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, but to await the end.  Siegfried arrives; the Wanderer bars his way to try him; but Siegfried has no fear of the spear, and the sword was made by his own hands; so the spear is shattered, and he goes on his way.  He passes through the fire, which immediately subsides.

The scenery changes to that of the last of The Valkyrie, save that (generally) someone has erected a wall behind Brunnhilda.  It is a calm summer afternoon; far away other hills are seen sleeping in the sun; Grani, Brunnhilda’s horse, grazes quietly at one side; Brunnhilda, covered by her shield, her spear by her side, slumbers on.  Siegfried enters, and after many doubts, wakes her with a kiss.  At first she fiercely revolts against the new tyranny, the most terrible consequence of her crime; but she yields in the end, and the drama ends with a love-duet of a curious kind—­not so much loving and passionate as heroic and triumphant, with a most elaborate cadenza, as if Wagner had said to himself, “Here’s an end to all theories!”

In the prologue of the Dusk of the Gods we find the Norns spinning in the dark near Brunnhilda’s cave; the rope they are at work on breaks, and they learn that the end is near.  They disappear; day breaks, and Siegfried and Brunnhilda enter.  She is sending him to do heroic deeds, quite in the spirit of medieval chivalry; he presents her with the ring and goes, wearing her armour and taking her horse.  He arrives at the hall of Gibichungs, where he finds Gunther, his sister Gutruna and Hagen, a son of Alberich.  They give Siegfried a draught which takes away his memory; he falls in love with Gutruna, and when they propose that he should take Gunther’s shape and win Brunnhilda for him, he agrees at once.  In the meantime, Waltraute, a Valkyrie, knowing Wotan’s need of the ring, has come and tried in vain to get it; Brunnhilda refuses to part with it.  Presently Siegfried, wearing the tarnhelm, comes and claims her, and compels her to share his couch, placing his sword between them to keep faith with Gunther.  The ring, however, he tears from her.  She is overcome with dismay and grief.  When, at the end of The Valkyrie, Wotan had pronounced her doom,