conceptual significance in its motival components, for it is composed of two distinct segments, the first, #57a, being composed of the octave drop on “Endet” as Erda sang, “All things that are, end!” This segment implies the transitory nature of the world’s phenomena, and the necessity of death. Segment #57b is composed of the Primal Nature Arpeggio #1, the music with which the Ring began. Its conceptual significance is that it represents the time before the Fall of man, the Fall from grace with man’s preconscious animal nature caused by the evolution of human consciousness. The Waelsung heroes who unwittingly wield this sword in behalf of Wotan’s quest to redeem the gods from Alberich’s curse on the Ring (the curse of consciousness), will be unknowingly striving to restore the innocence and love (the life of feeling) lost with the onset of human thinking (the Ring). The sword, whose motif #57ab represents Feuerbach’s concept of “natural necessity,” is the incarnation or symbol for Wagner’s thesis that man’s sole concern since the inception of human culture is the restoration of lost innocence, an innocence man could not know until he had lost it, i.e., until Alberich had renounced love (preconscious animal instinct) in favor of the power the Ring (human thought).
Wagner feared that an entirely secular, science-based society would be an unaesthetic, spiritual wasteland:
“At breakfast we come back to yesterday’s conversation about natural laws, and R. says he will once more tell Herr v. S. that they are of no benefit, no help at all for morals and ethics … .” [997W-{12/1/79} CD Vol. II, p. 407]
“… R. expatiates on the theme of science, the physical truths ‘against which there is nothing to be said, but which also have nothing to say to us,’ and points in the direction of ideality. He says … what really matters is the soul.” [998W-{12/3/79} CD Vol. II, P. 408]
Wotan’s grand idea for redemption of the gods from Alberich’s curse on the Ring, which will inevitably culminate in the twilight of the gods, is embodied in the sword (later to be christened Nothung) whose motif represents the restoration of lost innocence as expressed in heroic deeds of compassion (performed by Wotan’s son, the Waelsung Siegmund) and inspired art (created by Wotan’s grandson Siegfried under the sway of his muse Bruennhilde). Nonetheless, Wagner long toyed with the idea that Wotan would find this sword in Alberich’s Nibelung Hoard. It was, he said, discarded and left behind by Fafner as valueless. Given our prior discussion on this topic, it should not surprise anyone that Wagner suggested that it was in fact forged by Alberich (Dark-Alberich) himself, instead of Light-Alberich (Wotan):
“After lunch R. reflects on whether, in ‘Das Rheingold,’ he should not make Wotan, as he greets Valhalla … , flourish a sword, which Fafner has contemptuously thrown out of the Nibelung hoard because it is not made of gold. This becomes the sword which Wotan plunges into the ash tree; Alberich has had it forged for his fight against the giants and the gods.” [860W-{5/30/76} CD Vol. I, p. 909]
[P. 38] One small point which had a symbolic importance later must not be passed over: Wagner instructed Fafner, while he was gathering up the treasure, to leave behind a worthless-looking, worn-out old sword. (…) [P. 39] As the new theme is sounded [#57], signifying a new deed to be accomplished in the future: … Wotan, seized by a great thought, picks up the sword left by Fafner
