"No matter whose hearth this may be here I must rest" "A stranger?" "I must question him" "Who is lying there .." "He lies there weary and travel-worn?" "Has he fainted?" "Could he be ill?" "He is still breathing:he has only closed his eyes." "The man seems robust," "though he has collapsed from exhaustion." "A drink!" "A drink!" "I'll bring something to revive you..." "I've brought a drink for your parched lips:" "water as you requested." "Cool and refreshing was the water;" "it has lightened the burden of my weariness." "My spirits are revived;" "my eyes enjoy the blessed boon of sight." "Who is it that has comforted me so?" "This house and this woman belong to Hunding." "He will not grudge you shelter as a guest." "Wait till he comes home." "I am weaponless: your husband will not turn away a wounded guest." "Quick!" "Show me your wounds." "They are slight, not worth mentioning;" "the limbs of my body are still intact and firm." "Had my shield and spear supported me half as stoutly as my arms" "I would never have fled from my foes." "But they shattered my spear and shield:" "the pack of foemen harried me till I was weary:" "the violence of the storm exhausted my strength." "Yet my weariness has fled from me faster than I from my pursuers." "Night fell on my eyelids, but now the sun smiles on me anew!" "Do not refuse from me a sweet drink of honeyed mead." "Will you taste it first?" "You have comforted an ill-starred man;" "his wish is to keep you from misfortune." "I am rested and sweetly refreshed:" "now I must be on my way." "Who is pursuing you, that you flee already?" "Ill luck pursues me wherever I flee." "Ill luck approaches wherever I stay." "Woman, far may it remain from you!" "I will direct my steps, and my gaze, away." "Then remain here!" "You cannot bring misfortune into a house where misfortune has its home." "I have called myself Woeful." "I will wait for Hunding." "I found this man exhausted by our hearth." "Dire need drove him to this house." " Have you tended him?" " I refreshed his lips and treated him as a guest." "For shelter and rest I thank her." "Will you rebuke your wife for that?" "Sacred is my hearth." "Let my house be sacrosanct to you!" "Prepare the meal for us men!" "How like my wife he is!" "A serpent's guile gleams from his eyes, too." "Your steps have led you far from your course, I fancy." "He who rested here rode no horse." "What rough path caused your plight?" "Storm and dire distress drove me through forest and field, heath and thicket." "I know not the way that I came." "Still less do I know whither I have wandered." "That I would gladly learn." "Hunding is the name of the owner of the roof that covers you, of the house that harbours you." "If you make your way westwards from here there in rich estates dwell kinsmen who guard Hunding's honour." "Let my guest now do me the honour of telling me his name." "If you are uneasy at confiding in me inform my wife here." "See how eagerly she asks you!" "Guest, I would gladly know who you are." "I may not call myself Peaceful." "Would that I were Joyful, but Woeful" "must be my name." "My father was Wolfe:" "I came into the world one of two, a twin sister and I." "Mother and sister were soon lost to me." "I hardly ever knew her who bore me nor her born with me." "Warlike and strong was Wolfe;" "he made many enemies." "Father took the youth out hunting." "One day they came home from harrying and coursing." "The wolf's lair lay empty." "The splendid hall was burnt to ashes, the oak's sturdy trunk reduced to a stump, the mother's brave body slain, all trace of the sister lost in the flames." "This bitter blow was dealt us by a cruel, envious band." "The old man and I fled as outlaws." "Many years the youth lived with Wolfe in the wild woods." "Many a pursuit after them was made, but the Wolf pair stoutly defended itself." "A wolf cub tells you this whom many knew well as Wölfing." "Wonderful and strange tales you tell, intrepid guest!" "Woeful the Wölfing!" "I think I have heard dark stories of that warlike pair although I have never known Wolfe and Wölfing." "But tell us more, stranger." "Where is your father now?" "Our vengeful foes launched a fierce onslaught on us." "Many of the hunters fell to the Wolves." "Their quarry drove them in flight." "The foe was scattered like chaff." "But I was separated from my father and lost track of him, though long I sought him." "I found only a wolf-skin in the forest, lying empty before me." "I did not find my father." "I felt the urge to leave the woods." "I was drawn to men and women." "However many I met, wherever I found them, if I sought a friend or wooed a woman," "I was always rejected." "Ill luck lay on me." "Whatever I thought right seemed bad to others." "Whatever I held to be wrong others favoured." "Wherever I found myself I fell into feuds, wherever I went I was met with resentment." "If I craved for happiness, I created only woe." "So I had to call myself Wehwalt:" "I was master only of woe." "She who assigned you so grievous a lot, the Norn, did not love you." "No one to whom, as stranger, you come as guest greets you with joy." "Only the cowardly fear the man who travels unarmed and alone." "Tell us more, guest, of how, finally, you lost your weapons in combat." "A young girl in distress called on me to defend her." "Her family wanted to wed the maid to a man she did not love." "I met her horde of oppressors in fight:" "the enemy fell before the victor." "Her brothers lay there dead." "The girl threw her arms around their bodies;" "grief replaced her rage." "In a flood of wild tears she surveyed the carnage, weeping." "The unhappy bride lamented the slaughter of her brothers." "Then the kinsmen of the dead rushed in, crying for vengeance, in superior numbers." "Enemies towered above me from every quarter." "But the girl would not budge from the scene of battle." "With shield and spear I protected her for long until spear and shield were hacked from my hands." "Wounded and weaponless I stood," "and saw the maid die." "The raging crowd pursued me." "On the bodies she lay dead..." "Woman, you asked me." "Now you know" "why I am not called" "Peaceful." "I know a turbulent race who hold sacred nothing that others revere." "They are hated by all, and by me." "I was summoned to wreak vengeance, to exact reparation for kinsmen's blood." "I arrived too late, and now come home to see the track of the fleeing culprit in my own house." "Wölfing, my house shelters you today, for tonight I accept you." "But tomorrow arm yourself with a stout weapon." "I choose daylight for the fight." "You shall pay dearly for the dead." "Leave the room!" "Do not linger here!" "Prepare my night drink and wait in there until I come to bed." "A man should arm himself with weapons." "Wölfing, I will meet you tomorrow." "You heard what I said." "Be on your guard!" "My father promised me a sword which I would find in my hour of need." "Unarmed, I have fallen into the house of a foe." "I wait here as a hostage to his vengeance." "I have seen a lovely woman of noble bearing." "A rapturous fear gnaws at my heart." "Longing now draws me to her who sears me with sweet magic." "But she is held by force by the man who mocks my lack of weapons." "Wälse!" "Wälse!" "Where is your sword, the trusty sword that I may wield in combat when the rage my heart still holds shall burst from my breast?" "What glints brightly there from the ash tree's trunk?" "A lightning gleam dazzles my eyes, the spark laughs in glee." "How gloriously does the gleam scorch my heart!" "Is it the glance of the radiant woman which, clinging there, she left behind her when she went out of the room?" "The darkness of night covered my eyes." "Then her radiant glance fell on me, bringing me warmth and daylight." "The sun's light shone on me in benison, its lovely radiance encircled my head" "till it sank behind the mountains." "Yet once more, as it departed, at evening its light fell on me." "Even the ancient ash tree's trunk was bathed in a golden glow." "That glow is fading, the light extinguished." "The darkness of night covers my eyes." "Hidden deep in my breast an obscure glow still smoulders." "Are you asleep, guest?" "Who is that creeping in?" "It is I. Listen to me!" "Hunding lies in heavy sleep." "I seasoned his drink with a drug." "Use the night to save yourself!" "Your nearness makes me safe!" "Let me show you a sword." "Oh, if you could only win it" "I could call you the noblest of heroes." "It was destined for the strongest alone." "Oh, mark well what I tell you!" "My husband's kinsmen sat here in this room, invited to Hunding's wedding." "He was marrying a wife whom robbers had given him as bride, without asking her." "Sadly I sat while they were drinking." "A stranger entered the house, an old man clad in grey." "His hat hung so low that it covered one of his eyes." "But the glint of the other struck fear in them all when the men observed its powerful menace." "To me alone his eye conveyed sweet yearning grief," "tears and solace together." "He looked at me and glared at them, while in his hand he brandished a sword which he then thrust into the ash tree's trunk," "plunging it there up to the hilt." "The sword should belong by right to the one who could draw it from the tree." "Resolutely as all the men strove, none could win the weapon." "Guests came and guests went." "The strongest tugged at the steel:" "not an inch could they loosen it from the tree." "Silently the sword remains there." "I knew then who it was that had greeted me in my grief." "I also know for whom alone the sword is embedded in the trunk." "Oh, if I could find him here and now, that friend, if he had come to me from afar to the most wretched of women, then all I have borne in bitter woe, all I have suffered in shame and humiliation," "sweet revenge would compensate for everything!" "I should have retrieved all I lost, all that I had wept for would be regained if I had found this sacred friend and could clasp that hero in my arms!" "Blessed woman, that friend for whom weapon and wife are destined holds you now!" "Fiercely in my breast burns the vow that unites me to you, noble soul." "What I have always yearned for I see in you." "In you I have found all that I lack!" "Though you suffered shame and I was afflicted with sorrow, though I was outlawed and you were dishonoured, joyful vengeance now calls us to happiness!" "I laugh aloud in highest delight as I hold your wondrous self in my embrace and feel your beating heart!" "Ah, who went out?" "Who came in?" "Nobody left, but someone has come:" "look, Spring is smiling into the room!" "Winter storms have given way to Maytime." "Spring sparkles in gentle radiance." "He is wafted, working wonders, on balmy breezes, light and lovely." "His breath blows through wood and meadow, his eyes, wide open, are smiling." "Sweetly he sounds from joyous birdsong, he breathes forth fragrant scents." "Lovely flowers spring from his warm blood, buds and shoots sprout from his vigour." "With his gentle weaponry of charm he conquers the world." "Winter and storm yield to his strong assault." "At his dauntless blows the stout doors that defiantly and stubbornly kept us from him had to yield." "To his sister here he swept." "Love lured the Spring." "Deep in our hearts love lay hidden." "Now she smiles happily at the light." "The brother frees his sister and bride, all that held them apart is demolished." "The young couple greet each other joyfully:" "Love and Spring are united!" "You are the Spring for which I have yearned through the long icy winter." "My heart greeted you with holy fear when I first blossomed at your glance." "I had always seen only what was alien, all around me was friendless." "All that ever happened was as if outside my ken." "But you I recognised plainly and clearly." "When my eyes saw you, you were my own." "What I hid in my heart, what I am," "was revealed to me, bright as day." "It rang in my ear like a resounding peal when in alien empty winter I first saw my friend." "O sweetest bliss!" "Most blessed woman!" "Oh, let me come close to you, that I may clearly see the noble light that shines" "from your eyes and face and so sweetly overwhelms my senses." "In the spring moonlight you shine brightly, the waves of your hair crowning you with glory." "Now I can easily tell what captivated me, for my eyes feast on you in rapture." "How broad and open is your brow!" "How the network of veins winds into your temples!" "I tremble with the rapture that thrills me." "A marvel awakes in my memory:" "though I beheld you today, for the first time, my eyes have seen you before." "I too recall a dream of love, in ardent longing I have seen you before." "In the stream I have looked at my own image, and now I behold it again." "As once it was reflected from the water, now you present my likeness to me!" "You are the likeness that" "I hid in myself." "Hush!" "Let me listen to that voice:" "I seem to have heard it as a child." "But no!" "I heard it recently when the woods echoed back to me the sound of my own voice." "O loveliest sound that I hear!" "The gleam of your eyes has shone on me before:" "that was how the old man gazed at me in greeting when he consoled my sorrow." "By that look his child recognised him." "I even wanted to call him by name!" "Are you truly called Woeful?" "That is not my name since you love me:" "now I am filled with the utmost bliss." "And, being happy, may you not call yourself Peaceful?" "Give me whatever name you love me to bear." "I will take my name from you." "But was your father's name Wolfe?" "He was a wolf to faint-hearted foxes." "But he whose eyes proudly shone, as yours now gloriously shine on me, wondrous woman, his name was Wälse." "If Wälse was your father and you are a Wälsung, it was for you he thrust his sword into the tree." "So let me name you as I love you:" "Siegmund, this I name you!" "Victorious you call me, and victorious I am!" "Let the sword I fearlessly hold be witness!" "Wälse promised me that one day, in direst need, I should find it." "Now I grasp it!" "Holiest love's highest need, yearning love's searing need," "burns bright in my breast, drives me to daring and death." "Notung!" "Needful do I call you, sword." "Notung!" "Notung, stubborn steel, show me the sharpness of your cutting edge!" "Come forth from your scabbard to me!" "Woman, you see Siegmund the Wälsung!" "As bridal gift he brings this sword." "With it he wins the fairest of women and carries you off from his enemy's house." "Far from here follow me now, forth into Spring's smiling mansion." "Notung the sword will guard you there should Siegmund die, loving you." "Is this Siegmund that I see here?" "I am Sieglinde, who longed for you." "Your own sister you have won together with the sword!" "You are bride and sister to your brother." "Then let the Wälsung race flourish!" "Now bridle your steed, warrior maid!" "Soon a ferocious conflict will blaze forth." "Brünnhilde must charge into the battle and ensure victory for the Wälsung!" "Hunding may choose where he belongs:" "he is of no value to me in Valhalla." "So with all speed ride forth to the field." "Father, I warn you, look to yourself." "You will need to weather a violent storm." "Fricka, your wife, is approaching in her chariot drawn by rams." "Hi!" "How she wields her golden whip!" "The poor beasts are bleating with fear, the wheels rattle wildly, she is wrathful and ready for a quarrel." "I have no wish to be part of such squabbles though I love courageous men's battles." "So brave the storm as you may:" "I gladly leave you to it!" "The old storm, the old trouble!" "But here I must make a stand!" "In the mountains where you hide yourself to escape your wife's eye," "here in this lonely spot I have sought you out for you to promise me your help." "Let Fricka freely say what troubles her." "I have been hearing Hunding's plaint:" "he called on me to avenge him." "As wedlock's guardian I listened to him" "and swore sternly to punish the misdeed by the audacious, sacrilegious pair who have wantonly wronged a husband." "What so wrong have this pair done whom Spring has united in love?" "Love's magic bewitched them." "Who must atone to me for love's power?" "How stupid and deaf you feign to be, as if you really did not know that" "it is about marriage, a sacred vow grievously wronged, that I am complaining." "Unholy do I deem the vow that binds the unloving;" "and in truth do not demand that I restrain by force what is outside your control." "For where bold spirits are active" "I openly urge them to battle." "If you respect adultery as honourable then bluster still further and praise as holy the incest blossoming from a liaison between twins!" "I shudder at heart, my brain reels:" "a brother embracing his sister as bride!" "When was it ever known for brother and sister to be lovers?" "It is known to you today!" "And learn from this that something may happen of its own accord although it may never have happened before." "That these two love each other must be clear to you, so hear my honest advice:" "since sweet pleasure will reward you for your blessing then smile on love" "and bless the union of Siegmund and Sieglinde." "Is this then the end of the eternal gods, since you begot the wild Wälsungs?" "I have spoken frankly." "Have I divined your meaning?" "Your noble holy kin mean nothing to you, you throw aside everything you once honoured, you tear apart bonds the bonds you tied, you laughingly loosen your hold on heaven" "only to give rein to the lustful whim of these sinful pair of twins, the lewd fruit of your infidelity." "Oh, why do I mourn for wedlock and its vows, which you yourself were the first to break?" "Your faithful wife you have constantly betrayed." "Where there were depths, where there were heights, there your lecherous eye lingered to see how you could gratify" "your fickle fancy and mockingly mortify my heart." "Saddened in spirit, I had to bear it when you flew to the fray with those fearsome maids whom a liaison of lawless love had fathered." "But you still feared your wife enough to make the brood of Valkyries, even Brünnhilde, bride of your will, obedient to my authority." "But now, when new names have taken your fancy, as "Walse" you wandered wolfishly in the woods." "Now that you have descended to the depths of dishonour to procreate a couple with a common mortal, now you would throw your wife to the feet of a she-wolf's whelps!" "Then go on and do so." "Fill my cup full." "Trample on the one you have betrayed!" "You have never learned, though I tried to teach you;" "you never can foresee an event before it takes place in reality." "You always can understand only the familiar, but my thoughts dwell on what" "has never yet been." "Hear this one thing!" "There is need for a hero who, free from divine protection, can free himself from divine law." "Thus alone will he be fit to do the deed which, though the gods need it," "nevertheless a god is debarred from doing." "With devious arguments you are trying to deceive me." "What mighty deed could heroes ever accomplish that would be forbidden to their gods, whose grace alone gives them power?" "Do you disparage their own courage?" "Who breathed that into men?" "Who lit up their dull eyes?" "Under your protection they seem strong, through your goading they aspire." "You alone stimulate these whom you so praise to me, a goddess." "With new wiles you would hoodwink me, by new tricks now to escape me." "But you shall not win this Wälsung for yourself." "In him I find only you, for his daring stems only from you." "He grew up by himself in sore sorrow." "My protection never sheltered him." "Then do not shelter him today either!" "Take away the sword you gave him." "The sword?" "Yes, the sword, the flashing sword of magic power that you, the god, gave to your son." "Siegmund won it for himself in his hour of need." "You created that need for him like the sturdy sword." "Would you deceive me, who day and night have been following at your heels?" "For him you thrust the sword into the tree, you promised him the noble weapon." "Would you deny your cunning lured him to where he would find it?" "No noble fights with bondsmen, a free man punishes an offender." "I might well wage war against your power," "but Siegmund, as a slave, must fall to me!" "Is your immortal wife to obey one who is serf and bondsman to you as master?" "Must I abase myself to the affronts of the lowliest, to spur on the insolent, to be mocked by the free?" "My husband cannot wish for that, he would not profane a goddess so!" "What do you ask for?" "Disclaim the Wälsung!" "Let him go his own way." "But you must not protect him when the avenger calls him to combat." "I will not protect him." "Look me in the eye:" "do not plan a deception." "Direct the Valkyrie away from him too!" "Let the Valkyrie be free to decide." "Not so!" "She carries out your will alone." "Forbid her to allow Siegmund's victory!" "I cannot strike him down:" "he found my sword." "Remove its magic from it." "Let it snap for the serf." "Let his foe find him defenceless." "Here comes your valiant maid, shouting as she gallops hither." "I called her to horse for Siegmund's sake." "Let her shield today defend your immortal wife's sacred honour!" "Derided by men, deprived of power," "we gods would perish if my rights were not nobly and honourably avenged by the valiant maid." "The Wälsung must die for my honour!" "Do I have Wotan's oath?" "Take my oath!" "The father of hosts awaits you." "Let him tell you how the lot is to fall." "I fear the dispute ended badly:" "Fricka was laughing at the outcome." "Father, what must your child be told?" "You seem dispirited and depressed." "I am confined fast in my own fetters," "I am the least free of all beings." "Never have I seen you like this." "What is gnawing at your heart?" "Oh, sacred shame!" "Oh, shameful distress!" "Grief for the gods!" "Divine despair!" "Endless rage!" "Everlasting sorrow!" "I am the saddest of all beings." "Father, father, tell me, what is wrong?" "How your troubles dismay your daughter!" "Oh, trust in me!" "I am true to you." "See, Brünnhilde begs you." "Were I to disclose it should I not then relax the control I hold on my will?" "It is to Wotan's will you are speaking when you tell me your will." "What am I if not your will?" "Let what I put into words for no one" "then remain for ever unspoken." "When talking to you I am talking only to myself..." "When young love's delight declined in me my spirit thirsted for power." "Driven by raging, impetuous desires," "I won the world for myself." "Unwittingly dishonest, I committed a wrong, binding myself by treaties that concealed evil." "I was craftily lured on by Loge, who now, the vagabond, has vanished." "Yet I could not abstain from love:" "with all my power," "I still hungered for love." "The thwarted Nibelung, Alberich, broke from night's bonds." "He cursed love, and through that curse and gained the Rhine's glittering gold and, with it, immeasurable power." "The ring he made I took from him by treachery, but did not return it to the Rhine." "With it I paid for the battlements of Valhalla, the castle the giants built for me," "from which I ruled the world." "She who knows all that ever was," "Erda, the wisest holy Wala, cautioned me against the ring and warned of eternal doom." "Of that doom I sought to know more, but silently the woman sank from my sight." "Then my peace of mind was lost." "As a god, I had to know." "Down into the bowels of the earth I made my way, by love's enchantment." "I humbled her pride in wisdom, so that now she answered me." "From her I drew knowledge, but from me she secured a pledge:" "the world's wisest woman bore you, Brünnhilde, to me." "With eight sisters I brought you up." "Through you Valkyries I wanted to avert the doom the Wala had made me fear, a shameful ending for the immortals." "So that foes would find us strong in strife" "I bade you bring me heroes, whom once by our laws we had held in thrall, whose spirits we had crushed, and through treacherous treaties and deceptive deals bound them to us in blind obedience." "You were then to spur them to storm and strife, provoke their strength to pitiless war, so that I could gather hosts of fearless fighters in Valhalla's hall." "We filled your hall full:" "I have already brought you many." "What now troubles you, since we were never tardy?" "There is something else." "Mark well what the Wala warned me of!" "Through Alberich's army our downfall threatens." "The Nibelung bears me rancour in envious rage." "But now I do not fear his forces of darkness:" "my heroes would bring me victory." "Only if he ever were to win back the ring, then would Valhalla be lost." "He who cursed love, he alone could malignly use the ring's magic to the endless humiliation of all nobility." "He would turn my heroes' bravery against me." "He himself would compel the conquerors into combat and with their strength wage war on me." "Anxiously I then pondered how to wrest the ring from my enemy." "One of the giants whom" "I once paid for his labour with the accursed gold," "Fafner guards the hoard for which he killed his brother." "From him I have to wrest the ring that I myself paid him as fee." "Yet I may not attack one with whom I concluded a contract." "My might would fall powerless before him." "These are the bonds that bind me." "I who through contracts became ruler by those contracts am now enslaved." "Only one could accomplish what I may not:" "a hero whom I had never deigned to help, a stranger to the god, free from his favour, unprompted, acting from his own need, with his own weapon." "He could do the deed that I must shun, that I never suggested to him, though it be my one wish." "One opposed to the gods who would fight for me, this friendly foe, how could I find him?" "How could I create a free man whom I never shielded, who by his own defiance would be dearest to me?" "One who, of his own volition,will do what I alone desire?" "Oh, plight for a god!" "Horrible humiliation!" "To my disgust I ever find only myself in all I bring about." "This other whom I long for" "I shall never discover, for the free man must create himself." "I can only make one subservient to myself." "Does the Wälsung, Siegmund, not act for himself." "I roamed the woods wildly with him." "Against the counsel of the gods I incited him to defiance." "All that protects him now is the sword that a god's grace granted him." "Why did I wish by guile to gull myself?" "It was so easy for Fricka to fathom the fraud." "To my deepest shame, she saw through me." "I must yield to her will." "Then will you withhold victory from Siegmund?" "I touched Alberich's ring and greedily retained his gold." "The curse from which I fled" "I cannot shake off:" "I must abandon what I love, murder the son I treasure," "basely betray one who trusts me!" "Farewell then to lordly splendour, godlike pomp's shameful sham!" "Let what I built fall in ruins!" "I give up my work," "I want only one thing now:" "the end," "the end!" "And for this end Alberich is working." "Now I understand the cryptic meaning of the Wala's wild words:" ""When the dark foe of love"" ""in anger begets a son,"" ""the doom of the blessed ones will not long be delayed."" "Recently a rumour reached me about the Nibelung, that the dwarf had overcome a woman and extorted her favours with money." "The seed of his spite stirs in her womb." "This wonder befell the loveless one." "Yet I who wooed in love did not produce a free man." "Then take my blessing," "Nibelung son!" "What deeply disgusts me I leave you as legacy," "the empty glory of godhead:" "greedily glut your grudge on it!" "Oh, speak!" "Tell me, what must your child now do?" "Fight for Fricka and purity, guard wedlock and its vows for her." "What she chose is my choice too." "Of what avail was my own will?" "I cannot fashion a free man:" "now you must fight for Fricka's vassal!" "Alas!" "Repent and recant!" "You love Siegmund: for your sake" "I know, I must protect the Wälsung." "You must strike Siegmund down and gain the victory for Hunding." "Guard yourself well and keep yourself strong." "Bring all your boldness to the battle." "Siegmund wields a victorious sword." "He will scarcely die a coward!" "You have always taught me to love him, and his noble virtues are dear to your heart." "Your contradictory command shall never turn me against him!" "What, insolent girl, do you defy me?" "What are you but the blindly obedient agent of my will?" "When I opened my heart to you, did I sink so low that I am now reviled by my own creation?" "Child, do you know my wrath?" "Your courage would collapse if ever its lightning crushingly crashed on you." "In my breast I hide the fury that could lay waste the world which once smilingly gave me pleasure." "Woe to him whom it strikes!" "His defiance would turn to despair." "I warn you, therefore, do not provoke me." "Obey my orders:" "Siegmund must die." "Let this be the Valkyrie's task." "Never have I seen the father of victories like this, even when a quarrel has incensed him." "My weapons' weight hangs heavily on me." "How light it was when I fought as I fancied!" "Today I creep fearfully into this sinister fray." "Woe, my Wälsung!" "In deepest sorrow I, your friend, must falsely forsake you!" "Rest here now." "Gain some respite!" "Further!" "Further!" "No further for now." "Wait, sweetest wife!" "From blissful raptures you broke away, with frantic haste fled from me." "I could hardly follow your wild flight." "Through wood and field, over rock and stone, speechless, silent, you sped ahead." "My calls could not curb your course!" "Now take a rest!" "Speak to me!" "End the dread caused by your silence." "See, your brother is holding his bride." "Siegmund is at your side." "Away, away!" "Fly from one who is sullied!" "Unholy are the arms that embrace you." "Dishonoured, disgraced, my body is dead." "Flee from my corpse, cast it from you!" "Let the wind blow away the one who unworthily gave herself to a man of honour." "When he embraced her lovingly" "she found there purest delight when the man gave her all his love" "and awakened all her own love." "From the sweetest bliss of holiest sanctification which pervaded her mind and soul," "horror and loathing for vile dishonour seized the unclean woman with dismay:" "she belonged to a husband, although he had gained her without love." "Leave one who is accursed!" "Let her flee from you!" "I am degraded, defiled." "I must leave the purest of men," "I may never belong to you, heroic one." "I bring shame upon my brother, disgrace on the friend who freed me!" "For whatever shame has been brought upon you the miscreant's blood shall pay!" "So flee no further:" "wait for our foe." "Here he shall fall to me when Notung gnaws at his heart." "Then you will be avenged!" "Hark, the horns!" "Do you hear their call?" "All around sounds a fearful din, baying forth from wood and countryside." "Hunding has awakened from heavy sleep and has called together kinsmen and hounds." "Inflamed with frenzy, the pack is howling." "Savagely they cry to heaven for the broken marriage vow." "Where are you, Siegmund?" "Can I still see you, dearly beloved radiant brother?" "Let the stars of your eyes shine on me once more!" "Do not reject your sullied wife's kiss!" "Hark!" "Oh, hark!" "That is Hunding's horn!" "His pack approaches with fearsome force:" "no sword will serve against the hounds' onslaught." "Cast it away, Siegmund!" "Siegmund, where are you?" "Ah, there I see you, a fearful sight!" "Bloodhounds are baring their fangs at your flesh, they take no heed of your noble glance." "They fasten their fangs in your feet." "You fall, the sword shatters to splinters." "The ash tree tumbles, the trunk breaks!" "Brother!" "My brother!" "Siegmund!" "Sister!" "Beloved!" "Siegmund!" "Look at me!" "I am she whom you soon will follow." "Who are you, say, who appear before me so fair and stern?" "Only those doomed to death are entitled to see me." "Whoever beholds me must leave the light of life." "On the field of battle alone do I appear to heroes." "He who has seen me is one I have chosen in the fight." "Whither do you lead the hero who then follows you?" "I will lead you to the father of battles, who has chosen you." "You will come with me to Valhalla." "In Valhalla's hall shall I find the father of battles alone?" "The noble band of fallen heroes will embrace you cordially with most solemn greeting." "Would I find Wälse, my own father, in Valhalla?" "You will find your father there." "In Valhalla will a woman give me a fond greeting?" "Pleasing maidens preside there in splendour," "Wotan's daughter will bring you your cup in comfort." "You are splendid and holy:" "I realise you are Wotan's child." "But tell me one thing, immortal:" "will his sister and bride accompany her brother?" "Will I embrace Sieglinde there?" "She must still breathe the air of earth." "Siegmund will not see her there." "Then greet Valhalla for me, greet Wotan," "greet Wälse and all the heroes for me." "Greet the lovely pleasing maidens too." "I will not follow you to them." "You have seen the Valkyrie's searing gaze:" "now you must go with her." "Where Sieglinde lives in pleasure or pain, there Siegmund too will dwell." "Your gaze has not yet made me blench:" "it will never force me from here." "So long as you live nothing can force you." "But death will force you, fool." "I came here to tell you that." "Where might the hero be to whom I must fall today?" "Hunding will slay you in battle." "Threaten me with something stronger than Hunding's blows!" "If you lurk here, lusting for battle, choose him as your prey:" "I intend to kill him in the flight." "On you, Wälsung, mark what I say." "On you the lot has fallen." "Do you know this sword?" "He who made it for me guaranteed me victory." "With it I defy your threats." "He who made it for you has now decreed your death:" "he withdraws his spell from the sword." "Quiet!" "Do not alarm the sleeping woman!" "Oh, woe!" "Sweetest wife, saddest of all loyal women, against you the world rages in arms, and I, whom alone you trust," "for whom you defied it, shall I not shield you with my protection, must I in battle not match your courage?" "Ah, shame upon him who made the sword for me if he decreed disgrace instead of victory!" "If, then, I must die" "I will not go to Valhalla:" "let hell hold me fast!" "Do you so little value everlasting bliss?" "Is she everything to you, this poor woman who, weary and woeful, lies limp in your lap?" "Do you regard nothing else as precious?" "So young and fair and dazzling you seem, but my heart knows how cold and hard you are!" "If you can only mock, then away with you, you heartless, unfeeling maid!" "Yet if you must gloat on my woe, let my tribulations rejoice you, my grief gladden your envious heart." "But of Valhalla's cheerless joys say nothing to me!" "I see the distress that gnaws at your heart," "I feel the hero's holy suffering." "Siegmund, entrust your wife to me:" "my protection shall firmly enfold her!" "While she lives, none other than I shall touch her pure person!" "If I must fall victim to death, I would first kill her while she sleeps!" "Wälsung!" "Madman!" "Hear my advice:" "entrust to me your wife, for the sake of the pledge that she conceived for you in love!" "This sword, which a traitor gave to the true, which cravenly betrays me to the foe, if it will not serve against that foe then let it avail against my friend!" "Two lives smile upon you here:" "take them, Notung, grudging steel, take them with a single stroke!" "Stop, Wälsung!" "Hear what I say!" "Sieglinde shall live, and Siegmund" "shall live with her!" "It is settled." "I will change the outcome of the fight." "For you, Siegmund, I will ensure luck and victory." "Do you hear the call?" "Now make ready, hero!" "Trust in the sword and wield it confidently." "The weapon will be true to you, as the Valkyrie will truly defend you." "Farewell, Siegmund, most blessed hero:" "I will see you again on the battlefield!" "Sleep, like a magic spell," "soothes my fair one's grief and pain." "Did the Valkyrie bring her this blessed solace when she came to me" "so that the grim battle should not affright the grief-stricken woman?" "She seems lifeless, though she is alive." "A smiling dream caresses her careworn frame." "Then slumber on now until the battle is over" "and peace gladdens you." "He who calls me must now prepare himself." "I will deal him his deserts." "Notung shall pay him his due!" "Would that father came home!" "With the boy he is still in the forest." "Mother, mother!" "I feel afraid:" "the strangers seem neither friendly nor peaceful." "Black smoke, choking fumes, fiery flames are licking round us." "The house is burning." "Brother, help!" "Siegmund!" "Siegmund!" "Siegmund!" "Woeful!" "Woeful!" "Face me and fight, or else my hounds will have you!" "Where are you hiding that I shot past you?" "Stand and let me see you!" "Hunding!" "Siegmund!" "Could I but see them!" "Come here, you foul fornicator!" "Fricka here shall cut you down." "You think me still weaponless, craven cur?" "Though you threaten me with women, now fight for yourself or Fricka will fail you!" "For look: from the tree trunk within your house" "I dared to draw the sword." "Now savour its sharpness!" "Stop, you men!" "Murder me first!" "Strike him, Siegmund!" "Trust in the sword!" "Stand back from the spear!" "Let the sword be shattered!" "To horse, so that I may save you!" "Away with you, slave!" "Kneel before Fricka." "Tell her that Wotan's spear avenged the cause of her shame." "Go!" "Go!" "But Brünnhilde!" "Woe to the offender!" "Her disobedience shall be dreadfully punished when my charger catches up with her flight." "Helmwige!" "Here!" "Hither bring your horse!" "Tether your stallion next to my mare: your bay will be glad to graze by my grey." "Who is hanging from your saddle?" "Sintolt the Hegeling." "Ortlinde's mare carries Wittig, the Irming." "I always saw Sintolt and Wittig only at enmity." "The stallion is kicking at my mare." "The warriors' hostility even alienates their horses!" "Quiet, bay!" "Don't breach the peace!" "Siegrune, where have you lingered so long?" "There was work to do." "Are the others already here?" "Grimgerde and Rossweisse!" "They are riding abreast." "Greetings, you riders" "Rossweisse and Grimgerde!" "Into the wood, for your steeds to graze and rest!" "Keep the mares far apart until our heroes' hatred has subsided." "My grey has already paid for the heroes' anger." "Welcome!" "Welcome!" "Were you two intrepid girls working together?" "We were riding separately and met only today." "If we are all assembled, then wait no longer." "Let us set out for Valhalla to bring Wotan his warriors." "There are only eight of us:" "one of us is still missing." "Brünnhilde is still waiting with the swarthy Wälsung." "We must wait here for her:" "the father of battles would give us a grim greeting if he saw us arrive without her." "Hither, this way!" "Brünnhilde is galloping here, riding furiously." "Towards the firs she is heading her faltering horse." "How Grane is panting from such speed!" "I never saw Valkyries galloping so furiously." "What is she holding on her saddle?" "That is no hero." "She's carrying a woman." "How did she find the woman?" "She gives no greeting to her sisters!" "Brünnhilde, don't you hear us?" "Help our sister down from her horse!" "Powerful Grane has sunk to the ground." "She hastily lifts the woman from the saddle." "Sister, sister, what has happened?" "Protect me, and help me in my sorest need!" "From where have you ridden in such headlong haste?" "Only a fugitive flees like that." "For the first time I am fleeing and am being pursued:" "the father of battles is hunting me down." "Have you lost your senses?" "Speak!" "Tell us!" "What?" "The father of hosts pursuing you?" "Are you fleeing from him?" "O sisters, look out from the mountain peak!" "Look northward whether Wotan is near!" "Quick!" "Can you see him yet?" "A thunderstorm threatens from the north." "Heavy clouds are massing there." "The father of battles is riding his sacred steed!" "The raging hunter who wrathfully pursues me is coming!" "Shield me, sisters!" "Save this woman!" "But who is this woman?" "This is Sieglinde, Siegmund's sister and bride." "Wotan is towering with rage against the Wälsungs." "Today Brünnhilde was to have withheld victory from her brother." "But I sheltered Siegmund in defiance of the god who smote him with his spear." "Siegmund fell, but I fled far away with his wife." "To save her I have hurried to you to plead for you to protect me too, in my fear, from the blows of punishment." "Deluded sister, what have you done?" "Woe, woe to you, Brünnhilde!" "Have you deliberately disobeyed the father of hosts' command?" "Darkness draws near from the north." "A raging storm steers hither." "Wildly neighs the father of battles' horse, fearfully snorting as it comes!" "Woe to this poor woman if Wotan finds her:" "he threatens all the Wälsungs with destruction!" "Which of you will lend me your swiftest steed that would speedily spirit the woman away." "Are you urging us to open defiance?" "Rossweisse, sister, lend me your courser!" "He has never fled from the father of battles." "Helmwige, hear me!" "I obey our father." "Grimgerde!" "Gerhilde!" "Give me your horse!" "Schwertleite!" "Siegrune!" "See my distress!" "Stand by me as I have stood by you:" "save this wretched woman!" "Do not concern yourself over me:" "death is all I ask." "Maid, who bade you bear me forth from battle?" "In the storm there, had I been struck by the same weapon that slew Siegmund" "I should have met my end united with him!" "Far from you, Siegmund," "Siegmund, from you!" "Death overwhelms me at the thought." "If I am not to curse you, maid, for your care then hear my solemn entreaty:" "thrust your sword into my heart." "Live, woman, for love's sake!" "Save the pledge you received from him:" "a Wälsung is growing in your womb." "Save me, fearless one!" "Save my child!" "Shelter me, you maidens, with utmost protection!" "The storm is approaching." "Fly, all who fear it!" "Away with the woman!" "Danger threatens." "No Valkyrie dares protect her." "Save me, maid!" "Save a mother!" "Then flee at once, and flee alone." "I will remain behind and brave Wotan's vengeance." "I will detain the angry god with me while you escape his rage." "Which way shall I turn?" "Which of you, sisters, ranged east?" "Far to the east stretches a forest into which Fafner carried off the Nibelung treasure." "In fury he assumed the form of a dragon." "In a cave he keeps watch over Alberich's ring." "It is a forbidding place for a helpless woman." "And yet the wood would surely shelter her from Wotan's wrath." "The mighty one shuns it and avoids the place." "Wotan is galloping furiously to the rock!" "Brünnhilde, hark to the thunder of his approach!" "Hurry away eastward, then." "Boldly defiant, endure all dangers, hunger, thirst, thorns and stones." "Laugh if want or weakness wears you down." "For know this one thing and safeguard it ever:" "in the shelter of your womb, woman, you carry the world's most wondrous hero." "For him preserve the fragments of the mighty sword." "Fortunately I brought them from his father's battlefield." "He who forges the sword anew shall one day wield it." "Let him take his name from me:" "Siegfried, joy in victory!" "O marvellous miracle!" "Most glorious maid!" "I thank you for your loyalty and blessed comfort." "For him whom we loved I will save the beloved child." "May the reward of my gratitude one day smile at you!" "Farewell!" "Sieglinde's woe blesses you!" "Stay, Brünnhilde!" "Horse and rider have reached the rock." "Woe, Brünnhilde!" "Vengeance blazes forth!" "Ah, sisters, help!" "My heart fails me!" "His rage will shatter me if your defence does not deflect him." "Come here, helpless one!" "Keep out of sight!" "Huddle among us and stay silent when he calls!" "Woe!" "Wotan leaps from his horse in fury." "Hither he hastens, breathing revenge!" "Where is Brünnhilde?" "Where is the guilty one?" "Do you dare to hide the miscreant from me?" "Your roars of wrath fill us with fear!" "Father, what have your daughters done to provoke you to this paroxysm of rage?" "Do you mean to mock me?" "Take care, insolent ones," "I know you are hiding Brünnhilde." "Recoil from her:" "she is cast off for ever, as she has cast off her honour." "From pursuit she fled to us, imploring our protection." "In fear and trembling she roused your wrath." "For our anguished sister's sake we now beg you" "to curb your initial fury." "Relent towards her and calm your rage." "Weak-willed womanish brood!" "Did you inherit such spineless spirit from me?" "Did I rear you to be bold and ride into battle, did I make your hearts hard and harsh so that you wild ones now weep and whine when my wrath punishes perfidy?" "Then learn, you whimperers, her offence, she for whom you quail and shed tears!" "None but she knew my inmost thoughts." "None but she knew the source of my resolve." "She herself was my will's creative womb." "And now she has broken the sacred bond, disloyally defied my desires, openly flouted her father's command and turned against me the weapon my will alone made her!" "Do you hear, Brünnhilde, you to whom I granted breastplate, helmet and spear, delight and affection, name and life?" "Do you hear me make this charge, and yet faint-heartedly hide from your accuser," "whose punishment you cravenly evade?" "Here I am, father." "Pronounce my sentence!" "The sentence does not stem from me:" "you brought punishment on yourself." "My will alone brought you into being but you have set your will against it." "You could carry out my orders only but you have given counter-orders." "You were my wish's maid but your wishes have thwarted mine." "You were my shield-bearer but you raised that shield against me." "You were my arbiter of fate but you chose to frustrate me." "You were my rouser of heroes but you roused them against me." "Wotan has told you what you once were:" "tell yourself what you are now." "No longer are you my wish's agent:" "you have been a Valkyrie." "Henceforth be what you are now!" "Would you disown me?" "Do I understand your meaning?" "Never again will I send you from Valhalla, never again indicate heroes in battle to you, never again will you bring victors into my hall." "At the gods' festive banquets never again will you be privileged to pass me my drinking-horn." "Never again will I kiss my child's mouth." "From the assembly of the gods you are cut off, expelled from the race of the immortals." "Our bond is broken." "You are banished from my sight." "Woe!" "Woe!" "Sister, ah, sister!" "Do you take from me all you once gave?" "He who masters you will take it from you." "Here to this mountain I banish you." "I will lock you tight in defenceless sleep." "Let the man then capture the maid who finds her on his way and wakes her." "O father, retract your curse!" "Must the maid be wasted and withered by a man?" "Hear our plea!" "Terrible god, spare this dreadful disgrace." "We should share in her shame, which would fall on us too." "Did you not hear what I decreed?" "Your disloyal sister is banished from your band." "No longer shall she ride her horse with you through the air." "The flower of her beauty will wither from the maid." "A husband will win her feminine favours." "Henceforth she shall belong to this masterful man, sit and spin by the fire," "the butt and sport of all mockers." "Does her fate appal you?" "Then flee the lost one!" "Shrink from her and keep well away." "Should any of you dare to linger with her and sustain the stricken one despite me, that fool shall share her fate." "Of this I warn you, rash venturers!" "Away with you now!" "Keep away from this rock!" "Quickly, ride away now or calamity will befall you here." "Woe!" "Woe!" "Was my offence so shameful" "that you punish my misdeed with such shame?" "Was what I did to you so base" "that you create such deep debasement for me?" "Was what I did so dishonourable" "that my dereliction now robs me of honour?" "Oh, speak, father!" "Look me in the eyes." "Silence your wrath," "curb your rage and make clear to me the hidden guilt" "which forces you inflexibly and obstinately to repudiate your favourite child." "Ask what you did: it will explain your guilt to you!" "I carried out your command." "Did I command you to fight for the Wälsung?" "As ruler of battles, that was your command to me." "But that order I revoked." "When Fricka had turned your own intention against you, when you resigned yourself to her will" "you were your own enemy." "I fancied that you understood me, and castigated conscious defiance." "But you thought me cowardly and foolish." "So did I not need to avenge treason, though you were too slight for my wrath?" "I am not wise, but one thing I know:" "that you loved the Wälsung." "I knew the inner conflict that compelled you to erase this from your mind." "You alone had to see the alternative, though the bitter sight grieved your heart," "that you should deny Siegmund your defence." "You knew that this was so, and yet dared to defend him?" "Because for you I kept in sight the one thing which, faced by the alternative's painful dilemma," "you turned your back on in perplexity." "She who in war guarded Wotan's back now saw the one thing you could not see." "I had to see Siegmund." "I appeared before him to warn him of death." "I looked into his eyes, I heard his words," "I understood the hero's holy distress." "The brave man's laments rang in my ears, the fearful despair of boundless love, the dauntless defiance of the saddest of souls." "In my ears was echoed, in my eyes reflected what, deep in my breast, filled my heart with noble throbbing." "Shy, astonished, I stood in shame." "I could think only of helping him," "of sharing victory or death with Siegmund." "I knew that this alone was the lot to choose." "He who breathed this love into my heart, whose will had bound me to the Wälsung," "to him I was inwardly loyal though I disobeyed your command." "So you did what I so longed to do yet which necessity doubly forced me not to?" "So you thought love's bliss could lightly be gained" "when burning woe had broken my heart, when direst need had roused my wrath, and for love of the world I dammed up the love in my heart?" "While in torment I had turned against myself, goaded to fury by the frustration of impotence, driven by angry longing to the dread decision" "to end my interminable sorrow in the ruins of my own world, then blissful delight was sweetly enfolding you." "Intoxicated with blissful emotion you laughingly drank the draught of love" "while, for me, bitter gall was blended with divine distress." "Then follow your foolish instinct." "You have broken with me." "I must shun you." "Never again can I share secret counsels with you." "We are separated and can no more work closely together." "While life and breath endure, the god must never see you again." "Unfit for you was the foolish maid who, stunned by your order, did not understand you." "My own view counselled one thing only:" "to love what you had loved." "If then I must leave you and timorously avoid you," "if you must sever what once linked us and cut off from yourself a half" "that once belonged wholly to you, do not forget that, O god!" "You cannot dishonour what will always be a part of you, cannot wish for a disgrace that debases you." "You would let yourself be demeaned if you saw me mocked and derided." "You happily followed the power of love." "Now follow him whom you must love!" "If I must depart from Valhalla, no longer to work and act with you, and belong henceforth to a man as master, do not give me as prize to some cowardly boaster." "Let whoever wins me not be worthless." "You flouted the father of battles:" "now he cannot choose for you." "You begot a noble race." "No coward can disgrace it." "The most dedicated of heroes, I know, will spring from Wälsung stock." "Do not speak to me of the Wälsung race!" "In flinging you off, I have flung it off too." "My grudge had to destroy it." "She who tore herself from you saved it." "Sieglinde is carrying the holiest fruit." "In grief and pain such as no woman suffered, she will bear what she is uneasily hiding." "Never seek protection for the woman from me, nor for the fruit of her womb!" "She guards the sword you made for Siegmund." "And that I broke in pieces!" "Child, do not seek to upset my decision." "Await your fate whatever befall." "I cannot choose for you!" "But now I must go, betake me far away." "I have already stayed here too long." "As you turned from me, I must turn from you." "What you wish for yourself I may not know." "I must only see your punishment enforced." "What have you decreed that I must suffer?" "I shall enclose you in a deep sleep." "Whoever finds the weaponless maid shall awaken her and win her as wife." "If fetters of sleep are to bind me fast as easy booty to any faint-heart, this one thing you must grant, for which I plead in utmost anguish:" "surround my sleep by fearsome terrors so that only the freest fearless hero will one day find me on the rock!" "You ask too much, too great a favour." "This one thing you must grant." "Annihilate your child who clasps your knees, trample your favourite under foot, crush the maid, let your spear suppress all trace of her body," "but do not condemn her, cruel one, to this gross degradation!" "At your command let flames flare up." "Let their fiery glow engirdle the rock." "Let their tongues lick, their teeth devour any coward who rashly ventures" "to approach the dread rock." "Farewell, you valiant glorious child, you, the holiest pride of my heart!" "Farewell!" "Farewell!" "Farewell!" "If I must keep away from you and may not again lovingly give you my greeting, if you may no more ride beside me or bring me mead at my meal," "if I must lose you, whom I loved, you, the laughing delight of my eyes," "then a bridal fire shall now burn for you as never has burned for a bride." "Let the glow of fierce flames encircle the rock." "Let it strike devouring fear into the faint-hearts." "Cowards shall flee from Brünnhilde's rock!" "Only one shall win the bride, one freer than I, the god!" "Those radiant eyes that, smiling, I often kissed" "when the joy of battle won you an embrace, when the praise of heroes flowed in childish chatter from your sweet lips," "those sparkling eyes that often shone on me in storms" "when hopeless yearning seared my heart, when, amid wildly weaving alarm, my wish longed for worldly pleasures," "for the last time let them delight me today with their last farewell kiss." "On a more fortunate man let their star shine." "For the hapless immortal they must close for ever." "For so does the god now turn from you!" "So does he kiss the godhead from you!" "Loge, hear me!" "Come hither and hearken!" "As first I found you, a fiery glow, as then once you escaped me, a wandering flame, as I bound you, so today I summon you!" "Arise, flickering flame!" "Ring the rock with fire!" "Loge!" "Loge!" "Appear!" "He who fears my spear point shall never penetrate the fire!"