Siegfried finally gives up his futile attempt to imitate this voice of nature with an artificial cultural construct, a musical instrument. But as Wagner expressed so often, the inspired artist does not actually imitate nature, but instead, culls from his experience what his creative unconscious determines is essential, and idealizes it, drawing from the miasma of experience only what is of use to his re-interpretation of nature in his own image.
[S.2.2: E]
So, in a spirit of devil-may-care, having failed to communicate with the Woodbird on its own terms, Siegfried now says he’ll play his own tune to the Woodbird on the horn with which he has sought to call up a loving companion in the past without result. What he does call up is Fafner himself, whom Siegfried’s playing wakes from his sleep. We might add here that Fafner guards Wotan’s unspoken secret. The gods’ unspoken secret is that even the gods themselves are products of Mother Nature, Erda, and therefore ultimately subject to her ur-law that all things which are must end, and that therefore there is no supernatural realm of bliss, no sorrowless youth eternal. Fafner, representing man’s natural self-preservation instinct, or fear, is man’s legacy from his natural evolutionary heritage, and therefore is our own Mother in the deepest sense:
(He hears the woodbird again and looks up at it. #11; #129; #40; #11)
Siegfried: Now I’m put to shame by the sharp-eared rogue: (very tenderly) he looks at me and hears nothing. Hey there! So listen now to my horn (:#?); (He brandishes the reed, which he then tosses away.) Nothing works on the stupid reed. (#20a?:) A woodland tune – the blithest I can – you shall lend an ear to now (:#20a?). (#128 segment?:) With it I tried to lure boon companions (:#128 segment?): nothing better than wolf or bear has come to me as yet. Now let me see (#20a vari on flute?:) whom it lures here now: will it be some boon companion (:#20a vari on flute?)?
(He takes the silver hunting-horn and blows into it. #103 >>; #103; #92; #103, #48 >>/#109: At each sustained note, Siegfried looks expectantly at the bird. Something stirs at the back of the stage. #48: Fafner, in the shape of a huge, lizard-like dragon has risen from his lair in the cave; he breaks through the undergrowth and drags himself up on to the higher ground until the front part of his body comes to rest, at which point he utters a noise like a loud yawn. Siegfried looks round and fixes his eyes in astonishment on Fafner. #48?)
Siegfried: Ha ha! My song has produced something pretty! You’d make me a fine companion! (At the sight of Siegfried, Fafner has paused on the knoll and now remains there.)
