Such are the outlines of this great story, which will be told more in detail when we come to examine the component parts of the trilogy.  Dr. Ludwig Nohl, in his admirable sketch of the Nibelungen poem, as Wagner adapted it, gives us a hint of some of its inner meanings in the following extract:  “Temporal power is not the highest destiny of a civilizing people.  That our ancestors were conscious of this is shown in the fact that the treasure, or gold and its power, was transformed into the Holy Grail.  Worldly aims give place to spiritual desires.  With this interpretation of the Nibelungen myth, Wagner acknowledged the grand and eternal truth that this life is tragic throughout, and that the will which would mould a world to accord with one’s desires can finally lead to no greater satisfaction than to break itself in a noble death....  It is this conquering of the world through the victory of self which Wagner conveys as the highest interpretation of our national myths.  As Bruennhilde approaches the funeral pyre to sacrifice her life, the only tie still uniting her with the earth, to Siegfried, the beloved dead, she says:—­

  “’To the world I will give now my holiest wisdom;
    Not goods, nor gold, nor godlike pomp,
    Not house, nor lands, nor lordly state,
    Not wicked plottings of crafty men,
    Not base deceits of cunning law,—­
  But, blest in joy and sorrow, let only love remain.’”

We now proceed to the analysis of the four divisions of the work, in which task, for obvious reasons, it will be hardly possible to do more than sketch the progress of the action, with allusions to its most striking musical features.  There are no set numbers, as in the Italian opera; and merely to designate the leading motives and trace their relation to each other, to the action of the dramatis personae, and to the progress of the four movements, not alone towards their own climaxes but towards the ultimate denouement, would necessitate far more space than can be had in a work of this kind.

DAS RHEINGOLD.

The orchestral prelude to “The Rhinegold” is based upon a single figure, the Rhine motive, which in its changing developments pictures the calm at the bottom of the Rhine and the undulating movement of the water.  The curtain rises and discloses the depths of the river, from which rise rugged ridges of rock.  Around one of these, upon the summit of which glistens the Rhinegold, Woglinde, a Rhine-daughter, is swimming.  Two others, Wellgunde and Flosshilde, join her; and as they play about the gleaming gold, Alberich, a dwarf, suddenly appears from a dark recess and passionately watches them.  As they are making sport of him, his eye falls upon the gold and he determines to possess it.  They make light of his threat, informing him that whoever shall forge a ring of this gold will have secured universal power, but before he can obtain that power he will have to renounce