Hagen: (171:) Now leave off laughing, valiant vassals (:#172)! (#?: [music from “Hagen’s Watch” in the transition T.1.2-3?]) Receive Gunther’s bride (:#? [Hagen’s Watch music from T.1.2-3?]): (#151) (#171 >> :) Bruennhilde’s coming here with him.
(#171?: He points towards the Rhine: #172: some of the vassals run up the slope at the back, while others line up on the shore in order to see the new arrivals.)
Hagen: (approaching some of the vassals: #168:) To your lady be loyal, serve her truly: (#151?) if wrong should befall her, be swift to vengeance!
(#171: He turns slowly aside towards the back of the stage. During the following, the boat bearing Gunther and Bruennhilde appears on the Rhine.)
The Vassals: (#171 transitions into a #172 frag vari) Hail! Hail!
(The vassals who had been standing on the slope descend to the riverbank: #168?)
The Vassals: Welcome! Welcome!
(#168b?: Some of the vassals leap into the water and draw the boat ashore. They all press to the shore.)
The Vassals: Welcome, Gunther! (#168b >>:) Hail! Hail!
In bitter irony Hagen calls upon the Gibichung clan - archetype for all historical societies (up till and including modern times) which disenfranchised the free-thinkers and heretics for the sake of a social contract which embraced the consolations of self-delusion in religion and art - to make special sacrifices, one after the other, to each of the Valhallan gods, and in a final irony calls upon Fricka to bless this double wedding, which Hagen has engineered. Hagen’s sole purpose in arranging these two marriages is to expose Siegfried’s true relationship with his muse of unconscious artistic inspiration, revealing the secret their art has previously concealed, so that, Siegfried being discredited, Hagen can offer man the practical consolation of a bid for power which, however, precludes love and humane values. By exposing Siegfried’s involvement in Gunther’s and Gutrune’s self-deception, Hagen will retroactively destroy faith in the old gods and
