The one who knows all that was, is, and shall be, she tells him;
the ancestress of the everlasting world, older than time; the mother
of the Norns who speak with Wotan nightly. Gravest danger has brought
her to seek him in person. Let him hear and heed! The present order
is passing away. There is dawning for the gods a dark day.... At
this prophesied ruin, the music reverses the motif of ascending
progression, and paints melancholy disintegration and crumbling
downfall, a strain to be heard many times in the closing opera of
the trilogy, when the prophecy comes to pass and the gods enter
their twilight. The apparition is sinking back into the earth.
Wotan beseeches it to tarry and tell him more. But with the words,
"You are warned.... Meditate in sorrow and fear!" it vanishes. The
masterful god attempts to follow, to wrest from the weird woman
further knowledge. His wife and her brothers hold him back. He
stands for a time still hesitating, uncertain, wrapped in thought.
With sudden resolve at last he tosses the ring with the rest of the
treasure, and turns heart-wholly to greet Freia returning among
them, bringing back their lost youth.
While the gods are expressing tender rapture over the restoration of
Freia, and she goes from one to the other receiving their caresses,
Fafner spreads open a gigantic sack and in this is briskly stuffing
the gold. Fasolt, otherwise preoccupied, had not thought to bring
a sack. He attempts to stay Fafner's too active hand. "Hold on,
you grasping one, leave something for me! An honest division will
be best for us both!" Fafner objects, "You, amorous fool, cared
more for the maid than the gold. With difficulty I persuaded you
to the exchange. You would haved wooed Freia without thought of
division, wherefore in the division of the spoil I shall still
be generous if I keep the larger half for myself." Fasolt's anger
waxes great. He calls upon the gods to judge between them and divide
the treasure justly. Wotan turns from his appeal with characteristic
contempt. Loge, the mischief-lover, whispers to Fasolt, "Let him
take the treasure, do you but reserve the ring!" Fafner has during
this not been idle, but has sturdily filled his sack; the ring is
on his hand. Fasolt demands it in exchange for Freia's glance.
He snatches at it, Fafner defends it, and when in the wrestling
which ensues Fasolt has forced it from his brother, the latter
lifts his tree-trunk and strikes him dead. Having taken the ring
from his hand, he leisurely proceeds to finish his packing, while
the gods stand around appalled, and the air shudderingly resounds
with the notes of the curse. A long, solemn silence follows. Fafner
is seen, after a time, shouldering the sack, into which the whole of
the glimmering Hort has disappeared, and, bowed under its weight,
leaving for home.
"Dreadful," says Wotan, deeply shaken; "I now perceive to be the
power of the curse!" Sorrow and fear lie crushingly upon his spirit.
Erda, who warned him of the power of the curse, now proven before his
eyes, warned him likewise of worse things, of old order changing,
a dark day dawning for the gods. He must seek Erda, learn more,
have counsel what to do. He is revolving such thoughts when Fricka,
who believes all their trouble now ended, approaches him with sweet
words, and directs his eyes to the beautiful dwelling hospitably
awaiting its masters. "An evil price I paid for the building!"
Wotan replies heavily.
Mists are still hanging over the valley, clinging to the heights;
nor have the clouds yet wholly lifted from their spirits. Donner,
to clear the atmosphere, conjures a magnificent storm, by the blow
of his hammer bringing about thunder and lightning. When the black
cloud disperses which for a moment enveloped him and Froh on the
high rock from which he directs this festival of the elements,
a bright rainbow appears, forming a bridge between the rock and
the castle now shining in sunset light. A bridge of music is here
built, too; the tremulous weaving of it in tender and gorgeous
colours is seen through the ear, and its vaulting the valley with
an easy overarching spring. Froh, architect of the bridge, bids
the gods walk over it fearlessly: It is light but will prove solid
under their feet.
Wotan stands sunk in contemplation of the castle; his reflections,
still upon the shameful circumstances of his bargain, are not happy.
In the midst of them he is struck by a great thought, and recovers
his courage and hardihood. The sharp, bright, resolute motif which
represents his inspiration is afterward indissolubly connected
with the Sword,--a sword aptly embodying his idea, which is one
of defence for his castle and clan. A suggestion of his idea is
contained, too, in the word which he gives to Fricka as the castle's
name, when he now invites her to accompany him thither: Walhalla,
Hall of the Slain in Battle, or, Hall of Heroes.
Headed by Wotan and Fricka, the gods ascend toward the bridge.
Loge looks after them in mingled irony and contempt. "There they
hasten to their end, who fancy themselves so firmly established in
being. I am almost ashamed to have anything to do with them...."
And he revolves in his mind a scheme for turning into elemental fire
again and burning them all up, those blind gods. He is nonchalantly
adding himself to their train, when from the Rhine below rises
the lament of the Rhine-daughters, begging that their gold may
be given back to them. Wotan pauses with his foot on the bridge:
"What wail is that?" Loge enlightens him, and, at Wotan's annoyed,
"Accursed nixies! Stop their importunity!" calls down to them,
"You, down there in the water, what are you complaining about?
Hear what Wotan bids: No longer having the gold to shine for you,
make yourselves happy basking in the sunshine of this new pomp of
the gods!" Loud laughter from the gods greets this sally, and they
pass over the bridge, Walhalla-ward, followed by the water-nymphs'
wail for their lost gold, closing with the reproach, "Only in the
pleasant water-depths is truth; false and cowardly are those making
merry up there!" With Walhalla and rainbow shedding a radiance
around them of which we are made conscious through the delighted
sense of hearing, the curtain falls.
So we lose sight of them, moving into their new house; in spite
of their glory a little like the first family of the county. But
while to triumphant strains they seek their serene stronghold, we
know that the lines have been laid for disaster. The Ring is in the
world, with its terrific power; and there is in the world one whom
wrong has turned into a deadly enemy, whose soul is undividedly bent
upon getting possession of the Ring, which Wotan may not himself
attempt to get--stopped, if not by Erda's warning or by terror of
the curse, by the fact that he finally gave it to the giants in
payment of an acknowledged debt, and that his spear stands precisely
for honor in relations of the sort.