is a point of honor to the gods to remain, if possible, oblivious to their debt to nature and the body, as any such admission would initiate the twilight of the gods. Though this point about the gods’ debt to Alberich is made here only musically, Alberich will verbalize it in his denunciation of the gods’ hypocrisy in R.4, after Wotan and Loge have taken him captive. It is his (and his fellow Nibelungs’) labor in Nibelheim which in fact has made the gods’ life of luxury possible, a point to which Karl Marx devoted a rather large proportion of his Das Kapital.
Alberich’s prediction that he will ultimately control Wotan’s heroes and force his lust upon the gods’ women is a foreshadowing of Alberich’s son Hagen’s influence over Wotan’s hero Siegfried (this influence the product of Hagen’s Potion #154), who, through Hagen’s machinations, is compelled to force himself upon Siegfried’s own true love and muse, Bruennhilde, Wotan’s daughter, and rip Alberich’s Ring (which Siegfried presented to her as a wedding ring) off her finger. Siegfried figuratively rapes her by forcing the wedding ring he gave her (Alberich’s Ring) off her finger, and forcibly abducting her in order to present her as a prize to his blood-brother Gunther, echoing what Wagner himself described as Alberich’s original rape of the Rhinegold. And of course Siegfried’s unwitting betrayal of Wotan’s hopes for redemption from Alberich’s curse on the Ring, by betraying his love for Bruennhilde, under Hagen’s inspiration, is also anticipated in Alberich’s observation that Loge (Siegfried’s model or archetype) tends to betray those who depend upon his cunning.
[R.3: K]
Alberich’s threat against the gods culminates with his warning to Wotan to beware Alberich’s army of night, when Alberich’s Nibelung Hoard rises from the silent depths to the light of day, accompanied by #12 and a #20b variant:
Alberich: (#46:) Beware of my army of night (:#46), (#5) when the Nibelung’s hoard (#5) arises [[ (#@: a) = #12:; #20b: ]] – [this compound of two motifs deserves rank as a distinct numbered motif: is it also #@: c?) from V.2.2?!] from silent depths to the light of day (:#12; :#20b)!
Alberich’s prophesy will come true in the following sense. When Siegfried, under the influence of Hagen’s Potion (#154), having forgotten his true relationship with Bruennhilde, forces Alberich’s Ring off her finger (the ring which Siegfried had previously given her to keep its power safe), and abducts Bruennhilde to present her as a prize to his blood-brother Gunther, Siegfried will have become, in effect, Alberich’s host of night, will disclose his true nature as a Nibelung. In fact, Bruennhilde, not recognizing Siegfried under his disguise as Gunther, will ask of him whether he is from “Hella’s night-dwelling host,” i.e., from Nibelheim’s host. By this point in the tale Alberich’s Ring will have become a stand-in for the entire Nibelung Hoard. Thus, when Siegfried forces it out of Bruennhilde’s protective hands and exposes it to the public, he will have fulfilled Alberich’s threat that his Nibelung Hoard will rise from the silent depths to the light of day. Since the Nibelung Hoard represents mankind’s accumulated knowledge, and the Ring itself is human consciousness, Siegfried will be unwittingly exposing this secret, forbidden knowledge to the light
