Siegfried: (quietly and with emotion) My thanks for your good counsel, you dear little bird: (#92c or #71 Vari “Hero”?) I’ll gladly follow your call. (#17 Vari?: He turns to the back of the stage and descends into the cave, where he soon disappears from sight.)”
[After Siegfried descends into Fafner’s cave, Alberich and Mime have a fight over who most deserves the spoils of Siegfried’s victory over Fafner, but Siegfried trumps them by unexpectedly emerging from the cave carrying the Tarnhelm and Ring. Mime slips back into the forest:]
“Alberich: (#17 or #19?) And yet it shall still (#59a) belong to its lord alone!
(He disappears into the cleft. During the foregoing, Siegfried has emerged from the cave, slowly and pensively, with the Tarnhelm and Ring: sunk in thought, he contemplates his booty and again pauses on the knoll in the middle of the stage.)
Siegfried: What use you are I do not know: (#12) but I took you from the heaped-up gold of the hoard (#59b) since goodly counsel counseled me to do so. (#16>>) May your trinkets serve as witness to this day’s events: may the bauble recall (#109: #59c) how, fighting, I vanquished Fafner but still haven’t learned the meaning of fear! (#11: He tucks the Tarnhelm under his belt and puts the Ring on his finger. Silence. Once again Siegfried involuntarily becomes aware of the bird.)
Voice of the Woodbird: [[ #129 ]]/#11>>) Hey! Siegfried now owns the helm and the Ring! Oh let him not trust the treacherous Mime! Were Siegfried to listen keenly to the rogue’s hypocritical words, (#128b or #98?) he’d be able to understand what Mime means in his heart; thus the taste of blood was of use to him.
(Siegfried’s expression and gestures show that he has understood the meaning of the Woodbird’s song. He sees Mime approaching and remains where he is on the knoll, resting motionlessly on his sword, observant and self-contained, until the end of the following scene. Mime creeps back and watches Siegfried from the front of the stage. #66)”
[Mime, though hypocritically pretending to have Siegfried’s own interests at heart, unwittingly reveals to Siegfried what he really thinks, thanks to the taste of Fafner’s blood (i.e., thanks to having eliminated Wotan’s prohibition on the acquisition of forbidden self-knowledge, and therefore having accessed man’s unconscious mind). Thus Mime confesses his intent to drug and kill Siegfried so Mime can win the spoils of Siegfried’s victory over Fafner, and Siegfried with loathing and disgust kills Mime as he’s proffering Siegfried a drugged drink. After leaving Fafner’s and Mime’s bodies in the entrance to Fafner’s cave, Siegfried has a final revelation from the Woodbird:]
“(He gazes down into the cave for awhile, thinking, then returns slowly, as though exhausted, to the front of the stage. #126 Tympani/#41; #103 Fragment; [[ #17
