[V.2.2: J]
Returning now to the drama, we find that Bruennhilde, the exponent of Wotan’s feeling, rather than his thought, can’t grasp Wotan’s insight into Siegmund’s hidden motives (historical preconditions and influences on the high value man ascribes to compassionate self-sacrifice), can’t understand why Wotan should imagine that Siegmund can’t be the free hero he’s longed for, so she impulsively rushes to Siegmund’s defense, unencumbered by Wotan’s doubts and unwilling to accept that Siegmund’s heroism could in any way be discredited:
Bruennhilde: But the Waelsung, Siegmund? (#79 vari:; #62:) Does he not act of himself (:#79 vari; :#62)?
Wotan: (#62:) I roamed the wildwood with him (:#62); (#62) against the gods’ advice, I boldly urged him on – against the gods’ revenge, he’s shielded now by that sword (#57: slowly and bitterly) which the grace of a [his?] god bestowed upon him. (#81 vari) – How slyly I sought to deceive myself! (#81 vari) How easily Fricka (#68:) uncovered the fraud (:#68)! (#36:) To my deepest shame she saw straight through me (:#36): now I must yield to her will!
Bruennhilde: (#82:) And so you’ll not let Siegmund win (:#82)?
Wotan: (#19:) I once held Alberich’s ring, greedily grasped the gold (:#19)! (#19:) The curse that I fled won’t flee from me now (:#19): (#37 vari:) what I love I must relinquish, (#37 vari:) murder him whom I cherish (:#37 vari) and foully betray him who trusts me! (#51)
Wotan, tracing the motivation for Siegmund’s compassionate and heroic self-sacrifice and love back to Wotan’s own influence in bringing Siegmund up, and thus forced to recognize Wotan’s own fear of the end of Valhalla (expressed by #79, as a derivative of #58b), and therefore Wotan’s loathsome egoism, behind all of Siegmund’s seemingly most spontaneous actions, acknowledges to Bruennhilde what Fricka forced him to acknowledge, that Siegmund (Siegmund’s motif #62, heard here again, being derived from the embryo of #21, Wotan’s Spear) is not free, but is the legatee of man’s religion-inspired moral heritage. #81 reminds us that Fricka, Wotan’s religious conscience, forced him to admit that only a god, a supernatural being, could be free. Yet Wotan has called himself the unfreest of men. #36’s presence here, as Wotan admits he was deceiving himself and his religious conscience, Fricka, has found him out, reminds us of Loge’s influence on Wotan’s hopes to deceive himself and others, and its futility, which his conscience, Fricka, saw through.
As the embodiment of unexamined faith Fricka couldn’t afford to admit that any deceit might be necessary to preserve that faith, could not even afford to admit that the gods might in any way be
