(DIE GOETTERDAEMMERUNG)
I
In the Prologue of "The Twilight of the Gods" we learn from report
the portion of Wotan's history which belongs between the breaking
of his spear and the final events which bring about the gods' end.
At the rising of the curtain the three Norns are dimly discerned
upon the well-known scene of Brünnhilde's sleep, before the entrance
to the rocky hall where Siegfried and she have their dwelling. The
fiery palisade around their fastness casts a faint glow upon the
night. The Norns, as it were to while away the heavy hour before
dawn, spin and sing. Their "spinning" consists in casting a golden
coil from one to the other, after some peculiar ritual, involving
fastening it to this pine-tree, winding it about that point of
rock, casting it over the shoulder, northward. Their song is of no
frivolous matter, but as if we should entertain ourselves recounting
the Creation, the Fall of Man, the Deluge. Of the World-Ash they
tell, in whose shade a well flowed, murmuring runes of wisdom; of
a daring god who came to drink at the well, paying in toll one
of his eyes. From the World-Ash, he, Wotan, broke a branch and
fashioned it into the shaft of a spear. This he carved with runes
of truth to compacts, and held it as the "haft of the world." An
intrepid hero clove it asunder. Wotan thereupon commanded the heroes
of Walhalla to hew down the World-Ash and cut it to pieces. "High
looms the castle built by giants," sings the youngest of the Norns;
"there in the hall sits Wotan amid the holy clan of the gods and
heroes. Wooden billets heaped to a lofty pile surround the room.
That was once the World-Ash! When the wood shall burn hot and clear,
when the flame shall devour the shining hall, the day of the end
of the gods shall have dawned!" Wotan himself, when the danger
is no longer to be averted of a dishonoured end,--if Alberich,
that is, shall regain possession of the Ring,--will plunge the
splinters of his defeated spear deep into Loge's breast and himself
set the World-Ash ablaze.
As night begins to yield to dawn, confusion falls on the minds of
the Norns; their visions, they complain, are dim. The strands of
the coil become tangled between their fingers. One of them descries
an angry face--Alberich's--floating before her; another becomes
aware of an avenging curse gnawing at the threads of the coil.
This suddenly snaps--terrific omen! Appalled, with the cry that
"eternal wisdom is at an end," they vanish in search of their mother,
Erda, in the earth's depths.
Day breaks. The reflection of Loge's defence pales. There greets
our ear suddenly a sturdy strain, resembling something we have heard
before. By analysis, we discover in it one of the Siegfried-motifs,
the horn-call, but grown so robust and weighty, so firm, strong,
commanding, that it hardly more than reminds us of the youthful
Lock-weise, fluttering forth hopefully to find a "dear companion."
The dear companion has long been found. Hard upon this motif of the
grown-up Siegfried comes a wholly new motif, the motif of Brünnhilde
Wedded, wonderful for its entwining tenderness, yet the elevation
it combines with its immensely feminine quality. It is given over
and over; the instruments pass it from one to the other, like a
watchword.
The two thus announced come forth into the sunrise from their chamber
in the rock, Siegfried full-armed, Brünnhilde leading Grane. They
are glorious in this scene of parting. A nobler passion we do not
remember hearing expressed than animates them and the music which
interprets their being. It is all a little more than life-size.
"To new exploits, beloved hero, how poor were my love, did I not
let you go! One single care restrains me, fear of the insufficiency
of all I could bestow. What I learned from the gods I have given
you, a rich treasury of holy runes, but the maidenly staff of my
strength the hero took from me, before whom I now bow. Despoiled
of wisdom, though filled with desire to serve; rich in love, but
devoid of power, oh, despise not the poor lover who can only wish
you, not give you, more!"
But not all the wisdom of the Wala's daughter, not the rich treasury
of runes, have availed to change Siegfried from his big incurable
simplicity,--as his answer in effect declares: "More did you give
me, wonder-woman, than I have capacity to retain! Be not angry that
your teaching should have left me still untaught. One knowledge
there is which I, none the less, hold fast: that Brünnhilde lives
and is mine; one lesson I learned with ease: to think ever of
Brünnhilde!"
The gift she asks of his love is that he shall think of himself,
think of his great deeds, increase his glory. He bestows on her
in leaving the Ring, in which the virtue is condensed of all great
deeds he ever did. In exchange she gives him Grane. After offering
each other, in their great mood, the consolation that to part is
for them not to be parted, for where he goes there in very truth
goes she, and where she remains there does he too abide, they call
upon the gods to feed their eyes upon the dedicated pair they are,
and with jubilant appellations for each other--Victorious light!
Effulgent star! Radiant love! Radiant life!--the last good words
ever exchanged between them!--they tear apart, without sorrow or
foreboding. She watches him out of sight. The stage-directions
say: "From her happy smile may be divined the appearance of the
cheerfully departing hero." The emphatic phrase is heard, as he
descends into the valley, in which at their first meeting (in the
opera "Siegfried") they vowed that each was to the other "eternally
and for ever, his inheritance and his possession, his only and
his all!" The curtain closes on the Prologue.
By the music we can follow Siegfried on his journey. We know when
he comes to the fire, when he comes to the Rhine. There floats
to us, with the effect of a folk-song, a legend, the lament of
the Rhine-nymphs for their lost gold. Sounds of warning are in
the air as Siegfried approaches the Hall of the Gibichungen, but
to such the hardy hero, no need to say, is fast sealed.
The curtain unclosing shows the interior of the Hall of the Gibichungen,
open at the further end on the Rhine. Gunther, his sister Gutrune,
and their half-brother Hagen, sit at a table set with drinking-horns
and flagons.
This Hagen is the Nibelung's son of Erda's prophecy: "When the
dark enemy of Love shall in wrath beget a son, the end of the gods
shall not be long delayed." An allusion of Hagen's there is to
his mother, as having succumbed to the craft of Alberich. On the
other hand, a reference of Gunther's to Frau Grimhild, his mother
and Hagen's, would seem to show that her history, whatever it may
have been, bore no outward blot.
He is early old, this "child of hate," as Wotan long ago called
him, sere and pallid, totally unglad and hating the glad. He is the
tool created by Alberich--even as Siegmund was Wotan's tool,--to win
back for him the Ring. From his Nibelung father he has more than human
powers and knowledge. In the conversation which we overhear between
the brethren, we witness Hagen laying lines for the recapture of the
Ring and Siegfried's destruction, for he, like Mime, understands
that there can be no safety for him who shall unrightfully get from
Siegfried the Ring, while the strong-handed fellow lives.
Gunther--whose motif betrays him, with its little effect of shallow
self-satisfaction, like a jaunty toss of the head,--Gunther asks
Hagen, is he not magnificent, sitting beside the Rhine; to the
glory of Gibich? "It is my habit," remarks Hagen evasively, "to
envy you." "Nay, for me it is to envy you, and not you me," Gunther
in his pleasant humour rejoins; "true, I inherited the right of
the first-born, but wisdom is yours alone, and I am, in fact, but
lauding your good counsel when I inquire of my fame!" "I blame
the counsel then," speaks Hagen, "for indifferent is as yet the
fame. I know of high advantages which the Gibichung has not yet
won...." Gunther's inquiry he satisfies: "In summer ripeness and
vigour I behold the stem of Gibich: you, Gunther, without wife,--you,
Gutrune, still unwed." Gunther and Gutrune, struck, are silent a
moment. Then Gunther inquires whom should he wed that lustre might
be added to the glory of the House? "I know a woman," Hagen replies,
"the most glorious in the world. On a high rock is her throne; a
fire surrounds her abode; only he who shall break through the fire
may proffer his suit for Brünnhilde." Gunther's mediocrity and
his sense of it stand ingenuously confessed in his question: "Is my
courage sufficient for the test?" "The achievement is reserved for
one stronger even than you." "Who is this unparalleled champion?"
"Siegfried, the son of the Wälsungen.... He, grown in the forest to
mighty size and strength, is the man I wish Gutrune for her lord."
Gutrune's motif, sweet and shallow, like Gunther's betrays her; an
innocent admission of mediocrity, too, is in her exclamation: "You
mocker! Unkind Hagen! How should I be able to attach Siegfried
to me?" She is unsure of her feminine charm as her brother of his
manly courage. As he finds nothing repugnant in the proposition
to win his bride through another, so she accepts to win her love
through a magic potion. Gunther, Gutrune, and Hunding are the only
plain human beings in the drama of the Ring, and certainly they produce
the effect of rampant creatures among winged ones. Acquiescently
Gutrune hears Hagen's suggestion: "Remember the drink in the cupboard;
trust me who provided it. By means of it, the hero whom you desire
shall be bound to you by love. Were Siegfried now to enter, were
he to taste the spiced drink, that he ever saw a woman before you,
that ever a woman approached him, he must totally forget!" Thus
they have it planned: Siegfried shall by a love-potion be won to
Gutrune, and, as a task by which to obtain her from her brother,
shall be deputed to fetch Brünnhilde for him from her flame-surrounded
heights. Hagen is alone, of the three, to know of the tie existing
between Siegfried and Brünnhilde. But, "How shall we find him?"
very pertinently asks Gunther. While storming light-heartedly about
the world in search of adventures, it can hardly be, Hagen judges,
but that he shall come too to Gibich's shore on the Rhine. Even
while he is speaking, Siegfried's horn is heard in the distance.
Hagen from the riverside describes the figure he sees approaching:
"In a boat, a hero and a horse: he it is, so merrily blowing the
horn. By an easy stroke, as if with an idle hand, he drives the
craft against the stream." (We hear that easy stroke of the idle
hand,--the power and gaiety of Siegfried are in it; it has a family
resemblance to the horn-call.) "So vigourous a hand at the swinging
of the scull he alone can boast who slew the dragon. It is Siegfried,
surely no other!" Hagen makes a speaking-tube of his hands: "Hoiho!
Whither, blithesome hero?" "To the strong son of Gibich!" comes
answer from the river. "Here! Here come ashore! Hail, Siegfried,
beloved hero!" The hero lands. As he stands at the entrance, holding
Grane by the bridle, with the unconstraint of ancient manners they
all quietly before speaking take one another's measure with their
eyes. Siegfried's fame has preceded him. He is known as the slayer
of the dragon, the possessor of the Hort, and commander of the
Nibelungen. "Which is the son of Gibich?" he inquires. Gunther
presents himself. "I heard you lauded far down the Rhine," Siegfried
says; and, with the fresh directness again of ancient manners:
"Either fight with me, or be my friend!" As we see him for the
first time among common mortals, we perceive the effect of high
elegance which pertains to Siegfried's calm, his careless perfect
strength and simplicity. Gutrune who has not removed her marvelling
gaze from him since his entrance, withdraws--to prepare the drink.
As Hagen takes his horse to stable, Siegfried charges him, while
a dear memory sings in his heart: "Take good care of Grane for
me. Never did you hold by the bridle a horse of nobler breed!"
Magnificent is Gunther in expressions of welcome to the great guest:
"Joyfully hail, O hero, the Hall of my fathers! The ground you
tread, all you see, regard as your own. Yours is my inheritance,
yours are my land and my people. To these add my body. I offer
myself as your vassal." Siegfried replies: "I offer neither land
nor people; no father's mansion nor court. My sole inheritance is
my own body, which I expend day by day in living. Nothing have
I but a sword, forged by myself.... This I pledge with myself to
our alliance." Hagen, overhearing, ventures; "Yet report calls
you possessor of the Nibelungen-Hort...." And Siegfried; "I had
almost forgotten the treasure, so do I prize its idle wealth! I
left it lying in a cave where it once was guarded by a dragon." (The
reason is clear why the curse must drop away crippled, powerless
to blight this free nature, unenfeebled by covetousness as by fear!)
"And you brought away no part of it?" "This metal-work, unaware of
its use." Hagen recognises the Tarnhelm and explains its virtues.
"And you took from the Hort nothing further?" "A ring." "You have
it no doubt in safe keeping?" "It is in the keeping of a gracious
woman," Siegfried replies dreamily.
Bashful, blushing, tremulous, as different as is well possible from
Brünnhilde, Gutrune approaches, holding a filled drinking-horn.
"Welcome, guest, in Gibich's house! His daughter offers you drink!"
Siegfried holds the cup before him a moment without drinking, his
thoughts flying afar. The words come back to him spoken to Brünnhilde
at parting. An infinite tenderness invades him. "Though I should
forget all you ever taught me," he murmurs, "one teaching I shall
still hold fast. My first draught, to faithful love, Brünnhilde,
I drink to you!" With which secret toast to the absent beloved
he sets the horn to his lips and drains it--to the motif of Evil
Enchantment, the motif of the Cup of Forgetfulness, closely resembling
the Tarnhelm-motif, but sweeter,--cruel as a treacherous caress.
This whole passage, surpassingly exquisite to the ear, is painful
to the heart as hardly another in the opera, fertile as this is
in tragic moments. It marks the end of so much happiness.
When Siegfried's eyes, as he returns the cup to Gibich's daughter,
rest upon her, it is, as Hagen had foretold, as if he had never
before beheld a woman. The inflammable heart which suffocated him
of old at sight of Brünnhilde asleep, now makes his voice falter
with instantaneous passion as he exclaims: "You, whose beauty dazzles
like lightning, wherefore do you drop your eyes before me?" And
when shyly she looks up: "Ha, fairest woman, hide your glance!
Its beam scorches the heart within my breast--Gunther, what is
your sister's name?... Gutrune!... Are they _good runes_ which I
read in her eye?..." Impetuously he seizes her hand; "I offered
myself to your brother as his vassal, the haughty one repelled me;
will you exhibit the same arrogance toward me, if I offer myself
as your ally?" She cannot answer, for the confusion of joy which
overwhelms her; signifying by a gesture her unworthiness of this
high honour, with unsteady step she leaves the room. Siegfried,
closely observed by the other two, gazes lingeringly after her,
fast-bewitched. Some sketch of a project for winning her it must
be prompting his next words: "Have you, Gunther, a wife?" "Not
yet have I courted, and hardly shall I rejoice in a wife! I have
set my heart upon one whom no well-advised endeavour can win for
me!" "In what can you fail," speaks Siegfried's brisk assurance, "if
I stand by you?" "Upon a high rock is her throne, a fire surrounds
her abode," Gunther in hopeless tone describes the forbidding
circumstances. "Upon a high rock is her throne, a fire surrounds
her abode,..." Siegfried rapidly says the words after him, which
his lips know so strangely well. "Only he who breaks through the
fire..." "Only he who breaks through the fire,..." Siegfried is
visibly making a tremendous effort to remember, to account for
the something so curiously familiar in the image evoked. "May be
Brünnhilde's suitor...." By this, the cup of forgetfulness has
completely done its work,--the name suggests to him nothing, the
effort itself to remember is forgotten. "But not for me," sighs
Gunther, "to climb the rock; the fire will not die down for me!"
"I fear no fire! I will win the woman for you," Siegfried declares,
"for your man am I, and my valour is yours, if I may obtain Gutrune
for my wife!" Gutrune is promised him. It is Siegfried's heated
brain--for the first time fruitful in stratagem--which throws off
the plan to deceive this strange woman up in the fire-girdled fastness
of whom they tell him, by means of the Tarnhelm, which lends the
wearer any shape he wish to adopt. The future brothers swear
"blood-brotherhood," pledging their truth in wine, into which each
has let trickle a drop of his blood. "If one of the brothers shall
break the bond, if one of the friends shall betray his faithful
ally, let that which in kindness we drink to-day by drops gush
forth in streams, sacred reparation to the friend!" They clasp
hands upon the compact, and Hagen with his sword cleaves in two
the drinking-horn. "Why," it occurs to Siegfried, "did not you,
Hagen, join in the oath?" "My blood would have spoiled the drink,"
replies the joyless man; "it does not flow noble and untroubled
like yours; cold and morose it stagnates in me, and will not colour
my cheek. Wherefore I keep afar from the fiery league." The ancient
conception of the power of a vow, as of the power of a curse, is
interestingly illustrated in this story. The effectiveness of a vow,
as we discover, has nothing to do with persons or circumstances; an
oath becomes a sort of independent creation with a precise operation
of its own. Hagen, capable of any breach of faith, meditating nothing
but treachery, dare not join in the formality of the oath because of
sure and deadly danger in breaking it. Siegfried deceives Gunther
without intending or knowing it, yet his blood must "gush forth
in streams" as appointed, to wash out his offence.
Siegfried is for starting without delay on the quest: "There is
my skiff; it will take us quickly to the rock; one night you shall
wait in the boat on the shore, then shall you lead home the bride."
The Hall is left in Hagen's care. Followed by Gutrune's eyes, the
heroes hurry off. Hagen places himself with spear and shield in
the doorway, and, while sitting there sentinel-wise, reflects upon
the success of his devices: "Blown along by the wind, the son of
Gibich goes a-wooing. Helmsman to him is a strong hero, who is to
brave danger in his stead. His own bride this latter will bring
for him to the Rhine, but to me he will bring--the Ring! You frank
good fellows, light-hearted companions, sail cheerfully on! Abject
though he may seem to you, you are yet his servants--the servants
of the Nibelung's son!" The curtain closes.
When it reopens we see the scene once more of Siegfried's and
Brünnhilde's leave-taking. Brünnhilde sits sunk in contemplation of
the Ring and the memories attached to it. Distant thunder disturbs
her dreams; her ear seizes a familiar sound, not heard for many a
day, the gallop of an approaching air-horse. Her name comes borne
on the wind. She rushes to receive Waltraute, whose call she has
joyfully recognised. In her delight, she does not at once take
account of the Valkyrie's sorrowful and preoccupied mien. She presses
rapid questions upon her: "You dared then for love of Brünnhilde
brave Walvater's commandment? Or--how? Oh, tell me! Has Wotan's
disposition softened toward me? When I protected Siegmund against
the god, while it was a fault, I know that I was fulfilling his
wish. I know, too, that his anger was appeased, for even though he
sealed me in slumber, left me bound on a rock, to be the bondmaid
of the man who should find and wake me, yet he granted favour to
the prayer of my terror, he surrounded the rock with a devouring
fire which should close the way to the base. Thus was I through my
punishment made happy! The most splendid of heroes won me for wife.
In the light of his love to-day I beam and laugh!" With uncontrolled
joy she embraces the sister, unconscious of the latter's impatience
and shy attempt to repel her. "Did my fate, sister, allure you?
Have you come to pasture your sight upon my bliss, to share that
which has befallen me?"
The suggestion is verily too much! "To share the tumult which,
insensate, possesses you? A different matter it is which impelled
me, fearful, to break Wotan's commandment...." Brünnhilde wakes
to the sister's troubled looks, but she can still think of but
one reason for them. "The stern one has not forgiven? You stand
in terror of his anger?" "Had I need to fear him--there would be a
term to my fear!" "Amazed, I do not understand you!" "Master your
agitation, listen attentively. The terror which drove me forth
from Walhalla, drives me back thither...." "What has happened to
the eternal gods?" cries Brünnhilde, at last alarmed. Waltraute
unfolds to her then the sorrowful plight of the gods, making her
even over the events in Walhalla since her cutting off from the
eternal dynasty. She describes Walvater returning home from his
wanderings with his broken spear, the erection around the Hall
of the Blessed of the funeral pile cut from the World-Ash, the
assembling about Wotan's throne of the gods and heroes. "There he
sits, speaks no word, the splinters of the spear clenched in his
hand. Holda's (Freia's) apples he will not touch. Fear and amazement
bind the gods. His ravens both he has sent ranging; should they
return with good tidings, then once again--for the last time!--the
god would divinely smile. Clasping his knees lie we Valkyries;
he is blind to our entreating looks. I pressed weeping against
his breast, his glance wavered--Brünnhilde, he thought of you!
Deeply he sighed; he closed his eyes and as if in dream he breathed
forth the words: "If to the daughters of the deep Rhine she would
restore the Ring, delivered from the weight of the curse were the
gods and the world!" I bethought me then; from his side, between
the rows of silent heroes, I stole. In secret haste I mounted my
horse and rode upon the storm to you. You, oh, my sister, I now
conjure: that which lies in your power, bravely do it,--end the
misery of the Immortals!"
Brünnhilde speaks to her pityingly and gently; it is so long since
she emerged from the vapour-dimmed atmosphere of her heavenly home
that she receives no clear impression, she owns, of the affair
related to her; but: "What, pale sister, do you crave from me?"
"Upon your hand, the ring--that is the one! Listen to my counsel,
for Wotan's sake cast it from you!" "The ring? Cast it from me?"
"To the Rhine-daughters give it back!" "To the Rhine-daughters,
I, this ring? Siegfried's love-token? Are you mad?"
Brünnhilde is unshaken by Waltraute's insistence. Good or bad arguments
have nothing to do with the case, as it stands in her feeling.
Indignation possesses her at the bare notion of the exchange proposed
to her, out of all reason and proportion: Siegfried's love, of
which his ring is the symbol, for Walhalla's and the world's peace!
"Ha! do you know what the ring is to me? How should you grasp it,
unfeeling maid? More than the joys of Walhalla, more than the glory
of the Immortals, is to me this ring; one look at its clear gold,
one flash of its noble lustre, I prize more than the eternally
enduring joy of all the gods, for it is Siegfried's love which
beams at me from the ring! Oh, might I tell you the bliss.... And
that bliss is safeguarded by the ring. Return to the holy council
of the gods; inform them, concerning my ring: Love I will never
renounce; they shall never take love from me, not though Walhalla
the radiant should crash down in ruins!" When Waltraute with cries of
"Woe!" flees to horse, she looks after her unmoved: "Lightning-charged
cloud, borne by the wind, go your stormy way! Nevermore steer your
course toward me!" She has no regrets; the request has been in
her judgment so monstrous that it has hardened and shut her heart
toward those who made it. She gazes quietly over the landscape. Her
sense of security in Siegfried's love is no doubt at its firmest
in these moments following her fiery defence of it, her sacrifice
to it of old allegiances. The very peace of possession is upon
her.
Twilight has fallen; the guardian fire glows more brightly as the
darkness thickens. Of a sudden, the flames leap high,--Loge's signal
that some one draws near. At the same moment Siegfried's horn is
heard, approaching. With the cry: "In my god's arm!" Brünnhilde
rushes to meet him.
A figure springs from the flames upon a rock, a form foreign to
Brünnhilde's eyes. The flames drop back. The figure remains, dark
against the dim glow of the sky. His head and the greater part of
his face are concealed by a helmet of curious fashion; she does
not, in the uncertain light, recognise the Tarnhelm. The fact itself
of his being there is terrifying, arguing some singular treachery
somewhere. "Treason!" is Brünnhilde's first cry, as she recoils and
from a distance stares breathlessly at the sinister intruder. He
stands motionless, leaning upon his shield and regarding her. "Who
is it that has forced his way to me?" she gasps. He is silent still;
the horror of him is increased by his silence and motionlessness
and his metal mask. The motif of evil enchantment is woven through
the whole of this scene. In a hard masterful voice he speaks at
length: "Brünnhilde! A suitor is come whom your fire does not alarm!
I seek you for my wife; follow me unresistingly." It is all so
strange, so like the agonising impossibilities of a dream,--Brünnhilde
falls to trembling. "Who are you, dreadful one? Are you a mortal?
Do you come from Hella's army of the night?" Still watching her,
motionless on his point of vantage, he replies: "A Gibichung am
I, and Gunther is the hero's name, whom, woman, you must follow."
It flashes upon Brünnhilde that this, this must have been the true
point of Wotan's punishment. When the figure springs from the rock
and approaches her, she raises, to hold him off, the hand with
Siegfried's ring. "Stand back! Fear this sign!... Stronger than
steel I am made by this ring; never shall you rob me of it!" "You
teach me," he replies, with his dark calm, "to detach it from you!"
He reaches for it, she defends it. They wrestle. She escapes from
him with a victorious cry. He seizes her again. The former Valkyrie,
reinforced by the Ring, is a match very nearly for the stalwart
Wälsung. A shriek is heard. He has caught her hand, and draws the
ring from her finger. As if all her strength had been in it and
were gone with its loss, she sinks, broken, in the arms of the
disguised Siegfried. He coldly lets her down upon the seat of rock.
"Now you are mine, Brünnhilde,--Gunther's bride. Withhold not your
favour from me now!" She cowers, shattered and stupefied, murmuring,
"How could you have helped yourself, miserable woman!" The right of
the stronger she recognises, primitive woman, as a right. Fairly
vanquished, she must accept the fate of battle,--no dignity, as no
success, would pertain to further struggle. When with a gesture
of command he points her to her stone chamber, trembling and with
faltering step she obeys. Siegfried, following, draws his sword
and in his natural voice again, smooth and happy, addresses it:
"Now, Nothung, do you bear witness to the restraint which marks
my wooing. Guarding my truth to my brother, divide me from his
bride!"