Erda: (#97; #15 Vari? [possibly foreshadowing Wotan’s confrontation with Siegfried in S.3.2?]) My sleep is dreaming, my dreaming brooding, (#59a) my brooding the exercise of knowledge. (#2) But when I sleep, then Norns keep watch: (#19?) they weave the rope [of fate and natural law] and bravely spin whatever I know; why don’t you ask the Norns?
Wanderer: (#53; #19) In thrall to the world those wise women weave; (#37) naught can they make or mend; (#19) but I’d thank the store of your wisdom [[ #133 ]] to be told how to hold back a rolling wheel.
Erda: (#19 Varis) Deeds of men becloud my mind: (#19) wise though I am, (#37) a ruler (#19) once tamed me. (#20a) A wish-maid I bore to Wotan: (#20b>>) for him he bade her choose slain heroes. (#77) (#98) She is brave and wise withal: (#87) why waken me (#98) and not (#87) seek knowledge (#? [possibly a musical reference to the moment Wotan heralded his grand idea near the finale of R.4, when #57 and #58 were introduced?] from Erda’s and Wotan’s child? (#20a)
Wanderer: (#96?; #20b) Do you mean the Valkyrie, Bruennhilde, the maid? (#50; #96; #21?) She defied the master of storms when, with utmost effort, he mastered himself: (#77?; #83?) what the Lord of Battle longed to do but what he forbade – (#83?) in spite of himself – (#96?) his dissident daughter, all too conversantly [“allzu vertraut wagte die trotzige”] dared, in the heat of that battle (#77) to do for herself. War-father punished the maid; (#94; #? [some specific motif(s) seems to be in play here]) He closed her eyes in sleep; on yonder fell she’s sleeping soundly: (#21; #19) the hallowed maid will awaken only (#37) to love a man as his wife. (#96?; #21 Fragment) (#87 Fragment; #99?) What use would it be to question her? (#99)”
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[[#134]] Redemption of waning religious faith through unconsciously inspired Wagnerian Music-Drama, the new religion
Commonly known as “World’s Inheritance” – Siegfried the poet-dramatist, and his muse of unconscious artistic inspiration, his music, Bruennhilde, as Wotan’s (religious faith’s) heirs, will temporarily redeem man from Alberich’s curse of consciousness, redeem man from the bitter truth, by taking aesthetic possession of Wotan’s hoard of objective, fearful knowledge of Erda’s terrible world, and sublimating it into the Wagnerian music-drama, thus transforming man’s existential woe into bliss
(#134’s motival links, if any, not yet ascertained)
“(#47) Wotan: (to Erda: #133) You are not what you think you are! The wisdom of primeval mothers draws towards its end: your knowledge wanes (#96b?) before my
