"DER RING DES NIBELUNGEN."
Beautiful and Enduring Legends are Universal Property.--Parallels
Between the Elements and Apparatus of
Mythological Tales.--The Grotto of Venus, the Garden
of Delight, Avalon, Ogygia, the Delightful Island.--Pope
Urban's Staff, the Lances of Charlemagne, Joseph's
Staff, and Aaron's Rod.--The _Tarnhelm_, the
Mask of Arthur, Helmet of Pluto.--The Holy Grail, the
Horn of Bran; Huon's Goblet, the Horn of Amalthea.--Invulnerability
of Achilles, Jason, and Siegfried.--The
Sword of Wotan, Arthur's Sword, Ulysses's Bow.--Siegfried's
Prototypes in Egypt, Greece, and Scandinavia.--Von
Hahn's _Arische Aussetzung und Rückkehr Formel_.--The
Celestial Plot in the Tragedy.--Wotan its Hero.--A
Contest Between Greed of Gain and Temporal
Power and Love.--Effect of the Curse.--Wotan's Vain
Plot.--The Force of Law.--Brünnhilde becomes the
Agent of Redemption by Becoming Simple, Loving
Woman.--The Progress of the Plot is from a State of
Sinlessness through Sin and its Awful Consequences to
Expiation.--Symbols for These Steps in "Das Rheingold."--The
Golden Age and the Instrumental Introduction.--Elemental
Music.--Erda and the Götterdämmerung.--Greek
and Teuton.--The Tragic Nature of the
Northern Mythological System.--Wotan's Effort to
Escape the Penalty of Violated Law.--A Plan Doomed
to Failure from the Start.--Wagner's Mood Pictures.--How
Nature Reflects the Discord Created by the God's
Wrong Doing.--Contrasted Pictures in Two Preludes
and First Scenes: the Peacefulness of the Golden Age,
the Storm which Buffets Siegmund.--Entrance of the
Sinister Element with Alberich and Hunding.--Agents
Created to Carry on the Contest: the Beloved Progeny
of the God, the Loveless Offspring of the Niblung.--Wotan's
Tragic Grandeur in the Moment of Despair.--Brünnhilde
the Embodiment of Wotan's Will.--The
God Destroys his Agents, but Unconscious Love Carries
on the Plot.--Siegfried.--The Forest Lad Achieves
Heroic Stature.--He Discloses that he is a Free Agent
by Shattering the Visible Symbol of the God's Power.--Wotan
Disappears for the Action and Awaits the End of
his Race.--The Miraculous in Wagner's Musical System.--The
Drink of Forgetfulness.--Brünnhilde Prizes Love
More than the Welfare of the Gods.--Outraged Love
Avenged.--The Catastrophe.--The Death March a
Hymn of Praise.--The Musical Symbol of the Ethical
Principle of the Tragedy Pages 112-161