Siegfried now falls in with Hagen's plan. He agrees to go through the fire and get Brünnhilde for Gunther, provided he, in return for the service, receives the hand of Gutrune. There is no talk of a futile attempt on the part of Gunther to penetrate the flames. Siegfried and Gunther swear blood-brotherhood, and the two start for the Valkyr's rock, where, with the help of the Tarnhelm, they are to exchange shapes, as in the saga. Hagen, left alone, gloats over the fact that Siegfried will bring him the ring. Once more the scene changes to the Valkyr's rock, and we meet with an episode in the story entirely original with Wagner, an episode of great beauty and significance. Brünnhilde hears once again the sounds of the passage of a wind-horse, a Valkyr steed. A moment later her sister, Waltraute, is clasped in her embrace. Why has she broken Wotan's command against visiting Brünnhilde? Waltraute says she has fled hither from Walhalla in anguish. "What has befallen the eternal gods?" asks Brünnhilde, in fear. Then Waltraute gives a majestic description of the last gathering of the gods in Walhalla, as already narrated in the Norns' scene. Deep dismay has fallen on the gods. Wotan has sent his ravens out to seek for tidings. This, according to the Eddas, he did daily. Waltraute, weeping on her father's breast, has heard him say:
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"The day the Rhine's three daughters Gain by surrender from her the ring, From the curse's load Released are gods and men." |
This is why Waltraute has come. Wotan dare not act, does not dream of doing so; for the atonement must be the work of a free agent. But a Valkyr is a wish-maiden, Wotan's will, and so Waltraute, like Brünnhilde in "Die Walküre," strives to realise her father's wish. Will Brünnhilde give back the ring? But Brünnhilde is no more a virgin Valkyr, a mere daughter of the gods. She is a beloved and loving woman. The ring is Siegfried's bridal gift. Perish the world; perish the eternal gods; but the ring shall not leave her finger where love kissed it into place. Even as Brünnhilde speaks, the orchestra sings the motive of Renunciation, for, as Waltraute flees in despair, the fire springs up in defence of Brünnhilde and the beguiled Siegfried comes in the Tarnhelm, wearing the face and form of Gunther, to wrest the ring from her and make her the bride of the son of Gibich. This is tremendous tragedy; tenfold more tremendous than anything that entered the minds of the sagamen or the fashioners of the "Nibelungen Lied." The Waltraute scene, accentuating, as it does, Wagner's connection of the Nibelung ring with the burden of guilt resting on the gods, presents in a powerful light the human tragedy leading to the restoration of the ring to its rightful owners. Furthermore, the scene is essential to a complete understanding of the character of Brünnhilde in the final drama of the series. The last despairing appeal of Waltraute for the Aesir meets with an answer which fully exhibits the change wrought in Brünnhilde. When Wotan put her to sleep, saying, "So küsst er die Gottheit von dir," he was the familiar Wotan of the trilogy, planning, but seeing only half the issue of his plan. When Siegfried laid the kiss of human love upon the virgin lips of the Valkyr, he it was who truly kissed the godhood from her, and left her with a wholly human disregard for the fading Aesir. All she has given for love, and now comes a second claimant for her. Stricken with horror and shame, she is driven into the cavern. Siegfried, following, announces that his sword shall lie between them.
The second act brings us back to the castle of Gunther. Hagen, still watching, is visited by Alberich, who urges him to persistence. Alberich's speeches impress upon us two important points, namely: that the curse cannot fall upon Siegfried, because he is ignorant of the powers of the ring, and therefore does not use them; and, secondly, that if he should give the ring back to the Rhine maidens no art could fashion a new one. Both of these ideas are Wagner's. The first is a natural outgrowth of the ethical basis of the drama; the second was doubtless suggested by the old legends, which always finish the story of the hoard by returning it to the waters. Siegfried returns and announces his success, quieting the fears of Gutrune by telling her that his sword lay between him and Brünnhilde. Here we have an alteration of the original stories to suit modern taste. In the legends there was no question of the relations of the disguised Siegfried and Brünnhilde, and they existed with the consent of Gunther. But in Wagner's drama it is made plain to us that Siegfried was loyal in the modern sense, though he used an ancient symbol of honour, the sword.
Gunther arrives with Brünnhilde, and she, seeing Siegfried there with Gutrune, at once suspects treachery. She perceives the ring on Siegfried's finger, and demands an explanation as to how he came by the circlet which Gunther had wrenched from her hand the previous night. This episode of the ring is entirely different, as the reader will note, from those of the Volsunga Saga and the "Nibelungen Lied." But it had to be so, because Wagner had already omitted the incident which, in the sources of his story, led to Siegfried's presenting the ring to his wife. Brünnhilde's questions about the ring evoke no satisfactory answers, and she bursts out with the charge that not Gunther, but Siegfried married her. "He forced delights of love from me!" she cries. Siegfried avows that his sword lay between them. But Brünnhilde is talking of a night long previous to that just passed, a night of which only she and Siegfried should know, but which he, under the influence of the drink, has forgotten. Brünnhilde knows that her hearers are ignorant of that night, but she is bent upon implicating Siegfried, and she lets the assembly believe that she is speaking of the night just passed. Much good ink has been spilled over this scene, one party contending that Brünnhilde was guilty of deceit, and the other that Siegfried had been false to his trust. The intent of the scene is, it seems to me, perfectly plain, but to quiet all doubts we may go to Wagner's own sketch, "The Nibelung Myth as Sketch for a Drama." He describes this point thus:
"Siegfried charges her with shamelessness: faithful had he been to this blood brothership,—his sword he laid between Brünnhilde and himself:—he calls on her to bear him witness. Purposely, and thinking only of his ruin, she will not understand him."
In a speech of double meaning, she declares that the sword hung in its scabbard on the wall on the night when its master gained him a true love. Siegfried swears to his truth on the point of Hagen's spear, calling upon it to pierce him if he is false. This is a purely theatric touch. This spear does pierce him, yet was he not false. Brünnhilde swears upon the same spear that Siegfried has committed perjury. Thereupon Siegfried lightly says that she is daft, and bids the guests to let the festivities proceed. Brünnhilde now suspects some deviltry, but her runic wisdom is gone and she cannot fathom it. But she can and does confide to Hagen that she had made her hero invulnerable, except in the back. Gunther discerns that he has been dishonoured, yet he is loath, for his sister's sake, to be revenged upon Siegfried. This makes Brünnhilde all the more furious, and she readily assents to Hagen's proposition that Siegfried must die. The vacillating Gunther is overcome. Hagen shouts in triumph; the ring and the power will soon be his.
The last act shows the Rhine maidens sporting on the surface of the water in a little cove of the river. Siegfried, hunting and strayed from his party, appears on the rocks above them. They beg him to return the ring, and he is almost on the point of doing so when they warn him of its curse. He refuses to be scared into parting with it. This meeting with the Rhine maidens is not found in any of the old stories, because the ring which causes the trouble in "Götterdämmerung" is not in any way associated in the legends with the end of the gods. In both the Thidrek Saga and the "Nibelungen Lied," Hagen is warned of an evil by mermaids, and this may barely have suggested this scene, which so accentuates the immediately succeeding tragedy of Siegfried's death.
The hunting party arrives, and to cheer the gloomy Gunther Siegfried volunteers to tell the story of his youth. All this is original with Wagner. The hero narrates the incidents of the drama "Siegfried" to a wonderful epitome of its music, up to the slaying of Mime. Then Hagen administers an antidote to the drink of forgetfulness, and the hero reveals his discovery of Brünnhilde. Gunther is shocked as he realises Hagen's perfidy. Wotan's ravens fly past, and Hagen calls on Siegfried to interpret their tones. As the hero turns his back, Hagen drives the spear into it. Siegfried dies apostrophising his Valkyr love. To the strains of the great funeral march, the body is borne back to the home of the Gibichs, and laid at the feet of Gutrune, who is told, as in the Thidrek Saga, that a wild boar slew her lord. She accuses Gunther, who promptly denounces Hagen. The Nibelung demands the ring; Gunther opposes him; they fight, and Gunther is slain. Hagen reaches for the ring, but the dead hand of Siegfried rises in solemn warning, and sends him staggering back in terror. At this juncture Brünnhilde, who, as we vaguely learn from the text, has heard the truth from the Rhine maidens, enters the hall, a picture of outraged majesty.
After informing Gutrune that she was never the real wife of Siegfried, Brünnhilde sums up the dénouement of the entire tragedy in a speech which must be carefully read by anyone desiring thoroughly to understand Wagner's design. She perceives the whole of Wotan's plan, and upbraids him for throwing on a guiltless man the curse of his own crime. Let the ravens tell Wotan that his plan is accomplished. And let the weary god have rest. She takes the ring from Siegfried's finger, and places it upon her own. When she is burned with him on the funeral pyre, the Rhine maidens may get the ring again. And now fly home, ravens. Pass by the Valkyr's rock and bid the flickering Loge once more visit Walhalla, for the dusk of the gods is at hand, and with this torch will the bride of Siegfried fire the towers of Asgard. Then she addresses the wondering retainers and bids them, when she is gone, to put aside treaties and treacherous bonds as laws of life, and in their place to let Love rule alone. With her steed, Grani, she mounts Siegfried's funeral pyre. The flames rise to heaven. Upon the Rhine are seen the three maidens, one of them holding aloft the ring. Hagen madly springs into the water after the accursed bauble, and is drawn under by the maidens and drowned. The sky blazes and we see the assembled gods, as described by Waltraute, sitting in the burning Walhalla. It is the "Götterdämmerung."