III.
It was an inevitable consequence of the structure of the Northern mythological system that the gods should lose their primeval sinlessness. Before the mind of the Northern myth-maker, as before the minds of the Athenians, who erected the altar on Mars-hill "to the Unknown God," there hovered a dim apprehension of a First Cause of all being, older and more puissant than the gods whom he conceived as reigning. As Zeus and his fellows reigned by reason of having overthrown Cronos and the dynasty of the Titans, so Wotan and his fellows reigned by reason of conquest and treaty. In consequence, there was a perpetual struggle between the sky-dwellers, the mountain-dwellers, and the earth-dwellers—the gods, giants, and dwarfs—for dominion. This lust for power it was that caused the downfall of the gods. Dormant within the radiant gold, buried in the Rhine and guarded by the daughters of the Rhine, lay the secret of universal dominion. In the Golden Age no one courted it because there was no need. But when the greed of power and gain asserted itself, the gold was a prize to be sought after and bought at any price. The first change in the stage picture still leaves us the spirit of purity and innocency undisturbed. The Rhine daughters, whose duty it is to guard the magical gold, are careless creatures, as well they may be, for, though warned, they have never seen danger approach their treasure. Floating up and down, they sing and gambol with each other as they swim around the jagged rock, their song being as undulating as the element in which they live. They partake in their nature of that element, and the melodies with which they are associated are imitative of watery movements.
The beginning of the end of the Golden Age was dated by the old poets from the time when three giantesses were admitted among the gods. They were the Nornir, the Fates, whose deep thoughts were given respectively to the past, present, and future. The entrance of a stranger into the domains of the Rhine daughters is also the signal for the introduction of evil into the drama. The representative of this evil principle is Alberich, the Niblung—one of the race of dwarfs; musically his mischievous character, his restless energy, and his strangeness to the element in which he finds himself is told by the orchestra in the abrupt, jerky music to which he enters, and which accompanies his slipping and sliding on the slimy rocks of the river's bottom. Alberich's aims were simply lust. To the nixies he is merely amusing. They engage him in tormenting dalliance till he utters an imprecation against them and shakes his fist. He forgets his anger at his pretty tantalizers, however, when a new spectacle falls upon his sight. The sunlight, piercing the water, has fallen upon the gold, which lies in the cleft of a rock and now begins to glow. The increasing refulgence is seen and heard simultaneously, for as the new light floods the scene, singers and orchestra break out into a ravishing apostrophe to the gold.
Now we reach the point where the ethical contest, at the bottom of the entire tragedy, is first foreshadowed. The nixies, rendered careless by the long uselessness of their watch, prattle away the secret that universal power would be the reward of him who would seize the gold and fashion it into a ring:
"The realm of the world
By him shall be won,
Who from the Rhine gold
Hath wrought the ring,
Imparting measureless might."
But the power to fashion the ring can only be obtained by one willing to renounce the delight and happiness of love:
"Who the delight of Love forswears,
He who derides its ravishing joys,
He alone has the magic might
To shape the gold to a ring."
The issue is joined. Here Love and contentment in the Niblung's lot; there the prospect of power universal and lovelessness. The dwarf does not hesitate long. In the next scene the giants hesitate longer, and Wotan ponders longer than either whether the gold is worth the price demanded for it. But the Age of Innocency is past—all yield in turn to the lust for power, the greed of gain, which the gold promises to satisfy. The first step in the tragedy is taken. Alberich puts love aside forever and curses it. Then, in spite of the shrieks of the nixies, he seizes the gold and dives into the depths.
The light dies out of the scene. The bright song of the nixies runs out into minor plaints, and the orchestra discourses mournfully of the renunciation of love and the rape of the ring, until the scene changes from depths of the Rhine to the heights where Valhalla, newly built, stands in massive strength, gleaming in the morning sun.
We have witnessed the beginning of the struggle for dominion begun cunningly by a dwarf. Not the race of the Niblungs, but the race of giants had caused Wotan concern. Against them he thought to raise an impregnable fortress, and the cunning Loge, the representative of the evil principle in the celestial plot, had contrived to have the work done by two giants, to whom Wotan, at Loge's instigation, promised the goddess Freia as a reward, though Loge had privately assured him that he would never be called on to meet the obligation. The whole tale is borrowed by Wagner from Norse mythology.
Once upon a time, so runs the old story, an artisan came to the gods and offered to build for them a fortress which would forever shield them from the frost giants, if they would give him, in payment, Freya, the goddess of youth, beauty, and love, besides the sun and the moon. The gods agreed, provided he would do the work alone, and in the space of a single winter. When summer was but three days distant the castle was so nearly finished that the gods saw that the compact would be kept by the strange artisan. The imminent loss of Freya frightened the gods, and they threatened Loge with death if he did not prevent the completion of the work within the period fixed. The artisan had the help of a horse named Svadilfari, who drew the most enormous stones to the castle at night. Loge the next night decoyed the horse Svadilfari into the forest, so that the usual quota of work was not done. Then the mysterious workman appeared before the gods in his real form as a giant, and Thor killed him with a blow of his hammer. The Norse Freya is the Teutonic Freia. In Wagner's poem Freia is the reward which the giants Fafner and Fasolt expect for having built Valhalla in a single night. Loge had instigated the compact, and promised to relieve Wotan of the obligation of payment. But the giants carry Freia off and restore her only after Wotan and Loge have given the Niblung's hoard in exchange. To Freia, Wagner has given an attribute which, in Scandinavian mythology, belongs to Iduna. She is the guardian of the golden apples, the eating of which keeps the gods young. Iduna's apples the student of comparative mythology will at once identify with the golden apples which Hera received as a wedding-gift, and which were guarded by the Hesperides and stolen by Hercules. In the Norse story they are carried away by a winged giant named Thiassi, and brought back by Loge, who had tempted Iduna out of her beautiful grove "Always Young," in order that the giant might swoop down upon her and carry the apples away. Wagner gives these apples to Freia for the sake of a dramatic effect. The gods turn wrinkled and gray so soon as the giants carry off the goddess of youth and beauty.
Wotan has his Valhalla, but the giants demand their reward. Loge is summoned to extricate the god from the predicament in which his lust after power has plunged him. The god of fire and the restless representative of the destructive principle appears, and thereafter he is never absent long from the action. He pervades every scene, his red cloak fluttering, eyes, hands, feet, body moving synchronously with that fitful chromatic phrase which crackles and flashes and flickers through the orchestra whenever he takes part in the action. He has searched through the world for a ransom for Freia, and found but one creature who estimated anything higher than the beauty and worth of woman. It is Alberich who, having wrought a ring out of the magic gold, has bent the race of Niblungs to his will, and is now preparing to conquer universal dominion for himself. Thus a new danger threatens the race of gods. In this extremity Wotan listens to the advice of Loge and decides to possess himself of the Niblung hoard, that with it he may purchase the release of Freia, and "make assurance double sure." The two descend to the abode of the dwarfs. In Nibelheim the rocky caverns glow with the reflection of forge fires, and the ear is saluted with the clang of hammers falling upon anvils. Loge cunningly tempts the dwarf to exhibit the magical properties of the Tarnhelm (the cap of darkness), and when he assumes the shape of a toad the gods seize and bind him. Under the walls of Valhalla they compel him to ransom himself with gold for the giants and rob him of the ring. Then Alberich burdens it with a curse, introducing into the tragedy the poison which accomplishes the destruction of all its heroes, and remains a bane upon the earth till restitution is made and expiation achieved by the self-immolation of Brünnhilde.
The first fruits of the curse follow hard upon the heels of its utterance. The giants, ravished by the tale of the wealth of the Niblung treasure, exact it all as ransom for Freia. Wotan had aimed to keep the ring as another hostage for the future—with ring and fortress he would feel secure—but the giants demand, the runes upon his spear contain the pledge, and Erda warns. The ring is grudgingly surrendered, and at once its baneful effect is seen. The giants quarrel for its possession, and Fafner kills Fasolt with blows of his staff. Not till then does Wotan realize the deep significance of the warning words of Erda. A solemn duty, an awful task devolves upon him. Murder as well as theft lies at his door; with the ring a fearful curse has entered the world as a consequence of his wrong-doing; henceforth he must devote himself to the work of reparation. Mayhap the wrong may be righted by a restoration of the ring to the original owners of the gold. His own hands are bound, but he conceives a plan, of which the visible symbol is the magic sword. A new race shall arise, the sword shall aid it in obtaining the ring, and of its own will it shall return the circlet to the element from which lust for power wrested it. It is this creative thought which makes him pause with his foot upon the rainbow bridge, across which the celestial household have passed into Valhalla. The sword phrase flashes through the pompous music which is the postlude of the prologue.