implored Wagner not to set it.  At first sight it seems so hopelessly involved and intricate, the main dramatic idea works its way so sinuously through such a maze of subsidiary ideas, that intellectually honest and intelligent people can hardly be blamed if they are unable to see at a glance what it is all about.  Yet the plot is not more complicated than that of many a novel, and the real trouble is that we won’t take the pains over it that we do over a novel, or, perhaps, do not apply our intelligence in the best way.  At this time of day no one, I hope, will condemn a work of art because it cannot be grasped in a glance.

There are four music-dramas, or operas (I use the terms indiscriminately, now that there is no danger of the Wagnerian opera being confused with the older forms).  Wagner made each self-contained, complete and comprehensible by itself, and yet he carried the main action on from one to the next until the final catastrophe; but he did this at the cost of much repetition, whence another charge brought against the work—­that of its interminable tedium.  I will therefore first disentangle the main idea, which is simple.  Let it be granted that Wotan is ruler of the world—­not a first cause, but a god, limited in his powers, conditioned, ruling only so long as he obeys the laws inscribed in Runic characters on his spear.  How he arrived in this position we do not know, any more than we know the origin of the Greek gods; indeed, in this respect and others there are parallels between the Greek and the Northern mythology.  Wotan goes in fear lest the powers of the nether world usurp his domination, which he wants to make absolute.  He makes a pact with the giants—­the Titan forces of the earth—­that be will give them Freia if they build him a castle, Valhalla, which he intends to fill with slain warriors in sufficient numbers to keep down his foes.  This is his primary, essential, fatal blunder; for unless the gods eat of Freia’s apples every day they must wither and their powers decay.  But Wotan means to cheat the giants, and Loge, the deceitful god of fire, who is ultimately to destroy the whole of the present regime, has been sent off to find a means of doing it.  It is when so much has been accomplished that Wagner raises the curtain on the first scene of the first drama. The Rhinegold is entirely devoted to an exposition of the main drama.

The gold lies in the Rhine.  The Rhine maidens play about it.  It is only a pretty plaything for them.  The Nibelung comes and steals it.  Meanwhile, far above, Wotan and his wife Fricka awake and find Valhalla built, and now Wotan has to pay the giants.  They arrive; Loge has not arrived.  Loge does arrive and makes his excuses—­no man will give up a beautiful woman, for no matter what sum.  But he tells of the Rhinegold, and the giants agree to accept it in lieu of Freia.  Wotan and Loge go off and get it by a trick.  But Alberick has shaped part of it into a magic ring, which gives its possessor absolute power over the whole world.  When they come back to conclude the bargain with the giants, it is found necessary that Wotan should give up the ring also.  He does so, after resolving on his grand idea, which will appear presently; and the gods enter Valhalla while the Rhine maidens below are heard bewailing the loss of their plaything.