religious faith and art employ to mask the truth, now burns in his heart, thereby proclaiming himself one with Loge, the archetype for the Waelsung heroes. Siegfried must join in sexual union with Bruennhilde in order to contribute his own inspired art to this tradition of obfuscation represented by Loge’s protective ring of fire.
As the most dramatic motival confirmation that what Siegfried feared in the presence of the sleeping Bruennhilde was the prospect of waking remembrance of Wotan’s repressed confession, as Bruennhilde’s fear of Siegfried’s embrace rises to the pitch of a panic, we hear the same motif combination last heard in V.2.2 when Wotan cried out in despair after Bruennhilde asked him what ailed him, when he invoked his divine “Noth” (“Goetternoth”). The motif combination #82, #51, and #79 (or its prior form, #58b) is the hallmark of his confession of his unspoken secret to Bruennhilde. #82, #51, and #79 (or its prior form, #58b) reach a pitch of intensity as Bruennhilde calls up images of Nibelheim (“from mist – [i.e., ‘Nebel’] and dread [‘Grau’n,’ referencing the ‘dread and dismay’ Wotan invoked when, extolling the newly completed Valhalla, he sang: ‘(#58a) Thus I salute the fortress, (#58b) safe from dread and dismay!’] a confusion of fear now writhes in its rage!”). Since this motif combination heralded Wotan’s confession to Bruennhilde of what ails him, his divine “Noth,” it calls to mind, at least subliminally, the entirety of Wotan’s confession to Bruennhilde now. And Wotan, by virtue of making his confession to Bruennhilde, has given her the responsibility of keeping his unspoken secret. Siegfried’s anticipated sexual union with her (a figure for her unconscious inspiration of Siegfried’s art) places that secret (Alberich’s and Wotan’s hoard of knowledge) at potential risk of being exposed to the light of day. Furthermore, Wagner adds #84, the motif generally associated with Wotan’s anger at Bruennhilde for her disobedience, but which first sounded in association with Wotan’s nihilistic remark, during his confession to Bruennhilde, that he finds with loathing always only himself in all that he undertakes, i.e., that he cannot will a free hero into existence because Wotan’s very ideal of a free hero was inspired by Wotan’s loathsome egoism and fear of the truth.
A subtlety in Bruennhilde’s invocation of her fear in trying to persuade Siegfried not to touch her or violate her in his passion, is that she expresses her fear that her “wisdom” might forsake her. What else is her wisdom than Wotan’s confession to her of all that her mother Erda taught him during their sojourn together in the bowels of the earth! It is well to remind the reader also that a little earlier in our S.3.3 love duet, Bruennhilde told Siegfried that what Wotan thought, she felt, and, when she adds that what she felt was her love for Siegfried, she is accompanied by #134. I say this because Siegfried is again accompanied by #134 as he tries to reconcile Bruennhilde to their union by reminding her that she did, after all, tell him her knowledge (which she fears is forsaking her now) stemmed from the shining light of her love for Siegfried. What Bruennhilde fears, and what she means when she complains to Siegfried that her wisdom is forsaking her, is that, if she has sexual congress with Siegfried, and thereby inspires his art unconsciously, to do this she must impart to him (subliminally, of course) Wotan’s heretofore unspoken secret, for Wotan’s confession of his dramatic aim is the true source of Siegfried’s unconscious inspiration. Powerful evidence for this reading can be found much later in T.2.5, when Bruennhilde will complain to Hagen and Gunther that she gave all her wisdom to Siegfried, and that this has left her vulnerable to betrayal. She is afraid, in other words, that in imparting this secret to Siegfried he may not, after all, be a proper guardian for it, but may in fact bring this secret to the light of day, just as Alberich once threatened that his hoard would rise from the silent depths to daylight. On this note we must remind ourselves of Alberich’s prophecy that he would some day turn Wotan’s heroes against him,
