[He runs into the forest.
MIME [Greatly alarmed.
Stop, boy! Stop, boy!
Whither away?
Hey! Siegfried!
Siegfried! Hey!
[He looks after the retreating figure for some time in astonishment; then he goes back to the smithy and sits down behind the anvil.
He storms away!
And I sit here:
To crown my cares
Comes still this new one;
My plight is piteous indeed!
How help myself now?
How hold the boy here?
How lead the young madcap
To Fafner's lair?
And how weld the splinters
Of obstinate steel?
In no furnace fire
Can they be melted,
Nor can Mime's hammer
Cope with their hardness.
[Shrilly.
The Nibelung's hate,
Need and sweat
Cannot make Nothung whole,
Never will weld it anew.
[Sobbing, he sinks in despair on to a stool behind the anvil.
WANDERER (WOTAN)