ll make a useful sword of
these bits?" The Wanderer laughs at him, tells him it will be he who
knows not fear; and he leaves Mime's head to this hero. He goes off,
while fantastic lights dance without through the forest, until Mime is
in an agony of fear. But on this scene depends the whole subsequent
action. Mime tries to frighten Siegfried, and finds it impossible. He
wants the Nibelung's ring to rule the world: Siegfried is the only man
to get it; and after he has got it, Mime will avert the Wanderer's
prophesied disaster by poisoning him. He tells the history of Sieglinda
also, and Siegfried knows he is the hero. He will have no patching of
the sword: that sword was Wotan's and subject to his will; he grinds it
to powder, and makes one of his own, with which he will face either man
or god. In the making of it he sings the glorious Sword-song; and when
it is made he tests it by splitting the anvil with it. Here the first
act ends. There are two Siegfried themes to notice; the first, the Hero,
has been heard before:

[Illustration: Some bars of music]

In case I have too much insisted on the storm, passion, and fire in
_The Valkyrie_, it may be pointed out that these play little part in
_Siegfried_. Here we have first the calm summer morning, and if the
scene with the Wanderer is filled with that sense of the remote past,
and the Wanderer's exit uncanny, spectral--a very nightmare--much of the
other music, such as the bit where Siegfried describes himself looking
into the brook, and all the tale of Sieglinda, is tender and delicate;
the fresh morning wind blows continuously. The same is true of the
second act. After the beginning at Hate Hole, the slaying of the
dragon--which is always comic--and the squabble of Alberich and Mime, we
have scarcely anything but sustained beauty to the end. Having
accidentally tasted the dragon's blood, Siegfried knows exactly what
Mime means when he comes coaxingly to persuade him to drink the cup of
poison; so he passes the sword through him. Then follows the scene where
Siegfried lies in the sun and hears the wind murmuring in the trees, and
then listens to the bird as it sings of Brunnhilda asleep far away on
the mountains, and goes off to find her--all admirably painted in the
freshest tints. The last act opens in the mountains. It is dawn, and
gray scud is flying; the Wanderer summons Erda and learning nothing from
her, tells her, virtually, his determination to struggle no more,