prehistory of how man came to the point at which we find him as Siegfried the music-dramatist is singing the narrative of his life’s course for his Gibichung audience.
[T.3.2: C]
Siegfried initially sings his narrative accompanied not only by the Woodbird’s Songs #128 and #129b, but also by a new, jaunty, heroic and optimistic variant of #41, the Nibelung Labor Motif. It was of course Nibelung labor which produced the Ring, Tarnhelm, and Hoard in the first place, and set all the events of the Ring on their course. The tail end of this variant of #41 sounds somewhat like the motif of Hagen’s Watch, #161, and this lends to the #41 variant a peculiar narrative force. Siegfried begins with his account of his early childhood, which Siegfried endured under the shadow of his greedy, craven foster-father, Alberich’s brother, and Hagen’s uncle, Mime:
(All settle down close to Siegfried, who is the only one to sit upright, while the others lie outstretched further downstage. #128a?; #128b; #129b)
Hagen: Sing on then, hero!
Siegfried: (#41 vari; #41 vari; #161; #4 voc?:; #101:) In thrall to greed [“Neides”] (#41 vari:) a surly dwarf by the name of Mime brought me up (:#41 vari), so that, when the child was bigger and bolder, (#48?:) he’d fell a dragon in the forest that long had guarded a hoard there (:#4 voc?; :#48?). (#105 vari/#41 vari) (#105 vari >>> :) He taught me forging and smelting ores (:#41 vari; :#105 vari): but what the artist [“Kuenstler”] himself could not do, the prentice’s courage was bound to achieve – (#103 frag >>> :) to weld together into a sword the fragments of a shattered blade (:#103 frag). (#109) (#103: [as ascending triplets which lack the syncopated rhythm and melody of #41?]; #57 vari: [or #109?]; #119 harmony:) My father’s weapon I fit together; as hard as nails I fashioned Nothung (:#103 triplet vari; :#57 vari [or #109?]; :#119 harmony); (#101 vari [expressing alarm, as in the prelude to S.2.1]) it seemed to the dwarf (:#101 vari) to be fit for the fight: (#48 & #126b:) so he led me into the wildwood and there I felled Fafner, the dragon (:#48; :#126b). (#11?:) But now listen closely to the tale (:#11?): (#66?:) wondrous things I must tell you (:#66?). (#11?:) The dragon’s blood burned my fingers (:#11?); (#66?:) to cool them, I raised them up to my mouth (:#66?): (#Remembrance Motif? (#@: e or f?)? [which Dunning describes as either #139 or a #174b or #174c inversion, as heard in the orchestra after Siegfried said to the Gibichungs “I thirst”?]; #106 hint? [music which expressed Siegfried’s loneliness after killing Mime, as he asked the Woodbird to tell him of a boon companion?]) the gore had scarcely wet my tongue when
