Hagen: (#159:) So let him die, the radiant hero! Mine is the hoard, it must be mine (:#159): (#13 vari [the “Hagen’s Watch” material from above, which seems like #5 plus #19, and perhaps references Alberich’s “(#5a) Wehe! (#5b) Ach, wehe!” from R.1, which is the embryo for both #13 and #15?]) so let the ring be wrested from him (:#13 vari [with “Hagen’s Watch” influence?])! (#19 or #20a?:) Elfen father, fallen prince! Guardian of night (:#19 or #20a?)! (#173 vari >>:) Nibelung lord! Alberich! Heed me! Bid the (#?: [intense dissonance on “Nibelung host”?]) Nibelung (#171) (#151b:) host obey you anew, the lord of the ring (#151b)!
(#33(?): [Norns’ vari?]) As Gunther turns impetuously to the hall with Bruennhilde, they are met by the bridal procession on its way out. #171/#33b [Norns’ vari?]; #171 >>; #156b. Boys and girls, waving flowers, dance merrily at its head. Siegfried is carried on a shield by the men. Gutrune on a chair. On the slope at the back servants and maidservants bring sacrificial implements and animals over to the various mountain paths to the altar stones, which they decorate with flowers. Siegfried and the menfolk sound the wedding call on their horns. #151b or #171?. The women invite Bruennhilde to walk alongside Gutrune with them. #170a/#164 >>; #156?; #171 >>>>; #170a: Bruennhilde stares blankly at Gutrune, who beckons her with a friendly smile. Bruennhilde is on the point of withdrawing impetuously, when Hagen quickly intervenes and pushes her towards Gunther, who seizes her hand once again and leads her over to the women. He then invites the menfolk to raise her on a shield. #171?; #164. After this brief interruption, the procession quickly resumes its progress towards the slope at the back, as the curtain falls. #170?/#164?)
The essence of this revenge trio is that, where Bruennhilde and Gunther call upon Wotan (Light-Alberich), the guardian of oaths, to wreak vengeance on Siegfried for breaking Siegfried’s dissimilar oaths to Bruennhilde and Gunther, thereby dishonoring them, and in this way to cleanse Siegfried’s guilt, Hagen calls upon his father Alberich (Dark-Alberich) to prepare to reclaim the lost power of his Ring, once Hagen’s machinations have fulfilled the conditions of Alberich’s curse on his Ring (i.e., his planned punishment of the gods and their proxies for co-opting the power of the Ring in order to perpetuate Wotan’s sin of truth-denying self-deception). This oath of vengeance, of course, highlights the essential identity of Wotan and Alberich. This identification is motivally expressed in the very close similarity of motifs #19 (Alberich’s Ring) and #20a (the first segment of the Valhalla Motif).
T.2.5 ends with some stage business in which Bruennhilde expresses her disdain for her rival Gutrune and rage at her betrayer Siegfried, with final emphasis on #164, the motif which recalls Wotan’s awareness that his quest for redemption from Alberich’s curse was futile, and that therefore all his proxies who stand up for it are destined to succumb to Alberich’s curse. Just as the
