In battle none:--but still
Bare to the stroke is his back
Never--I felt--
In flight he would find
A foe to be harmful behind him,
So spared I his back from the blessing.'
Her resentment against Siegfried has reached such a pitch,
however, that she finally hails with fierce joy Hagen's proposal
to slay him in the forest on the morrow. Even Gunther acquiesces
in this crime, which will leave his sister a widow, and they
soon agree that it shall be explained to Gutrune as a hunting
casualty.
At noon on the next day Siegfried arrives alone on the banks of
the Rhine, in search of a quarry which has escaped him. The Rhine
daughters, who concealed it purposely in hopes of recovering
their ring, rise up out of the water, and swimming gracefully
around promise to help him recover his game if he will only
give them his ring. Siegfried, who attaches no value whatever
to the trinket, but wishes to tease them, refuses it at first;
but when they change their bantering into a prophetic tone and
try to frighten him by telling him the ring will prove his bane
unless he intrust it to their care, he proudly answers that he
has never yet learned to fear, and declares he will keep it,
and see whether their prediction will be fulfilled:--
'My sword once splintered a spear;--
The endless coil
Of counsel of old,
Wove they with wasting
Curses its web;
Norns shall not cover from Nothung!
One warned me beware
Of the curse a Worm;
But he failed to make me to fear,--
The World's riches
I won with a ring,
That for love's delight
Swiftly I'd leave;
I'll yield it for sweetness to you;
But for safety of limbs and of life,--
Were it not worth
Of a finger's weight,--
No ring from me you will reach!'
The Rhine maidens then bid him farewell, and swim away repeating
their ominous prophecy. After they have gone, the hunting
party appear, heralded by the merry music of their horns. All
sit down to partake of the refreshments that have been
brought, and as Siegfried has provided no game, he tries to do
his share by entertaining them with tales of his early youth.
After telling them of his childhood spent in Mime's forge, of
the welding of Nothung and the slaying of Fafnir, he describes
how a mere taste of the dragon's blood enabled him to understand
the songs of the birds. Encouraged by Hagen, he next relates
the capture of the tarn-helm and ring, and then, draining his
horn in which Hagen has secretly poured an antidote to the
draught of forgetfulness administered by Gutrune, he describes
his departure in quest of the sleeping Walkyrie and his first
meeting with Brunhilde. At the mere mention of her name, all
the past returns to his mind. He suddenly remembers all her
beauty and love, and starts wildly to his feet, but only to be
pierced by the spear of the treacherous Hagen, who had stolen
behind him to drive it into his heart.
The dying hero makes one last vain effort to avenge himself,
then sinks feebly to the earth, while Hagen slips away, declaring
that the perjurer had fully deserved to be slain by the weapon
upon which he had sworn his false oath. Gunther, sorry now
that it is too late, bends sadly over the prostrate hero,
who, released from the fatal effects of Gutrune's draught,
speaks once more of his beloved Brunhilde, and fancies he is
once more clasped in her arms as of old.
Then, when he has breathed his last, the hunters place his
body upon a shield and bear it away in the rapidly falling
dusk, to the slow, mournful accompaniment of a funeral march,
whose muffled notes fall like a knell on the listener's ear.
Gutrune, who has found the day very long indeed without
her beloved Siegfried, comes out of her room at nightfall,
and listens intently for the sound of the hunting horn which
will proclaim his welcome return. She is not the only watcher,
however, for Brunhilde has stolen down to the river, and her
apartment is quite empty.
Suddenly Hagen comes in, and Gutrune, terrified at his unexpected
appearance, anxiously inquires why she has not heard her
husband's horn. Without any preparation, roughly, brutally,
Hagen informs her the hero is dead, just as the bearers enter
and deposit his lifeless body at her feet.
Gutrune faints, but when she recovers consciousness she
indignantly refuses to credit Hagen's story, that her husband was
slain by a boar. She wildly accuses Gunther, who frees himself
from suspicion by denouncing Hagen. Without showing the least
sign of remorse, the dark son of Alberich then acknowledges
the deed, and, seeing that Gunther is about to appropriate the
fatal ring, draws his sword and slays him also. Wildly now Hagen
snatches at the ring, that long coveted treasure; but he starts
back in dismay without having secured it, for the dead hand is
threateningly raised, to the horror of all the spectators.
Next Brunhilde comes upon the scene, singing a song of vengeance;
and when Gutrune wildly accuses her of being the cause of her
husband's murder, she declares that she alone was Siegfried's
lawful wife, and that he would always have been true to her had
not Gutrune won him by the ruse of a magic draught. Sadly Gutrune
acknowledges the truth of this statement, and, feeling that she
has no right to mourn over the husband of another woman, she
creeps over to Gunther's corpse and bends motionless over him.
Brunhilde's anger is all forgotten now that the hero is dead,
and, after caressing him tenderly for a while, she directs
the bystanders to erect a huge funeral pyre. While they are
thus occupied she sings the hero's dirge, and draws the ring
unhindered from his dead hand. Then she announces her decision
to perish in the flames beside him, and declares the Rhine
maidens can come and reclaim their stolen treasure from their
mingled ashes:--
'Thou guilty ring!
Running gold!
My hand gathers,
And gives thee again.
You wisely seeing
Water sisters,
The Rhine's unresting daughters,
I deem your word was of weight!
All that you ask
Now is your own;
Here from my ashes'
Heap you may have it!--
The flame as it clasps me round
Free from the curse of the ring!--
Back to its gold
Unbind it again,
And far in the flood
Withhold its fire,
The Rhine's unslumbering sun,
That for harm from him was reft.'
The curse of the ring is at an end. The ravens of Wotan, perching
aloft, fly heavily off to announce the tidings in Walhalla,
while Brunhilde, after seeing Siegfried's body carefully
deposited on the pyre with all his weapons, kindles the fire
with her own hand. Then, springing upon Grane, she rides into
the very midst of the flames, which soon rise so high that they
swallow her up and entirely hide her from the spectators' sight.
After a short time the flames die down, the bright light fades,
the stage darkens, and the river rises and overflows its banks,
until its waves come dashing over the funeral pyre. They
bear upon their swelling crests the Rhine maidens who have
come to recover their ring, Hagen, standing gloomily in the
background, becomes suddenly aware of their intention, wildly
flings his weapons aside, and rushes forward, crying, 'Unhand
the ring!' But he is caught in the twining arms of two of the
Rhine maidens, who draw him down under the water, and drown
him, while the third, having secured the Nibelung ring, returns
in triumph on the ebbing waves to her native depths, chanting
the Rhinegold strain. As she disappears, a reddish glow like
the Aurora Borealis appears in the sky. It grows brighter and
brighter, until one can discern the shining abode of Walhalla,
enveloped in lurid flames from the burning world-ash, and in
the centre the assembled gods calmly seated upon their thrones,
to submit to their long predicted doom, the 'Götterdämmerung.'[3]
[3] See Prof. G.T. Dippold's 'Ring of the Nibelung.'
[Illustration: PARSIFAL IN THE ENCHANTED GARDEN.]