#106’s and #40’s recurrence in this context calls to mind Mime’s discussion with Siegfried of the value of parental love, and also the tragic nature of love under the shadow of Alberich’s threat to destroy it. Siegfried will in a sense come to know Mother Nature (Erda), whom Wotan figuratively killed by renouncing her objective knowledge, in their daughter Bruennhilde, and will in fact mistake Bruennhilde for his mother.
[S.2.2: D]
Within the forest murmurs Siegfried can now distinguish particular birdsongs played for us by specific orchestral wind instruments, and one bird in particular comes to his attention, singing snatches of the new motifs #128 and #129, which are pentatonic tunes derived from the first segment of Woglinde’s Lullaby #4. It was Woglinde’s Lullaby which gave birth to the first words of the Ring (words born of music, passing first through transitional onomatopoeic sounds). This was the mother-melody (i.e., preconscious animal instinct, represented perhaps by Woglinde’s Lullaby #4) out of which, according to Wagner, grew human language, by natural necessity:
Siegfried: (#11 >>:) You lovely woodbird! I’ve never heard you before. Is the forest here your home? – Could I only make sense of his sweet-sounding babble! He must be telling me something – perhaps about my dear (#128b) mother? – (#128b?) A querulous dwarf explained to me once (#?: [possibly important!!!?]) that in time one could come to unriddle (:#? [possibly important?]) the babbling of little birds: but how could that be possible? Hey! I’ll try and copy him: I’ll sound like him on a reed! If I do without the words and attend to the tune, (#98?:) I’ll sing his language in that way (:#98?) (#?:) and no doubt grasp what he’s saying.
(#57 vari as birdcall:; #98:; #129b/#11: He runs over to the nearby spring, cuts a reed with his sword and rapidly whittles a pipe from it. As he does so, he listens again. #128 segment(s)?; #129?)
Siegfried: He stops and listens: - I’ll chatter away then! (He blows into the pipe. #129a offkey/#11:) He removes it from his lips and whittles it down further in order to improve it. He then blows again. He shakes his head and makes further improvements. He tries again. He grows angry, squeezes the reed in his hand and tries once more. Finally he gives up with a smile.) That doesn’t sound right; on the reed the delightful tune doesn’t work. I think, little bird, I’ll remain a fool. from you it’s not easy to learn!
