bless your blade that it bleed him (:#167): (#165 [not #151?]; #164) for just as he broke every oath he swore, this man has now forsworn himself!
Vassals: (in utter turmoil: #172? [music from the Gibichung vassals’ chorus of alarm when Hagen called upon them to protect the realm from “Noth”?]) Help, Donner! Let your tempest roar (#150 vari:) to silence this raging disgrace (:#172?; :#150 vari)! (#150?; #19 vari &/or #20a? [an orchestral explosion suggestive of the one heard either at the end of the transition T.2-3, when Wotan and Loge reached Nibelheim, or the end of the transition R.3-4, when Wotan and Loge emerged from Nibelheim with Alberich and his ring captive?]; #150?)
#150 is heard repeatedly as everyone present insists Siegfried swear an oath to silence Bruennhilde’s presumably false charges. #150, as the motif representing the hoard of runes Wotan taught Bruennhilde in his confession, and which she in turn imparted to Siegfried in order that he might draw upon them for subliminal inspiration of his redemptive art, effectively represents Wotan’s confession that it is impossible for him to create a free hero who can neutralize the Ring curse, and therefore redeem the gods from the destruction Alberich and Hagen have sworn to wreak upon them. Bruennhilde had promised to keep Wotan’s unspoken secret, but now, as a natural consequence of Siegfried’s betrayal of the contents of his unconscious mind (Bruennhilde) to the light of day, this secret can no longer be kept, and Bruennhilde inevitably plays her part in exposing to the daylight what Siegfried has forced her to expose, by giving her and her secrets away to his audience, represented by Gunther and the Gibichungs. Siegfried can swear an oath to try and put this forbidden knowledge out of sight and out of mind, but Bruennhilde is now going to insist that it be revealed to all.
In answer to a request from Siegfried that someone present venture his weapon to back up Siegfried’s oath, Hagen offers his spear-point, so Hagen’s spear effectively becomes Wotan’s spear, the enforcer of divine authority and the social contract. Just as Wotan’s spear rendered Siegmund vulnerable to Hunding’s fatal wound, to punish Siegmund for breaking divine law, so Hagen’s spear will deliver a fatal wound to Siegfried for breaking an oath sanctioned by Wotan’s spear, which upholds the law. Hagen holds out his spear accompanied by #159, the “Oath of Atonement Motif,” and now we hear a new motif, #173, to which both Siegfried and Bruennhilde swear their contradictory oaths. The other motifs heard during Siegfried’s oath are #164 (which stemmed originally from Wotan’s spear motif #21, and in this instance represents Wotan’s ultimate punishment of Bruennhilde for her disavowal of divine law), and #167, the so-called “Murder Motif” (based on #19’s harmony), which expresses Alberich’s and Hagen’s intent to deliver the coup de grace to the gods by murdering their only hope of salvation from Alberich’s curse on the Ring, Siegfried. #167 embodies Hagen’s spear-point, which will be the instrument for Siegfried’s atonement of the gods’ sin against all that was, is, and will be.
Bruennhilde’s version of the oath is sung to, and accompanied by, largely the same musical and motival material as Siegfried’s oath, except that it is preceded by a #150 variant in an orchestral explosion. Since #150 represents Wotan’s hoard of knowledge which Bruennhilde imparted to
