There is far more at stake here. It is no accident that Wagner employs variants of both #30b and #97 here, thereby reminding us that #30b is the basis for #97. #30b from its inception was associated with Fafner’s intent to deprive the gods of Freia, the goddess of love and immortality, so that they would wither and die. This is why Dunning christened this motif “Godhood Lost.” Here is what is at stake. Wotan intends to let his free and fearless artist-hero Siegfried pay the price of Alberich’s “Noth” so that the gods can be redeemed from Alberich’s curse on the Ring. Siegfried must figuratively martyr himself by waking the sleeping Bruennhilde, in order to learn from her the meaning of fear, subliminally, so that he can draw the inspiration from this fearful hoard of repressed knowledge which is necessary to perpetuate man’s religious longing for transcendence in the secular art he will produce. Siegfried in a sense must die, while in union with Bruennhilde, and while confronting her fearful hoard of knowledge, in order to attain rebirth by producing a redemptive work of art, just as the allegedly immortal Wotan (religion) must pass away but is reborn in the mortal Siegfried, and in the immortal art he will create. The artist must provide man a feeling of transcendence within the real world, not falsely proclaim the actual existence of a supernatural realm outside the real world. Thus the old Valhalla of the gods is restored figuratively in the new Valhalla of Siegfried’s and Bruennhilde’s love, Wagner’s metaphor for unconsciously inspired art.
In a manner of speaking, the fate Wotan’s choice of Siegfried as his hero-redeemer condemns Siegfried to, inspired as it is subliminally by Wotan’s fear and self-interest, is akin to the fate which Mime plans to condemn Siegfried to suffer. We will also find that Mime’s potion, which Mime fails to persuade Siegfried to drink, will be recreated in the fateful potion that Mime’s nephew Hagen will successfully persuade Siegfried to drink, in T.1.2. We will find, in general, that there are numerous parallels between Siegfried’s relationship with Mime, and Siegfried’s relationship with Wotan, parallels Wagner is often at pains to make quite clear, and on other occasions makes more subtly and obliquely.
[S.1.3: H]
As Siegfried continues singing his song extolling Nothung’s virtues, he incorporates imagery which is strongly suggestive of a phallus penetrating a vagina (figuratively, a womb of conception), as he describes how the hot sword is stiffened when plunged into a vat of water, and hisses while it cools. This is a verbal foreshadowing of Siegfried’s request in S.3.3 that Bruennhilde cool and put out the flame of his ardor for her by letting him plunge into the depths of her waters, so to speak:
Mime: (He rubs his hands with glee.) Hey, wily Wanderer, though you thought (#120 >>:) me a fool, how does my subtle wit (#41?) now suit you? Have I not won me respite and peace? (#109)
Siegfried: (#119>>:) Nothung! Nothung (:#119)! Fearsome steel [“neidliches Schwert”]! Now your chaff-like steel’s been melted down: (#120?:) you’re swimming in your own sweat (:#120?) –
(He pours the red-hot contents of the crucible into a mould, which he holds aloft: #109)
