me's suggests to Siegfried a further question. In
asking it he has one of those brief accesses of pensiveness which
endear him, disclosing the existence of a common human tenderness,
after all, under that sturdy wrapping of joy befitting the child
of demigods. "Now, since you are so wise, tell me still another
thing: When the birds were singing so blithely in Spring, the one
luring the other, you told me, as I wished to know, that they were
male and female. They billed and cooed so engagingly, and would not
leave each other; they built a nest and brooded in it; there was
a fluttering presently of young wings, and the two cared for the
young. I saw how, in the same way, the deer rested in the forest,
in pairs; how even wild faxes and wolves did this. The male brought
food to the lair, the female nursed the cubs. I learned from seeing
this what love is--I never robbed the mother of her young...." The
music has been heaving and falling, as if with the warm palpitation
of a vast breast, Nature's own, blissful with love and happy creative
force. "Now, where, Mime, is your loving mate, that I may call her
mother?" Mime becomes cross: "What has come over you, mad boy?
Now, what a numbskull it is! Are you a bird or a fox?" And at
Siegfried's next question he chafes: "You are to believe what I tell
you: I am your father and mother at the same time!" But Siegfried
vigorously objects: "There you lie, unspeakable gawk! How the young
resemble their parents I have luckily observed for myself. More
than once I have come to a clear stream: I have seen the trees
and animals mirrored in it; the sun and clouds, exactly as they
are, appear repeated on the shining surface. My own image, too, I
have seen. Altogether different from you I seemed to myself: there
is as much likeness between a toad and a gleaming fish, but never
yet did a fish crawl out of a toad!" This latter bit in its short
extent gives an amusing, characteristic illustration of Wagner's
method of painting with notes. With the first phrase, Siegfried's
impatient exclamation, comes the motif of Siegfried's impetuosity;
then, as he is describing it, a representation of the clear stream;
upon this is sketched the image of Siegfried, in the notes of his
proper motif, to which is added a bar of the heroism-of-the-Waelsungen
motif, indicating his resemblance to the father before him. At his
mention of the toad, his metaphor for Mime, we hear the hammer of
the Nibelung; and at his m