"Fear the fell's defender! By my might the slumbering maid is held enchained. He who should wake her, he who should win her, mightless would make me forever. Go back, then, foolhardy boy!"
As the Wanderer speaks, the splendor spreads from the flame-girdled rock above.
"Go back thyself, thou babbler! There where the fires are blazing,—to Brünnhilde now must I hie!" And Siegfried pushes forward.
The Wanderer bars the way to the mountain: "Once already that sword of thine, Nothung, has broken on the haft of this sacred spear!"
"'Tis, then, my father's slayer!" thinks Siegfried; and nothing loath to face that foe, he raises the new-forged sword and strikes to pieces the All-father's spear!
"Fare on," says Wotan, quietly picking up the fragments, "I cannot withstand thee."
The god vanishes in darkness. The hero, light-hearted, blowing his horn, scales the cliffs, passes the fire,—wakes Brünnhilde. She, at first, with maidenly might struggles against his passion for her and her growing tenderness for him. She deplores the byrnie, shield and helm, symbols of her godhead, that he has torn from her. But, mortal now, she surrenders to a mortal's love:
"O Siegfried, Siegfried, child of delight,
Love thyself,—and turn thee from me;
Oh, bring not thine own to naught!"
And Siegfried:
"I—love thee: didst thou but love me!
Mine am I no more: oh, would that thou wert mine!...
Waken, O maid; live in laughter:
Sweetest delight, be mine, be mine!"