threatened by the truth. Now #82, #37, and #51, three of the motifs comprising that array of motifs (which also included #79 and #40) which heralded Wotan’s confession to Bruennhilde, remind us of what Wotan couldn’t bear to acknowledge (the knowledge he’s repressing into Bruennhilde), that egoism must trump love in the real world, and that Wotan must of necessity betray his own hero, and love, for egoism’s sake, to preserve a corrupt society, a society whose bonds are predicated on fear.
Wagner captures what must be Wotan’s feelings in the following melancholy reflection:
[P. 52] “ … by the nature of things, … superlative friendship can be nothing but an ideal; whereas Nature, that hoary old sinner and egoist, … [P. 53] can do no else than deem herself the whole exclusive world in every individual, and merely acknowledge the other individual so far as it flatters this illusion of Self. ‘Tis so, and yet, one holds on! God, what a worth it must have, the thing for whose sake one holds on, with such a knowledge!“ [661W-{10/3/58} Letter to Mathilde Wesendonck: RWLMW, p. 52-53]
In Wotan’s more profound meditations, he must acknowledge that if he is the unfreest of men, any man who would do Wotan’s bidding, including breaking the gods’ law to steal the ring back from Fafner, is even more unfree, since Wotan owns his self-deceit and self-contradiction (at least unconsciously) and rebels against it, however futilely. Therefore, as Wagner himself admitted to Cosima, there can be no free will:
[P. 952] “In the salon he talked to me about character and said it was foolish to praise it, for either it was meaningless, or a [P. 953] person could not act otherwise than he had done [and if this is the case the man’s character is owing to other causes which are unfree, such as the biology of the brain, his personal history, etc.]. (…) I ask him whether he does not admit struggles inside a noble person. ‘Yes, but the decision is preordained. And the actions are what matter.’ “ [1139W-{11/15/82} CD Vol. II, p. 952-953]
[V.2.2: K]
Wotan, having acknowledged his dependence upon self-deceit [i.e. Loge], and that he has founded his entire life, and even his most sublime ideals, upon it, in an access of self-loathing and unfathomable depression expresses his desire to end both his life and the world he has created, including all his hopes of redemption:
(Wotan’s demeanor passes from an expression of the most terrible anguish to one of desperation: #57)
Wotan: Farewell, then, imperious pomp! Godly show’s resplendent shame! Let all I raised now fall in ruins! My work I abandon; one thing alone do I want: (#57a: [i.e., Erda’s octave drop on “endet!”]) The end! The end (:#57a)! (#57b or #53?: [as if about to transform into #87?]) (He
