glint of light from the hearth’s fire one can discern the hilt of a sword Wotan, disguised as the Wanderer, drove into the tree on the night of Sieglinde’s forced marriage with Hunding. Siegfried has decided not to run:]
"Sieglinde: Let me show you a weapon [Nothung]: if only you could win it! As the noblest of heroes might I hail you: the strongest alone was destined to gain it! [[ #72 ]] Heed well what I have to tell you. The men from his clan sat there in the hall, as guests at Hunding’s wedding: he was wooing a woman whom villains, unasked, had given him as his wife. Sadly I sat there while they were drinking: (#20a modulation or Vari?) A stranger then came in – an old man dressed in grey; his hat hung so low that one of his eyes was hidden, but the flash of its fellow struck fear all around, as its lowering stare transfixed the men. (#5 [repeated in descending pattern]) In me alone his eye awakened sweetly yearning sorrow, mingled with tears and solace. (#57) He gazed at me and glared at them as he brandished a sword in his hands; he then drove it deep in the ash-tree’s trunk; (#57) it was buried up to the hilt: (#57) (#20a Vari?) The steel would rightly belong to him who could draw it forth from the trunk. Of all the menfolk, much as they struggled, none could win the weapon. Guests would come and guests would go, the strongest tugged at the steel – not an inch did it stir in the trunk: (#57) in silence the sword still cleaves there. (#20a) I knew then who greeted me in my grief: I also knew for whom alone (#57) he destined the sword in the tree. Might I find here today, that friend; might he come from afar to a woman most wretched; whatever I suffered in terrible sorrow, however I smarted from shame and disgrace, (#72?) sweetest revenge would atone for it all! I'd have recaptured whatever I’d lost, whatever I’d wept for would then be won back, were I only to find that hallowed friend, were my arms to enfold the hero.
Siegmund: (#71: Ardently embracing Sieglinde) That friend now holds you, (#57) thrice-blessed woman, to whom both weapon and wife were destined! Deep in my breast there burns the vow that binds me, noble woman, to you! Whatever I longed for I saw in you; in you I found whatever I lacked! Though you suffered shame and though sorrow pained me; though I was an outlaw and you were dishonoured, [[ #72 ]] joyful revenge now bids us rejoice. I laugh aloud in hallowed delight as I hold the proud woman within my embrace and feel your beating heart.”
![[image]](images/online-ring-book-primary_1062/online-ring-book-primary_1062-1.jpg "online-ring-book-primary_1062-1.jpg"){kind=small}
[[#73]] Siegmund's “Winterstorms Have Waned” Aria
Siegmund (brother Spring) and Sieglinde (sister Love) longed for and found each other: sibling incest and adultery as symbols for the Waelsungs’ instinctive war against a vile, corrupt social order predicated on self-interest and complacency instead of love
(#73’s motival links, if any, not yet ascertained; Dunning suggests a distant relationship to #2)
