[“ever”] (#149:; #150?:) with holy fire in your [#92c or #71 vari “Hero” or special #57 vari from v.3.1?] breast (:#150; :#149; :#58b?; [:#92c or #71 vari “hero” or special #57 vari from v.3.1?]! –
(She embraces Siegfried. #134)
As Bruennhilde asks Siegfried to recall the oaths which unite them, the trust they place in each other, and the love for which they live, we hear #150 and #149 alternating, reminding us that the love to which Bruennhilde alludes is the special Wagnerian redemptive love through which the artist-hero receives unconscious inspiration from his loving muse. Significantly, the orchestra expresses their embrace with #134, the motif which I have strongly suggested represents redemption by love in the sense of redemption of man’s religious impulse by Wagner’s secular art, which is unconsciously inspired.
{{ There is what sounds like a possible reference to the music to which Bruennhilde sang to Wotan “Who am I if not your will?” from just prior to his confession to her in V.2.2, as Bruennhilde tells Siegfried that if he’d bestow his love on her, he should be mindful only of himself. If this is accurate the implication is obvious. There is also what sounds like a reference to #58b when Bruennhilde sings to Siegfried that she will then burn forever with holy fire in his breast. If this is accurate, #58b would recall Wotan’s apostrophe to the new fortress Valhalla, “safe from dread and dismay!”, and also Wotan’s grand idea of winning redemption from Alberich’s curse on the Ring, the redemption of Valhalla, through his Waelsung heroes. It is in the inspired art which Siegfried’s loving union with Bruennhilde creates that Wotan, man’s religious impulse, can forget its fear, its dread, of the truth. }}
[T.P: H]
Siegfried now gives Bruennhilde Alberich’s Ring - wholly oblivious to the fact that it could only be forged by renouncing love - as her wedding ring, in exchange for the subliminal runes she’s taught him, and asks her to keep its power safe. In other words, Siegfried is effectively repressing knowledge into his unconscious mind Bruennhilde, removing the risk that it will rise to consciousness in him, just as Wotan did in making confession to Bruennhilde of his most bitter thoughts, in exchange for a sublimation of this knowledge into inspired art:
Siegfried: (#148 vari:) If, my dearest, I leave you here (#19?:) in the fire’s hallowed guard, (He has removed Alberich’s ring from his finger and now hands it to Bruennhilde. #98 clarinet) (#19 vari?:) in return for all your runes I hand this ring to you (:#19 vari?). (#19) (#92:) Whatever deeds I have done, their virtue it enfolds (:#92); (#48:; #148:) I slew a savage dragon that long had guarded it grimly (:#48; :#148). (#48) (#59a, b, or c?: [perhaps the Rhinedaughters’ Lament for the stolen gold
