Part III
SIEGFRIED
Motif of Mime’s Meditation
PRELUDE
When Sieglinde ran into the woods with the pieces of the broken sword, Nothung, she took shelter in a cave where a wicked old dwarf lived alone. There a little boy was born. But Sieglinde had never thoroughly recovered from the shock of her husband’s death. The way through the woods had been difficult, and she had endured great hardships; so one day she called the Dwarf to her and gave him the broken sword, telling him to keep it for her son until he grew old enough to have a weapon of his own, and she told the Dwarf that she was Sieglinde, and that her husband had been Siegmund, the Volsung, and she finally said that she wanted the child to be named Siegfried; then she sank back and died. And so Siegfried, who was a very little baby then, never, really, saw either his father or mother.
The only father he knew, as he grew older, was the Dwarf, who was none other than Mime, Alberich’s half-brother. And he could not help knowing that Mime was wicked and sly, though the Dwarf pretended to love his foster-son, and tried to arouse some love in return.