over one’s fellow-beings, the Ring standing as the emblem of that power.  While Wotan takes the power, his deepest wisdom, which is to say, his intuition—­represented by the spirit of the earth, Erda—­rises against him and tells him he is committing the fatal mistake, and he yields to the extent of letting the giants have the supreme power.  But he thinks, just as you and I, reader, might think, that by some quaint unthinkable device he can evade the tremendous consequence of his own act; and, instead of at once looking at the consequence boldly and saying he will face it, he elaborates a plan by which no one will suffer anything, while he, Wotan, will gain the lordship of creation.  From this moment his fate becomes tragic.  The complete man, full of rich humanity—­for whom Wotan stands—­cannot exist, necessarily ceases to exist, if he is compelled to deny the better part of himself, as Peter denied Jesus of Nazareth.  And in consequence of his own act Wotan has immediately to deny the better part of himself, to make war on his own son Siegmund, and then on his own daughter Bruennhilde:  he destroys the first and puts away from him for ever Bruennhilde, who is incarnate love.  The grand tragic moment of the whole cycle is the laying to sleep of Bruennhilde.  Wotan knows that life without love is no life, and he is compelled to part from love by the very bargain which enables him to rule.  Rather than live such a life, he deliberately, solemnly wills his own death; and a great part of “Siegfried” and the whole of “The Dusk of the Gods” are devoted to showing how his death, and the death of all the gods, comes about through Wotan’s first act.  In “Siegfried” and “The Dusk of the Gods” there is no tragedy—­how can there be any tragedy in the fate of the man who faithfully follows the impulse that makes for his highest and widest satisfaction, for the fullest exercise of his beneficent energies, for the man who says I will do this or that because I know and feel it is the best I can do?  “The Dusk of the Gods” is Wotan’s most splendid triumph; he deliberately yields place to a new dynasty, because he knows that to keep possession of the throne will mean the continual suppression of all that is best in him, as he has had already to suppress it.  Incidentally there are many tragedies in the “Ring.”  The murder of Siegmund by Hunding, aided by Wotan, before Sieglinde’s eyes; the hideous incident of Siegfried winning his own wife to be the wife of his friend Gunther; the stabbing of Siegfried by Hagen; Bruennhilde’s telling Gutrune that she, Gutrune, was never the wife of Siegfried,—­all these are terrible enough tragedies.  Bruennhilde’s is the most terrible of them all, though she too takes her fate into her hands, and by willing the right thing, and doing it, goes victorious out of life.  What there is difficult to understand about her, why she should be accused of deceit and have her conduct explained, I can hardly guess.  In “The Valkyrie” she is a goddess; but when she offends