[T.P: D]
The first Norn again asks whether the day is dawning, or whether Loge’s fire still lights the night sky. It is almost as if she’s asking whether the day has come in which man’s hoard of knowledge of the real world will rise from the silent depths to daylight consciousness, and bring about the twilight of the gods, or whether the artificial ring of fiery self-deception with which Loge has surrounded Bruennhilde, keeper of the religious mysteries, still burns in man’s heart. But now, she says, her sight plays tricks on her, and she can’t clearly remember the hallowed past when Loge once flared up. Loge’s motival material here, like so much of the motival material heard earlier in the Ring which is recapitulated here, through Wagner’s subtle variation of the motifs’ harmony, melody-line, phrasing, modulation, instrumentation, etc., is now imbued with a nostalgic mood evoking time long past and dimly remembered. It is one of the most remarkable aesthetic effects in the Ring:
First Norn: (looking behind her as she busies herself with the rope: (#@: c or d?) = #3 vari:; #44/#101:; #33b vari:) Is daylight dawning? Or is it the light of the fire? (#33b) Clouded, my sight plays tricks on me; (#35 vari:; #33b vari:) I cannot see clearly the hallowed past, (#33b vari:) when Loge once flared up in white-hot flame (:#33b fades): (#88:) do you know what became of him (:#88)?
Second Norn: (Once again winding the rope that has been thrown to her round the rock) (#21 vari >>:; #115?:) By the spell of his spear Wotan tamed him (:#21 vari; :#115?); (#33b) (#15 vari/#33b:) he whispered wisdom to the god (:15 vari/#33b): to work himself free (#34:) he gnawed and destroyed the runes on the shaft (:#34). (#21 vari or #115?:) Then with the (#21 vari:) spear’s all-powerful point (:#21 vari; :#115?) (#15 vari/#33b?:) Wotan cast a spell on him, (#33b) (#33b:) bidding him blaze round Bruennhilde’s rock (:#15 vari?/#33b): (#35 vari: She throws the rope to the Third Norn, who once again throws it behind her.) (#88:) do you know what will come of him (:#88)?
Third Norn: (#115 definitive over #100 accompaniment:) The shattered spear’s sharp-pointed splinters Wotan will one day bury deep in the fire-god’s [“Bruenstigen”] breast (:#115 definitive over #100 accompaniment): (#34?:) a ravening fire will then flame forth, (#54 vari:) which the god will hurl (:#34?) (#146/#20a: [in which can be heard clearly the relationship of #146 to #20a, or is #146 merely influenced by #20a because the world-ash will burn Valhalla?]) on the world-ash’s (:#146/#20a) (#20b) heaped-up logs. (#97: She throws back the rope; the Second Norn coils it and
