Part 9 (1/2)
Have you coht upon estion is verily too much! ”To share the tumult which, insensate, possesses you? A different matter it is which impelled me, fearful, to break Wotan's commandment” Brunnhilde wakes to the sister's troubled looks, but she can still think of but one reason for theiven? You stand in terror of his anger?” ”Had I need to fear him--there would be a term to itation, listen attentively The terror which drove me forth from Walhalla, drives me back thither” ”What has happened to the eternal Gods?” cries Brunnhilde, at last alarht of the Gods,off fro hos with his broken spear, the erection around the Hall of the Blessed of the funeral pile cut fro about Wotan's throne of the Gods and heroes ”There he sits, speaks no word, the splinters of the spear clenched in his hand Holda's (Freia's) apples he will not touch Fear and a; should they return with good tidings, then once again--for the last ti his knees lie we Valkyries; he is blind to our entreating looks I pressed weeping against his breast, his glance wavered--Brunnhilde, he thought of you!
Deeply he sighed; he closed his eyes and as if in dreahters of the deep Rhine she would restore the Ring, delivered froht of the curse were the Gods and the world!” I bethought me then; from his side, between the rows of silent heroes, I stole In secret haste I mounted my horse and rode upon the storm to you You, oh, my sister, I now conjure: that which lies in your power, bravely do it,--end the misery of the Iently; it is so long since she eed from the vapour-dimmed atmosphere of her heavenly home that she receives no clear impression, she owns, of the affair related to her; but: ”What, pale sister, do you crave fro--that is the one! Listen to ? Cast it froive it back!” ”To the Rhine-daughters, I, this ring? Siegfried's love-token? Are you mad?”
Brunnhilde is unshaken by Waltraute's insistence Good or bad argu to do with the case, as it stands in her feeling
Indignation possesses her at the bare notion of the exchange proposed to her, out of all reason and proportion: Siegfried's love, of which his ring is the symbol, for Walhalla's and the world's peace!
”Ha! do you knohat the ring is tolory of the Iold, one flash of its noble lustre, I prizejoy of all the Gods, for it is Siegfried's love which beaht I tell you the bliss And that bliss is safeguarded by the ring Return to the holy council of the Gods; infor: Love I will never renounce; they shall never take love froh Walhalla the radiant should crash down in ruins!” When Waltraute with cries of ”Woe!” flees to horse, she looks after her uno your storrets; the request has been in her judgment so monstrous that it has hardened and shut her heart toward those who azes quietly over the landscape Her sense of security in Siegfried's love is no doubt at its fir her fiery defence of it, her sacrifice to it of old allegiances The very peace of possession is upon her
Twilight has fallen; the guardian fire glows htly as the darkness thickens Of a sudden, the flanal that sofried's horn is heard, approaching With the cry: ”In ure springs fron to Brunnhilde's eyes The flalow of the sky His head and the greater part of his face are concealed by a helht, recognise the Tarnhel soular treachery somewhere ”Treason!” is Brunnhilde's first cry, as she recoils and from a distance stares breathlessly at the sinister intruder He standsher ”Who is it that has forced his way to asps He is silent still; the horror of him is increased by his silence and motionlessness and his h the whole of this scene In a hard th: ”Brunnhilde! A suitor is come whom your fire does not alarly” It is all so strange, so like the agonising i ”Who are you, dreadful one? Are you a ht?” Still watching her, e, he replies: ”A Gibi+chung am I, and Gunther is the hero's name, whom, woman, you must follow”
It flashes upon Brunnhilde that this, this must have been the true point of Wotan's punishs from the rock and approaches her, she raises, to hold hi ”Stand back! Fear this sign! Stronger than steel I a; never shall you rob me of it!” ”You teach me,” he replies, with his dark calm, ”to detach it from you!”
He reaches for it, she defends it They wrestle She escapes froain The for, is aA shriek is heard He has caught her hand, and draws the ring froone with its loss, she sinks, broken, in the arfried He coldly lets her down upon the seat of rock
”Now you are mine, Brunnhilde,--Gunther's bride Withhold not your favour fro, ”How could you have helped yourself, nises, priht Fairly vanquished, she nity, as no success, would pertain to further struggle When with a gesture of co and with faltering step she obeys Siegfried, following, draws his sword and in his natural voice again, s, do you bear witness to the restraint whichmy truth to my brother, divide me froen once en sits as we left hiainst a pillar of the portal A burst ofbefore hien, my son? Are you asleep and deaf to my voice, whom sleep and rest have forsaken?” ”I hear you, harassed spirit; what e have you for my sleep?” Remember! remember! is the burden of Alberich's communication Be true to the task for the purpose of which you were created The old eneer to be feared; he has been ly to be kept in view is the destruction of this latter, and capture of the Ring in his possession Quickly itfor love of the Walsung; were she to bid hihters, for ever and ever lost were the gold!” ”The Ring I will have!” Hagen quiets the care-ridden Nibelung, ”rest in peace!” ”Do you swear it to en,over the sky The forht and his voice dies on the ear: ”Be faithful, Hagen, en sits alone in the broadening day, seely asleep, yet with eyes wide open He starts Flushed with the fried strides up frofried, winged hero, whence do you come so fast?” ”From Brunnhilde's rock I there took in the breath which I put forth in calling you,--so rapid was my journey A couple follows me more slowly Their journey is by boat Is Gutrune awake?”
”Now reets her, as at Hagen's call she cos!” In exuberantly good spirits he tells theht administered to him had more than destroyed hispotion had somehow blotted out, or covered over and for the tiround, his father's part in hiht to the end an unequal and losing battle to save a girl fro fire,” he concludes his report, ”through the mists of early dawn, she followed me from the mountain-top to the valley At the shore, Gunther and I, in a trice, changed places, and by virtue of the Tarnhel wind is even at theour dear pair up the Rhine” ”Let us display all kindness in our reception of her,” Gutrune proposes, with the generosity of overflowing happiness; ”that she en, su at Gibi+ch's court, while I will gather the wofried fondly offers her his help; hand in hand they go within
Hagen is conscious, presuenial office of gathering together the clans for a wedding-feast However that may be, he does not, to perfor to an ereat steer-horn, and, in a voice portending tidings the ives the call to arer! Danger!” In this he persists until froroups and lastly in crowds, the vassals, hurriedly ar ”Why does the horn sound? Why are we called to arer threatens?
What enemy is near? Who attacks us? Is Gunther in need of us?”
”Forthwith prepare, and dally not, to receive Gunther returning ho the announcement of disaster ”Is he in trouble? Is he hard pressed by the foe?” ”A fors home!” ”Is he pursued by the hostile kindred of the er then is past? He has coon-slayer succoured hifried, the hero, secured his safety” ”How then shall his followers further help hihter and let Wotan's altar streaen, are we to do after that?” ”A boar shall you slay for Froh, a hty ram for Donner; but to Fricka you shall sacrifice sheep, that sheto penetrate through Hagen's sullen aspect to his joke; with heavy playfulness they help it on ”And e have slaughtered the animals, what shall we do?” ”Fro-horn, pleasantly bri ine and mead” ”Horn in hand,--what then?” ”Bravely carouse until drunkenness overwhelm you--all to the honour of the Gods, that they hter, and in uncouth jollity staood fortune is indeed abroad on the Rhine when Hagen the grirows jovial!” Not the faintest sht of Gunther's skiff approaching, he checks the ht he drops seed toward fruits of trouble: ”Be loyal to your sovereign , be swift to avenge her!” Hagen's plan for bringing about Siegfried's destruction is not yet at this point settled in outline We see hiainst him There are repeated attefried soer
The skiff draws to land The vassals greet their lord and his bride with noisy chorus of welcoainst their bucklers
Brunnhilde stands beside Gunther in the boat, statue-still, her eyes bent on the ground, like one who neither sees nor hears Without resistance she lets Gunther take her hand to help her ashore; but a suppressed snatch of the ests the shudder ohter at the contact
This is Gunther's hour, this for him the supreme occasion in life; the star of his destiny rides the heavens unclouded; he feels now nificent indeed in his seat on the Rhine, as he stands before his people with the regal creature beside him whom he calls his wife
As if to express the momentary expansion of his nature, his ed in character; it has taken on a grandeur approaching po to you here on the Rhine A nobler as never won! The race of the Gibi+chungen, by the grace of the Gods, shall noer to crowning heights of fame!” Brunnhilde does not heed or hear When, as Gunther leads her toward the Hall, Siegfried and Gutrune e- froround, she does not see thereets the bridal pair ”Joyfully I behold at your side, sister, him who has won you Two happy pairs are here fried!”
At the naaze fastens upon Siegfried's face and dwells intently upon it Her action is so marked that Gunther drops her hand; all watch her in wonder A h the assembly: ”What ails her? Is she out of her mind?” Brunnhilde, still speechless, falls visibly to tre out of the cooes quietly to the woaze?” She has hardly power to frame words, make sounds, her eed address
”Siegfried, here! Gutrune!” she painfully brings forth ”Gunther's gentle sister,” he enlightens her, in his major, matter-of-fact manner, ”wedded to me, as you to Gunther!” At this she recovers her voice to hurl at hi with the helpless horror of all this fried, who stands nearest, receives her as she totters, near to falling As she lies for a moment in the well-known ar iinable purpose should not break down, that he should not be forced to drop this inco eyes searching the face close to the Her heart-broken fried knows me not?”
touches no chord The hero is for handing her over with all convenient haste to her proper guardian ”Gunther, your wife is ailing!” As Gunther comes, he rouses her: ”Awake, woman! Here is your husband!”
Because her senses seem clouded and she a moment before rejected the stateles out for her with his finger the personage he ht by the Ring on his hand Her fried, who feigns not to know her, not only has cast her off, but is in collusion with this overn her agitation and anger at the revelation of this unspeakable baseness, till she shall have sounded the affair, ”A ring I saw upon your finger,” she addresses hi; it was torn fro Gunther ”How should you have received the ring fro Since all trace of the former Brunnhilde is wiped froift to her of the Ring Certainly, he wrested a ring froht What beca on his hand is indisputably a relic of the old days of the fight with the dragon ”I did not receive the ring from him,”