follow him, the latter
gives way to her extravagant grief. Hagen approaches her,
offering to avenge all her wrongs, and even slay Siegfried if
nothing else will satisfy her, and wipe away the foul stain
upon her honour. But Brunhilde tells him it is quite useless to
challenge the hero, for she herself had made him invulnerable
to every blow by blessing every part of his body except his
back. This she deemed useless to protect, as Siegfried, the
bravest of men, never fled from any foe:--

'HAGEN.

So wounds him nowhere a weapon?

BRUNHILDE.

In battle none:--but still
Bare to the stroke is his back
Never--I felt--
In flight he would find
A foe to be harmful behind him,
So spared I his back from the blessing.'

Her resentment against Siegfried has reached such a pitch,
however, that she finally hails with fierce joy Hagen's proposal
to slay him in the forest on the morrow. Even Gunther acquiesces
in this crime, which will leave his sister a widow, and they
soon agree that it shall be explained to Gutrune as a hunting
casualty.

At noon on the next day Siegfried arrives alone on the banks of
the Rhine, in search of a quarry which has escaped him. The Rhine
daughters, who concealed it purposely in hopes of recovering
their ring, rise up out of the water, and swimming gracefully
around promise to help him recover his game if he will only
give them his ring. Siegfried, who attaches no value whatever
to the trinket, but wishes to tease them, refuses it at first;
but when they change their bantering into a prophetic tone and
try to frighten him by telling him the ring will prove his bane
unless he intrust it to their care, he proudly answers that he
has never yet learned to fear, and declares he will keep it,
and see whether their prediction will be fulfilled:--

'My sword once splintered a spear;--
The endless coil
Of counsel of old,
Wove they with wasting
Curses its web;
Norns shall not cover from Nothung!
One warned me beware
Of the curse a Worm;
But he failed to make me to fear,--
The World's riches
I won with a ring,
That for love's delight
Swiftly I'd leave;
I'll yield it for sweetness to you;
But for safety of limbs and of life,--
Were it not worth
Of a finger's weight,--
No ring from me you will reach!'

The Rhine maidens then bid him farewell, and swim away repeating
their ominous prophecy