[[Listen]]
"What troubles Brünnhilde?" composedly asks Siegfried, from whom all memory of his first meeting with the rock maiden and his love for her have been effaced by the potion. Then, observing that she sways and is about to fall, he supports her with his arm.
"Siegfried knows me not!" she whispers faintly, as she looks up into his face.
"There stands your husband," is Siegfried's reply, as he points to Gunther. The gesture discloses to Brünnhilde's sight the ring upon his finger, the ring he gave her, and which to her horror Gunther, as she supposed, had wrested from her. In the flash of its precious metal she sees the whole significance of the wretched situation in which she finds herself, and discovers the intrigue, the trick, of which she has been the victim. She knows nothing, however, of the treachery Hagen is plotting, or of the love-potion that has aroused in Siegfried an uncontrollable passion to possess Gutrune, has caused him to forget her, and led him to win her for Gunther. There at Gutrune's side, and about to wed her, stands the man she loves. To Brünnhilde, infuriated with jealousy, her pride wounded to the quick, Siegfried appears simply to have betrayed her to Gunther through infatuation for another woman.
"The ring," she cries out, "was taken from me by that man," pointing to Gunther. "How came it on your finger? Or, if it is not the ring"—again she addresses Gunther—"where is the one you tore from my hand?"
Gunther, knowing nothing about the ring, plainly is perplexed. "Ha," cries out Brünnhilde in uncontrollable rage, "then it was Siegfried disguised as you and not you yourself who won it from me! Know then, Gunther, that you, too, have been betrayed by him. For this man who would wed your sister, and as part of the price bring me to you as bride, was wedded to me!"
In all but Hagen and Siegfried, Brünnhilde's words arouse consternation. Hagen, noting their effect on Gunther, from whom he craftily has concealed Siegfried's true relation to Brünnhilde, sees in the episode an added opportunity to mould the Gibichung to his plan to do away with Siegfried. The latter, through the effect of the potion, is rendered wholly unconscious of the truth of what Brünnhilde has said. He even has forgotten that he ever has parted with the ring, and, when the men, jealous of Gunther's honour, crowd about him, and Gunther and Gutrune in intense excitement wait on his reply, he calmly proclaims that he found it among the dragon's treasure and never has parted with it. To the truth of this assertion, to a denial of all Brünnhilde has accused him of, he announces himself ready to swear at the point of any spear which is offered for the oath, the strongest manner in which the asseveration can be made and, in the belief of the time, rendering his death certain at the point of that very spear should he swear falsely.
How eloquent the music of these exciting scenes!—Crashing chords of the Ring Motive followed by that of the Curse, as Brünnhilde recognizes the ring on Siegfried's finger, the Motive of Vengeance, the Walhalla Motive, as she invokes the gods to witness her humiliation, the touchingly pathetic Motive of Brünnhilde's Pleading, as she vainly strives to awaken fond memories in Siegfried; then again the Motive of Vengeance, as the oath is about to be taken, the Murder Motive and the Hagen Motive at the taking of the oath, for the spear is Hagen's; and in Brünnhilde's asseveration, the Valkyr music coursing through the orchestra.
It is Hagen who offers his weapon for the oath. "Guardian of honour, hallowed weapon," swears Siegfried, "where steel can pierce me, there pierce me; where death can be dealt me, there deal it me, if ever I was wed to Brünnhilde, if ever I have wronged Gutrune's brother."