loud that for a moment it predominates 
 all, and we feel that Gunther cannot resist the 
 force of the memory. But it passes and is lost in 
 the blackness of conspiracy and untruth, and, con- 
 senting, Gunther murmurs : " Shall this be Sieg- 
 fried's ending? " 
 
 When Hagen declares the necessity of Sieg- 
 fried's death, he speaks a truth which he does 
 not recognize. Underneath the ostensible causes 
 there is in reality the necessity, great and all-im- 
 perative, that he should die. In his very strength, 
 in his very light-heartedness, in his very nobility, 
 he is a fit victim to be added to the great sacrifice. 
 The world must be purged of sin and sorrow, 
 and only the best of the world's good can be of- 
 fered on the altar which looms mistily through 
 the last twilight. The altar is made of griefs and 
 wrongs and broken possibilities ; of shame and 
 fraud and the bitterness of life. Upon it the gods 
 must be sacrificed, and the splendor of the pagan 
 days. Upon it Siegfried, with his vigor and 
 strength, and that heritage of human and divine 
 power, must pass away in expiation of those inex- 
 
Siegfried 8 1 
 
 plicable and complicated wrongs of the now swiftly 
 moving tragedy. Upon it, Briinnhilde, wisest and 
 greatest of all, must be immolated in supreme and 
 final redemption of the world. 
 
 And so we follow our hero to the last scene of 
 his life, — the shore of the Rhine. So joyous- 
 natured is he that he laughs from his heart with 
 the merry Rhine-Maidens, who hail him as he 
 passes ; so simple that he stops to discuss prophecy 
 with them ; so frankly and happily arrogant that 
 he defies their warning and holds fast the Ring, 
 even though — so childlike is he — he does not in 
 the least understand either its uses or misuses. 
 And he laughs at their folly when they swim away, 
 singing : 
 
 "Come, sisters! 
 Haste from the fool, then! 
 He dreams that he is 
 As free and as wise 
 As in truth he is blinded and bound! 
 
 "Oaths he swore well, — 
 And heedeth them not! 
 Runes he knows, too, — 
 And reads them not ! 
 A wondrous good won he as gift, — 
 6 
 
8 2 Siegfried 
 
 That 'tis abandoned 
 
 Knows he not! 
 
 But the Ring which will gain him death, — 
 
 That circlet doth he still hold to! 
 
 "Farewell, Siegfried! 
 A stately woman to-day inherits your treasure, — 
 More heed will she pay to us! 
 To her! To her! To her!" 
 
 When the maidens have departed, and the hunt- 
 ing-train have entered the valley, he, marking 
 Gunther's depression and attributing it to further 
 strange caprices of " the tameless mountain bride," 
 offers to amuse and cheer him with "stories of 
 his boyhood's days." As both Gunther and Hagen 
 agree with apparent heartiness, he commences. 
 This narrative is one of the most marvellous com- 
 binations of music that Wagner ever formed. 
 
 The hero pauses a moment to think. Then the 
 clang of Mime's hammers seems to sound in his 
 brain, and he plunges into the account of those 
 early years in the dwarf's smithy. Merrily and 
 carelessly enough he describes his doings until he 
 has completed the story of Mime's death. " What 
 further told the bird ? " asks a vassal. Siegfried 
 
Siegfried 8 3 
 
 raises his bewildered eyes. Whatwasit? Some- 
 thing ! The motif of the Love-potion rises, and 
 falls dulcetly, clingingly. " Drink first, hero, from 
 my horn," he hears Hagen say. " I have mixed 
 thee a goodly drink to refresh thy mind, that past 
 things may be clear. " 
 
 The motif of the Spell rises mysteriously. As 
 it swells weirdly upward, it is caught by a liquid and 
 tender melody — the motif of Briinnhilde's Love, — 
 and is thus arrested. Then softly as a caress is 
 whispered the Brunnhilde motif. The music seems 
 actually like an awakening from a trance. It is 
 changed, the minor harmonies have gone. Sieg- 
 fried is Siegfried once more. 
 
 Lost in the surging memory of the exquisite 
 " Waldweben," he tells of the glad tidings given 
 him by the bird. Then the thrilling, tremulous 
 fire-music surrounds him. He seems passing 
 through the magic circle once more. His brain, 
 excited to abnormal clearness, sees all as in a mar- 
 vellous light. " And thus found I the gift . . . 
 sleeping ... a wondrous woman." Again he 
 loosens the bright armor, again he bends above 
 her, again his kiss wakes her to love. 
 
84 Siegfried 
 
 " Canst thou read also the speech of yonder 
 ravens?" comes Hagen's voice to his rapturous 
 dream. Startled, he turns, while the music rises 
 in the stark, sinister intervals of the Curse motif. 
 " Vengeance they say to me," says the Nibelung's 
 son ; and as he stabs him in the back the Sieg- 
 fried motif crashes out high and fierce, in a supreme 
 culmination of strength that dies down in a long 
 diminuendo to the bitter throb of the Death motif. 
 
 Again the exquisite awakening motifs and the 
 marvellous love-music of " Siegfried " come softly 
 back. Reminiscent melodies float on the surg- 
 ing sea of sound. Back through the darkness 
 of pain and misunderstanding goes Siegfried's dy- 
 ing memory ; — back through the mists so long un- 
 dispelled to the golden light of the dawn of love. 
 Nothing else matters — her eyes are open to him 
 forever — her love is his eternally ! The motif of 
 Siegfried's Love accompanies his dying whispers : 
 
 " Briinnhilde ! Holiest bride ! 
 Awake! Open thine eyelids! 
 Who imprisoned thee thus in sleep? 
 Who binds thee in slumber once more? 
 
 The Wak'ner came ! 
 
 He kissed thee awake ! 
 
Siegfried 8 5 
 
 Again he the bride's fetters has broken, — 
 Now gloweth Briinnhilde's joy! 
 
 " Ah, how her eyelids open forever, — 
 Ah, how her breath is balmily stirring! . . . 
 Sweetest of endings — 
 Awe that is rapture! 
 Biinnhild' greets me at last! " 
 
 And this is Siegfried's death. The men bear 
 him up the rocks in the looming shadows, and the 
 cold, swathing mists ; and over all is the growing 
 moonlight, silver-white through the clouds. 
 
 The music that we hear while the sorrowful 
 train wends its way out of sight says those things 
 which no words could say, expresses those depths 
 and heights that no speech could sound ; reveals 
 to us the hidden mysteries of all triumphant pain 
 and crowning grief. Our listening ears may wait 
 for funereal cadence and wails of mourning ; they 
 will not hear them. Only when we open our 
 hearts to the broad surge of that most sublime of 
 death-paeans, we may feel it rush and sweep like 
 beating waves — even to our souls. And our 
 hearts will throb in unison with the mighty pulse 
 of that exultation of heroic death. 
 
86 Siegfried 
 
 One by one, the motifs enter, one by one they 
 are swept aside by the Death motif. Picture after 
 picture passes us ; thought after thought vanishes 
 in the mist of music. We hear the story of the 
 hero's life ; we feel the tragedy of his death ; and 
 then in the progress of the music we behold him 
 lifted to that strange glory and sanctification which 
 surrounds the dead. In a storm of major chords 
 we hear the motif of Siegfried the Hero; the 
 Death motif transfigured to a shout of triumph in- 
 terrupts it : the music wanes and dies. Softly the 
 Briinnhilde motif creeps up, to die as softly. In 
 the tenderest minor echo of the Hero motif, the 
 pa^an closes. 
 
 Even Hagen seems to have caught, though 
 grimly, the spirit of mysterious dignity attendant 
 upon the hero's death, when he comes to tell 
 Gutrune that her husband has been killed : 
 
 "Up, Gutrune! And greet now Siegfried! 
 The warrior brave is coming home. 
 
 " The pallid hero blows horn no more ! 
 No more to the hunt nor battle he fares, 
 Nor wooeth earth's loveliest women ! " 
 
 Though he mocks, there is an element of grav- 
 
Siegfried 87 
 
 ity in the music that seems to say much. It is 
 as though Hagen, brave, if endowed with no other 
 virtue, recognizes the courage of that other warrior 
 whom he has killed ; and while feeling no regret 
 for his deed, does him honor in his own cold heart 
 as he remembers the hero's life and death. 
 
 The key-note of Wagner's philosophy is the 
 pride and triumph of failure, the glory of what 
 was never attained, and of what, having been at- 
 tained, was lost. We have seen the god supreme 
 in his overthrowal ; we now see the hero thrice a 
 hero in a death which loses its ignominy in his 
 simple acceptance of it. Siegfried was the great- 
 est type of glorious failure ever drawn. He was 
 the highest hero of the world ; and yet he lived 
 but a few years, after all, and died on the shore 
 of the Rhine from a stab in the back. He was 
 the bravest of all men, — the tenderest, the most 
 generous. Yet in all the world there were but 
 two who loved him, and both of these were women. 
 Both had wronged him, and both he had indirectly 
 wronged : one by the unwitting withdrawal of his 
 love, one by the bestowal of a love which was 
 not real. 
 
88 Siegfried 
 
 In the words which Briinnhilde speaks above him, 
 at the end, we find his possibilities and contradic- 
 tions set forth with the tenderness of an undying 
 love : 
 
 "What radiant sunshine gleams in his smile! 
 The noblest was he who thus betrayed ! 
 His wife deceiving, true to friendship, 
 From his well-beloved, faithful and fond, 
 He barred himself with his sword. 
 Truer than he did swear oath never ; 
 Juster than he did ne'er make a compact ; 
 Purer than his was never passion ; 
 And yet every promise — every agreement — 
 All love's depth and honor — 
 Broke none as did he ! " 
 
 In thunderous music Walhalla passes away ; and 
 when we hear the glorious Siegfried motif rise in 
 all its heroic joy against the melodies of Walhalla 
 and the Dusk of the Gods, we seem to read a further 
 message,— one which is not put into words. The 
 Fate which lays a compelling, guiding hand upon 
 gods and men, in the tragedy of the Nibelung- 
 en Ring, is a symbol of that power behind the 
 ^Esir, — that inscrutable, wonderful mystery before 
 which are built the religions of the world. The 
 
Siegfried 89 
 
 glory of Walhalla is as a breath upon iron. The 
 creation of God — humanity — lives to discard 
 mythology, lives to conquer all that is base and 
 untrue ; and Siegfried is the supreme type of hu- 
 manity, with his manhood and his strength, his 
 passion and his tenderness, his simplicity and his 
 joyousness. He seems to stand in the mists smil- 
 ing at a world which will not understand that in 
 order to be a hero one must only be true to him- 
 self; to conquer one must only smile when one 
 fails. 
 
 For this, unrealized by himself, was the phi- 
 losophy of Siegfried. 
 
BRUNNHILDE 
 
BRUNNHILDE 
 
 In the character of Brunnhilde, Wagner exe- 
 cuted the noblest piece of character-development of 
 his career. No other poet, however fired by im- 
 aginative possibilities, ever portrayed Brunnhilde in 
 so striking a light as that in which she appears in 
 the Nibelung Ring — as goddess and woman, pro- 
 tectress and avenger, all in one; a mixture of 
 simplicity, passion, and divinity. 
 
 From her various places in legends and poems 
 she has looked down the ages always with brave 
 and compelling gaze, but with a different person- 
 ality in each case. Sometimes it is as the haughty 
 lady who gave her love once and forever, and 
 when she found herself bound to an unloved lord, 
 bore her fate in stern queenliness ; and who at the 
 end slew herself with the sword Gram, and was 
 burned with her dead hero, with the sword flashing 
 between them on the bier. Sometimes it is as the 
 Amazon queen of the Northlands who fought with 
 
94 Briinnhilde 
 
 men, and laughed at them in high, wild glee when 
 they fell before her strength and skill, and who 
 was only conquered when her magic girdle was 
 wrested from her. Sometimes it is as a goddess 
 who came under the ban of her father's displeas- 
 ure, and whom Odin pricked in the temple with a 
 sleep-thorn and caused to fall into a deep sleep in 
 a lonely house on a hill. 
 
 In each of these characters Wagner found the 
 same broad, essential qualities : the power to love ; 
 the passion to hate; and above all, courage — 
 courage so high and strong that in all the world 
 there was nothing to daunt it. Conquered Briinn- 
 hilde may have been, but never broken. Wherever 
 we find her she is equally fearless in the face of 
 pain, grief, shame, or death. So, putting aside 
 these superficial differences which colored the 
 various pictures of her, Wagner took the living, 
 passionate nature of Briinnhilde herself, and gave 
 her to us as she was, with all her errors and her 
 grand truths. One of the highest proofs of genius 
 rests on the achievement of making an improbable 
 and inconsistent sequence of events seem natural 
 and connected by the process of their exposition. 
 
Briinnhilde g$ 
 
 If one desires to see this art in its fullest and most 
 convincing form, look at the manner in which the 
 Master handles the story and character of Briinn- 
 hilde. Take the bare outlines of her history and 
 tell it boldly without explanation or shading; you 
 have an extraordinary tale, — striking, yes, but so 
 startlingly inconsistent as to lose much of its 
 charm; a peculiar medley of right and wrong, 
 revenge and love, hatred and tenderness. All 
 these qualities undoubtedly existed in chrysalis 
 form in Brunnhilde's nature, but they could only 
 have come forth in the graduated degrees de- 
 manded by the subtle and complete considerations 
 of life. 
 
 This same improbable and unnatural sequence 
 of inconsistencies becomes true to life in the 
 hands of the Master. The steps of Brunnhilde's 
 growth and development become simple and 
 natural. Wagner was too harmonious an artist to 
 allow sudden or startling leaps where all should 
 be as gradual as the slow crescendo of light cul- 
 minating in a sunrise. He permits nothing un- 
 prepared, for he deals not in rough effects, but in 
 perfect results of thought and intention. 
 
g6 Briinnhilde 
 
 When we first meet Briinnhilde she is a war 
 goddess, ignorant of sorrow, of evil, or of good. 
 When at the end she passes from our gaze she is 
 a woman whose heart has learned the fundamental 
 meanings of life, whose eyes look past the present 
 into the compensating future, and whose out- 
 stretched hands seem to bear the errors and follies 
 of the Golden Age into the cleansing fire. 
 
 The character of Briinnhilde will best manifest 
 itself by exposition. It is futile to attempt to 
 dissect it. In the very process of analysis it 
 seems to lose something of its rare beauty. It is 
 for us to follow in all reverence the work of Wag- 
 ner. As we have seen, Briinnhilde was Wotan's 
 best-loved daughter. In his farewell to her we 
 have heard her eulogized as his " bravest, loveliest 
 child," "and the highest pride his heart e'er could 
 hold." We have heard him dwell tenderly on the 
 days when she rode beside him to battle, and when 
 she poured him red wine in the halls of Walhalla. 
 We have heard his heart's tribute to her, — those 
 words in which he speaks of her " light-giving 
 eyes," which comforted him in sorrow, and held 
 him steadfastly to his duties. In this we seem to 
 
Briinnhilde 97 
 
 have a picture of that strong-hearted girl-goddess 
 with the soul of sunshine and storm. Briinnhilde, 
 as we first find her, seems the highest type of un- 
 earthly maidenhood. She is as free as the winds 
 over which she rides, as pure as the white moon- 
 light that in some way seems a part of her, and as 
 joyous as only a spirit of light gifted with ever- 
 lasting youth could be. I never think of that 
 wonderful, bright maiden of the clouds, as we 
 see her in the second act of "The WalkUre," 
 without instinctively repeating the words of the 
 poet — 
 
 " The good stars met in your horoscope, 
 Made you of spirit, fire, and dew." 
 
 Not the least of her charms is her unconscious- 
 ness. The simplicity of a child or a bird is hers. 
 She only knows one dominating purpose, her 
 father's will, and her emotions are governed and 
 caused by the elements of which she is the god- 
 child. She is the possessor of a wonderful heritage, 
 though she does not recognize it. In her brain is 
 all the knowledge of ages — all the wisdom that 
 has been the result of Erda's centuries of dream- 
 7 
 
9 8 
 
 Brunnhilde 
 
 ing. In her heart is all the noble dauntlessness 
 and passion, all the fire and the divinity, of Wotan 
 and the race of the gods. In her soul are num- 
 berless embryo possibilities — perfections some 
 day to be realized. Yet she does not know. 
 
 The following musical phrase — the Walkiire's 
 call — is wonderfully descriptive of the wild free- 
 dom which it represents : 
 
 :gg—S-«^ 
 
 
 
 
 ° Ho-yo ■ 
 
 — m 
 
 to 
 
 — 1 1 
 
 -ho! 
 
 
 
 
 $* t £-£ ; 
 
 
 
 
 R£- — ^ -*^- 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 e£*r — f 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 *^ 
 
 It is the shout, sometimes throbbing with joy, 
 sometimes pulsing with the excitement of war, 
 that the Walkures sang when they sped through 
 the clouds. If we close our eyes as we hear it, 
 we will seem to see a mail-clad warrior goddess 
 mounted on a wild wind-horse, galloping upward 
 over the storm-clouds into the purple blaze of the 
 lightning, her voice vibrating with fierce joy as 
 she calls, clear and long through the distance: 
 
Brunnhilde 99 
 
 "Hoyotoho! Hoyotoho! Ho — ho-o!" Or perhaps 
 the swinging measure may bring to us a flash of 
 sunshine on valleys far below, — a sweep of daz- 
 zling white clouds shifting under the rush of those 
 winged hoofs, a bank of mist, rose-flushed by 
 morning. Or it may be that a vision will come 
 of long, crimson lines of glory, wide floods of gold, 
 — all the passion and splendor of sunset, when 
 the call sounds longer, more thrilling, and more 
 replete with the magic of dusk. But whatever 
 the picture, there will always be the upturned 
 face glowing with some mystical exhilaration, the 
 steel armor reflecting the light in glints and 
 sparkles, and flying hair of the Walkiire. There 
 will always be the ringing of the shield against 
 the breastplate, and the high, carolling voice cry- 
 ing the boisterous call out over the world that lies 
 below. And always will come that sense of free- 
 dom and purity and eternal youth. The melody 
 underlying the Walkiire's call is the Walkiire 
 motif, and its purest form is as follows : 
 
ioo Brunnhilde 
 
 It was the duty of the Walkiires to aid their 
 father in his warlike enterprises, and they loved to 
 carry the slain heroes to Walhalla, there to watch 
 them take their places at the great board, and sing 
 strange chants of life and war. One of their duties 
 was to carry the tidings of death to the fated 
 heroes before battle. It seems strange at first 
 thought that, so often bringing death to men, no 
 suggestion of a shadow ever crossed the bright 
 thoughts of Briinnhilde ; yet, when one considers, 
 it is quite comprehensible. Death, to her, was 
 but a means to eternal bliss ; and she had never 
 come in touch with the great tragedy of parting, 
 or seen the bereavement of those left behind. 
 Wotan bade the Walkiire carry to Siegmund tid- 
 ings that he was to meet death in the combat with 
 Hunding; but she, seeing his grief and love, was 
 moved to pity and endeavored to protect him in 
 the battle. But Wotan defeated the Walsung, 
 and she fled with Sieglinde before the god's wrath. 
 In this same scene we see the first awakening 
 of compassion, of human interest in any form. 
 When she first appears, a grave vision of prophecy, 
 with fateful words and warning music, she is as far 
 
Brilnnhilde 
 
 101 
 
 away as the stars, as unapproachable as the moon- 
 rise. The mournful music to which she sings her 
 " Tod-Kunde " (death-tidings) is too mysterious 
 to express any human pain. It. is the motif of the 
 Death-tidings, or Death-lament, and enters with 
 solemn effect in the last act of " Die Gotterdam- 
 merung." 
 
 a 1 ^ 
 
 — i *- 
 
 _j. ...... ! 
 
 j. J~ 
 
 rt\ 
 
 msr-t—ffft— 
 
 V 
 
 r r 
 
 ^ 1 
 
 /TV 
 
 m±-Ed=~ 
 
 &■ ' ' — & 
 
 T" i 
 
 t«i — bJ— ' 
 
 £-» 
 
 Motif of the Death-tidings or Death-lament. 
 
 In the despair of Siegmund she seems to see a new 
 possibility. This is the first tragic element that 
 has ever entered her life, and the first shadowy 
 suggestion in her experience of the power of 
 human love. In her own words to Wotan, in the 
 last act of " Die Walktire," we find a simple narra- 
 tive of the effect upon her sleeping heart : 
 
 " I who in the battle behind Wotan stay, 
 Have now seen one thing thou hast not descried! 
 Siegmund did I seek; 
 Death-tidings to him I brought. 
 
102 Briinnhilde 
 
 His face I gazed on, harked to his words, — 
 I marked well the hero's holiest need, 
 Deeply like music his lament aroused me! 
 
 " Love of the freest, pain the most fierce, 
 Saddest of courage, strongest of trust ! 
 All of this I heard and all I saw; 
 And then — deep within me — 
 My heart with sacred magic was stirred! 
 
 " Shy and wond'ring, stood I in shame ; 
 To quickly aid him was all my feeling. 
 Victory with him or death seemed equal : 
 This did I strive to accomplish — in vain! " 
 
 No girl, suddenly awakened to a realization of 
 some tragedy of life, could be more shyly, won- 
 derfully simple than this war goddess as she stands 
 before the picture of the doomed Walsungs. In 
 her war-trained spirit Siegmund's courage and 
 fortitude find quick appreciation; his dauntless 
 fidelity to the woman he loved strikes a new note. 
 And his suffering, in addition to the fearlessness 
 she loves, completes the impression made upon her. 
 She becomes almost womanly. When in his de- 
 spair he would kill Sieglinde and himself, she bids 
 him stay his hand for the sake of the child that 
 
Briinnhilde 103 
 
 may be born to them. She looks with wondering 
 tenderness upon the unconscious woman, and 
 promises to shield her; and when she flies before 
 the wrath of Wotan it is less with personal fear 
 than the desire to help Sieglinde to safety. 
 
 Having left the place of combat where the Wal- 
 sung had fallen, Briinnhilde bore Sieglinde away 
 on her horse through the clouds to the common 
 meeting-ground of the sisters — the Walkiire's 
 rock. She knew that Wotan was close behind 
 them, and that there was little time for elaborate 
 plans, so she quickly gave the woman the broken 
 splinters of Siegmund's sword, bidding her take 
 them with her into the forest and keep them for 
 her unborn child; while she, the Walkure, re- 
 mains behind to meet Wotan's anger, and bear 
 what punishment there may be. In the pressure 
 and urgency of the moment, something of her 
 mother's gift of prophecy seemed to come upon 
 her, and in mystical exaltation she cried that this 
 child should be the strongest and noblest hero of 
 the world, and that he should mend the sword and 
 wield it when he grew to manhood. 
 
 Sieglinde answered in passionate and inspired 
 
104 Brunnhilde 
 
 words of gratitude. And the music that accom- 
 panies these words is a melody which we would do 
 well to mark. It is the motif of Expiation, and is 
 the phrase descriptive of Brunnhilde, the divine 
 woman, who eventually immolated herself to atone 
 for the sins of the world. In its introduction in 
 this connection there is a special significance : 
 
 f 
 
 -3Ei 
 
 * *t± 
 
 This is the turning point of the Walkure's exist- 
 ence. The shadows of life are stealing upon her. 
 In these first small sacrifices which she makes, 
 she is unconsciously forming and preparing her 
 brave spirit for the vast sacrifice at the end. 
 
 In extenuation of her decision to help Siegmund, 
 the Walkure knew that in so doing she was fulfill- 
 ing her father's true desires. In this way she 
 felt her disobedience to be only in the letter, not 
 in the spirit. Having never considered a ques- 
 tion of principle in her life, nor experienced the 
 faintest struggle on the ground of right and wrong, 
 she did not weigh the ethical considerations of the 
 
Brunnhilde 105 
 
 matter, nor stop to realize that she was acquiescing 
 in contempt of a great moral law. She acted from 
 impulse, not reason ; and secure in her knowledge 
 that Wotan had originally wished the Walsung's 
 success, she abandoned herself to the course urged 
 by her sympathies. It was not until after she had 
 helped Sieglinde to escape that she realized with 
 a strange thrill that for the first time she had 
 planned without Wotan's help; that she had, in- 
 dependently and unauthorized, exercised her own 
 will and strength of character. She was like a 
 bird that had tried its wings. Through all her 
 bewildered grief at Wotan's wrath, her wonder, 
 and her horror at his sentence, we find that peculiar 
 exaltation, that triumph of individuality, stronger 
 and ever stronger, as the situation grows more 
 freighted with tragedy. This is the opening step 
 in Brlinnhilde's development from an utterly un- 
 conscious spirit of the air to a woman who in 
 the closing moments of the Cycle, seems an all- 
 comprehending prophetess, the Wala of humanity. 
 In reading over this scene — " Die Walkiire," 
 act iii., — we see very clearly this triumphant defi- 
 ance of shame which is even greater than the cour- 
 
io6 Briinnhilde 
 
 age which has always been characteristic of her. 
 It is the involuntary assertion of her individuality 
 combined with her love for her father that prompts 
 the words in which she demands a fitting guard 
 for her slumbers. The following is typical of the 
 great love of the Walkiire for her father — a love in 
 which there is tenderness but no shadow of weak- 
 ness : 
 
 s-S, 
 
 ^ — m~ 1 * m- - >-^- 
 
 m 
 
 -r^i 
 
 -S^-Sr 
 
 *:=&= 
 
 p dolce. ■ 
 
 Note that there is here actual demand, not appeal — 
 the demand of a goddess for just honor. It is 
 characteristic, likewise, that she should remind 
 Wotan that he would disgrace his own godhood, 
 should he leave her, as he plans, in unprotected 
 slumber, the booty of the first passer-by who may 
 awaken her : 
 
 " If then this must be, if no more meet me, 
 If thou must sever the bond that was fast, 
 
 Thou god, forget not this ! 
 
 For thine eternal honor take heed then ! 
 
Briinnhilde 107 
 
 Shame not thy godhood in shaming me ; 
 Thyself would be dishonored, didst thou permit 
 my disgrace ! 
 
 " To this one thing must thou hearken. 
 Yes, — punish thy child who doth clasp thy knees, 
 Crush thou the true one, blight thou the maid ; 
 All her life's young strength destroy with thy spear, 
 But give, crudest, not such desperate shame as 
 
 that! 
 By thy command bid fire to arise here, 
 To burn and to flicker, glowing and wild; 
 To scorch as it licks, — to sear as it tears 
 The fool who may brave the burning, 
 And neareth the prize-keeping rock! " 
 
 We seem to see in her several beings in one, as 
 we mark the words : the Walkure, fearless and 
 strong ; the daughter, loving yet proud ; the divine 
 maiden, guarding her honor ; the prophetess, vested 
 with mythical exaltation. The music surges and 
 flashes, the scene passes; Wotan's farewell falls 
 sorrowfully upon our ears ; and at last as she slips 
 silently from her father's arms to the rock, we 
 seem to see in her some foreshadowing of the 
 womanhood which is to be her crown. 
 
io8 
 
 Briinnhilde 
 
 Here the graceful melody of the Sleep motif, 
 which in its simplest form is as follows — 
 
 pn 
 
 seems transformed and beautified into a great 
 slumber symphony: 
 
 So for many years she lay within the magical 
 circle. The seasons passed, and the history of the 
 world waxed slowly, and the day came when she 
 was to enter into her new estate. The hero passed 
 through the circle of fire, and with a long kiss 
 woke her to life. 
 
 Under a long-sustained note (" Siegfried," act 
 iii.), we hear the Freia motif stir softly up in a 
 low, caressing murmur, like returning life. It rises 
 and creeps up, ever higher and ever richer in 
 harmonies. The long- sustained note is broken; 
 
Brunnhilde 
 
 109 
 
 the music is full of broad and rapid movement, 
 the sweep of the vast currents of life, — and Briinn- 
 hilde is awake. As she slowly raises herself on 
 the rock- couch and gazes straight up into the 
 blazing sky, we hear strange, thrilling music which 
 fills us with wonder — the Awakening motif : 
 
 M 
 
 
 — <~^— ^ 1 1 -hi i»r n ' hi^ * «■ . ** =^ -ta — '■■ 
 
 piu p 
 
 
 '£*=*& 
 
 Watch here the returning to life of the goddess. 
 The farthest thing from her divine being is hu- 
 manity, for she is not yet a woman. Her nearest 
 
no Briinnhilde 
 
 thought and earliest consideration is the sight of 
 the sky, the sun, the light, — finally, the hero who 
 has awakened her : 
 
 "Sun, I hail thee! 
 Hail thou light! 
 Hail, O glorious day! 
 Long was my sleep, — 
 I am awaked! 
 Who is the man who broke the spell ? " 
 
 When she learns the name of her rescuer she 
 again breaks out in a noble rhapsody, eulogizing 
 all beautiful things in the joy of her renewed life : 
 
 "Gods, I hail ye! 
 Hail, O world! 
 
 Fruitful earth, now I hail thee! 
 My sleep is at an end, — 
 Awake am I ! 
 Siegfried 'tis who awakens me! " 
 
 It is a matter of course that her divinity should 
 proclaim itself in the entire absence of self -con- 
 sciousness in her greeting to Siegfried. She 
 speaks to him as her deliverer, — she cries, " Hail 
 to the mother who bore thee ! " She assures him 
 of her deathless, godlike love ; but when Siegfried 
 
Briinnhilde 1 1 1 
 
 in ardent, passionate tones bids her be his wife, 
 she seems suddenly startled and terrified, and wails 
 that in that demand her hero has dealt her the 
 crudest shame of all : 
 
 " As sacred ever viewed me the heroes ; 
 Maiden came I from WalhalF ! " 
 
 It is the cry of insulted innocence and purity, the 
 cry as well of broken strength and conquered 
 pride. Siegfried has broken her armor, and she 
 seems to have lost her warlike power. " Brunn- 
 hilde am I no more ! " she cries despairingly, and 
 in a new frenzy of fright and horror seems to see 
 imaginary shadows haunting her round, — ghostly 
 spectres of past grief and coming ill, warning 
 shapes and terrifying recollections. It is the proc- 
 ess of her change from a goddess to a woman. 
 Briinnhilde the Walkiire knew no regret, no fore- 
 boding. Briinnhilde the woman must be made of 
 more sensitive fibre. Already, even in her vehe- 
 ment self-defence, she leans on the strength of the 
 hero. Womanly at last, she cries in the culmina- 
 tion of appeal: "Oh, Siegfried! Siegfried! See 
 thou my fear!" 
 
1 1 2 Briinnhilde 
 
 Finally the despairing terror passes, and in a 
 clear, searching moment of retrospective and proph- 
 ecy she seems to see unforeseen possibilities of 
 beauty. The passion of the hero, instead of start- 
 ling and bewildering her, arouses an answering 
 joy, thrilling and wonderful. Her strength re- 
 turns to her, warlike no longer, but pure and glad, 
 as she gives herself to Siegfried. 
 
 Greatly changed is the attitude of Briinnhilde at 
 the end of this act from her attitude at the begin- 
 ning. From a maiden-goddess, grandly impersonal, 
 marvellously unapproachable, exquisitely proud, 
 she becomes a glowing, living woman, tender and 
 passionate, humble and exultant, gentle with a new 
 gentleness, yet so gloriously daring in her careless- 
 ness of the future that we must catch our breath in 
 wonder. Yet with so consummate an art has the 
 process of the change been handled that we have 
 realized only a gradual growth and enrichment 
 ending in a climax to which Wagner has led up, 
 slowly and surely, through the whole scene. 
 
 For those who are not already familiar with 
 this — one of the most glorious love-scenes ever 
 conceived by the mind of man — let me draw atten- 
 
Brunnhilde 113 
 
 tion to Briinnhilde's great cry of surrender to love 
 and defiance of fate : 
 
 "Oh, hero-like boy! 
 Oh, warrior childlike! 
 Thou strongest, purest in all the world ! 
 Laughing must I adore thee, 
 Laughing blind myself for thee, 
 Laughing go to death with thee, 
 Laughing wait for the end! " 
 
 Siegfried is young, eager, and passionate, all un- 
 learned and' ignorant. What can he know of the 
 coming evils which Brunnhilde feels vaguely but 
 defies ? She knows that grief and anguish await 
 them; she knows that the gods must fall; she 
 knows that outside this brilliant love-light lurk 
 shadows black and thick. But what does it all 
 matter ? There is almost an element of maternal 
 tenderness in her loving hail to Siegfried : 
 
 "Oh, hero-like boy! 
 Oh, warrior childlike! " 
 
 For him she can hold pain and evil at bay, — ■ 
 war with the blackest of curses, the most persist- 
 ent fate. Her brave laugh defies the future, her 
 strong love makes rich the present. 
 
114 Briinnhilde 
 
 " Laughing must I adore thee, 
 Laughing blind myself for thee, 
 Laughing go to death with thee, 
 Laughing wait for the end! " 
 
 She sings; and through the flashing, caressing, 
 quivering, passionate music of this last part of the 
 scene, ever and anon we hear the swift swing and 
 clash of the Walkure's call, — sweet and brave and 
 confident as the strong heart of Briinnhilde. 
 
 Briinnhilde is so complex a being that it is diffi- 
 cult to realize how utterly simple and single-souled 
 she is, in grief or joy, in passion or content. In- 
 stinctively we expect wails of anguish or exag- 
 gerated expressions of joy. But at her greatest 
 moments her speech is simplest. Only in one 
 instance does her torn heart cause her to break 
 out in a mad passion, which soon passes, leaving 
 her more wonderfully calm than ever before. We 
 have heard her account of her meeting with Sieg- 
 mund, and the clear, simple eloquence of her de- 
 mand for a fire guardian. We have marked the 
 quiet exaltation in her greeting to sky and earth. 
 In the love-scene there is the eager, rapturous 
 outpouring of an unrestrained nature, but no ex- 
 
Brunnhilde 
 
 "5 
 
 travagance. Mark her words to Siegfried at the 
 height of excitement : 
 
 " If I were thine, 
 Godliest rest were lost in the billows, 
 Quietest light broken to blazing, 
 Heavenly wisdom far from me fled! 
 Passionate love would whirl them away, 
 If I were thine." 
 
 Free and unfettered and wild as Brunnhilde is, 
 there is through all an instinctive restraint and 
 dignity that colors every word. She is an ele- 
 mental being who does not know the luxuries of 
 complex laments and extravagant subtleties. 
 
 Before continuing to speak of Briinnhilde's char- 
 acter, I will give a very brief and simple outline 
 of the rest of her history as contained in " Die 
 Gotterdammerung. ' ' 
 
 After a time Briinnhilde's loving ambition for 
 her hero sent him out into the world to do great 
 deeds and make a name among men. She, re- 
 maining behind, guarded the Ring he left with her 
 as a love-pledge, and waited only for his return. 
 Her Walkiire sister Waltraute came to her to tell 
 of the approaching end of the gods, and to beg for 
 
1 1 6 Brunnhilde 
 
 the Ring, saying that Wotan in an abstracted mo- 
 ment had whispered that when the Rhine- Maidens 
 should receive the ring from Brunnhilde, men and 
 gods would be freed from the curse. Brunnhilde 
 indignantly refused to relinquish the circlet, and 
 Waltraute departed in despair. Siegfried, having 
 been enchanted by drinking a love -potion, came 
 to win Brunnhilde for Gunther, the brother of the 
 woman whom he now desired to wed. He took 
 the Ring from Brunnhilde's hand and wedded her 
 in Gunther's name and character, laying his sword 
 between them, according to the ancient barbaric 
 custom when a woman was wedded by proxy. 
 
 Later, at the hall of the Gibichungs, Brunnhilde 
 saw him in his own shape, with Gutrune, and 
 recognizing the Ring on his finger, demanded en- 
 lightenment. Siegfried, being under the influence 
 of the oblivion-bringing love-draught, was only 
 mystified by her vehement and agonized question- 
 ing, and Gunther's bewilderment added to her 
 conviction that they had conspired together to be- 
 tray her. In a madness of fury and despair she 
 told Hagen of a means to stab Siegfried in his one 
 vulnerable point. After the deed had been done, 
 
Briinnhilde 1 1 7 
 
 the Rhine-Maidens, who had seen the hero's death, 
 unfolded to her the mystery of his unfaithfulness, 
 and told her of the accursed Gold and the sorrow 
 of the world. Wise at last, with a wisdom greater 
 than her mother Erda's, she commanded that a 
 funeral pyre should be built for the dead hero, 
 and, mounting her war-horse, rode into it joyously 
 and so was immolated. Such is the story of 
 Briinnhilde. 
 
 The change in Briinnhilde after the lapse of time 
 during which she has lived with Siegfried, his 
 loved wife and chief interest, is more felt than 
 perceived. We feel that she is veritably a woman 
 at last, full of a woman's eager pride in and ambi- 
 tion for the man she loves, and a woman's tender 
 humility before him. There is little of that half- 
 desperate defiance of fate that marked her sur- 
 render to him. Her heart is glad and tranquil, 
 full to overflowing with love and contentment, 
 blessed beyond all expression with her happy 
 wifehood. She no more doubts Siegfried than 
 her own soul. She sends him out into the world 
 with but one dread, the pain of separation. Her 
 lovely speech to him, at his departure, pretends to 
 
1 1 8 Briinnhilde 
 
 express a half-fearful doubt as to his complete love 
 for her, — but there is in it no real doubt. It is 
 the trickery of love, which plays at fear because 
 fear is so far away that it can be simulated safely. 
 
 " From new great prowess, dearest hero, 
 How small my love, held I thee back! 
 Yet one sad fear doth much oppress me, — 
 That I to thee am not yet wholly all ! 
 
 " What gods had unfolded, taught I thee, 
 Holiest runes — a treasure rich! 
 But my great strength of maiden's estate 
 Took thou from me who live now to serve thee. 
 
 " Of wisdom bare — though of wishes full ; 
 In love so rich — thoughts poor in resource , — 
 Holdest thou not lightly one so helpless, 
 Who, all having granted, can now give no more?" 
 
 And Siegfried answers : 
 
 " More gav'st thou me, wonder-woman, than I can 
 yet grasp ! 
 
 So find not fault if much of thy wise teachings I 
 forget! 
 
 One great thing though I know — for me Briinnhilde 
 lives! 
 
 And one lesson learned I well — Briinnhilde to re- 
 member ! " 
 
Briinnhilde 
 
 119 
 
 Wagner has rightly given his richest and most 
 gracious melodies to Briinnhilde. Probably he 
 never wrote more lovely or more expressive phrases 
 than those which enter in this scene (Vorspiel, 
 "Die Gotterdammerung"): the motif of Briinn- 
 hilde the Woman and the motif of Briinnhilde's 
 Love. The first of these has a faint resemblance 
 to the motif of the Walsungs and the motif of 
 Love's Greeting, the reason for which is obvious. 
 The second seems to be entirely novel both in form 
 and in harmonization. 
 
 Molto dolce. 
 
 Motif of Brunnhilde the Woman. 
 
 J-3-J-- * 
 
 Motif of Brunnhilde' s Love. 
 
 This duet in " Die Gotterdammerung " is a con- 
 
1 20 Briinnhilde 
 
 secration of love. It is widely different from the 
 eager, ecstatic ending of Siegfried : quite as rap- 
 turous, quite as strong and untrammelled, but with- 
 out the slightest element of unrest. It is as deep, 
 as fair, and as happy as the broad sunshine of 
 heaven. 
 
 Such is the art of Wagner. Briinnhilde must 
 pass through the most scorching, the most searing 
 fire possible for heart to endure. For this her 
 being must be prepared by the most complete and 
 restful joy. The loss of the hero must mean more 
 than the loss of Siegfried, the rescuing warrior, 
 himself : it must mean the loss of all that makes 
 life fair and good to her. Her divine estate has 
 passed from her; her mystical wisdom has faded 
 in the light of her bright human happiness. Her 
 central thought, her one impulse in life, is Sieg- 
 fried. With the discovery of his treachery must 
 go the dream and glory of existence. Stripped 
 bare, first of divinity and wisdom, then of love 
 and joy, what is left to her but that power for 
 bitter and revengeful hate which is in all great 
 natures, and is only governed or annulled by 
 stronger and higher influences? Thus does 
 
Briinnhilde 121 
 
 Wagner tacitly explain the complexities of Briinn- 
 hilde's character. 
 
 In keeping with those strong, idealizing qualities 
 which we have felt all through the Trilogy, Briinn- 
 hilde makes her love the god and idol of her life. 
 The Ring is the visible symbol of it, the actual 
 expression of its brightness and its complete and 
 happy bond. When Waltraute beseeches her to 
 give it to her that she may save the gods from 
 destruction, Briinnhilde refuses as indignantly as 
 though her sister had asked her to renounce love 
 itself. From joy at meeting Waltraute again she 
 changes quickly to deep resentment. She bids 
 the Walkiire return to Walhalla speedily. The 
 hall of the gods, the might of the gods — these 
 may crash in ruins; it is a small matter. But 
 Siegfried's love-pledge, Siegfried's marriage circlet, 
 — never will she relinquish that. 
 
 The night falls, the fire flares higher, a horn- 
 call sounds far away. She starts up eagerly ; it 
 is surely Siegfried. Her late disquietude makes 
 the thought of Siegfried's approach almost bewild- 
 eringly joyful. "Up! up! and be gathered into 
 my god's arm ! " she cries. As the dim figure 
 
122 
 
 Briinnhilde 
 
 with face hidden by the masking Tarnhelm appears 
 in the fire's glare, the shock of horror strikes her 
 dumb, after one gasping word — " Betrayed !" 
 
 As the stranger speaks to her she can hardly 
 hear him. She is dazed and crushed, yet bitterly 
 alive to a hideous mental torture. A gleam of 
 clearness crosses her dimmed faculties as she 
 wrestles with him for the Ring. Here is her hope 
 of salvation — the Ring. The music accompanies 
 every movement in that swift, fierce struggle : 
 pitiful brave music, as the Walkiire motif denotes 
 her strained resistance ; eagerly triumphant music 
 as the motif of Brunnhilde's Love soars up, to 
 be drowned in the crash of discords; hopeless, 
 sinister music as the motif of the Curse proclaims 
 the warrior's victory. I have already cited the 
 introduction of the motif of Siegfried the Protector 
 at this point as a wonderful touch of art. Quickly 
 following this motif is a long-drawn chord, ending 
 in the mysterious motif of the Tarnhelm. Un- 
 derneath this long-sustained harmony we hear the 
 motif of Briinnhilde the Woman. And so strenu- 
 ously does the whole speak of grief and desolation, 
 and the hopeless mockery of human life, that it 
 
Briinnhilde 123 
 
 would be difficult, understanding its meanings, 
 to hear it without a heartache. 
 
 Quite as touching is the music accompanying 
 Briinnhilde's arrival at the hall of the Gibichungs. 
 The fierce, subdued resentment of the Walkure 
 motif sounds piteously in the midst of the glad 
 melodies of the wedding festival. The music 
 seems to express the silent scorn and despair in 
 the heart of this pale woman who, says the li- 
 bretto, follows Gunther with white and down- 
 drooped face. 
 
 Surely with Briinnhilde must have been always 
 the thought of Siegfried, her dear lord, who would 
 one day find her and make all things right, or at 
 least free her from her present despair. For this 
 loving and absolutely trusting woman from whom 
 all has been taken save her belief in her hero, 
 there is but one more ill in store — but one more 
 pain possible for her to experience. And as she 
 raises her eyes and sees Siegfried with Gutrune, 
 that last crowning agony is hers. " Siegfried 
 knows me not ! " she breathes, faint with wonder- 
 ing horror. The ground seems to rock under her. 
 What does it all mean ? Is it not some terrible 
 
1 24 Briinnhilde 
 
 dream ? In the long scene which follows, Briinn- 
 hilde passes through an ordeal which becomes the 
 refinement of torture. Enigma after enigma is 
 woven into the giant web of treachery, mystery, 
 and confusion. She stands alone, striving, through 
 a despair which has become almost insanity, to 
 find the truth in the horrible mist that surrounds 
 her. Love, happiness, hope, — all these have de- 
 parted; now honor also had gone. Shamed and 
 disgraced, fallen so low that Siegfried, in careless 
 kindness, reproves her for a word which may hurt 
 her soiled name — a creature abhorred, scorned, 
 distrusted by all — it is not strange that her mind 
 seems to give way before the strain. She cries 
 out in the intense bitterness of her soul words of 
 past love and present hate; words of agony, of 
 remembrance and revenge. 
 
 When the crowds have gone away with gay 
 rejoicing to prepare for the marriage of Siegfried 
 and Gutrune, her pain finds less frenzied utterance : 
 
 " What unholy magic is here hidden ? 
 What dark spirit's craft woke all this ill ? 
 Where now is my wisdom, in this enchantment? 
 Where are all my runes now, in this enigma? 
 
Briinnhilde 125 
 
 Oh, Anguish ! Anguish ! Woe, ah, woe's me ! 
 All my wisdom from me he won! 
 Fast in his might held he the maid, 
 Fast in his bondage held he the booty 
 Who, anguished and torn by shame, 
 He flings now, careless, aside ! " 
 
 A little later she breaks out into more furious 
 grief, in which her woman's jealousy lends even 
 fiercer impetus to her mad despair : 
 
 " What brought me my wisdom ? 
 What won me my runes all? 
 Most helpless of torture is all my gaini 
 Gutrune holds the magic 
 That did win my hero from me! 
 Ill come to her! " 
 
 Yet in all her wrath, how pathetic is the touch of 
 
 pride in Siegfried's power, when she laughs at 
 
 Hagen for suggesting that he shall deal death to 
 
 him: "To Siegfried? Thou!" When a moment 
 
 later she tells simply of the spells she laid upon 
 
 him to guard him, one can see how far from dead 
 
 is her love, in spite of vows of vengeance and 
 
 death : 
 
 " Each magic art that e'er I knew 
 For his good hap did I use; 
 
126 Briinnhilde 
 
 Unknown and mystical spells I laid 
 That from all wounds protect him now ! " 
 
 Hagen asks if no one spot is vulnerable; and she 
 answers with a gasp, as though the words were torn 
 from her very soul, that his back is not protected 
 
 by spells. 
 
 " Never, — this knew I, — would he retreat, 
 Ne'er fly and turn his back in battle. 
 So laid no spell there to guard him." 
 
 The last words are accompanied softly by the 
 broken music of Briinnhilde's Love. 
 
 A strange calm falls upon Briinnhilde. For his 
 deceit, his falseness, Siegfried must die; but it is 
 in the most marvellous solemnity that she speaks 
 of his death. Suffering has brought a majesty to 
 her demeanor which seems to uplift her, at the 
 close of this second act of " Die Gotterdam- 
 merung," as the embodiment of justice and grave, 
 impersonal vengeance. When the barbaric fight- 
 ers and dreamers of the Golden Age hated, it was 
 with no smallness or pettiness- — it became a sacra- 
 ment to them. They offered prayers and sacrifices 
 to the gods, and prepared themselves for revenge 
 in silence and solemnity. So Briinnhilde, filled 
 
Briinnhilde 1 27 
 
 with the conviction that her loved lord has been 
 false and untrue, vows that he shall die in expia- 
 tion of all the suffering occasioned by his wrong- 
 doing. She no longer raves in the madness of 
 that first shock of grief. All her suffering there- 
 after is silent. Never does her voice rise in 
 lament again. Souls that are broken on the wheel 
 and seared by red-hot irons grow numbed after 
 the first outburst of pain. Briinnhilde even enters 
 the train of the wedding with Gunther, and fol- 
 lows Siegfried and his bride. 
 
 Cold and white and still, she is ready for the 
 last phase of her existence — the last chapter in 
 her wonderful life. If she can be shown that 
 Siegfried has not betrayed her she will rise in 
 her new, calm courage, and will do all that the 
 world may demand of her. This torture has braced 
 and strengthened her for the end, — has cleared 
 her vision and taught her a truth and wisdom be- 
 yond that of any mortal ever born. But these re- 
 sults are hidden and silent. Let the one touch 
 come, the knowledge of her hero's truth, and she 
 will be changed. 
 
 That touch comes at last, through the Rhine- 
 
128 Brunnhilde 
 
 Maidens. Siegfried has died, — died because of 
 her vengeance for a wrong which never existed. 
 As she comes quietly into the great hall where the 
 people are lamenting over the body of the man 
 she loves, we realize that the veil has fallen — that 
 she has come into her heritage of eternal wisdom. 
 The development of the character of Brunnhilde 
 may be called a gradual growth of consciousness. 
 Brunnhilde the Walklire possessed the germs of all 
 that bore rich fruit in the nature of Brunnhilde the 
 divine woman, but she was unconscious of every- 
 thing. Her first consciousness of self was when 
 in her pity for the Walsungs she acted without her 
 father's sanction and received his punishment. 
 In that punishment was a new awakening to con- 
 sciousness — her fear lest her father should not 
 guard her slumbers fittingly — and the first actual 
 assertion of her own will in her demand upon his 
 love and his dignity as a god. When she awoke 
 from slumber she awoke, too, to a clearer con- 
 sciousness. Siegfried's passionate love enlight- 
 ened her being and showed her the possibilities 
 of her own strong emotions. From this the growth 
 of the complete consciousness of love was swift. 
 
Briinnhilde 129 
 
 In her overthrovval by the conquering warrior in 
 the Tarnhelm she found, in her simplicity, more 
 cause for agonized grief than for shame. It was 
 not until she made the discovery of Siegfried's 
 apparent faithlessness that her own degradation 
 seemed so terrible as to crush her whole soul in 
 its blackness. Further consciousness came with 
 the awakening in her heart of that frenzy which 
 for a time was almost hate. So, through this she 
 passed to a calmer, sterner impulse of vengeance. 
 Now, at last, she reaches that perfect stillness 
 of soul, — that complete knowledge and clearness 
 of being, that tenderness for the past and yearning 
 for the future — that comes to her with absolute 
 consciousness of all things. The tidings of the 
 Rhine- Maidens have cleared away those clouds 
 which have obscured her sight. With the dissipa- 
 tion of doubt her trusting and perfect love rises 
 gladly in her heart, and she is no longer a mad and 
 broken-hearted woman, but Briinnhilde herself, 
 true and wise and brave ; not the exultant goddess 
 nor the rapturous wife, now, but the grand woman 
 who typifies the attainment of all wisdom, the 
 evolution of the world. 
 9 
 
3° 
 
 Briinnhilde 
 
 When she enters the hall of the Gibichungs 
 there is no hint of dejection or even sorrow in her 
 demeanor. She is very gentle with Gutrune, very 
 quiet in her words to the assembled people, — in 
 every word breathes a deep courage and calm. 
 She does not speak directly of her share in Sieg- 
 fried's death. She merely bids them build a 
 funeral pyre; and says, as though offering the 
 simplest reparation to the dead : 
 
 " His horse quickly bring here, 
 That the steed may bear me to him. 
 In the hero's holiest honor 
 Be burned my body to-night." 
 
 It is wonderful to note how simply she appreciates 
 that the source of her wisdom is her suffering. 
 Only she asks once, with a quiet pathos, if it was 
 absolutely necessary : 
 
 " Must my pure hero so have hurt me 
 That wisdom thus I should gain ? " 
 
 Everything is clear to her at last, she says. She 
 knows all things, sees all things, understands all 
 things. She recognizes all the depths and heights 
 of life, — those disturbed and fearful places through 
 
Briinnhilde 1 3 1 
 
 which she has stumbled blindly. She looks up 
 into the sky and greets the race of gods, bidding 
 them rest, for even now the great ravens speed 
 back to Walhalla with the long-waited tidings, and 
 the dusk of the gods draws near. Taking a torch 
 from the hand of one of the vassals, she throws it 
 upon the funeral pyre. Does she know that that 
 pyre is to ignite Walhalla ? Yes, she realizes even 
 this, and her action is solemn and majestic. Upon 
 her alone rests the destruction of the gods. 
 Gravely she takes the responsibility ; gravely she 
 says : 
 
 " So, cast I my brand 
 In Walhall's wonderful Burg! " 
 
 Never in her life has Briinnhilde known actual fear. 
 Now as she flings the torch onto the pyre and 
 watches the leaping flame that shall soon burn her 
 body to ashes, she feels it as little as ever. In- 
 stead comes for the first time to-night a touch of 
 excitement, an exhilaration which is akin to joy. 
 As she sees the war-horse which in the old free 
 days she was wont to ride through the clouds, she 
 springs to meet him, exultant and strong. 
 
 The music surges and sweeps — a bewildering, 
 
132 Brtinnhilde 
 
 quivering sea of sound. Is it the wooing, caress- 
 ing laughter of the fire which now rises higher 
 and higher against the sky ? Is it the blowing of 
 giant winds that tell the story of the gods and 
 their fall ? Is it the harmony of the indefinable, 
 innumerable voices of the universe — infinitely 
 passionate, infinitely sweet ? Is it the throbbing 
 of hearts, the laughing of lips, the falling of tears ? 
 Is it a singing, a whispering, or a beating of 
 voiceless sounds upon the heart ? 
 
 Through it comes Briinnhilde's voice, high and 
 clear as though every note were winged with joy : 
 
 "Grane, my horse! Greetings to thee! 
 Dost thou know, my friend, where soon we shall 
 
 hasten ? 
 In firelight glowing thy master waits, — 
 Siegfried, my hero sublime ! 
 
 Once more to fare with him neighest thou gladly ? 
 Lures thee to him the flame and the flashing? 
 Feel then my bosom — how it doth burn ! 
 Wildest fire-gleams my heart doth enthrall! 
 Once more to greet him — be caught in his arms; 
 In mightiest passion be his evermore ! 
 Hoyotoho, Grane! Greet now thy hero! 
 Siegfried — Siegfried! See! 
 Gladly greets thee thy wife! " 
 
Brunnhilde 
 
 33 
 
 So crying, she rides into the fire and is gone. 
 And as we hear the music that sweeps out, — throb- 
 bing, proclaiming, explaining, breathing the uni- 
 versal message of sacrifice, — we bow before this 
 mythological symbol of the Atonement. In that 
 wonderful courage, that stupendous self-immola- 
 tion, that glorious love is proclaimed the divinity 
 in humanity, the god-spirit that is not measurable 
 by standard or philosophy, but which now and 
 again flashes upward from the altar of pain. 
 
 Brunnhilde, goddess and woman, Walkiire and 
 wife — she with the wisdom-holding soul and the 
 bravest heart in the world — leads the way, on her 
 war-horse, into the atoning fire, — the living, shin- 
 ing spirit, as she gallops into the blaze, of trium- 
 phant expiation. 
 
 Motif of Expiation. 
 THE END. 
 
By FELIX STONE MOSCHELES 
 
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