Thou must always
Trust what I tell thee.
I am thy father
And mother in one.
SIEGFRIED
Thou liest, filthy old fright!
The resemblance 'twixt child and parent
I often have seen for myself.
I came to the limpid brook,
And the beasts and the trees
I saw reflected;
Sun and clouds too,
Just as they are,
Were mirrored quite plain in the stream.
I also could spy
This face of mine,
And quite unlike thine
Seemed it to me;
As little alike
As a fish to a toad:
And when had fish toad for its father?
MIME [Very angrily.
How canst thou talk
Such terrible stuff?
SIEGFRIED [With increasing animation.
Listen! At last
I understand
What in vain I pondered so long:
Why I roam the woods
And run to escape thee,
Yet return home in the end.
[He springs up.
I cannot go till thou tell me
What father and mother were mine.
MIME