Now Waltraute recounts Wotan’s preparations for the twilight of the gods Erda foresaw, to which he is now apparently resigned, since even his hope that Siegfried’s and Bruennhilde’s love would redeem gods and world has been dashed by Siegfried’s capitulation to Hagen’s influence. We hear the “Power of the Gods Motif”, #115, in its grandest, definitive, tragi-heroic form (recalling its introduction in T.P as the Norns recounted this same story) as she describes how Wotan had his heroes pile up the logs from the World-Ash’s trunk in a towering heap round the hall of the blessed immortals, in preparation for the burning up of Valhalla foretold by both Erda and Loge. #115, representing previously the “Power of the Gods,” but associated here with the destruction of the gods, is a motival embodiment of the gods’ hubris (i.e., man’s hubris in inventing the gods). A new motif compounded of #20/#115, #20 here in a new variant expressing a sense of crisis, accompanies Waltraute as she describes how Wotan convened a council of the gods in Valhalla. Wotan, she says, sits high on his throne, having bid the anxious gods to sit on either side, and bid his heroes to fill the hall. The repetition of a powerful figure made up of four notes, followed by the alternating chords of #20c, provides an awesome, sublime cadence to the towering music, capturing the essence of the “Ring” as an epic of world history, we have just heard.
In her final portentous image, Waltraute tells Bruennhilde, accompanied by the Fate Motif #87, that Wotan now sits there on his high seat, saying not a word, silent and grave. With the splintered spear held tight in his hand (#27, or #36, or #116 sounding at this point to represent the dishonesty and corruption at the heart of Wotan’s authority), she says, Wotan no longer touches Holda’s (i.e., Freia’s) golden apples (of sorrowless youth eternal). In other words, Wotan no longer stakes a claim to what Feuerbach described as the gods’ most definitive trait, which distinguishes them as supernatural beings from mortal beings, namely, their immortality. Wotan, in other words, no longer makes a bid for transcendence, no longer posits man’s transcendent value, and has rejected Freia, who as the goddess of transcendent love and sorrowless youth eternal represents the very essence of religious faith and its promise of redemption. Wonder and fear, Waltraute cries, now hold the gods in thrall (just as Wotan’s existential fear of the inevitable end Erda had predicted paralyzed him into inaction).
Waltraute’s sublimely impressive, awe-inspiring account of the last days of Valhalla culminates in a new motif combination, #20a/#19/#42, which says it all. This reminds us of two things. First, in the transition from R.1 to R.2, Alberich’s Ring (its motif #19), whose power he acquired only by renouncing love, gave birth to Valhalla (#19>#20a), the seat of man’s religious beliefs and ideals predicated on man’s faith in his transcendent value. The Tarnhelm (#42/#43), the human imagination in the service of man’s artistic cunning and self-deceit, was the agency through which Loge and Wotan first dispossessed Alberich of his Ring and co-opted its power to sustain the gods’ illusory rule in Valhalla. But now, the Tarnhelm in Siegfried’s hands (and Hagen’s Potion, whose motif #154 is derived from the Tarnhelm motif) is, to all appearances, about to place the Ring back in Alberich’s hands.
Considering that it is ultimately derived from #81B (the motif which represents the punishment Bruennhilde brings upon herself in living for feeling rather than facing the bitter facts which have benumbed Wotan), #164 - in conjunction with the irony of #163, which conveys the notion that the positive spin Bruennhilde placed on Waltraute’s visit actually has a tragic interpretation - seems to express Wotan’s punishment of Bruennhilde (#81B) in its ultimate meaning. #81B represented Bruennhilde’s disavowal of divinity in favor of mortal love (i.e., in favor of secular art, the
