We are henceforth to observe Wotan in his conduct when brought face to face with the consequences of his violations of moral law. That conduct it is which reflects the real tragedy in "The Niblung's Ring." Bound by the contract whose runes were cut in the haft of his spear, the god could not again possess himself of the ring, which was now become doubly a menace. If it were again to fall into the hands of Alberich, whom he had so cruelly wronged, the desire for vengeance would spur that mischievous Niblung to seize the dominion which had been forfeited. To prevent such a catastrophe, Wotan would beget a new race of beings and endow them with a magic sword. This was to be the extent of his activity in the development of his plot. As a Volsung he wandered through the forests with Siegmund, his son born of woman. At an early age this son had lost his mother and been separated from his twin-sister. Then his father left him mysteriously to be seasoned to his task by hardships. At the climax of his distress, the culmination of his need, he was to arm himself with the divine sword which the god had thrust up to the hilt in a tree, around which was built the hut of that very enemy of the Volsung race, who had carried off the sister and married her against her will. The achievement of the sword was to be the sign of Siegmund's fitness for the enterprise. Of his own free-will the divinely-begotten hero was to acquire the ring, and rid the world of the curse by restoring it to its rightful owners. How vain a plot! The first step in its development shatters the whole elaborate fabric! Both of the children forfeit their lives to outraged law; the god is compelled to destroy the very agencies on which he had built his hopes. The curse under whose fatal influence he had fallen because of wrong-doing was not to be averted by so shallow a subterfuge; but even if such an outcome had been possible, the plan would have split on the rock of newly offended morality.
In this outline of the contents of "Die Walküre" I have but hinted at its incidents, yet we have before us a whole vast act of the Wotan tragedy, and one, too, that is pregnant with consequences to the tragical scheme of the myth-maker. I do not ask that the occasional interpretations of Wagner's music which I attempt be accepted as literal expositions of the composer's purposes; but we can benefit in our understanding of the scope and progress of his tragedy by discovering symbols for its great philosophical moments in the musical investiture. In this view of the case observe how appropriate is the instrumental introduction to the first act. We have gone beyond the hand-books in seeing a reflection of the purity and quietude of the Golden Age in the introduction to the prologue. Its antithesis is presented in the introduction to the first drama of the trilogy. Again Wagner makes nature reflect the mental and moral states of his personages. Again he presents a musical mood-picture. And again the musician is invited to discover that, in spite of the contrast between the objects of his musical delineation, the technical means resorted to are the same. There the peacefully undulating major harmonies over a sustained bass note—a pedal-point, if you will—pictured the age of sinlessness; the harmlessness of the untainted, uncoveted virgin gold; the gentle flux and reflux of the element in which it was buried; the careless innocency of its unsuspicious and playful guardians. Here wildly flying minor harmonies under a sustained note—again a pedal-point—picture the storm which buffets the exhausted, unprotected Siegmund, and impels him to seek refuge in Hunding's hut.
If this parallel is merely fanciful, it at least invites such an exercise of the fancy in the listeners as will better help them to appreciate the interdependence of the arts which Wagner consorts in his dramas than any amount of structural dissection and analysis. If you wish you may note that in addition to the music which aims merely at imitative delineation of a thunder-storm (the rushing figure in the basses, the incessant staccato patter of the sustained note, the attempts to suggest flashes of lightning in short and rapid figures in the high register of the instruments, the crashing and rumbling of thunder, and the howling of the wind in the chromatic passages), the music also presents a pompous phrase with which, in the scene of the prologue where Thor created the rainbow bridge, the Thunderer summoned the elements to his aid, and at the close a heavy-footed phrase which may be identified with the weary Siegmund.
If these two preludes be accepted as broadly and comprehensively delineative of moods in the theatre and personages of the play, another significant parallel will now present itself. It was to a phrase which has the rhythm afterwards associated with the Niblungs in their capacity as smiths (see Chapter I.)—the hammering rhythm—that Alberich disclosed his wicked nature and resolve when he shook his fist at the nixies. Observe how the element of danger to the Volsung pair is introduced in the first scene of the tragedy. It enters with the sinister Hunding, who, as the unconscious instrument of Fate and Fricka's vengeance, brings death to Siegmund. In the music which precedes Hunding's entrance there are only strains of pathetic tenderness which invite sympathy for the unhappy children of Wotan, and which we are asked by the analyst and commentator to associate with the compassion which they feel for each other, and the growth of that feeling into the more ardent emotion of love. The phrase which ushers in Hunding is in sharp contrast; if is gloomy in harmony and orchestration, and publishes the evil in his heart, not only by its dark colors, but also by employing the threatening rhythm which Alberich used against the Rhine daughters. The incidents which serve to complete the first great step in the drama so far as Wotan, the hero, is concerned, can now be hastily reviewed. Hunding discovers his guest to be the enemy of his race; the laws of hospitality protect him for the night, but he must fight on the morrow. Siegmund's need has reached its climax. But Sieglinde, after putting Hunding to sleep with a draught, returns to him and discloses the mystery of the sword. Mutually they confess their love, and discover their relationship in the moment when the magic sword is won. A new thought prevents that terrible discovery from checking the progress of their passion. The race of the Volsungs must be perpetuated. If you want to learn how powerful an element this thought is in the old legend from which Wagner borrowed the episode, you must study it in the Volsunga Saga, where it is consorted with elements which largely atone for the features so offensive and so much criticised in Wagner's drama. There Signy (Wagner's Sieglinde) desiring to avenge herself on her husband Siggeir (Hunding), who had murdered all the race but her and Sigmund, and kept her in loveless wedlock, tried in vain to rear a son of sufficient hardihood to perform the deed of vengeance. At last, fearful that the Volsungs might become extinct, she changed semblance with a witch-wife, and in this guise visited Sigmund at his hiding-place in the woods. When their son grew to manhood he and his father avenged Signy's wrongs. But when they offered her great honors Signy told Sigmund: "I went into the woods to thee in witch-wife's shape, and Sinfjötli (Siegfried) is the son of thee and me both; and therefore has he this great hardihood and fierceness, because he is the son of Välse's son and Välse's daughter. For naught else have I so wrought that King Siggeir might get his bane at last; and merrily now will I die with the King though I was naught merry to wed him;"[E] and she entered the burning palace and died with the King and his men. The motive here is the same as in the objectionable episode in Wagner, but it is presented more forcibly and, at the same time, less offensively—or, at least, with less show of moral depravity. But the sin is speedily expiated. Fricka, the patron goddess of marriage, demands that Siegmund shall become her victim; and Fricka's right cannot be gainsaid by the representative of Law. Wotan pronounces the oath that Fricka demands. The Volsung is doomed; the plan of the god frustrated. The first act of the tragedy is complete; the second stage of the development of Wotan's tragical character is entered upon. These are the essential features of that stage:
In despair the god surrenders his plan, invokes the consequences of his guilty deed, and pronounces a blessing on the inimical agency which has been established for his punishment. He turns his longing gaze towards that outcome of the terrible conflict in which he became involved because of his greed of power, which his own wisdom, clarified by the mystic words of Erda, recognizes as inevitable.
Unhappily for the popular understanding of the tragedy, the scene in which this stupendously significant phase in the celestial action of the drama is disclosed is one that is generally sacrificed to theatrical exigencies. It is presented in the long address in which Wotan countermands the order previously given for the death of Hunding, and commands that the death-mark be placed on Siegmund. From this recital we learn that the Valkyrior had been born to Wotan by Erda as part of his scheme to perpetuate his dominion. They were to fill Valhalla with heroes against the great battle which he knew would come. We also learn that as Wotan had begotten a new race, in the hope of preventing the baneful ring from falling again into the hands of Alberich, so Alberich, in turn, had begotten a son to labor for its return. But as Alberich had foresworn love, he wooed a woman with gold. Again, here in the counter-plot, the greed of gold usurps the place sanctified to love. Thus there are pitted against each other the Volsungs, beloved progeny of the god, and Hagen (whom we shall meet actively engaged in the contest later), the loveless offspring of the Niblung. And the demi-god it is who is doomed. Wotan is called upon to perform his act of renunciation. As things go in the theatre, his recital is thought overlong and undramatic, and the thoughtless laugh at the spectacle of a sad god. Can we forget that it is at this supreme moment that the god embodies that which is at once the loftiest and the most profoundly melancholy conception of the Germanic conscience? He recognizes the necessity and the justice of the destruction of his race. Listen to his words:
"Begone, then, and perish,
Thou gorgeous pomp,
Thou glittering disgrace
Of godhood's grandeur!
Asunder shall burst
The walls I built!
My work I abandon,
For one thing alone I wish—
The end—
The end—"
(He pauses in thought.)
"And to the end
Alb'rich attends!
Now I perceive
The secret sense
Of the Vala's 'wildering words:
'When Love's ferocious foe
In rage begetteth a son,
The night of the gods
Draws near anon.'"[F]