Wanderer: (still advancing slowly: #113>>:) Much I’ve fathomed, much made out: matters of moment I’ve made known to many and many I’ve saved from whatever irked them (:#113), (#37 or #102?:) cares [“Noth”] that gnawed at their hearts [“nagende Herzens-Noth”] (:#37? or #102?).
Mime: (#5?:) Though you skillfully scouted and spied out much, I need no scouts or spies here (:#5?). (#112; #36 or #101?:) Alone and apart I wish to be (#37 or #102?:) and let loiterers go on their way (:#112; :#36 or #101?; :#37 or #102?).
Wanderer: (again advancing a little: #113 vari:) Many’s the man who thought himself wise but what he needed [“Noth”] (:#113 vari) he did not know; (#113:) I let him ask me what might avail him: my words he found worthwhile (:#113).
Mime: (#112: increasingly anxious, as he watches the Wanderer approach: #41?) (#?: [what sounds like a hybrid of #36, #37, #101, and/or #112?]) Many men gather idle knowledge: I know just as much as I need; (The Wanderer has advanced as far as the hearth: #41/#5>>:) my wits suffice, I want no more: I’ll show you on your way, you sage (:#? [hybrid of #36, or #37, or #101 &/or #112?]; :#41/#5 >>)!
As the Wanderer (Wotan) introduces himself we hear his other Wanderer Motif, #113, which, according to Dunning, may possibly derive from #20b. If so, the reasoning behind this could well be that in #20b’s introduction near the beginning of R.2, it was associated with Wotan’s remark to Fricka that though she might wish to lure him with the joy of domestic tranquility to remain within the safe and secure confines of Valhalla (i.e., within the traditional bounds of a society based on religious faith), Wotan wished to conquer the outside world (presumably by mastering it through the objective knowledge he can gain by experiencing the outer world, the real world, first hand, as he does by wandering the earth, i.e., Erda). Wotan’s status as Wanderer over the face of the earth (i.e., Mother Nature, Erda), is Wagner’s metaphor for historical, collective man’s experience of the world, and his accumulation over time of a hoard of knowledge based upon this experience. But Wotan’s wandering in quest of world-knowledge is founded on Alberich’s accumulation of his hoard of treasure in the bowels of the earth (Erda), which grants him power. Knowledge, said Feuerbach, is power.
On the assumption that #112, the first Wanderer Motif, is a member of the same family of motifs as Loge’s #35, and the Tarnhelm #42, we can perhaps read #113’s presence alongside it here as an indication that Wotan’s acquisition of knowledge, unlike Alberich’s, is tempered by Loge’s cunning, i.e., self-deception. In other words, the objective knowledge Wotan obtains as Wanderer
