Siegfried: (#58b frag?:; #19 hint?:) Siegfried stayed with (#156a:) Gutrune (:#58b frag?; :#19 hint; :#156a).
Gutrune: (#5/#13:; #?: [perhaps a hint of music from S.1.3 which illustrates Nothung cooling in water?:) But Bruennhilde was at his side (:#? [Nothung cooling reference from S.1.3?])?
Siegfried: (#165:) Twixt east and west – (#57/#21) the north: (pointing to his sword: #57?) so close (#?: [a five-note musical figure which Wotan may have sung when telling Bruennhilde she’d be punished with sleep and left for any man to win in V.3.2-3; perhaps also sung by Wotan when confronting Siegfried before Bruennhilde’s rock in S.3.2? Is it associated with Wotan’s ravens, like #161 – “Hagen’s Watch”? Is there any #94, #98, or #58b?]) was the distance (#33/#42 vari >>>>:) between them (:#? [references to Wotan’s punishment of Bruennhilde with sleep, &/or Wotan’s ravens?; perhaps a hint of #94, #98, or #58b?]; :#33/#42 vari).
Gutrune: How did Gunther receive her from you?
Siegfried: (#33 vari:) Down through the fire’s dying embers (#33b >>:) she followed me in the morning mist from the fell to the valley below; close to the shoreline Gunther and I (#42/#33 >>:) changed places in a trice (:#42/#33): through the trinket’s magic virtue I wished myself straight back here. (#103)
{{ When Gutrune inquires whether the ring of fire protecting Bruennhilde singed her brother Gunther, Siegfried responds that though the fire wouldn’t have harmed Gunther either, Siegfried passed through it for Gunther. As Siegfried says this we hear what sounds like both #26a, the “Giants’ Motif,” and #48, the Serpent or Dragon Motif, which reminds us of both Alberich’s transformation into a serpent through the Tarnhelm’s magic, and Fafner’s similar transformation into a serpent. This motif of course represents the fear Siegfried never could learn from Fafner, but ultimately did learn from Bruennhilde. And we recall that #48 sounded near the climax of Bruennhilde’s loving union with Siegfried (Wagner’s metaphor for his own unconscious artistic inspiration) in S.3.3 It represents the fearfulness of the knowledge which remains safely hidden away from man’s prying eyes within Loge’s protective Ring of fire, the veil of Maya which religion and art produce to hide the terrible truth and substitute a consoling illusion for it. }}
Gutrune now pursues her suspicions, asking Siegfried whether Bruennhilde took Siegfried for her brother Gunther. Siegfried answers that he resembled Gunther perfectly, thanks to the Tarnhelm, and he praises Hagen’s good advice to use it to fool Bruennhilde. When Gutrune notes it was
