Hagen: (as before: [[ #166 ]] Though my mother gave me mettle, I’ve no reason to be thankful (#37) that she yielded to your cunning: (#50?) old too early, pale and wan, (#50?) I hate the happy, (#37) am never glad [“hass ich die Frohen, freue mich nie!”]!
Alberich: Hagen, my son, hate the happy! But me, the mirthless, much-wronged dwarf, (#37) you love just as you ought. (#50?) If you’re stalwart, bold and clever, (#37 Vari [in #16’s or #17’s rhythm?]) those whom we fight in nightly feud already suffer [“Noth”] our spite [“Neid”] [“schon giebt ihnen Noth unser Neid”]. (#19 Vari) He who wrenched the Ring from me, Wotan, that furious robber, was worsted by his own kind: to the Waelsung he forfeited power and might: (#19/#20a) in company with the whole kindred of gods he awaits his end (#42 End Fragment) in dread [“Angst”]. Him do I fear no more: he must fall with all the rest!
Alberich: (#50 Fragment) Are you sleeping, Hagen, my son?
Hagen: (remaining motionless, as before: [[ #166 End Fragment? ]]) The immortals’ power – who would inherit it?
Alberich: [[ #167 ]] I, and you: we’ll inherit the world if I’m not deceived in my trust in you, if you share my grief and rage. (#57) Wotan’s spear (#21) was split by the Waelsung (#21?; #126a) who felled the dragon, (#48?) Fafner, in combat (#33a Fragment; #19; #17 or #16?) and, child that he is, (#33a/#19 Fragment) won the Ring for himself: (#17 Vari) Every power he has gained; (#16 or #17 in a new Vari? [is there any #4?] Valhalla and Nibelheim bow down before him; (with a continuing air of secrecy: #17) even my curse grows feeble in face of the fearless hero: (#106 Hint?) for he does not know what the Ring is worth, he makes no use of its coveted power. (#103) (#103 >>) Laughing, in loving desire, he burns his life away. (#151b) To destroy him alone avails us now. (#37) Are you sleeping, Hagen, my son?
Hagen: (#42?; #151a) To his own destruction he serves me even now. [[ #167 ]]
Alberich: [[ #167 Vari ]] The golden Ring, the circlet, (#? [possible hint of music associated with the Norns’ singing of Loge in the olden days in T.P.A?]) must be gained. (#21 Fragment; #88 Voc? [the urgent #88 Vari associated with Siegmund’s resistance to the fate Bruennhilde had announced to him in V.2.4?] or #90 Voc?) A wise woman lives for the Waelsung alone: (#5?) were she ever to urge him (#17/#19) to give back the Ring (#4 >>) to the deep Rhine’s daughters who once befooled me in watery depths, (#17/#19) the gold would be lost to me then, (#? [music possibly associated with Loge, and/or from Alberich’s remark to Wotan in S.2.1: “Were I, as you wish, still as stupid as then, when you bound the foolish dwarf, how easy, indeed, would it prove (furiously) to deprive me once more of the Ring.”]) no cunning could ever reclaim it. [[ #167 Vari ]] So strive for the Ring [[ #167 ]] without delay! ([[ #167 ]]; #41 Fragment; #26a?) Fearless Hagen, I fathered you to take a firm stand against heroes. (#126a; #5 Vari) Though not strong enough to defeat the dragon, (#109; #126?) which the Waelsung alone was fated to do –
