. After they have gone, the hunting
party appear, heralded by the merry music of their horns. All
sit down to partake of the refreshments that have been
brought, and as Siegfried has provided no game, he tries to do
his share by entertaining them with tales of his early youth.

After telling them of his childhood spent in Mime's forge, of
the welding of Nothung and the slaying of Fafnir, he describes
how a mere taste of the dragon's blood enabled him to understand
the songs of the birds. Encouraged by Hagen, he next relates
the capture of the tarn-helm and ring, and then, draining his
horn in which Hagen has secretly poured an antidote to the
draught of forgetfulness administered by Gutrune, he describes
his departure in quest of the sleeping Walkyrie and his first
meeting with Brunhilde. At the mere mention of her name, all
the past returns to his mind. He suddenly remembers all her
beauty and love, and starts wildly to his feet, but only to be
pierced by the spear of the treacherous Hagen, who had stolen
behind him to drive it into his heart.

The dying hero makes one last vain effort to avenge himself,
then sinks feebly to the earth, while Hagen slips away, declaring
that the perjurer had fully deserved to be slain by the weapon
upon which he had sworn his false oath. Gunther, sorry now
that it is too late, bends sadly over the prostrate hero,
who, released from the fatal effects of Gutrune's draught,
speaks once more of his beloved Brunhilde, and fancies he is
once more clasped in her arms as of old.

Then, when he has breathed his last, the hunters place his
body upon a shield and bear it away in the rapidly falling
dusk, to the slow, mournful accompaniment of a funeral march,
whose muffled notes fall like a knell on the listener's ear.

Gutrune, who has found the day very long indeed without
her beloved Siegfried, comes out of her room at nightfall,
and listens intently for the sound of the hunting horn which
will proclaim his welcome return. She is not the only watcher,
however, for Brunhilde has stolen down to the river, and her
apartment is quite empty.

Suddenly Hagen comes in, and Gutrune, terrified at his unexpected
appearance, anxiously inquires why she has not heard her
husband's horn. Without any preparation, roughly, brutally,
Hagen informs her the hero is dead, just as the bearers enter
and deposit his lifeless body at her feet.

Gutrune faints, but when she recovers consciousness she
indigna