certain remaining conundrums in my own work (offering me some insights which even he evidently did not anticipate), and I believe my study enhances the value of his by firmly grounding it in an even more comprehensive allegorical reading of the Ring, Wagner’s other music-dramas and operas, and his writings and recorded remarks.
[S.3.3: D]
We now come to one of several supremely important passages in the Ring which, taken together, leave us no doubt that the union of Siegfried with Bruennhilde is Wagner’s metaphor for the unconscious inspiration of the artist-hero by Wotan’s repressed hoard of knowledge. Bruennhilde tells Siegfried that long before he was born her loving protection nurtured him, a remark which taken by itself says nothing more than that through Bruennhilde’s active intervention - in defiance of Wotan’s orders - to save the Waelsung twins’ unborn child Siegfried, Bruennhilde was Siegfried’s guardian long before he was born. It is partly thanks to the ambiguity of her remark that Siegfried wonders out loud whether in that case Bruennhilde might be the mother he had assumed had died giving him birth, who it turns out may only have been sleeping all this time:
Bruennhilde: (#140:) O siegfried! Siegfried! Thrice-blessed hero (:#140)! (#141:) You waker of life, all-conquering light! (#141b) (#40 or #140?:) If only you knew, you joy of the world, (#140:) how I have always loved you! (#140) (#140 >> :) You yourself were all I thought of, all I ever cared for (:#140)! (#140?:) I nurtured you, you tender child, before you were begotten; even before you were born, my shield already sheltered you (:#140?): (#134:) so long have I loved you, Siegfried (:#134) (#19 vari?)
Siegfried: (softly and shyly: #66:) So my mother did not die? Was the lovely woman merely asleep (:#66)?
(Bruennhilde smiles and stretches out her hand to him in friendly fashion.)
Bruennhilde: (#141b >> :) You blithesome child, (#voc? – almost #97 or #30b?:) your mother won’t come back to you (:#voc? - #97 or #30b?). [[ #141 >>: ]] Your own self am I, if you but (#voc?: [almost #97 or #30b?]) love me in my bliss (:#141; :#voc? [#97 or #30b?]); (#87:) what you don’t know (#58b frag or #79 frag?:) I know for you (:#87; :#58b frag or #79 frag?): (#134:) and yet I am knowing only because I love you (:#134)!
