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Allen Dunning's numbered Guide to the Ring's Musical Motifs
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The Ring

Introduction


References
Appendix I
Appendix I I

Key Colour Coding

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I would be grateful for donations of any size, small or large, to help defray the cost (1) of maintaining this website, (2) and to finance my past and present research which produced my book posted here, Volume One of "The Wound That Will Never Heal," and my forthcoming revision of Volume One (to be submitted for publication), and completion of Volume Two on Wagner's six other canonic operas and music-dramas. I sacrificed at least seven years of paid employment and incurred debts to complete this project, and am currently unemployed, so I thank you in advance for any financial help you can provide. Your friend, Paul Heise.

[[#44]] First Motif of Mime's “Scheming”

Representing Mime’s hope to employ the Tarnhelm, Loge’s artistic cunning, to wrest the Ring from his brother Alberich, and free himself from Alberich’s power (a model for Wotan’s co-optation of Alberich’s Ring-power)

(#44 based on 27 and #36; basis of #101 and #116)

 

“Loge: I want to help you, Mime! (…)

 

Mime: [[ #44 ]]: Who'd ever help me. I'm bound to obey my own bloodbrother, (#19) who's bound me in fetters fast.

 

Loge: What gave him the power, Mime, to bind you?

 

Mime: [[ #44 ]]: With cunning artifice Alberich crafted a yellow ring of gold from the Rhine: at its powerful spell (#19) we tremble in awe for with it he bends us all to his will, the Nibelungs’ army of night. (#41; #105 Embryo) Carefree smiths, we used to fashion trinkets for our womenfolk, delightful gems and delicate Nibelung toys: we cheerfully laughed at our pains. (#5) Now the criminal makes us crawl into crevices, (#41) forever toiling for him alone. Through the gold of the Ring his greed can divine where more gleaming veins lie buried in shafts: there we must seek and search and dig, (#19) smelting the spoils and working the cast without rest or repose, to heap up the hoard for our lord. (#41)

 

Loge: You idler roused his wrath just now.

 

Mime: On me, the most wretched of all, he forced the worst of all tasks. (#42; #41) A metal helm he bade me weld; he told me exactly how to craft it. I cleverly noted what magic power lay in the work that I forged from the ore. (#19 Varis) So I wanted to keep the helm for myself, by means of its magic free me from Alberich’s sway - … perhaps outwit my tormenter and, placing him in my power, (#19 Vari) wrest the Ring away from his grasp, so that, just as I’m now a slave to that bully, (#19 Vari: Harshly) he’d serve me, a free man, in turn! (#5; #17; #19)”

[[#45ab]] The Coercive “Power of the Ring”

Representing egoism (lust for power and/or fear of it) as man’s root motive

(#45ab based on #5ab, and #15 plus #13; basis of #161)