k, continually vaunting
his love and devotion. These protests of simulated affection
greatly disgust Siegfried, who is well aware of the fact that
they are nothing but the merest pretence.

In his anger against this constant deceit, he finally resorts
to violence to wring the truth from Mime, who, with many
interruptions and many attempts to resume his old whining tone,
finally reveals to him the secret of his birth and the name of
his mother. He also tells him all he gleaned about his father,
who fell in battle, and, in proof of the veracity of his words,
produces the fragments of Siegmund's sword, which the dying
Sieglinde had left for her son:--

'Lo! what thy mother had left me!
For my pains and worry together
She gave me this poor reward.
See! a broken sword,
Brandished, she said, by thy father,
When foiled in the last of his fights.'

Siegfried, who has listened to all this tale with breathless
attention, interrupting the dwarf only to silence his recurring
attempts at self-praise, now declares he will fare forth into
the wild world as soon as Mime has welded together the precious
fragments of the sword. In the mean while, finding the dwarf's
hated presence too unbearable, he rushes out and vanishes in
the green forest depths. Left alone once more, Mime wistfully
gazes after him, thinking how he may detain the youth until
the dragon has been slain. At last he slowly begins to hammer
the fragments of the sword, which will not yield to his skill
and resume their former shape.

While the dwarf Mime is abandoning himself to moody despair,
Wotan has been walking through the forest. He is disguised as
a Wanderer, according to his wont, and suddenly enters Mime's
cave. The dwarf starts up in alarm at the sight of a stranger,
but after asking him who he may be, and learning that he prides
himself upon his wisdom, he bids him begone. Wotan, however,
who has come hither to ascertain whether there is any prospect
of discovering anything new, now proposes a contest of wit, in
which the loser's head shall be at the winner's disposal. Mime
reluctantly assents, and begins by asking a question concerning
the dwarfs and their treasures. This Wotan answers by describing
the Nibelungs' gold, and the power wielded by Alberich as long
as he was owner of the magic ring.

Mime's second inquiry is relative to the inhabitants of earth,
and Wotan describes the great stature of the giants, who,
however, we