Fafner and Siegfried—
Siegfried and Fafner—
Might each the other but slay!
[He disappears in the wood on the right.
SIEGFRIED
[Stretches himself at his ease under the lime-tree, and looks after Mime as he departs.
He is no father of mine!
How merry of heart I feel!
Never before
Seemed the forest fair;
Never day
Wore as lovely a smile,
For the loathed one has gone at last,
To be looked on by me no more.
[He meditates in silence.
My father—what was he like?—
Ha! like me, without doubt.
Had Mime by chance had a son,
He would have been
Mime's image:
Quite as disgusting,
Filthy and grey,
Small and bent,
Hunchbacked and halting,
With ears long and hanging,
Rheumy eyes running—
Off with the fright!
To see him makes me sick!
[He leans further back and looks up through the branches of the tree. Deep silence. Woodland murmurs.
What could my mother,
I wonder, be like;
That is not
So easy to picture.