The Norns, or Northern goddesses of fate, are seen in the dim
light before dawn, busily weaving the web of destiny on the
rocky hillside where the Walkyries formerly held their tryst. As
they twist their rope, which is stretched from north to south,
they sing of the age of gold. Then they sat beneath the great
world-ash, near the limpid well, where Wotan had left an eye
in pledge to win a daily draught of wisdom.
They also sing how the god tore from the mighty ash a limb
which he fashioned into an invincible spear. This caused the
death of the tree, which withered and died in spite of all their
care. The third Norn then continues the tale her sisters have
begun, and tells how Wotan came home with a shivered spear one
day, and bade the gods cut down the tree. Its limbs were piled
like fuel all around Walhalla, the castle which the giants had
built, and since then Wotan has sat there in moody silence,
awaiting the predicted end, which can no longer be far distant.
While they are singing, the barrier of flame in the background
burns brightly, and its light grows pale only as dawn breaks
slowly over the scene. The rope which the Norns are weaving
then suddenly parts beneath their fingers; so they bind the
fragments about them and sink slowly into the ground, to join
their mother Erda, wailing a prophecy concerning the end of
the old heathen world:--
'Away now is our knowledge!
The world meets
From wisdom no more;
Below to Mother, below!'
As they vanish, the day slowly breaks, and Siegfried and
Brunhilde come out of the cave. The former is in full armour
and bears a jewelled shield, the latter leads her horse, Grane,
by the bridle. Tenderly Brunhilde bids her lover farewell,
telling him that she will not restrain his ardour, for she knows
it is a hero's part to journey out into the world and perform
the noble tasks which await him. But her strength and martial
fury have entirely departed since she has learned to love, and
she repeatedly adjures him not to forget her, promising to await
his homecoming behind her flickering barrier of flame, and to
think constantly of him while he is away. Siegfried reminds her
that she need not fear he will forget her as long as she wears
the Nibelung ring, the seal of their troth, and gladly accepts
from her in exchange the steed Grane. Although it can no longer
scurry along the paths of air, this horse is afraid of nothing,
and is ready to rush through water and fire at his command.
As Siegfried goes down the hill leading his steed, Brunhilde
watches him out of sight, and it is only when the last echoes of
his hunting horn die away in the distance that the curtain falls.
The next scene is played at Worms on the Rhine. Gunther and
his sister Gutrune are sitting in their ancestral hall, with
their half-brother Hagen. He is the son of Alberich, and has
been begotten with the sole hope that he will once help his
father to recover the Nibelung ring. Hagen advises Gunther to
remember the duty he owes his race, and to marry as soon as
possible, and recommends as suitable mate the fair Brunhilde,
who is fenced in by a huge barrier of living flame.
Gunther is not at all averse to matrimony, and is anxious to
secure the peerless bride proposed, yet he knows he can never
pass through the flames, and asks how Brunhilde is to be won.
Hagen, who as a Nibelung knows the future, foretells that
Siegfried, the dauntless hero, will soon be there, and adds
that, if they can only efface from his memory all recollection
of past love by means of a magic potion, they can soon induce
him to promise his aid in exchange for the hand of Gutrune.
As he speaks, the sound of a horn is heard, and Hagen, looking
out, sees Siegfried crossing the river in a boat, and goes
down to the landing with Gunther to bid the hero welcome.
Hagen leads the horse away, but soon returns, while Gunther
ushers Siegfried into the hall of the Gibichungs, and enters
into conversation with him. As Siegfried's curiosity has been
roused by the strangers calling him by name, he soon inquires
how they knew him, and Hagen declares that the mere sight of
the tarn-cap had been enough. He then reveals to Siegfried
its magical properties, and asks him what he has done with the
hoard, and especially with the ring, which he vainly seeks on
his hand. Siegfried carelessly replies that the gold is still in
the Neidhole, guarded by the body of the dragon, while the ring
now adorns a woman's fair hand. As he finishes this statement,
Gutrune timidly draws near, and offers him a drinking horn,
the draught of welcome, in which, however, the magic potion of
forgetfulness has been mixed.
Siegfried drains it eagerly, remarking to himself that he drinks
to Brunhilde alone. But no sooner has he partaken of it than
her memory leaves him, and he finds himself gazing admiringly
upon Gutrune. Gunther then proceeds to tell Siegfried the story
of Brunhilde, whom he would fain woo to wife. Although the hero
dreamily repeats his words, and seems to be struggling hard to
recall some past memory, he does not succeed in doing so. Finally
he shakes off his abstraction, and ardently proposes to pass
through the fire and win Brunhilde for Gunther in exchange for
Gutrune's hand:--
'Me frights not her fire;
I'll woo for thee the maid;
For with might and mind
Am I thy man--
A wife in Gutrun' to win.'
The two heroes now decide upon swearing blood brotherhood
according to Northern custom,--an inviolable oath,--and,
charging Hagen to guard the hall of the Gibichungs, they
immediately sally forth on their quest.
Brunhilde, in the mean while, has remained on the Walkürenfels
anxiously watching for Siegfried's return, and spending long
hours in contemplating the magic ring, her lover husband's last
gift. Her solitude is, however, soon invaded by Waltraute, one
of her sister Walkyries. She informs her that Wotan has been
plunged in melancholy thought ever since he returned home from
his wanderings with a shattered spear, and bade the gods pile
the wood of the withered world-ash all around Walhalla. This
he has decided shall be his funeral pyre, when the predicted
doom of the gods overtakes him.
Waltraute adds also that she alone has found the clue to his
sorrow, for she has overheard him mutter that, if the ring
were given back to the Rhine-daughters, the curse spoken by
Alberich would be annulled, and the gods could yet be saved
from their doom:--
'The day the River's daughters
Find from her finger the ring,
Will the curse's weight
Be cast from the god and the world.'
Brunhilde pays but indifferent attention to all this account,
and it is only when Waltraute informs her that it is in her
power to avert the gods' doom by restoring the ring she wears
to the mourning Rhine-daughters, that she starts angrily from
her abstraction, swearing she will never part with Siegfried's
gift, the emblem and seal of their plighted troth.
Waltraute, seeing no prayers will avail to win the ring, then
rides sadly away, while the twilight gradually settles down,
and the barrier of flames burns on with a redder glow. At
the sound of a hunting horn, Brunhilde rushes joyously to the
back of the scene, with a rapturous cry of 'Siegfried!' but
shrinks suddenly back in fear and dismay when, instead of the
bright beloved form, a dark man appears through the flickering
flames. It is Siegfried, who, by virtue of the tarn-helmet, has
assumed Gunther's form and voice, and boldly claims Brunhilde
as his bride, in reward for having made his way through the
barrier of fire. Brunhilde indignantly refuses to recognize
him as her master. Passionately kissing her ring, she loudly
declares that as long as it graces her finger she will have
the strength to repulse every attack and keep her troth to the
giver. This declaration so incenses Siegfried--who, owing to the
magic potion, has entirely forgotten her and her love--that he
rushes towards her, and after a violent struggle wrenches the
ring from her finger, and places it upon his own.
Cowed by the violence of this rude wooer, and deprived of her
ring, Brunhilde no longer resists, but tacitly yields when
he claims her as wife, and both soon disappear in the cave.
There Siegfried, mindful of his oath to marry her by proxy only,
lays his unsheathed sword between him and his friend's bride:--
'Now, Nothung, witness well
That faithfully I wooed;
Lest I wane in truth to my brother,
Bar me away from his bride!'
Hagen, left alone at Worms to guard the hall of the Gibichungs,
is favored in his sleep by a visit from his father, Alberich. The
dwarf informs him that ever since the gods touched the fatal
ring their power has waned, and that he must do all in his
power to recover it from Siegfried, who again holds it, and
who little suspects its magic power. As Alberich disappears,
carrying with him Hagen's promise to do all he can, the latter
awakens just in time to welcome the returning Siegfried. The
young hero joyfully announces the success of their expedition,
and rapturously claims Gutrune as his bride. After hearing
her lover's account of his night's adventures, the maiden
leads him into the hall in search of rest and refreshment,
while Hagen, summoning the people with repeated blasts of his
horn, admonishes them to deck the altars of Wotan, Freya, and
Donner, and to prepare to receive their master and mistress
with every demonstration of joy. The festive preparations are
barely completed, when Gunther and Brunhilde arrive. The bride
is pale and reluctant, and advances with downcast eyes, which
she raises only when she stands opposite Gutrune and Siegfried,
and hears the latter's name. Dropping Gunther's hand, she rushes
forward impetuously to throw herself in Siegfried's arms, but,
arrested by his cold unrecognising glance, she tremblingly
inquires how he came there, and why he stands by Gutrune's
side? Calmly then Siegfried announces his coming marriage:--
'Gunther's winsome sister
She that I wed
As Gunther thee.'
Brunhilde indignantly denies her marriage to Gunther, and almost
swoons, but Siegfried supports her, and, although Brunhilde
softly and passionately asks him if he does not know her, the
young hero indifferently hands her over to Gunther, bidding
him look after his wife.
At a motion of his hand, Brunhilde's attention is attracted to
the ring, and she angrily demands how he dare wear the token
which Gunther wrested from her hand.
Bewildered by this question, Siegfried denies ever having
received the ring from Gunther, and declares he won it from the
dragon in the Neidhole; but Hagen, anxious to stir up strife,
interferes, and elicits from Brunhilde an assurance that the
hero can have won the ring only by guile.
A misunderstanding now ensues, for while Brunhilde in speaking
refers to their first meeting, and swears that Siegfried had
wooed and treated her as his wife, he, recollecting only the
second encounter, during which he acted only as Gunther's proxy,
denies her assertions.
Both solemnly swear to the truth of their statement upon Hagen's
spear, calling the vengeance of Heaven down upon them in case of
perjury. Then the interrupted wedding festivities are resumed,
for Gunther knows only too well by what fraud his bride was
obtained, and thinks the transformation has not been complete
enough to blind the wise Brunhilde.
As Siegfried gently leads Gutrune away into the hall, whither
all but Hagen, Gunther, and Brunhilde follow him, the latter
gives way to her extravagant grief. Hagen approaches her,
offering to avenge all her wrongs, and even slay Siegfried if
nothing else will satisfy her, and wipe away the foul stain
upon her honour. But Brunhilde tells him it is quite useless to
challenge the hero, for she herself had made him invulnerable
to every blow by blessing every part of his body except his
back. This she deemed useless to protect, as Siegfried, the
bravest of men, never fled from any foe:--
'HAGEN.
So wounds him nowhere a weapon?