his instrument; then comes the combat with the Dragon, and he returns to his place.  The one tender spot in his nature, awakened by the thought of his mother, who died for him, is touched by the bird-song and the sweet morning; he is filled with vague, sorrowful yearnings—­and presently the bird sings again.  But after killing the monster he had touched its blood—­it burnt his finger, which he instinctively put in his mouth; and the taste of the blood endows him with the faculty of understanding the speech of beasts and birds.  So now when the bird sings it is a human voice uttering words.  It is with regard to this I make a reservation.  The abrupt entrance of the human voice startles one:  the picture is for a moment distorted, made artificial.  After a few hearings one grows accustomed to the incongruity; but I still think Wagner would perhaps have done better to let Siegfried tell us what he hears.  This is, however, a mere guess; and it savours of impudence to suggest what so great a composer as Wagner should have done.  The bird first warns Siegfried against Mime.  Mime crawls in with his basin of poisoned soup, meaning to offer his “son” some refreshment after the labours of the morning.  In whining accents, verging on the ludicrous—­for I have said that Mime is semi-comic—­he professes his love; but the dragon’s blood also enables Siegfried to understand what he means, and, just as Beckmesser in singing the stolen song utters words very different from those he means, so Mime in what he intends to be affectionate strains tells us his real purpose.  Siegfried plays with him as a cat plays with a mouse, and at last plunges the sword into him—­and from a thicket comes the malignant laugh of Alberich, barked to Mime’s own hammering phrase.  Disgusted, Siegfried returns to his resting place, but the bird again engages his attention:  it sings of the maiden afar off on the mountain sleeping hedged in by the fire through which he alone can break.  Siegfried’s longings take definite form:  he will win the maiden; the bird promises to lead him; it flutters off; he follows; the curtain drops.

Thus ends one of Wagner’s most splendid scenes—­certainly the finest in this opera.  The passion of the music, its vivid picturesque quality, its freshness, go to make it one of the many things of Wagner’s for which no parallel can be found.  Wagner’s technique had now reached that supreme height which made Tristan and the Mastersingers possible; and the spontaneous energy of his inspiration was unabated.  The Act, we may remember, was actually completed after those two operas, but it was planned and partially executed before.

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