The Third Act opens by the river-side.  Siegfried has wandered away from a hunting party, and is attracted by the song of the Rhinemaidens—­a regular set piece in the oldest-fashioned of forms, but marvellously beautiful.  The nymphs try to coax him to throw them the Ring, which he had wrested from Bruennhilda; he refuses, and they tell him that this day he must die.  The other hunters come in, and Siegfried is asked to tell of his adventures, and as he does so Hagen offers him a cup of wine into which he dropped another powder; Siegfried’s memory gradually returns, and to Guenther’s horror he relates how he first scaled the mountain, passed the fire and won Bruennhilda.  He means on the first occasion, but it shames Guenther once again.  Hagen points in the air and asks Siegfried what he sees above him; two black ravens fly over.  Siegfried turns to look at them, and Hagen instantly thrusts a spear into his back; the ravens wing their way to Valhalla to tell Wotan that the fatal hour has come.  In a sublime passage Siegfried the dying hero sings of Bruennhilda, and dies.  Every one save Hagen is horror-stricken; the body is picked up and carried downward through the moonlit mists over the mountain, and the gorgeous funeral march is played.  This is built up on Wagner’s customary plan:  it tells the story of the Volsung race, now ended by the death of Siegfried.

In the second scene of the Act there is one fine passage—­Bruennhilda’s long address—­and the rest is manufactured with dexterity and quite uninspired.  The body is brought in; Hagen wishes to take the Ring, and a thrill is sent through us as the dead man’s arm rises threateningly.  Guenther interferes, and Hagen kills him; Bruennhilda comes on and sees clearly everything; Gutruna claims Siegfried as hers—­“he never was yours; he is mine,” Bruennhilda replies, and (by trick of true stage-craft) Gutruna is seen to kneel down by the side of her dead brother.  She is absolutely alone—­even Siegfried, dead, is taken from her, and she instinctively creeps to the only thing that is in any sense hers.  Bruennhilda orders the funeral fire to be built; the body is put on it and consumed:  Bruennhilda mounts Grani and scatters the ashes, and with them the Ring, into the river; the waters rise, and Hagen rushes after the Ring, to be drawn down; Wotan’s power went when the spear was shattered, and now that the Ring is returned to the Rhine no other power controls Loge.  He flares up, and we see Valhalla on high in flames.

So ends the Dusk of the Gods and the whole gigantic cycle.  A noble race has come and gone, and the world is prepared to make a fresh start.  I have discussed the music as we went along, and there is nothing more to add.

CHAPTER XVIII

‘PARSIFAL’; THE END; THE MAN

I