[372] The extracts in verse are, unless otherwise stated, from the translation by W. N. Lettsom, London, 1890. Werner Hahn's Uebersetzung has also been used.
[373] From Carlyle's translation of fragments of the poem.
[CHAPTER XXIX]
THE RING OF THE NIBELUNG
284. Wagner's Tetralogy. In his famous Ring of the Nibelung the German composer, Richard Wagner, returns to the Norse version of the stories recounted in the chapter preceding this. He is responsible not only for the musical score of the four operas of which the Ring consists, but for the text and scenic arrangement as well. As musical dramas the four plays constitute the grandest series of the kind that the world possesses. But even if they were not wedded to such music, the Rhine-gold, the Valkyrie, the Siegfried, and the Twilight (or Dusk) of the Gods would be entitled, for creative invention, imaginative insight and power, and poetic diction, to rank with notable dramas, ancient or modern. The tetralogy (or series of four) presents the whole story of the accursed Nibelung gold, from that dawn when it was wrested from the daughters of the Rhine to that dusk when it was restored, having wrought meanwhile the doom of Nibelungs, Volsungs, and the gods themselves.
285. The Rhine-gold. We are at the bottom of the Rhine: a greenish twilight, and moving water, and everywhere sharp points of rocks jutting from the depths. Around the central rock three Rhine-daughters swim, guarding it carefully, but laughing and playing, and chasing one the other as they guard. To them from a chasm climbs Alberich, the Nibelung, he who in the old Norse lay was known as Andvari. He views the maidens with increasing pleasure. He addresses them, he clambers after them, he strives to catch them; they lure him on, they mock him and escape his grasp; he woos them each in turn, all unsuccessfully. He gazes upward—"Could I but catch one"; then once more failing, remains in speechless rage. Rage soon transformed to wonder: for through the water from above there filters a brightening glow, a magical light, streaming from the summit of the central rock where in the splendor of the morning sun the Rhine-gold laughs a-kindle.
"What is it, ye sleek ones,
That there doth gleam and glow?"[374]
Has he never heard of the Rhine-gold? they ask. Of the wondrous star whose glory lightens the waves? He has not. He scorns it.
"The golden charm," cries one of the maidens,—
"The golden charm
Wouldst thou not flout
Knewest thou all of its wonders."