unconscious artistic inspiration. He has, as the Rhinedaughters put it, lost his greatest gift, by giving it - his unconscious, which protected him from the wounds of consciousness - away, and keeping the Ring of consciousness. As Hagen delivers the death-stroke of remembrance, we hear #51/#170, as he cries out: “To me they [Wotan’s ravens] counseled vengeance.” But Hagen has not wreaked vengeance on Siegfried for betraying Gunther’s honor. Hagen has fulfilled the conditions of Alberich’s curse on the Ring, whose sole purpose was to punish all those who co-opted the Ring’s (human mind’s) power in order to create and sustain the illusion that man has transcendent value, which is a sin against Mother Nature (Erda) and her truth. It is in this sense that Hagen has avenged perjury and deceit, and honored the truth. It has been mankind’s emotional attachment to that consoling illusion which has kept Alberich from attaining the maximum of worldly power which would be available to him, if he was not under the constraint of man’s emotional attachment, man’s insistence on finding transcendent value in life. What is more, in this way Alberich satisfied his spite (represented by here by Hagen’s version of Alberich’s “Woe” Motif #5, namely, #170), his intent to avenge himself for not being able to find love in the real world.
The vassals have tried to stop Hagen in vain, and, after we hear Siegfried’s motif #92, we hear the last new motif of the Ring, #177ab, its first segment #177a being a heavy syncopation in the bass which is the hallmark of Siegfried’s death-stroke, its second segment #177b being a flourish which somewhat resembles – at least in its subjective effect - the motif associated in V.2.4 with Siegmund’s rebellion against the fate Bruennhilde announced to him, #89. This is the motif which will soon introduce one of the most famous orchestral interludes from the Ring, Siegfried’s Funeral Procession, often performed independently in the concert hall. The vassals, and now even Gunther himself, ask Hagen what he is doing, what he has done. We hear #87 (“Fate”) and #159 (the “Oath of Atonement”) as Hagen grimly responds: “A false oath I avenged!” With that Hagen turns away and walks off. Gunther, though originally shocked at the apparent evidence of Siegfried’s dishonesty, instinctively knows that Siegfried is innocent and bends over him in remorse at what has been done, partly at Gunther’s behest. After all, surely by now Gunther has guessed that the wondrous woman with whom Siegfried once told Gunther and Hagen that he had left his Ring for safekeeping, is one and the same with the Bruennhilde Siegfried abducted for Gunther, who accused Siegfried of stealing her Ring which, miraculously, suddenly appeared on Siegfried’s finger. Furthermore, Gunther in T.2.5 had already expressed his discomfort at Hagen’s suggestion that Siegfried had betrayed his oath to him. The loss of Siegfried, and Gunther’s involvement in the scheme to kill him, is irrevocable: Gunther’s remorse arises from the fact that the entire meaning of Gunther’s life, his sense of self-worth and honor, was the self-deception which Siegfried’s art had enabled. How then can Gunther find fault with Siegfried, any more than the gods can blame Loge for lying when self-deceit was the basis for their very status as alleged gods!
King Marke finds himself in an identical quandary in Acts Two and Three of Tristan and Isolde, when he excuses Tristan for having been the victim of a potion, a potion which Tristan has admitted to himself that he himself brewed. King Marke had complained to Melot - whose machinations exposed Tristan’s secret love with Isolde during a hunt, whose actual purpose was to catch them in the act (the similarity with the events of T.3.2 is obvious) - that Melot had not protected Marke’s honor by revealing the truth to him, but rather, destroyed it, by undermining the sole source of all Marke’s honor and value, Tristan.
