Bruennhilde: (#82) And so you’ll not let Siegmund win?
Wotan: (#19) I once held Alberich’s Ring, greedily grasped the gold! (#19) The curse that I fled won’t flee from me now: (#37 Vari) what I love I must relinquish, (#37 Vari) murder him whom I cherish and foully betray him who trusts me! (#51) (#57: Wotan’s demeanor passes from an expression of the most terrible anguish to one of desperation.) Farewell, then, imperious pomp! Godly show’s resplendent shame! Let all I raised now fall in ruins! My work I abandon; one thing alone do I want: (#57 Octave Drop [based on the octave drop on “endet” when Erda told Wotan in R.4: “All things that are, end!”]) the end! The end! (#57 or #53? [as if about to transform into #87?]: He pauses in thought) And Alberich will see to that end! (#53) – Only now do I fathom the silent sense of the Vala’s mysterious words: - (#50) ‘When love’s dark foe begets a son in his fury, the end of the gods won’t be long delayed!” [[ (#@: A or C?) The Inevitability of Alberich’s Victory Motif:#20b Vari Minor/#12 Vari? ]] Of the Nibelung I lately heard it told that the dwarf had had his way with a woman, whose favours gold had gained him. (#52 Harmonic Hint?) A woman harbours the seed of hate; (#50) the force of envy [“Neides”] stirs in her womb: (#37 Loose Vari?) this wonder befell the loveless dwarf; (#37 Loose Vari) yet I who wooed in love cannot father one who is free! – (Rising in bitter anger: [[ (#@: A of C?) The Inevitability of Alberich’s Victory Motif: #20b Vari Minor/#12 Vari? ]] So take my blessing, Nibelung son! What I loathe most deeply I leave as your legacy: godhood’s empty glitter. May your envy [“Neid”] greedily gnaw it away!”
(#@: A or C?) The inevitability of Alberich’s victory over the gods, that Alberich’s hoard of knowledge will rise from the silent depths to the light of day and overthrow the illusions which sustain Valhalla (religion). This motif represents Wotan’s growing awareness, thanks to Erda’s (Mother Nature’s prophecy), that the gods are foredoomed to destruction. This is Wagner’s metaphor for the fact that in the fullness of time, collective, historical Man (Alberich and Wotan – Light Alberich) will accumulate a hoard of objective knowledge of the world (Erda’s knowledge of all that was, is, or will be) which will overthrow the illusions which have sustained religious belief.
((#@: A or C?) is a compound motif which seems to take a variety of forms, but it’s definitive form, heard here, is a special harmonic variant of the Valhalla Motif’s second segment, #20b, plus a #12 variant, seeming to suggest that the gods are poor guardians of the innocence of the Rhinegold, that in spite of Loge’s suggestion to the Rhinedaughters that the gold’s lost light - in which they can no longer bask since Alberich took it - they could find again in the gods’ splendor, this is not so: the gods are no more innocent or capable of restoring innocence than Alberich. Knowing this,
