[S.2.1: E]
Now Wotan proffers a gambit which is even more daring, in its way, than his false assertion to Fricka that he had not intervened to aid Siegmund. Wotan ingenuously argues that it is not he, but Alberich’s brother Mime, who has been nurturing Siegfried to win the Ring for him and deprive Alberich of his property. But Wagner has made it quite clear through a variety of means, both textual and musical, that Mime can be construed as the prosaic part of Wotan which Wotan loathes. Wotan has projected his own guilt on to Mime, who will soon fall at the hands of Siegfried. Since Wotan’s ideal part has been reborn in Siegfried, Wotan now disavows any link between himself and his original, practical motives, incarnate in Mime, which inspired him to sire a race of heroes who might redeem the gods from Alberich’s curse:
Wanderer: Haggle with Mime, not with me: (lightly: [#Spare, arid music:]) your brother’s bringing you danger; he’s leading a youngster here who’s meant to kill Fafner for him. Of me he knows nothing; the Nibelung is using him for his own ends (:#Spare, arid music). (#?: [music heard elsewhere?]) and so I say to you, comrade: act in whatever way may suit you (:#?)!
(#101 frag: Alberich’s gesture shows his violent curiosity.)
Wanderer: (#114 vari:) Mark me well and be on your guard: the boy doesn’t know of the ring (:#114 vari) but Mime’s found out about it.
Alberich: (forcefully: #101 frag; #17?; #21?) And would you withhold your hand from the hoard?
Wanderer: Him whom I love I leave to his own devices; [[ #127: ]] let him stand or fall, his own master is he: heroes alone can help me (:#127). (#47 or #82?)
Alberich: With Mime alone would I vie for the ring?
Wanderer: Save you alone, only he desires the gold.
This passage is psychologically intriguing. Wotan is projecting his own motives, seen at their worst, on to Mime, and it is Mime, he says, who is prompting Siegfried to do what, after all, Wotan himself wanted Siegfried to do, kill Fafner and take possession of Alberich’s Ring, Tarnhelm, and Hoard, so that Alberich can ‘t regain them (and bring about the twilight of the gods). Of course,
