The third act shows the scene, a high rocky peak rising from among
great pine-trees, where the Valkyries assemble for their return
together to the hall of Wotan. On the clouds they come riding, each
with a dead warrior laid across her steed. Over the neighing and
hoof-beats, the music develops of a lightly thundering cavalry-charge,
suggestive of the rocking in the saddle of horsemen borne over
billowing expanses--glorious with the glory of the hosts which
fancy sees among the crimson and gold banners of the sunset. The
eight are at last arrived; their war-cries, their hard laughter,
and the shrill neighing of the battle-steeds mingle in harsh harmony.
The shrieks of an autumn gale, exulting in its freedom to drive
the waves mountain-high and scatter all the leaves of the forest,
have the same quality of wildness and force and glee. The
steel-corseleted figures clustered on the peak make one think a
little of gleaming dragon-flies seen in summer, swarming as they
do around some point of mysterious interest. The laughter of the
Valkyries is for grim jests they exchange over the conduct of their
horses, who fall to fighting with one another, because the dead
warriors on their backs were enemies in life. Brünnhilde only is
wanting, to complete their number, but they dare not start for
Walhalla without her, lest Walvater, not seeing his favourite,
should receive them with a frown. They are amazed, when they finally
see her coming, to descry on the back of her horse no warrior, but
a woman--amazed, likewise, at the wild speed of Grane's flight,
and to see him stagger and drop on reaching the goal. They hurry
to Brünnhilde's assistance. She comes in, breathless with terror
and haste, supporting Sieglinde. Wotan, she informs the wondering
sisters, is hot in pursuit of her. She begs one of them to keep
lookout for him from the top of the peak. The black storm-cloud on
which he rides is perceived sweeping toward them from the north.
To the questioning Valkyries Brünnhilde gives in quick outline
the story of her disobedience, and implores their help to save
Sieglinde,--for the Wälsungen all Wotan has threatened with destruction.
She conjures them, too, to conceal herself, who has not the hardihood
to face her father in the extremity of his indignation. But the
sisters are appalled at the revelation of her misdeed, and no less
at the suggestion that they should join in her act of rebellion.
Her prayer for the loan of one of their horses on which the woman
may escape, meets with obtuse looks, headshakes, uncompromising
denial. She is appealing urgently, hurriedly, to one after the
other, when Sieglinde who, stony, death-struck, dazed with grief,
has appeared unconscious, up to this moment, of all taking place
around her, stops her, stating dully that there is no need to trouble
about her, since her only wish is to die. She indeed reproaches
Brünnhilde for her care, and bids her now, if she is not to curse
her for their flight, to end her life by a thrust of the sword. In
the next moment the face of this same woman sheds the very radiance
of joy: the Valkyrie has revealed to her that of her a Wälsung shall
be born. Then, oh, "Save me, you valiant one!" she cries. "Save
my child! Protect me, you maidens, with your mightiest protection!
Save me! Save the mother!" She kneels to them. The cool-blooded
spinsters are moved by this, but not to the point of braving Wotan's
ire. "Then fly in haste, and fly alone!" Brünnhilde with sudden
resolve bids Sieglinde: "I will remain behind and draw upon me,
delaying him, Wotan's anger." "In what direction shall I go?" asks
the woman eagerly. Eastward, one of the sisters tells her, lies a
forest. Fafner there, in the shape of a dragon, guards the treasure
of the Nibelungen. An unsuitable place for a helpless woman, yet
one where she will be safe from Wotan, for the god, it has been
observed, shuns it. "Away then to eastward," Brünnhilde instructs
Sieglinde; "with undaunted courage bear every trial. Hunger and
thirst, thorns and stony roads--do you laugh at want and sorrow,
for one thing know, and keep it ever in mind: the most exalted hero
in the world, O woman, shall be born of you!" A great melodious
phrase describes him, the future Siegfried, as if with one magnificent
stroke outlining a form of heroic beauty and valour. Brünnhilde
gives Sieglinde the pieces of Siegmund's sword, gathered up from
the field after the ill-fated encounter. "He who one day shall
swing this sword newly welded together, let him take his name from
me: As Siegfried let him rejoice in victory!" From the soul of
Sieglinde rises a soaring song of gratitude and praise, a song
of purest, highest joy. Her last words to Brünnhilde, as clasping
to her breast the broken sword she hastens away, are, interpreted:
"My gratitude shall one day reward you, smiling at you in human
form!... Farewell! Sieglinde in her woe calls down blessings upon
you!"
The storm-cloud has reached the rock, Wotan's voice is heard:
"Brünnhilde, stand!" At the sound of it, Brünnhilde's heart fails
her; the hearts of the sisters, too, soften. Crowding together on
the rocky peak, they let the culprit cower out of sight among them.
But Wotan is not deceived; he addresses to the hidden daughter such
sharp and searching reproaches that, her fear for herself losing
all importance as these strike her heart, she steps forth from
among the sister-Valkyries and meekly stands before her father,
awaiting condemnation.
"Not I," he speaks, "punish you. Yourself you have framed your
punishment!" And he exposes how by forgetting the whole duty of a
Valkyrie--to deal victory or defeat according to Wotan's decree--she
had made herself in effect no longer a Valkyrie. "No more shall I
send you from Walhalla.... No longer shall you bring warriors to
my hall.... From the tribe of the gods you are cut off, rejected
from the eternal line.... Our tie is severed.... You are banished
from my face!" The sisters break into lamentation. "Upon this mountain
I banish you. In undefended sleep I shall seal you. Let the man
then capture the maid who finds her upon his road and wakes her."
The sisters endeavour to restrain him, pointing out that their
own honour will suffer from such a scandal. He rejects this on
the ground that they have nothing more whatever to do with the
faithless sister. "A husband is to win her feminine favor; masterful
man is henceforth to have her duty. By the fireside she shall sit
and spin, an object of scorn to all beholders!" Brünnhilde drops
at his feet, overwhelmed. Cries of horror and protest break from
the others; he drives them from his presence with the threat of a
similar fate to Brünnhilde's if they do not forthwith depart from
her, and keep afar from the rock where she suffers her sentence.
In a confusion of terror, which is not without the slightest point
of humour, the strong girls flee like leaves in the blast before
Wotan's menace,--and Brünnhilde is left alone to plead her poor
cause with the stern incensed father.
She conjures him first to silence his anger, and define to her
the dark fault which has impelled him to reject the most loyal
of his children. "I carried out your order," she protests. "Did
I order you to fight for the Wälsung?" he inquires. "You did,"
she reminds him. "But I took back my instructions." "When Fricka
had estranged you from your own mind.... Not wise am I, but this
one thing I knew, that the Wälsung was dear to you. I was aware of
the conflict which compelled you to turn from the remembrance of
this.... I kept in sight for you that which, painfully divided in
feeling, you must turn your back upon. Thus it was that I saw what
you could not see. I saw Siegmund. I stood before him announcing
death. I met his eye, I heard his voice, I apprehended the hero's
ineffable distress.... I witnessed that which struck the heart
in my bosom with awe and trembling. Timid and wondering I stood
before him, in shame. I could think only how I might serve him....
And confidently counting upon an intimate understanding of him who
had bred that love in my heart,--of that will which had attached
me to the Wälsung,--I disobeyed your command!"
Wotan, in meeting this, shows how he is not merely a father dealing
with a disobedient child, but a man in strife with himself, with
his own will which has betrayed him into following affection,
inclination, when duty called for an opposite course. "If thy right
hand offend thee, cut if off and cast it from thee." Brünnhilde
is to Wotan that offending flesh and blood, and the safety of the
future depends, it seems, upon his breaking his own heart by cutting
her off from himself. She has done what his heart would have had
him do; but for interests whose claim upon him is in his estimation
greater than that of affection (_einer Welt zu Liebe_: for the sake
of a world), he had elected not to follow his heart's impulse. And
this delinquent, daughter at once and his own will, must not only
be punished for the example of all the disobedient, but cut off
from himself, to provide absolutely against any possible repetition
of the so lovable and forgivable offence.
Brünnhilde, when she has heard him out, has no word further of
argument or defence, but acquiesces with sad submissiveness. "Certainly
the foolish maiden is no fit helpmate for you, who, confused by
your amazing counsel, did not understand your mind, when her own
mind prompted one thing only: to love that which you loved!" She
accepts the punishment as just, only: "If you are to sever that
which was bound together," she pleads, "to keep apart from yourself
the very half of yourself, that I was once completely one with
you, O god, forget it not! Your immortal part you cannot wish to
dishonour. You cannot intend an ignominy which involves you....
Yourself you would be degraded, if you gave me over to insult!"
"You followed, light of heart, the call of love," Wotan replies
unconcedingly: "follow now him whom you must love!" "If I must
depart from Walhalla, if I am to be your companion and servant
no more," Brünnhilde pressingly continues, "if my obedience is
to be given to masterful man, not of a coward and braggart let
me be the prize! Let him not be worthless who shall win me!" "You
cut yourself off from Walvater," he repulses her; "he cannot choose
for you!" "A noble generation there is, having its origin in you--"
Brünnhilde suggests, still unquelled, the point is so vital to her;
"the most admirable of heroes, I know it, is to spring from the
line of the Wälsungen...." "Not a word of the Wälsungen!" Wotan
fiercely interrupts. "When I severed from you, I severed from them.
Doomed to destruction is that line!" Sieglinde has been saved,
Brünnhilde informs him, who shall give birth to the Wälsung of
whom she speaks. Wotan sternly silences her: let her not seek to
shake his firmness. He cannot choose for her! He has loitered too
long already. He cannot stop to consider what her wishes are, nothing
further has he to do with her but to see his sentence executed.
What has he devised for her punishment, she asks.
He repeats his earlier sentence: "In deep sleep I shall seal you.
He who awakes the defenceless sleeper, shall have her to wife."
Brünnhilde falls on her knees to him. "If I am to be bound in fast
sleep, an easy prey to the most ignoble of men, this one prayer
you shall grant which a noble terror lifts to you: Let the sleeper
be protected by a barrier of fright-inspiring things, that only
a fearless and great-hearted hero may be able to reach me on my
mountain-peak!" "Too much you demand! Too much of favour!" She
clasps his knees, and with the wildest inspiration of terror: "This
one prayer you must--must listen to! At your command let a great
fire spring up. Let the summit be surrounded by fierce flames,
whose tongues shall lick up and whose teeth shall devour any caitiff
venturing near to the formidable place!" So is her whole soul heard
to cry aloud in this prayer, as she pleads for so much more than her
life, that all by which Wotan had fortified himself against her,
and which had been subjected to an assault so prolonged, suddenly
gives way, his weary heart is pierced. Overcome by emotion, he
lifts her to her feet; he gazes long into her eyes, reading her
soul there,--then amply, fully, with the whole of his overflowing
heart, grants her prayer: "Farewell, O dauntless, glorious child!
Holy pride of my heart, farewell! Farewell! Farewell! If I must
shun you, if I am never more fondly to greet you, if you are no
more to ride at my side, or reach me the cup of mead; if I am to
lose you whom I so have loved, O laughing joy of my eyes--a bridal
bonfire shall blaze for you such as never yet blazed for a bride! A
flaming barrier shall girdle the rock; with burning terror-signals
it shall frighten away the coward. The fainthearted shall keep afar
from Brünnhilde's rock. That one alone shall win the bride, who
is freer than I--the god!" In a speechless ecstasy of gratitude,
Brünnhilde sinks on his breast, and he holds her long silently
clasped, while there floats heavenward as if the very voice of
their relieved, pacified, uplifted hearts. Supporting her in his
arms, gazing tenderly in her upturned face, he takes his last leave
of her. There is a passage in Wotan's farewell which seems to contain,
compressed into it, all the yearning ache of all farewells, with
all the sweetness of the love which makes parting bitter. "For the
last time.... Farewell.... The last kiss...." These words occur
upon it. The motif it seems of the tragedy of last times; one wonders
could custom ever so harden him to it that he should feel no clutch
at the heart in hearing it. "For the last time I appease myself with
the last kiss of farewell.... Upon a happier mortal the star of
your eye shall beam. Upon the unhappy Immortal it must, in parting,
close. For thus does the god turn away from you, thus does he kiss
away your divinity!" He presses a long kiss upon each of her eyes,
and the first languor of sleep falling at once upon her, she leans,
without strength, against him. He supports her to a mossy knoll
beneath a spreading pine-tree, and lays her gently upon it; after
a long brooding look at her face, closes her helmet; after a long
look at her sleeping form, covers it with the great Valkyrie shield;
places her spear beside her, and with a last long sad look at the
slumbering motionless figure, turns away,--having effectually desolated
himself of the three dearest of his children.
Resolutely striding from the sleeper, he summons Loge, and commands
him in his original form of elemental fire to surround the
mountain-summit. At the shock of his spear against the rock, a
flame flashes and rapidly spreads. With his spear Wotan traces
the course the fire is to follow, girdling the peak. Nimbly it
leaps from point to point, till the whole background is fringed
with flame. At Wotan's words, "Let no one who is afraid of my spear
ever break through the fiery barrier!" there falls, prophetic,
across the dream of Brünnhilde's charmed sleep, the great shadow
of the Deliverer, so distant yet in time, Siegfried, who when the
hour came of test was found to fear Wotan's spear as little as
he feared anything else.
With that firm spell placed upon his magnificent and adequate fence,
Wotan departs; and, guarded by the singing flames, which weave
into the rhythm of their bright dance the tenderest of lullabies,
Brünnhilde is left to her long rest.