Part 7 (1/2)
As Mi seizes the poor little sed horse his terrorjaws; and the sound of a rushi+ng approach for the h the underbrush With the cry: ”The dragon is upon me! Fafner!
Fafner!” he cowers behind the anvil
The alar with characteristic impetuosity to ask for his sword ”Hey, there!
Lazy-bones! Have you finished? Quick! What success with the sword?”
Mi-place: ”Is it you, child? Are you alone?” Siegfried for some time can draw no satisfactory answer froht between two difficulties, and s try to think out for himself the safest course of action
Only by one who has never known fear can Nothung, the indispensable, be forged ”Too wise am I for such work!” he soliloquizes On the other hand, his wise head is forfeit to one who has never learned fear Of the two difficulties, the latter is obviously the one to be first attended to Siegfried fills the description dangerously well of the foretold fatal enemy ”How shall I contrive to teach hifried, irritated by his continued hesitation, finally catches hold of hied and furbished to-day?” ”With no care but for your welfare,” answers Miht as to how I should instruct you in a thing of great ihs Siegfried; ”what of great importance did you discover there?” ”I there learned fear for your sake, that I fried asks ”You know nothing about it, and you are thinking of going from the woods out into the world? Of what use to you would be the strongest sword, if you had no knowledge of fear? Into the crafty world I shall not let you fare before you have learned fear” ”If it is an art, why am I unacquainted with it? Out with it! What about fear?” ”Have you never felt,”--asks Miestion of his oords falls to quaking, ”have you never felt, in the dark woods, at twilight, when there are sounds in the distance of rustling, huusts sweep past, disorderly fire-wisps flicker around you, a swelling confused sound surges toward you,--have you not felt a shuddering horror seize upon your li chill shakes your fra in your breast ha?
If you have never felt these things, fear is unknown to you!” The h which we recognise, as if under a disguise veiling so of its beauty, the motif of Brunnhilde's sleep If one looks for reasons, one can suppose the reference to be, as to a type of fearful things, to the terror-inspiring barrier surrounding Brunnhilde; and ifried should eventually learn it, is the sensation suspending the heart-beats at sight of a beautiful wofried has listened to Mily must that be! My heart, I feel, stands firlowing and shi+vering, turning hot and turning dizzy, ha for that delight! But how can you, Miuide you to soon; he has slain already and sed many; Fafner will teach you fear, if you follow me to his lair” ”Where is his lair?” ”Neidhohle it is called
(_Neid:_ envy; _Hohle:_ cavern) Eastward it lies at the end of the wood” ”Then it is not far from the world?” ”The world is close by” ”You are to take me there, and when I have learned fear, away, into the world! So quick! Giveit out in the world!” Mime confesses that he neither has mended, nor ever can th is equal to it More likely,” he suggests, ”one who knows no fear fried, heartily weary of Mi: ”Here, the pieces! Aith the bungler!
My father's steel doubtless will let itself be welded by e the sword!” And he falls to work ”If you had taken diligent pains to learn the art, it would now, of a truth, profit you,” remarks Mime; ”but you were always lazy at the lesson What proper work can you do now?” ”What the fried aptly retorts, ”the apprentice ht, if he had always minded him?
Take yourself off! Meddle not with this, or you may tumble with it into the fire!” He heaps fuel on the hearth, fastens the sword in a vice and starts filing it Mime watches him, and at this which looks like folly, cannot restrain the excla away the file!” But the disposition of the young felloithout fear shows in his hness he reduces the whole blade to steel filings Mime follows all his movements ”Now I a have I never seen! He will succeed with the sword, that I plainly apprehend
In his fearlessness he will make it whole The Wanderer kneell! Ho, shall I hide ered head? It is forfeit to the intrepid boy unless Fafner shall teach hion, if he learns fear fro for ht, unless I findunder cofried interrupts Mime's round into filings?” ”Nothung is the naave ing, a song of primitive character, of a kind hat one can suppose Tubal-cain singing at his ancient anvil
We see hi the h, breaking the plaster, heating the sword, ha the handle, polishi+ng the whole,--all of which actions his song celebrates: ”Nothung! Nothung! Notable sword!
(_Neidliches Schwert_ is literally ”covetable sword”) Why round your sharp s in the crucible Hoho! Hoho!
Hahei! Hahei! Blow, bellows, brighten the glow! Wild in the forest grew a tree I hewed it down, I burned the brown ash to charcoal
It lies heaped now on the hearth The coals of the tree, how bravely they burn, how bright and clear they gloard they fly in a spray of sparks and ! Notable sword! Your powdered steel is , soon I shall swing you ashis own problem, and has hit upon a plan which seefried, beyond a doubt, will forge the sword and kill Fafner While he is tired and heated from the encounter, Mi, a few drops of which will plunge the boy into deep sleep, when, with the weapon he is at this , Mi and treasure Enchanted with his inspiration, he sets to work at once preparing the so at the top of his lungs: ”In the water flowed the streaer, but the cold tamed and chilled it; in the water it flows no more, stiff and hard it is become, the lordly steel--but hot blood will bathe it soon
Noeat again that I ht of Mi utensils ”There is a wise s inquiry; ”the teacher receives lessons from his pupil; all is up with art for the old one, he will serve the young one as cook! While the young one s!” With impish relish of the inwardness of the situation, he stirs the fried proceeds with his work and his singing; ”shape, my hammer, a hard sword! Blood once dyed your pallid blue, its trickling red brightened you, you laughed coldly, you cooled off the hot liquid Now the fire has low red, your soft hardness yields to the hary sparks at me, because I have taer adorns the brave You are gaily laughing at ry and sullen Hoho! Hahei! By means of heat and hammer I have achieved it, with stalwart blows I have shaped you; now let the red shame vanish, become as hard and cold as you can”
Mireatness which is to follow upon his acquisition of the Ring He fairly skips up and down as he thinks of it all: Brother Alberich hi at the nod of his, Mime's, head No , Prince of the Nibelungen, lord over all! Hei, Mi! Notable sword!” harfried; ”now you are fast in your hilt You were in two, I have forced you into one No blow after this shall break you In the dead father's hand the steel snapped, the living son forged it ane its bright gleae cuts clean
Nothung! Nothung! Young and renewed! I have brought you back to life You lay dead there, in frag, defiant and brave! Show caitiffs your gleam! Strike the traitor!
Fell the villain!” He waves over his head the finished sword: ”Look, Mis it down upon the anvil, which falls apart, cleft from top to bottom Mime tumbles over with amazement
II
The next scene shows the woods before Fafner's cave It is night
Alberich is di his dark thoughts, as he keeps covert watch over the treasure He is startled by what seeust of wind This defines itself as a galloping gleah the forest ”Is it already the slayer of the dragon?” he wonders; ”is it he, already, who shall kill Fafner?” A h the clouds reveals the for toward Neidhohle The enereatly alarry vituperation: ”Out of the way, shah!”
”I arandly ht of way?” Alberich, as if words of offence were actually missiles, showers them thick upon the unth of his own position compared with Wotan's, in whose hand that spear of his must fly to pieces should he break a covenant established as sacred by the runes carved on its shaft Wanderer, a shade weary of such a berating, yet losing little of his placidity, retorts: ”Not through any runes of truth to covenants did nant, to th; I carefully keep it therefore for purposes of war”
”How haughtily do you threaten in your defiant strength,” the rabid Alberich continues, ”yet how uneasy is all within your breast
Doouardian of the treasure
Who will inherit from him? Will the illustrious Hort coht gnaws you with unsleeping care For, let ain in this fist, far otherwise than thick-witted giants shall I e; then let the holy keeper of the heroes trehts of Walhalla I shall storovern!” Tranquilly Wotan receives this: ”I know your , but it creates inwho obtains it” This calives Alberich the idea that the God must, so to speak, have cards up his sleeve
”On the sons of heroes,” he suggests ironically, ”you place your insolent reliance, fond blosso fellow--not so?--who cunningly shall pluck the fruit which you dare not yourself break off?” ”Not with er threatens you through your brother He is bringing to this spot a youth who is to slay Fafner for hi uses him for his own purposes Wherefore, I tell you, comrade, do freely as you choose!” Alberich can scarcely believe that he has heard aright ”You will keep your hand from the treasure?”
Serenely and broadly, Wotan declares--a touch of that tenderness in his tone which the thought of the Walsungen always has power to arouse--”Whom I love I leave to act for himself: let him stand or fall, his own lord is he I have no use save for heroes!” This sounds very fair; to Alberich almost too fair He presses Wotan with further questions The answers are elusive as oracles, but satisfy Alberich of thusTo point his personal disinterestedness, the God even offers to wake the dragon, that Alberich er and peradventure receive in token of gratitude--the Ring! We suspect in this Wotan's taste for a joke, unless it be an exhibition of that other trait of the God's, the need to gratify his conscience with a comedy of fairness At this ; but he is confidently watching the play of forces set working by hifried ar its iinally from him At thishave cast their shadows across the sensitive consciousness of an at tiard to the fate of the Ring To Alberich's mystification, he actually rouses Fafner ”Who disturbs my sleep?” comes a hollow roar froiants, slightly altered so that instead of the ponderous tread of the brothers it suggests the antic sinister heart Wotan and Alberich explain to the dragon his danger and indicate whatheard the lazy comfortable yawn ”I lie and possess! Let hs ”Well, Alberich, the plan failed But abuse , I further enjoin you, keep well inis after its kind, and this kind you cannot alter!”
The broad Erda-motif accompanies this maxim ”Take a firm stand! Put your skill to use with Mime, your brother He is of the kind you understand better What is of a different kind, learn now to know, too” When Wotan disappears, the galloping is heard, through the storitates the leaves of the forest, of his rising Luft-ross His obscure last words have left Alberich puzzled, sorer and angrier than ever The air is full of curse-motif